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Model for son's famous sculpture, Sijan lost another son in Vietnam

By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel

Sept. 11, 2011

Sylvester Sijan never worked as a security guard, but the well-known Bay View patriarch and restaurant owner will live on as one to art lovers around the world.
Sijan, who died Friday at age 92, was the model for his son Marc Sijan's most popular sculpture - a standing security guard, created about 15 years ago.
"Of all the pieces I've done, thousands over the years, that one was the No. 1 most popular, on the morning shows, at the New York Amory Show," said Sijan, 65, whose ultrarealistic pieces have been shown around the world. "They chose him, my father, my dad."
"He's being immortalized," the son said with a laugh. He said the sculpture can also be seen at the Frontier Airlines Center downtown.
Sijan was also well-known for his other famous son, Air Force Capt. Lance Sijan, shot down over Vietnam in 1967. He eluded capture for six weeks but ultimately died as a prisoner of war in 1968, though his parents didn't learn the truth for seven years.
They remained high-profile supporters of their son's memory and efforts to aid other POWs and the military. Lance Sijan was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Born and raised in Bay View, Sylvester Sijan kept deeply involved with the community through sports and culture.
"My father was very Serbian, he spoke and sang the language," Marc Sijan said. "He played the violin and football at Bay View High. He was a pretty diversified guy back then."
His success as part of Bay View's first City Conference champion team in 1936 got him to Ripon College, where he attended three years and played some more football.
But his mother needed him, so he was back to help at Mary's Log Cabin, a fixture across the street from the Allen-Bradley plant.
In 1966, he branched out to start another successful restaurant, Hillcrest Dining Room on Watertown Plank Road in Wauwatosa. He ran it until 1978, when he joined his son's studio, re-establishing a long-running father-and-son working relationship.
"I was working at Mary's Log Cabin when I was 7, and cooking liver in the back and serving drinks at the bar (at Hillcrest) during college," the son recalled.
"All those years without a fight, a disagreement or a bad word. Just total respect and support for each other."
Sijan said his father worked with him as his "bookkeeper, coach and psychiatrist" since selling out of the Hillcrest Dining Room in Wauwatosa in 1978, and one day also became the model for the security guard.
"He never did anything but try to make life pleasant and comfortable for his family," Marc Sijan said.
That became most challenging in the years after Lance was shot down. At first, the military wouldn't let his parents tell anyone about it. Later they were allowed to talk with reporters about their hopes that one day their son, and other prisoners in Vietnam, would be released. It wasn't until seven years later that the family learned Lance had died of pneumonia in January 1968.
"Lance always directed and affected my parents all those years," Marc Sijan said. "We went through a lot of grief, and that was a big part of their life."
Now, the family asks that memorials be established to help returning active-duty military members and their families.
Sijan is survived by his wife of more than 70 years, Jane, his son Marc F. (Patricia) Sijan and daughter Janine Sijan Rozina.
Visitation is Monday from 4 to 7 p.m. at Prasser-Kleczka Bay View Chapel, and Tuesday at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, 3201 S. 51st St., followed by services at Arlington Park Cemetery.

Sundays, later years

I think the best thing, literally, that I could see on a resume, if I was in a position of hiring, is extensive restaurant experience. I work with a lot of people, and most of them are stiffs. Every now and then I'll discover that somebody I work with has restaurant experience, usually just through casual conversation. It is pretty amazing, but I can usually see how that experience directly aids them in their work day. It is almost like you get a different set of "eyes". Think about the things that waiting tables, specifically, does for your work persona. High pressure, timing, flexibility, adaptability....the basic skill of being nice to someone that you want to dis embowel with a wine knife. Time management. That is a huge one. Prioritization of tasks. Another huge one. I work with highly paid people who never learned these skills. Why? Because they got out of college and basically, started working here. Waiting tables is constant management of tasks, per priority and timing. I use those skills every day. They are invaluable. The industry I'm in and the content therein are neutral; these skills are needed in all lines of work
-I learned most of this on Sundays at the Hillcrest. Sundays were long. We served dinner from 11 am to evening hours (well, evening hours for people who voted for Taft). I had one whole side of the dining room. It was mine to maintain, or lose.

