As Tim Murff showed, a little kindness can launch a career

Like death by a thousand paper cuts, it’s hard to say what moment convinced Juan “Poncho” Alfonso Garcia he wasn’t worthy.

Was it — as a little boy in Guanajuato, Mexico — seldom seeing a father who spent 10 months a year picking grapes in California to keep the family afloat?

Was it, at age 15, being fired after only a week on a job at a U.S. asbestos-removal company because he couldn’t speak English? “I cried all the way home,” he says.

Was it, at 22, seeing the sign go up on the fence next to his uncle’s house in Brownsville, the one that said, “We must protect our border,” with an arrow pointing at the house of the Hispanic family?

I remember the sign well. In 2006, I wrote a column about it for The Register-Guard and remember thinking how, as a white man, I’d never had to face such humiliation.

But spend enough time in this world and you’re reminded that for every guy who’ll publicly demean his neighbor — his naturalized U.S. citizen neighbor who was a foreman at what’s now Knife River in Harrisburg — there’s someone who’ll see a guy like Poncho not as a liability, but as an asset.

Who’ll see not his skin color, but his potential.

Who’ll not turn his back on him but extend a hand.

Tim Murff was such a person. The same Tim Murff whose life Poncho and others will celebrate at a memorial service Saturday at 1 p.m. at Eugene Faith Center, 1410 W. 13th Ave.

“He was,” says Poncho, 41, “like a second father to me.”

The two met in 2012, a year after Murff and his wife, Mon Sutthiwari, opened Sabai Café & Bar in the Oakway Center.

In a sense, Tim, Mon, Poncho — all three were starting over back then. Tim had lost his first wife, Nina, to cancer. After he married Mon, who is from Thailand, the two were taking a huge risk in opening a restaurant that honored Mon and her Thai background.

Meanwhile, Poncho was simply trying to find a place to belong in what he’d found to be a cold world.

As a high schooler, he longed to play basketball but couldn’t afford the shoes.

“I was so insecure,” he says. “And when you’re insecure, you believe what everybody tells you. If they tell you you’re a piece of crap, you believe them.”

He had come to the U.S., alone, in 2000 at age 15 because he had an uncle in the Eugene area. He worked for a grass seed company in Harrisburg. Started school at Central Linn High School in Halsey. Then returned to Mexico for two years to take care of his mother, who was struggling with heart problems.

“My father and I had some connection, but my mother was really a bigger part of who I am,” he says. “She loves to cook and has always been my inspiration.”

Before meeting Tim and Mon, Poncho had cooked for three restaurants, one of which was a fast-food place. His bosses weren’t interested in whatever culinary panache he might offer. They were only interested in people who showed up on time, worked the assembly line and didn’t make trouble.

“There was no freedom to create whatsoever,” he says. “It was more like: ‘This is how we do it. Every. Single. Time.’”

Mon remembers when Poncho, who eventually graduated from Central Linn High, came for his interview at Sabai.

“He didn’t have much confidence,” she says. “He was so shy.”

But Tim and Mon liked Poncho’s sincerity, his work ethic — he often worked at two restaurants at a time — and his passion for food. They hired him.

It was not bliss from day one. Poncho, a guy more used to wrapping tacos and burritos at Baja Fresh, was suddenly being asked to help prepare Scallops Carpaccio, Indian Curry La Primavera and Fancy Thai Eggplant. And to work in concert with more than a half dozen other chefs — at times under the watchful eye of Mon, whose cultural style was night and day with his.

“He’s far less intense than I was,” she says. “He wouldn’t say what he needed. He reminded me of me when I first met Tim,” who was 25 years her senior. “Tim’s sons Ryan (50) and Phil (47) joke that I’m the middle child (48).

“I’m more straightforward. People joke that I leave bodies on the battlefield. That wasn’t Poncho. But he’s learned to be more direct. And I’ve learned to pull back — a little.”

Perhaps because of Poncho’s past hurts, she sensed a hesitancy in him to relax and feel part of the Sabai team.

“I think it was hard for him to realize we had his best interest in mind,” Mon says. “It was hard for him to learn to trust.”

