Banger and Shvenga Lodges
In the summer of 1957 Patti Page had a hit song called, “Old Cape Cod” and it seemed to be sung and hummed by everyone for what felt like forever. It was made all the more popular because it was where Senator John F. Kennedy’s family had their summer compound.
I had just started work full time in the place where I would spend my entire work life. I had worked there the previous summer just to get the feel of the business and I liked it. I
had just come out of a funk after a disappointing romantic adventure and I wanted to get away, but all of my closest friends were either in the army or at reserve training camp or just unavailable. Somehow a friend of my cousin Arnold’s called me and offered to go away with me and share room and and auto expenses.. We would be “on the road” and go as we felt inclined to. This fellow was a young man named Ben. He was a short stocky guy who was pleasant and personable but a bit of a “bull thrower.” We met with Arnie over a pizza and beer and spoke about possible vacation plans.
We decided to throw our lot together and start out by going to Moodus Connecticut to a place called Banner Lodge, but known in young peoples circles known as Banger Lodge. It was said facetiously that if you can’t get “banged” there you could get your money back. Everyone who went there was either looking for romance (mostly the females) or to plain out get laid (mostly the males AND females). It was a place with a reputation for a lot of fornication going on.
I recently came across a picture of myself coming out of a swimming pool at that time and I saw that I really was slim, nice looking and at the peak of youth coming into manhood. I love that picture and it is a favorite of mine even thought his period of my life was not particular happy or wonderful.
We drove to Moodus on a nice summer day and listened to Patti Page singing on several radio stations about the glories of old “Cape Cod.”
Ben and I got our cabin, went to a socializing area and started perusing the new arrivals.
We met several girls who had come all the way from Detroit Michigan to Moodus to have a good time. We had dinner at the same table as them and then saw some kind of a show together.
The girls were cousins. Doris was quite chubby, tall and dark with long curly hair. She definitely was just meant for Ben; at least that’s what I told him. The other gal, Arlene was average height with a very nice figure but not at all pretty. Pretty wasn’t necessarily what I was there for. In retrospect we probably should have split up and gone to two different cabins as couples. Instead all four of us went back to the girls’ cabin.
Every so often I heard a body slam as rotund Doris turned over and body slammed Ben against the wall. I made out with Arlene for hours but didn’t expect things to go along that quickly and was not prepared to go all the way in a room full of people even though it was pitch dark.
I remember telling her what I did for a living and my company name and a few other details I was sorry about the next week. The Detroit tigers were both secretaries for an insurance firm and were planning to go to New York City the next week. While we were making out I sort of loosely promised to show her around the big city. I never gave her my phone number.
When the sun came up Ben and I went back to our own sleeping quarters to change and wash up for breakfast.
At the open breakfast dining room we sat at a table and one “garmento” type announced and guffawed that he heard two guys shacked up with two babes from Detroit and “din’t even ‘bang’ them.” I just looked down into my eggs and continued eating.
Ben went over to talk to a couple of fellows and then came back and broke the news to me. He had met up with a fellow who must have been “fond of sand dunes and salty air,
quaint little villages here and there “. Maybe he liked, “the taste of lobster stew, served by a window with an ocean view.” He was “sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod.”
What ever, the S.O.B. left me high and dry to have all the expenses by myself. He was gone never to be seen or heard from again within a half hour. Maybe he heard the mythological Siren calling him from off the New England coastline and got washed up in a sail boat. I hope not.
I decided that I don’t want to get stuck with the girls from Detroit and that I would do a quick checkout and follow plan #2 which I had laid out for myself. At least something got laid out this trip even if it was only a plan.
I decided to head home and convince my friend Joel to head up to the Jewish Alps or Catskills area to a similar establishment called Shawanga Lodge. This place was nick- named by its Jewish clientele as Shevenga Lodge. Shevenga means pregnant, which did and can, happen at such a place where the purpose is similar to that which I pointed out about Banner Lodge. It was easy to sway Joel to go upstate with me and try our luck up there with a different bevy of unclaimed treasures who were for the most part a lot older and more experienced than we were.