Jack and Joy

On the theme of 'Regulars'......
-Statistically, this couple would easily win the prize for "most frequent diners" at the Hillcrest during my tenure, but that doesn't mean that they will get proportional attention on this here blog. Why? Because I didn't really like them. They weren't that particularly interesting, and being interesting to someone (hopefully me) is definitely a theme here. I'm not doing this to write about boring, or pathetically predictable people. I have nothing against them. They were always a good tip, but....well.
-Jack and Joy Dursch. I'm pretty sure about the names and spelling there. He has to be dead by now, and I would assume the same for her. His liver may be in a display case somewhere. She is probably applying lipstick at the moment, in her coffin.
-He was a drunk. VO and water. A classic booze hound's cocktail. Let's face it, it's basically whiskey on the rocks. It's funny, as I write this, I'm struggling to paint a decent picture of them. Much more than I have for other characters in this blog. I guess that speaks more about them than anything else.
-When I think of the John Birch Society (do they exist anymore), I picture guys like Jack. Or even better, Jack Klompas from Seinfeld (aka Morty Seinfeld's buddy at the condo in Florida, Del Boca Vista). Old, retiried, golf players. Souped up Cadillacs. He definitely was well off, but not sophisticated, and not very tasteful. Big fish in a small pond type of guy. Let's face it, if you rolled into the Hillcrest with a C-note, you looked like Dean Martin.
-His wife was equally predictable. I can't remember her saying two fucking words. She would just sit there and look annoyed, and maybe have 5 or 6 bites of food during the meal. She couldn't have weighed more than 90 pounds.
-So he would roll in, in the Caddy, and park it as his usual table. Regardless of the time of day, the guy was front loaded. He had already had a snootful.
-The VO's would start coming. He'd order off the menu. Uber-rare Prime Rib on a painfully hot platter. Over the course of the meal, his drunken chortle would increase in volume. His white hair seemed to become more white against his increasingly red face.
-Seriously, that's about it. Of all the times I waited on him, I can't remember him saying anything that interested me, even once. He often bought the house a round. Front and back of the house. Which is commendable, but that's about it.
-The ending is worth recalling (hint: the whole point of this post). His dining days at the Hillcrest came to a dramatic end. Keep in mind, this guy, and his old lady, averaged about 4 meals a week there. He had been getting increasingly more smashed with each visit. There was even talk of cutting him off once. Well, that bridge never had to be crossed, because he got caught bringing in his own booze. Now, I'm not talking about a hipper flask in the men's room, or smuggling in mini bottles. If memory serves, he stashed a fifth of VO in Joy's purse, and pulled it out at the table. That was it. Dick made his point, and we never saw these humps again.

Thousand Island

Here is a weird one. This is truly one, where I wish I could find the guy. Or, at least know what happened to him.
-This one will be filed under the 'Regulars' file, whenever the hell I create it. Any waitron or restaurant person has an opinion on, and maybe a soft spot for, regulars. They offer a wonderful window into random souls. What is more personal than eating? And, as a server, when you end up serving a person as often as 4 or 5 meals a week over a decent span of time, you can really get to know them. More on that later...
-This guy I specifically remember seeing twice, and I waited on him once. I remember very little, but what I do remember is extremely vivid, and would probably have to be electro-shocked out of memory to forget.
-When he did come in to eat, he came in solo. And (literally) opened the place for Saturday lunch. He would be waiting in his car when the doors opened.
-He was certifiably insane. No doubt about it. But, not in a Dahmer way. More like 'Doc' in 'Back to the Future'. I don't know his name, or what he did, but he was palpably brilliant. I don't want to amp this up too much, because there isn't much in the way of a story here. Just some details:
-He drove a humongous beat-up late 70's station wagon, like a Country Squire. The thing was in obvious dis-repair. He had 3 or 4 giant dogs that stayed in the car, while he dined by himself. During the entire duration of the meal, the station wagon shook from the dogs going crazy inside the vehicle.
-He was giant. Probably 6'8", in the 280 pound range. The most visually shocking part was that he wore one of those one piece painter/mechanic suits (ie Dickies brand). He appeared to live in his. I seem to remember a denim-ish one, covered in paint, oil, grease, and who knows what. He had shock orange hair (natural), and beady, crazy looking blue eyes.
-He talked the entire time, to either himself, or whom ever was addressing him. Very nice. Nothing malicious, but I don't recall much of it making any sense. Brilliant sounding chatter.
-He ate extremely quick (like 3 or 4 courses in 15 minutes).
-I only remember one verbal interaction with him, and I will never forget it. Let's call him Raymond(he looked like a Raymond):
-Me: "And what kind of dressing would like for your salad? We have French, Italian, Creamy Peppercorn, Thousand Island..."
-Raymond: "Oh god, not Thousand Island. That always looks like someone vomited on my salad".