A breakthrough came when Tim came into the kitchen after a shift to thank all the chefs.

“Including me,” Poncho says. “I wasn’t used to that — the owner of the restaurant thanking me. It floored me.”

And it wasn’t just a one-off. Almost every night, Tim was there. With a word of praise. A touch of encouragement. An idea on how to do something better.

“With other bosses it was: ‘Don’t screw up,’” Poncho says. “With Tim it was: ‘Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Don’t play it safe.’ Gradually, I realized Tim had confidence in me. He believed in me. He had my back.”

Not just as a chef, but as a person. In 2016, Poncho married Martha Mosqueda.

“You need to be there for her,” Tim told Poncho. “She needs to be your top priority.”

Then came kiddos for Poncho and Martha: a daughter, Alexandra, now 8; David, 6; and Alan, 18 months.

Tim and Mon would show up with a loaf of jalapeno cheese bread, which they knew the Garcia family loved. They’d come to the kids’ birthday parties. When Alexandra had a meltdown at one such gathering, Tim laughingly sang her a line from a 1963 Lesley Gore hit, “It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to.”

After Martha taught Tim the fine art of making tamales, he would experiment on his own and proudly send her photos of the results.

On Thanksgiving morning, it became a tradition for Tim and Mon to bring Poncho and his family cranberry sauce and cornbread.

They were there for Poncho not just in the good times, but in the hard times. Two years ago, Poncho’s mother was dying.

“Don’t worry about all the right words,” Tim told him. “Just be there for her. That’ll be enough.”

As time passed, Poncho was given more responsibility at Sabai. He became the go-to chef for all things curry. Sabai’s three curries — red, green and yellow — use up to 20 different dried chilies.

“They started showing me about the food, and I began thinking, ‘I can do this,’” he says. “At other places I was like a number. They didn’t see me for who I was.”

“Poncho has a special way of making curry,” Mon says. “His curries simply stand out. And I think it has something to do with love. He loves what he does, and it makes it taste better.”

Along the way, Poncho had an epiphany about cooking. This nightly culinary choreography was about more than curry and cashews, Pineapple Fried Rice and Pad King. It was about Tim’s sense that everybody who walks into the restaurant, each “table,” is a story with all sorts of subplots. “And it’s our privilege,” he told Poncho, “to be part of these people’s stories.”

For a young man looking for a purpose, such words deepened Poncho’s gratitude for his job and for the encouragement Tim offered him.

When Poncho was named head of the kitchen, you’d have thought he’d won an Academy Award. This wasn’t fast casual; this was a cloth-napkin restaurant that had won more than a dozen “best of Eugene” awards.

Poncho’s aloofness early on melded into a sense of belonging. “He emerged as this big teddy bear with a soft heart,” Mon says. “I think he felt like this was a safe place for him.”

“I would see Tim,” Poncho says, “and I’d just want to give him a hug. It wasn’t only his words. His actions spoke louder than his words.”

More than once Tim and Mon had the family join them at their second home at Black Butte Ranch.

Once, Tim handed Poncho an envelope. “You and Martha need a break,” Tim told him. “Here, take your wife out to dinner.”

When Poncho looked inside, he shook his head no.

“This is too much.”

“It’s not a gift,” said Tim. “You earned it.”

It was $500.

Another time, Poncho mentioned his kids’ dream of going to Disneyland. A few days later, Tim handed him an envelope with $1,500 in it.

“Make it special for the kids,” he said.

In January, Poncho got a call out of the blue from Tim, who was in Thailand with Mon, visiting her family.

“He was like, ‘How you doing? How are the kiddos? Give them a hug for me.’”

The next night, at work, a manager interrupted him.

“Poncho,” he said. “You need to sit down; I have something I need to tell you. It’s Tim. He died yesterday in his sleep.”

Tim Murff was 72.

Poncho was racked with grief. Later he remembered one of the lessons Tim impressed on him as a father.

“Your job as a dad,” he said, “is to work yourself out of a job. Your job is to raise kids so strong that they can manage their lives without you.”

Now, he sensed, Tim expected the same from him.