Hutch’s on the Beach bestows highest honour

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Posted with permission from the Hamilton Spectator
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Hamilton Spectator
By Paul Wilson
Nov 24, 2015

We had visitors from Guelph not long ago; niece Emily and her boyfriend Sam. They're smart 20somethings who had been hearing good things about Hamilton. They wanted to see the place, so Marnie and I gave them a tour.

I've done that many times, often for a new crop of Spectator newsroom interns.

The itinerary this time was pretty much the same: A view of the stairs up our "mountain;" some gawking on Ravenscliffe, where money and history come together splendidly; a hike through all corners of downtown; a wander around the waterfront; a foray into the belly of the beast, past the steel mills and scrap yards.

These tours always make a stop at Hutch's on the Beach, serving fine fries and more since 1946. It's as Hamilton as they come, complete with a gallery of murals by Norman R. Fournier out front — Gore Park, waterfalls, the steel mills.

Emily and Sam liked what they saw. They returned just last week to look at apartments.

They had been puzzled by one sight on our tour. It was near day's end at the Bill Reynolds Memorial Washroom at Hutch's. A man remembered by a toilet? Really?

So the other day I called Rick Creechan, general manager at Hutch's forever, who said I should come down. As it turns out, Bill Reynolds is still alive and Rick said he would even arrange for him to be there.

We settled into a booth by the lake and got the goods.

Bill is 73. He grew up in east-end Hamilton and has been coming to Hutch's since he was a kid. He was an athlete, playing a lot of hockey and ball. After Delta, he went into the paper business, selling every kind of product to every kind of business, from Hutch's to Stelco.

His single biggest line was toilet paper. He knows the stuff. He can tell you, for instance, that the guys working in the mills got single ply and the office staff got double.

He can tell you, too, that it was a competitive business. One day the buyer at John Deere advised Bill that another salesperson had been by with what looked like a better deal — more sheets to the roll, less money.

Bill knew the old shrink-the-sheets game. Down at Deere, the two products were rolled out across the factory floor. Bill won and kept the account.

"Some people used to call me Mr. Whipple," Bill says. That would be Hamilton's own Dick Wilson, who decades ago made a fortune doing TV commercials for toilet paper in which he played a grocer who pleaded with his customers: "Please don't squeeze the Charmin!"

Anyway, in a rather dim corner at the end of the booths in Hutch's is a picture of Bill and his teammates on the 1965-66 Dundas Merchants hockey team.

There are hundreds of Hamilton sports photos around the place and Bill was always pestering Rick to give him better wall space.

"I can't even bring anybody down here," he told Rick. He was getting no respect.

About a year ago, Rick figured out a way to get the guy off his back. The Reynolds Memorial sign was made and mounted on the washroom door.

Bill came by on a service call, one of the last before he retired. He looked at that door and laughed. He loved it.

Joke over, Rick volunteered to take the sign down. No way, says Bill. He then added to it by bringing in a photo of himself to hang above the bathroom door. It's a shot taken in the 1990s at a bar in Myrtle Beach. It's Bill's head and Arnold Schwarzenegger's body.There is one more washroom at Hutch's that needs a name. Ladies, submit your resumés.



Paul Wilson’s column appears Tuesdays.

PaulWilson.Hamilton@gmail.com

Twitter: [MENTION=300]PAUL[/MENTION]WilsonInHam

http://www.thespec.com/living-story/6131768-paul-wilson-hutch-s-on-the-beach-bestows-highest-honour/
 
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