When I called home my mother asked me,
“Who the heck is this Arlene person who keeps calling the house every four hours looking for you?”
I told my mother,
“Just tell her that I was called up for active service in my Army reserve unit and am being shipped overseas to Korea and to stop calling.”
Arlene was smarter than I gave her credit for and managed to get my home phone number.
I guess she got back to Motown eventually after realizing that I was her “Mr. Right.”
As the moon rose over a big outdoor dance arena at Shawanga Lodges people started dancing to the beat of Pablo Kaduchis and his Mambo Five or some other name like that. I danced a few dances and then went over to the prettiest girl /best dancer and asked her to dance. She looked at me straight in the eye and said.
“I saw you dancing and I would not dance with you” and turned on her heels away from me.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I never forget a slight in my life and still use that as an example of hurt feelings as I am a very sensitive person.
Then I remembered the girls I left high and dry without so much as a goodbye in Connecticut and felt perhaps I got my comeuppance for being Mr. Cool or perhaps Chicken of The Sea.
Is there a lesson to be learned? I spent the rest of the evening talking to an “older girl” I spent some time with who kept smoking cigarettes and blowing smoke out of her nostrils. She was from Brooklyn as I was. She saw what happened to me and told me that it is never good to go over to the prettiest girl. A plainer girl will appreciate you much more than someone who thinks she is hot stuff. She was sincere and a nice person whose name was Millie. I have found her advice to be true to a certain extent. I think over the years I learned never to say anything hurtful to anyone if it can be avoided.
I never look back on my dating days as fun. They were all learning experiences which enabled me to appreciate what I have when I finally met and married my second wife.
But it is fun to recall these various anecdotes and relive them in my mind, before I get too old to dream.
Now for the rest of the story as Paul Harvey says. Lately I have been listening to Sirius radio while driving in my car and listening to an oldies station. Lo and behold, they have been playing Patti page singing, “Old Cape Cod.”
Recently we were at a dear friends’ house for dinner prior to attending a big high school reunion of our Brooklyn, N.Y. high school, held in Boynton Beach, Florida. Larry graduated six months ahead of me and I looked through his senior year book. I saw a face I remembered from Shawanga Lodge. It was that gal Millie who spoke nicely to me. She was just six months ahead of me in school! I am amazed that I recognized her since I met her almost five or six years after that picture was taken and now it is fifty four years later.
She was not at the reunion.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Coast is Clear
The Coast is Clear
Many of us have heard the late Cab Calloway sing his famous song about Minnie the Moocher, who was a “Low down hootchie –kootcher. Well I’m going to tell you about Manny the Moocher, may he rest in peace. He worked at my business firm for almost twenty years and retired about fifteen years ago.
Manny Belinsky was a grade “B”mechanic trying to repair heating systems in the metropolitan area of New York. He was a tremendous blowhard and braggart and had marginal ability when he came to us. He improved while working for us as we had some good men who showed him his mistakes.
We hired him when we were desperately short of men. He commuted from Long Island and was let go from many oil companies because of his ineptitude, laziness and slovenly appearance. But desperate times call for desperate measures. When he started working for us, he said “I found a home.”
He was quite heavy and often couldn’t fit in his working space. Many home builders put the gas or oil burner of the furnace or boiler too close to a wall to gain square footage of living space. He made up for his lack of ability to fix things with his scare tactics to sell new equipment to the customer. Sometimes he lost the sale and we lost the customer. More often than not he sold something. He was not on commission but eventually a certain amount of the clientele caught on to him and he was unwelcome in their homes on future calls.
Somehow he ingratiated himself with my partner and me because he never refused to help when we were very busy and he was willing to put in time when others would not.
On one of the first calls he went to, he made a mistake and added cold water to a hot steam cast iron boiler in the home of a woman who would later on become my own mother in law. He didn’t admit his mistake at the time but one of the other fellows snitched later on.
