The Legend of Cally Callahan

This story is about a woman who is not likely to remain unknown for long.  A woman who was not born into her greatness, but rather stumbled into it.  A woman whose best virtues were her contagious smile and loving spirit.  She thought of herself as Mother and Grandmother, but I knew her by another name: Cally Callahan.

As fate would have it, I fell in with Cally when we were both young girls. We were friends ever since. That's the way it was with Cally, after all: you just couldn't help but love her. Why, I remember when we went to see Gene Kelly in his first Broadway show: there we were, all of 15 years old, and next thing I know she's on stage with him, singing and dancing like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. On Broadway! He just picked her right out of the crowd. That was typical Cally, let me tell you. You might call it luck, or karma—she called it determination of spirit—but just about everything we ever saw that was great, there she was, right in the middle of it.

 Take the time Cally went with our family to Philadelphia.  My father took us to see his beloved Ted Williams, who was in town with his Red Sox to play the Philadelphia A’s at Shibe Park. It was 1941, I remember it like it was yesterday. The Red Sox had a doubleheader on the last day of the season. Mr. Williams, he was batting .3995 for the season. If he didn't play in the doubleheader, the papers said, his official batting average would be rounded up to .400. It was a big deal. And word around town was that the Red Sox were gonna let ol' Teddy sit out both games, to secure his achievement. Well, we get into town, and who does Cally bump into at the hotel but old Teddy Ballgame himself!

"Teddy," she said, "are you gonna play today?"

"I don't know, kid," he replied.

"You know what they say, Teddy," said Cally with a smile. "Greatness doesn't just land in your lap. You gotta seek it." 

And darn it all if Teddy didn't play that day and go 6 for 8 and finish the season at .406. In the papers the next morning he was quoted as saying—yep, you guessed it—"You gotta seek greatness. It doesn't just land in your lap." 

But I could go on forever, for Cally's life was an endless series of such stories: singing with the Beatles, marching with Dr. King, smoking cigars with the Rat Pack. Unlike most people lucky enough to rub elbows with legends, however, Cally Callahan never forgot her roots.

"You asked me where my home is," she wrote once in a letter to her grandsons. "That is a profound question. My home is where adventure and greatness are sought, and where family and friends are near. Indeed, children, the whole world is my home. And my home is the whole world."

Her grandsons took these words to heart, and though they grew up, they never forgot what Cally told them. And from these words this restaurant was born. Callahan's Neighborhood Bar & Grill. Where the indomitable spirit of Grandma Cally Callahan lives on. Callahan’s, where friends and family gather and adventure and greatness are sought!  Grandma Cally would be glad you’re here!. 

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