Duncan and Me

By Karen Kay Remus, © 2012


Chance Meeting in Columbus Georgia

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack. You may find yourself in another part of the world. You may find yourself having dinner with Sir Winston Churchill’s great grandson, Duncan Sandys (pronounced Sands). And you may ask yourself: What do I say to him?

Well, you needn’t worry, because Duncan Sandys, like his g-g-pop, will do most of the talking and do it eloquently. Furthermore, he’s such a dead-ringer for The Greatest Briton of All Time, you’ll probably just sit there, staring at him with your mouth hanging open. And you may ask yourself: How did I get here?

How does anyone find themselves suddenly supping with Churchill’s doppelganger descendant? Well, for me, it was like this: my husband Tom had helped assemble a gallery show featuring the artwork of President “Ike” Eisenhower. Churchill had been one of Ike’s great friends, sharing many of his interests and talents, including painting. Sandys had been asked to speak about their friendship and his great grandfather’s artwork, as part of the Eisenhower exhibit and lecture series. After his speech, the founders of the event took him to dinner, and there you have it.

Dinner with Duncan

So, we’re all sitting there in the back room of the Loft, which, for conversational purposes, has the most horrible acoustics imaginable. The canned music is blaring, the kitchen is clanging, and the collective conversations from the front of the restaurant are bouncing off the tin ceiling, over the partition wall, and onto our table. The home-made potato chip appetizers create a deafening crunch that blots out intelligible speech, and I am located on the end of the eight-top table, several feet and people away from our visiting dignitary.

Duncan is a gin and tonic man. He has two. He orders steak and potatoes—just like me! He’s big and tall, so he holds his liquor well. He’s dignified and well-spoken—a total aristocrat--but he blushes like a little kid and dimples when he smiles. He’s absolutely adorable, but I can’t hear a word he’s saying.

I Cup my Ear

I decide to use physics to my advantage. Cupping a large hand to a large ear, I fashion a flesh gramophone horn and focus it on Duncan. Now I look dorky, but I can hear his lovely British accent, so who cares?

He was going to take his American drivers test tomorrow. He had observed a very large female driving instructor, and thought that perhaps his test could consist simply of driving through a McDonalds and getting a few Big Macs. I ask if they have drive-throughs in England, and he says, “No, that’s a purely American phenomenon.”

Then he tells of going into a Starbucks in Tennessee, where he’s the only customer, but they still ask his name and insist on writing it on his cup. He tells the girl that his name is “Duncan,” and she writes, “D-U-N-K-I-N.”

“Like the doughnuts,” I say.

“Yes,” he says, “I can’t believe how incredibly thick some people are—and I did once get THREE free Dunkin’ doughnuts, because I was 'named after the store'(said in falsetto, mimicking the thick, American doughnut slinger)!”

America, the embarrassing.