The other personnel in the company refused to go out for a coffee break or lunch with him because he had a “condition.” The “condition” was that he had very low pockets on his pant trousers and very short arms. In other words, he never, ever stuck his hands in his pockets to pay for anything at the end of a meal or when anyone approached the cashier. I could never figure out how he got away with it, because most people would not stand for it.
Manny knew I liked fishing and he told me he would love to go with me one day and get a paid day out of basements. He invited me to go fishing using a neighbor’s boat. Once we left the dock he took off his shirt and it was as if an announcement was made:
”Attention all Green flies! We have some prime meat to land on right off Jones Beach . Look for the fat man with blond hair and enjoy!” I couldn’t believe it. He never felt a thing as these marina monsters landed on him and bit away. I was petrified of those biting insects because they give one “helluva” mean stinging bite.. He never even flinched and was covered with welts. We did catch a few flounder so it wasn’t a total loss.
As time went on he had trouble with his hips due to his enormous weight which enabled him to go on service calls that involved standing only. After a hip was replaced he saw the handwriting on the wall and convinced his wife to move to Florida with him. She quickly found a good position as a skilled bookkeeper and he moved into his late mothers apartment.
His mother had passed away a few years prior and both of his brothers were successful professionals who didn’t care that he managed her finances. Somehow he conned them both and had access to her money and the deed to her home in an area of Delray Beach called Kings Point. So, like so many of my employees who retired before me, he moved to Florida in about 1995.
I retired in 2000, and wanted to live in Florida. I found out from my cousin Ann who lived in Huntington Towers that she had seen Manny and his wife at several low end restaurants. I made her swear never to tell him that I had bought a home in Florida when I did in 2001. I also told the other former employees whose whereabouts were known that they dare not tell Manny the Moocher that I was here.
I once had the payroll department of my old place call up the union local to see if he was still alive and collecting his pension. I was amazed that he was still alive since he was so grossly overweight and had diabetes. He never had high blood pressure when I knew him.
I was always afraid of running in to him at Home Depot as it was the place that was near both Manny and me to buy tools and materiel. I once had a cab driver who was chatty tell me about a guy in his development who was a slob and a bull thrower who could empty out a room by just entering it because people wanted to avoid him. I asked if his name was Manny Belinsky, and indeed it was. I gave him a huge tip and told him to forget my name and where he picked me up.
Recently I had out of town guests visiting me and we were sitting around the pool in our community. During a break in conversation I remembered that I had not checked my answer machine in my Long Island residence and dialed the number. I had one message and it was from Dora Belinsky asking me to call her. I didn’t know when the message was left. I called up my former business partner to ask him if he heard anything about Manny the Moocher and the call that I received in New York. He said that Manny must have died and that I should confirm it. I borrowed my guest’s telephone which had a Massachusett’s area code to return Dora’s call. That way she would not have to know that I am nearby. She informed me that Manny had died that very day and figured that since he was fond of me that I would want to know.
I asked what he died of and she told me that he was seventy seven years old and had everything wrong with him and wanted to die. I asked where the funeral would be held and she told me that it was going to be locally in Florida. I thanked her for calling and told her that I would pass the word on to the “office.” The Belinsky’s did not realize that I had retired almost eight years ago.
I am sorry when anyone passes on and felt bad about it. For the life of me I can’t figure out why I was called. We had not communicated for the last twelve years or exchanged family information on life’s happenings.
At any time of the day or night I can now feel free to go to Home Depot without looking around to see if the coast is clear, but I really haven’t thought about that for awhile. I realize that my fear of running into him was silly. I could have said that I was visiting Ann or anything else without admitting that I lived here.
Many of us have heard the late Cab Calloway sing his famous song about Minnie the Moocher, who was a “Low down hootchie –kootcher. Well I’m going to tell you about Manny the Moocher, may he rest in peace. He worked at my business firm for almost twenty years and retired about fifteen years ago.
Manny Belinsky was a grade “B”mechanic trying to repair heating systems in the metropolitan area of New York. He was a tremendous blowhard and braggart and had marginal ability when he came to us. He improved while working for us as we had some good men who showed him his mistakes.
