NEWPORT — Down the hill from the church where a former president and the powerful were among those gathered for the senator’s funeral, Bob Bergmann pulled up a bar seat at Benjamin’s café and ordered his usual two slices of toast and side of bacon.

The waitress, Olga Behk, saw the retired police dispatcher coming and had his coffee ready as he settled in next to Travis Swager, a cook at another restaurant who comes in to Benjamin’s often for the homemade hash.

Then all three, the cook, the waitress and the retired dispatcher, turned their attention to the café’s television screen where former President Bill Clinton was entering the church pulpit.

The Thames Street eatery had planned to close yesterday for the start of a winter hiatus, said Behk. Then the management heard that hundreds of people would be gathering a block away at Trinity Episcopal Church to pay their respects to Sen. Claiborne Pell. Perhaps some of those senators or academics or diplomats from far-flung countries might walk down the hill afterward for some poached eggs and ham.

If so, they would find equal admiration for Rhode Island’s longest-serving U.S. senator.

As Clinton defined Pell as “the right kind of aristocrat … a champion by choice, not by circumstance, of the common good,” Bergmann recalled the one time he had met the senator.

A friend had asked him to help park cars at a gala — “one of those big formal jobs” — at Marble House, one of Newport’s grand mansions, the kind of venue where Pell was a frequent dignitary.

“He drove up in that old, old car of his,” said Bergmann — Pell’s famed white, dented Mustang fitted with a roll bar in case the well-heeled senator had another mishap. “Everyone started saying: ‘Here comes Senator Pell, here comes Senator Pell.’ But that car was so rickety that he wouldn’t let any of us drive it.”

It wasn’t that Pell was afraid the valets would damage the car, said Bergmann.

“He was afraid someone would get hurt driving it. So we let him park it wherever he wanted.”

The senator’s action left a lasting impression on Bergmann. Here was a U.S. senator, a little peculiar, but modest and caring enough to park his own wreck.

“He just made me feel comfortable that night,” Bergmann said.

“We’ve done pretty good for ourselves,” Bergmann said, with senators such as Pell and John H. Chafee, now both gone, who served Rhode Islanders well in Washington.

“We’re a small state,” Bergmann said, “but a proud state.”

tmooney@projo.com