Two Coins, Two Thousand Years, and an American Dream
By Ovi Catanescu.
Some gifts are valuable because of what they cost. Others are priceless because of the story behind them.
This is the story of one of the most unforgettable gifts I have ever received.
It All Began on a Basketball Court
The original Ovi’s menu page, written by Maria and me, telling the story of my name, my father’s courage and our American dream
Both of my sons, Alexander and Gabriel, fell in love with basketball almost from the moment they first touched a ball.
They played throughout their school years, from elementary school all the way through high school.
Maria and I attended their games, cheering them on and getting to know the other parents who shared our enthusiasm for their children's passion.
Over the years, we spent countless hours in gymnasiums, watching games and practices and talking with other parents about everything imaginable.
One of those parents was Jeff Geringer's father.
I remember one afternoon, during one of Gabriel's games or perhaps a practice, we started talking about our professional lives.
He told me that he was an executive at Harris Bank. I told him that I owned a mortgage company.
Somewhere during that conversation, I mentioned that I needed a new challenge in my life.
I was thinking about opening a restaurant.
Being a banker, he was understandably skeptical.
"Why would you want to open a restaurant?" he asked. "Don't you know how many restaurants fail?"
Of course, he probably knew considerably more about bankruptcies than I did.
But I wasn't looking for another safe investment. I was looking for a challenge.
Months passed. Basketball games came and went.
During another conversation, I told him that I had purchased a property and was remodeling it into a restaurant.
By then, I knew exactly what I wanted: the concept, the menu, and even the name.
Ovi's Pub and Restaurant.
The Story Behind My Name
At some point, he became curious about my unusual first name.
"Ovidiu? Where does that name come from?"
And so I told him the story of Ovid, the famous Roman poet who lived during the reign of Emperor Augustus.
According to the story I had grown up with, Ovid had written something that offended the emperor. In AD 8, Augustus banished him to Tomis, on the Black Sea, in what is now Constanța, Romania.
At that time, Tomis was at the distant edge of the Roman world.
Ovid spent the rest of his life there, longing for Rome but never returning.
I explained to my banker friend that freedom of speech wasn't exactly a guaranteed right in ancient Rome.
And then I told him something much more personal.
My father, Ioan Catanescu, had dared to write a letter directly to Nicolae Ceaușescu, describing the hardships ordinary Romanians were experiencing and asking for basic human rights.
For that act of courage, he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to two years in a mental institution.
Almost two thousand years after Ovid, speaking one's mind could still carry a terrible price.
And there I was, an immigrant from communist Romania, living in the United States, running my own business, and dreaming about opening a restaurant.
I told him that this was exactly why I wanted to do it.
Because I could.
Because I lived in a country where I had the freedom to dream, to take risks, to succeed, or even to fail.
The restaurant wasn't just another business venture to me.
It was another expression of the freedom I had come to America to find.
An Unexpected Gift
Eventually, the restaurant was ready.
We celebrated the grand opening of Ovi's Pub in Bartlett, Illinois.
It was a wonderful evening. The restaurant was filled with friends, guests, and local dignitaries, including the mayor of Bartlett.
And, of course, I had invited Jeff Geringer's father.
I remember walking from table to table, greeting guests and asking what they thought about the restaurant and the food.
Eventually, I reached his table.
We talked for a while. He complimented the restaurant, thanked me for inviting him, and then, quite unexpectedly, reached into the pocket of his jeans.
"I have something for you," he said.
He pulled out a tiny package and handed it to me.
Inside were two ancient coins.
I looked at them, not quite understanding.
Then he said something I will never forget.
"These coins are from the time of Ovid and Augustus. Who knows? Maybe Ovid himself touched them."
For a moment, I was speechless.
Here was a man I had met because our sons played basketball together. A banker who had questioned my decision to open a restaurant. A man who had listened to my stories about ancient Rome, communist Romania, my father, and my dreams of freedom.
And he had remembered.
Not only had he remembered, but he had gone out of his way to find something that connected all those stories.
Two ancient coins, almost two thousand years old.
Coins from the world of the emperor who had exiled the poet whose name I carried.
And now they were in my hands, in a restaurant I had opened thousands of miles from the country where I was born.
The two ancient Roman coins given to me at the grand opening of Ovi’s Pub. Dating from the reign of Emperor Augustus, they remain my most treasure gifts.
A Story on the Menu
But the story didn't end with those two coins.
That extraordinary gesture inspired me to dedicate an entire page of our restaurant menu to the history behind my name.
Maria and I sat down together and wrote it.
We called the page simply "History."
It told the story of the Roman poet Ovid, his exile by Emperor Augustus, my father's persecution under communist Romania, and our journey to America.
We wanted our customers to understand why we had named the restaurant Ovi's Pub and what that name represented to us.
The page ended with a tribute to my father and to the freedom that had allowed us to pursue our American dream.
I still have that original menu page, just as I still have the two ancient coins.
One tells the story of where I came from.
The other reminds me of a man who listened, remembered, and gave me a gift I will treasure forever.
I don't know whether Ovid ever touched those coins.
But I do know that, nearly two thousand years later, they touched me.