We hired him when we were desperately short of men. He commuted from Long Island and was let go from many oil companies because of his ineptitude, laziness and slovenly appearance. But desperate times call for desperate measures. When he started working for us, he said “I found a home.”
He was quite heavy and often couldn’t fit in his working space. Many home builders put the gas or oil burner of the furnace or boiler too close to a wall to gain square footage of living space. He made up for his lack of ability to fix things with his scare tactics to sell new equipment to the customer. Sometimes he lost the sale and we lost the customer. More often than not he sold something. He was not on commission but eventually a certain amount of the clientele caught on to him and he was unwelcome in their homes on future calls.
Somehow he ingratiated himself with my partner and me because he never refused to help when we were very busy and he was willing to put in time when others would not.
On one of the first calls he went to, he made a mistake and added cold water to a hot steam cast iron boiler in the home of a woman who would later on become my own mother in law. He didn’t admit his mistake at the time but one of the other fellows snitched later on.
The other personnel in the company refused to go out for a coffee break or lunch with him because he had a “condition.” The “condition” was that he had very low pockets on his pant trousers and very short arms. In other words, he never, ever stuck his hands in his pockets to pay for anything at the end of a meal or when anyone approached the cashier. I could never figure out how he got away with it, because most people would not stand for it.
Manny knew I liked fishing and he told me he would love to go with me one day and get a paid day out of basements. He invited me to go fishing using a neighbor’s boat. Once we left the dock he took off his shirt and it was as if an announcement was made:
”Attention all Green flies! We have some prime meat to land on right off Jones Beach . Look for the fat man with blond hair and enjoy!” I couldn’t believe it. He never felt a thing as these marina monsters landed on him and bit away. I was petrified of those biting insects because they give one “helluva” mean stinging bite.. He never even flinched and was covered with welts. We did catch a few flounder so it wasn’t a total loss.
As time went on he had trouble with his hips due to his enormous weight which enabled him to go on service calls that involved standing only. After a hip was replaced he saw the handwriting on the wall and convinced his wife to move to Florida with him. She quickly found a good position as a skilled bookkeeper and he moved into his late mothers apartment.
His mother had passed away a few years prior and both of his brothers were successful professionals who didn’t care that he managed her finances. Somehow he conned them both and had access to her money and the deed to her home in an area of Delray Beach called Kings Point. So, like so many of my employees who retired before me, he moved to Florida in about 1995.
I retired in 2000, and wanted to live in Florida. I found out from my cousin Ann who lived in Huntington Towers that she had seen Manny and his wife at several low end restaurants. I made her swear never to tell him that I had bought a home in Florida when I did in 2001. I also told the other former employees whose whereabouts were known that they dare not tell Manny the Moocher that I was here.
I once had the payroll department of my old place call up the union local to see if he was still alive and collecting his pension. I was amazed that he was still alive since he was so grossly overweight and had diabetes. He never had high blood pressure when I knew him.
I was always afraid of running in to him at Home Depot as it was the place that was near both Manny and me to buy tools and materiel. I once had a cab driver who was chatty tell me about a guy in his development who was a slob and a bull thrower who could empty out a room by just entering it because people wanted to avoid him. I asked if his name was Manny Belinsky, and indeed it was. I gave him a huge tip and told him to forget my name and where he picked me up.
Recently I had out of town guests visiting me and we were sitting around the pool in our community. During a break in conversation I remembered that I had not checked my answer machine in my Long Island residence and dialed the number. I had one message and it was from Dora Belinsky asking me to call her. I didn’t know when the message was left. I called up my former business partner to ask him if he heard anything about Manny the Moocher and the call that I received in New York. He said that Manny must have died and that I should confirm it. I borrowed my guest’s telephone which had a Massachusett’s area code to return Dora’s call. That way she would not have to know that I am nearby. She informed me that Manny had died that very day and figured that since he was fond of me that I would want to know.