The Lineage

The connection, via degrees of separation, that led me to the Hillcrest is as follows:
-I think the highest I can up the chain from memory would be Ben Reid. He, and some of his preppy Marquette buddies, started working there in like '86 or '87. His younger brother, Danny, got a job there through him. Danny brought in Joe Huwiler, who was my buddy. I remember I had to get a work permit to start there, since I was 14 when I started. The funny part is, most of these guys didn't end up working there nearly as long as I did. I think everyone mentioned here was gone by the end of '89.

Baked Potato

Today's nugget is a beauty. One of the daytime lifers was a waitress named Mary Ann. She was a nice enough lady, but she was really out of place at the Hillcrest (if that was possible). She had worked lunches for years, and was there during my entire tenure. She was basically Maude Flanders, which would make her husband Ned Flanders and her two boys, Rod and Todd. Seriously. Dudley Do-right, and his family. They were a painfully white, God-fearing, classic nuclear family. It was always interesting trying to explain to her that one of the cooks didn't show because he was in jail, and the other one was sleeping one off outside, behind the garage.
-You can imagine at a restaurant where the clientele wasn't very discriminating, and management and hiring practices were spotty at best, that the food quality and handling practices dipped from time to time. Yes, I saw, and performed, some really nasty things in that kitchen. Nothing malicious or dangerous. Just lazy, for the most part. For restaurant people, this won't be shocking at all, and in the big picture, what I saw at the Hillcrest was not nearly as bad as things I saw at other establishments in my career. Like I said, the driving force was usually laziness, not malice, or even stupidity. You hear stories about under-trained kitchen folk alternating cutting up raw chicken and salad greens with the same knife, Well, duh. At the Hillcrest, it was usually more along the lines of a cook not wanting to bake off three more potatoes at the end of a shift for that last order, so he grabs a couple of bakers from the previous night's service out of the cooler, and throws them in the microwave.
-Well, this is what happened one day, and poor Mary Ann was on the receiving end of one of these "aged", re-heated baked potatoes. At the Hillcrest (like many supper clubs), the baked potatoes were given a simple slice with a paring knife when they were plated. At the table, the server would give the baked potato a quick four-finger squeeze, using the thumbs and pointer fingers to "open" up and present the potato. A little puff of steam would come out and the diner would dig in. Except, when Mary Ann squeezed this relic open, instead of steam puffing out, a cockroach crawled out, and scattered across the table, to a chorus of yelps and screams. Classic. Did I mention the place had a ridiculous roach problem?