I asked what he died of and she told me that he was seventy seven years old and had everything wrong with him and wanted to die. I asked where the funeral would be held and she told me that it was going to be locally in Florida. I thanked her for calling and told her that I would pass the word on to the “office.” The Belinsky’s did not realize that I had retired almost eight years ago.
I am sorry when anyone passes on and felt bad about it. For the life of me I can’t figure out why I was called. We had not communicated for the last twelve years or exchanged family information on life’s happenings.
At any time of the day or night I can now feel free to go to Home Depot without looking around to see if the coast is clear, but I really haven’t thought about that for awhile. I realize that my fear of running into him was silly. I could have said that I was visiting Ann or anything else without admitting that I lived here.
Forty Five Years of Heat
Forty Five Years of Heat
At twenty years of age, right after graduating from college, I entered our family home heating oil and service business in Brooklyn, N.Y. We had a customer base of about 1200 homes, small businesses, and multiple family residences. We were a service business where it was “hands on” by the owners. We knew our clients and they knew us.
My father was, “the Mr. Cohn” who the customers wanted to speak with when they had a heating problem and many years later it was me who stepped into those hard to fill shoes of his. Eventually I became the “Mr. Cohn” at Boro Fuel.
Dad retired in 1972.
When I was in college I had seen a quotation from Goethe which said,
“What you inherit from your fathers, you must earn to possess.” It is true and I never forgot it. I had seen many businesses similar to mine fall by the side because of inept management by the next generation.
I learned enough to find my place in the industry, become a respected owner, and enable the business to thrive despite fierce competition from within the industry. The deregulation of natural gas opened the home heating market for new gas heating sales by the utilities. This was the largest single negative factor impacting our business. Regional and national oil heating associations still spend vast amounts of money on advertising to slow the progression of the gas inroads.
Our customer base was so concentrated that we had to run one oil trunk every four blocks in our part of Brooklyn. This consisted of Boro Park and nearby Flatbush and Bensonhurst. At our peak we ran seven oil trucks and had five service technicians. Each truck had between 3500 to 5000 gallons and was refilled two or three times a day. Our clientele was mostly Jewish and Italian. They were for the most part loyal customers who came to you if they had a complaint and you rectified it. It kept the customer and us happy. We always met the customers demand at least halfway. If we did not give them something for their efforts we “won the battle but lost the war” and usually the customer as well.
Most of these people were tough, hard nosed, and obstinate. They bickered for the best price and the best service with a very demanding attitude but they were loyal customers. They had came to America and were determined to make a better life for their children. They were hard working honest people. We kept no inventory, there was no spoilage and the product disappeared into thin air and had to be replenished constantly. It was a beautiful business until the mid 1990's when marketing conditions changed.
Early on I decided to get to know the customers and spent several days on the truck with an oil delivery man. I am glad I did not deliver on my own as my mind wandered. I never would have paid attention to the “whistle”, or vent alarm, which signaled the driver to stop pumping when the tank was almost full. At my fathers suggestion I went door to door to try and get new accounts. This gave me an appreciation of how difficult it is to get a satisfied customer to change companies. Later on I went with a mechanic repairing and cleaning oil burners. I also helped install several boilers and learned more in the basement than I could have learned from books or in the office. It was an integral part of my learning how to be a heating man. It gave me the understanding and knowledge that only “hands on” can do. I never drove one of those massive oil trucks more than a few feet. It is like driving a railroad car. The driver actually counts the people approaching to cross in front of the truck and makes sure the same number of people comes out on the other side of the truck cab. When sitting up that high all you see are tops of heads. A lot of judgment is needed especially going in reverse gear to park such a large vehicle. Thank goodness, we never had a pedestrian accident.
I started from the ground level which I really felt gave me an appreciation and understanding of all aspects of the business. I obtained my own installer license and was certified to file plans and do work in New York City. It is a difficult license to obtain involving a written and practical (hands on) test.
I was ready for the office where I was to spend most of my time.
My desk was right up front close to the cashier’s window. Many customers came into pay because they either lived nearby or just liked to have a place to go to. Some just preferred to pay by cash. Sometimes they came in to try and bargain for a better price (every time).
A new customer, Mr. Assouline, came in to ask for a brick. I said to follow me and brought him to the garage where we had our installation supplies. I showed him common red brick, combustion chamber soft high temp brick, split bricks, refractory bricks, perhaps ten types in all. I asked him,
“Which do you need?” He replied,
“No, no, I need a ‘brick’ in the price of what you are charging me for the oil.”.
That was one of the funnier events.
I had many tradesmen for customers, but house painters and butchers were especially tough people to please. In particular I had three house painters who were known to be top quality painters who worked alone. Each owned three or four multiple dwellings that we serviced. They were hard workers and perfectionists. Today they would be called anal retentive.
Mr. Brisman would walk into the office and say in a heavy accent,
“First I want from you a smile and then a hello” each and every time he came in. Then he would pay his bills. After the smile and hello his gruff, brusque manner took over. Our office staff consisted of three bookkeepers, two senior bosses and the two junior bosses.
Mr. Taubin, another one of these house painters, always came in wearing a beret of one type or another. He sported a big moustache, wore eyeglasses halfway down his nose and used to say to Bill our male bookkeeper,
“Hallo Beel, how do you fill?” I loved his accent. He would crook a beckoning finger at you and say what he wanted. He took up considerable time because he made the bookkeeper recalculate each and every delivery slip by hand. He did not trust adding machines or later on computers. When the computation was finished, he would then take his figures out of his pocket and see if the tally was exactly the same was as his. If it was off by a penny he wanted to know why. When he called up on the telephone he refused to listen to music or our infomercial and would not be placed on hold. The office staff was instructed to lay the phone receiver down on the desk with the phone line “open.” He threatened that if he was placed on hold he would cancel his accounts. I didn’t doubt him for a minute. He was one of a kind, an original back breaker.
The last member of this trio was Mr Steinberg who owned two six family houses in Bensonhurst. He demanded that I come to his house when he got his rents and he paid his bill after I had a “glass of tea” with him. He remarried an appropriate woman after his wife passed on. His new wife told me,
“I had my own house and I did business with the Cirillo Brothers. They always did right by me. I tried to get Benny to switch”.
I let her know that the Cirillo Brothers had a fine company but Mr. Steinberg had the installation of oil heat done by us and he loved our service. I assured her that she would be very happy with us as well. She was just letting us know that she had some power and wanted to be respected. We gave her the respect and included her on any business decision he had to make regarding his oil account. I knew he was beginning to “lose it” when one day he said,
“Your daddy and your uncle look so much alike, which one is your poppa, your daddy or your uncle?”
The butchers were another story. They were a humorless bunch. However, some fancied themselves to be Romeos and tried to “hit” on the housewives. Perhaps they thought WW2 was still on. Several butchers owned multiple houses that we delivered oil to. Mr. Taub, I was told years after he died, propositioned my mother, step-mother and both mothers -in law. I think he propositioned any female. I guess once in awhile he got lucky. You can be sure he wasn’t lucky with the aforementioned ladies. One of my mothers card playing friends, Doris, called him up after getting “loaded” one New Years eve and said,
“Hey Taub, your schmuck should be as hard as your chuck!” I think she knew. He was a miserable person and very nasty as well.
Another butcher who left a lasting impression on me was Jack Fogel. One day I said to Mr. Fogel, when I went to his house on an estimate,
“How are you my friend?” as I had seen my father do with him in prior years. Mr. Fogel had been a heroic guerilla in the Warsaw Ghetto and I had great respect for him. He asked me,
“Have I ever sat down and had a cup of coffee in your house?”
“No,” I replied.
“Have you ever had a cup of coffee in my house?”
I again said,”No.”
“Than I am not your friend, I am your customer; your father, ‘Willie’, he was my friend.”
He taught me a lesson in humility.
I have remembered that story and told it countless times, including most recently to a roofer who was cheating me on a roof tile repair job , courtesy of Hurricane Wilma..