The Fincher

In addition to Elroy, this guy is the number two reason for starting this blog. I will tread lightly here, but this guy is presumed still alive, and possibly still in Milwaukee. James Finch. His middle name may be some form of Lewis, or Louis. The Fincher worked at the Crest for my entire tenure (except for the last two weeks. Once we were told the place was closing, he didn't show up again. I never got to say goodbye to the guy, but I assume there was no point in sticking around for him). The Fincher made a huge impression on me. I had no idea at the time, but this guy indirectly taught me lasting things about life, the street, the inner city, and drugs that I would have never learned anywhere else.
-The Fincher was my first real introduction to an industry working black man. My aim in recalling, and typing, this info is to put it down from the angle of my teenage mind, not to sound like some clinical bullshit, or even worse, in an insensitive or racially unsettling tone. Times have changed, and I definitely have matured.
-I'm guessing the Fincher was in his late thirties when I started, and hence in his low forties when the place folded. I think that is the best I can do. I remember him pointing out his birthday on more than one occasion, but I don't recall any specific numbers.
-Habits, personality traits, and other thoughts:
1) He used a matchbook as a toothpick.
2) The guy lived and breathed Boston's first album. It was the soundtrack of this life.
3) His after work drink became known as the "Fincher Fizz". It was a small tumbler with anywhere from one to about 5 shots of rail brandy in it. No ice. And topped off with an eye dropper of Coke.
4) When cranking the radio, he would often ask if the song playing was the "LV"? What the hell did that mean? It was short for 'long version'. A good example would be "Do You Feel Like We Do?" by Frampton, or "Green-eyed Lady" by Sugarloaf, which were well known for radio edit versions. I still use this phrase.
--20110106
-I feel like adding to the Fincher post today. I still can't believe that any of us really got away with it, or didn't get seriously messed up, but he used to take us (me, and some of the other milky suburban white kids) down into the inner city to get high and party it up. He always lived in the neighborhood of State Street, or over near Highland Ave, up to about Center Street. In the range of 10th to about 27th Street. It was always somewhere different. Dumpy rent-by-the-week one bedroom joints. Usually with his wife Helen, who ended up working at the Crest later on. I specifically remember a place on about 34th and State. I went over there after work to pickup a dime of some classic "downtown brown" (ie crappy, dried-out ghetto schwag). I recall hanging out with the Fincher and his old lady, puffing up some brown, and drinking Thunderbird wine (remember that stuff?) out of a washed out peanut butter jar. We had a blast. Helen played some soul music on one of those handheld AM/FM transistor radios. One of those soul stations on the AM dial that is probably long gone now.
-The Fincher was famous for mis-interpreting song names and lyrics, as well as highlighting particular lyrical passages to great humorous effect. As you can tell from earlier notes, he a was a radio rat. I think this one of the many reasons we got along so well, since I'm always interested about what music is playing. The house radio at work was usually dialed into WKLH, classic rock. In the early 90's, KLH still had some balls.....not a lot, but more than it does now. Obviously, this is pre-internet, pre-mP3, pre-streaming, etc. We had two boom boxes in the kitchen. One in the dishroom, and one in the main kitchen (back by the salad department). They both played tapes, but it was really buyer beware on putting a cassette of any value in the dirty and gummed up machines.
-Some radio highlights/moments:
-"Evil Woman" by ELO. The Fincher always thought they were saying "Vehicle Woman", as "Vee-hicle Woman".
-"Oh, Girl" by The Chi-Lites (one of my favorite old soul tunes, by the way), was not a favorite of The Fincher's. When it would come on, he would give me a look of severe dis-satisfaction and say, "Ohhhh, not Old Girl!".
-Some play air guitar, but The Fincher played air bass. When a particularly pleasing bass line came on, he would hold his left hand motionless up above his head and shoulder, and slap his whole right hand, dangling off to his side, at about hip level. In other words, a wildly inaccurate portrayal of bass playing. Somebody commented, "Jim, what kind of bass is that? It looks like you are playing a single telephone cable strapped to a 2 x 4". One song that was guaranteed to get some air bass, was "Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson. After the instrumental break in the middle, when the synth-bass comes back in playing that octave line, he would launch.
-As previously mentioned, Boston was king. Anything off of that first album was gold for him. It must have been something about all those processed guitars, or the faux heavy metal shrieking voice of Brad Delp, but the opening acoustic strums of "Peace of Mind", followed by the electric, and full band lead in, would send The Fincher into absolute overdrive. We would crank that shit when we were busting down at the end of the night....pounding beers, taking turns going "out behind the garage"....and we felt like complete kings. Like I said in an earlier post, I am proud to say that these were some of the (in the total sense of existence) best moments of my life. I had a total grab on the world as I knew it. My perception of the world was just the right size at this time, and I felt I really had a grasp on it. My work was tangible and real. It was clear when the day was done, and you knew immediately if you did a good job, and the people I was doing it with were on the same page.