When he called me,
“My friend”, my hackles went up and I told him why he is NOT my friend, among other reasons.
Some of our clientele did not use the post office or banks. We were the “bank of Boro Fuel.” When their social security check came they would call up and say,” I got it.”
We immediately knew by the voice if it was Mrs Zander , Mrs Buccafusco or one of the dozen or so who insisted that we bring them the exact change for their check and pick up their payment. We stopped personal collections years ago.
Mrs Buccafusco, a skinny old crone with wire frame glasses was a nervous woman. Her late husband had been had an opera star in Italy and she had pictures of him in costume on the walls of her home. She never failed to point them out to me every month that she had an oil bill. When she did not owe money she still tried to get us to come and cash her check.
One day when I had to bring her change and pick up her check (very early in my career, I might add, before I rebelled against such tasks) she said to me,
“You know my granddaughter; she’s going to get married. She’s going to marry one of your kind”.
“Oh” I quickly asked,
“Do you mean a man, a tall person, or perhaps an earthling? I really don’t know what you mean”. In reality I knew very well.
“Come on, you know what I mean. He’s a Jew, BUT NICE!”
‘”Oh”, I said “Well thank God for that.”
I don’t think I would answer differently today.
When Mrs. Bertha Zander would call up, she would say,
“Please, you’ve got to come right away, I gotta give you your money, it’s not mine. Hurry up.”
Rain or snow or whatever, we had to run on that collection. She too was another old skinny lady who wore her hair in a bun and a house dress with an apron over it, as you would expect. On the top of her newspaper covered soggy staircase was at least six or eight yellow glass gallons of what was known as Javelle water or what we call Chlorine bleach today. The house reeked of it. She washed the hallway and staircase of that six family house multiple times each day. I don’t think her linoleum covered stairs ever saw daylight. She would hand over the money, look up toward heaven while wringing her hands and exclaim,
“Denks Gott!, denks gott, now I don’t owe nobotty nottink., Oy I am sooo heppy I can sleep tonight”.
We had lots of characters for customers. The more memorable ones earned nicknames like,
“Deaf Greenberg” who spoke so loudly that whoever answered the phone had to hold it a foot away from their head. There was “Dots Levine” who preceded every phone order with “Dots Levine” calling. Mrs Wein used to say this is Mrs. Wein, Boro. The same (stupid) office person always thought she said, this is Mrs. Weinboro and answered, “Yes Mrs. Weinboro”. Another lady started every call with,” Well, this is Miss Indelicato”. There was a lawyer, “Say, this is Nathan Ginsberg” etc. He had a voice just like Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo). After awhile I knew all the regular callers by voice before they got the second syllable out. I had a great deal of patience for the ones my Dad referred to as naked Santa Clauses, or “Nude-niks”. I always told the customers who thought they were pestering me,
“Never apologize, you are paying my salary and I am here to help you.” I tried to mean it even if
my patience was wearing thin.
One poor soul, Mr. Lamstein, kept calling every two minutes that he is cold and has no heat. The dispatcher kept telling him to stop calling or he will not send anyone. This did not help at all. We finally called up his daughter to tell him to stop calling. She told us that her father doesn’t realize what he is dong and that she would go over and take care of the matter. That was when we realized he was senile or had Alzheimer’s disease. So we now had an, “in office” buzzword, not meant unkindly, for people having the,”Lamstein Syndrome.” These were but a few of the more colorful and memorable people I had as customers.
Memories, memories, there were so many characters that came in to our street level office. There were con men, schemers, dreamers, beggars, hustlers, streetwalkers, bull throwers and sales people galore. Eventually we put in a buzzer system and intercom to screen who we admitted. The neighborhood changed as well as our clientele. The area became seedy. Many of the old customers sold to builders and the new houses used gas heat. Our customer base changed from mostly Jewish and Italian to more than three fourths Asiatic, Latino, and African-American. The Italian -Americans went to Staten Island and the secular Jewish customers to Long Island. The Orthodox Jews moved heavily into Boro Park.
Today the office personnel reflect the ethnicity of the customers. They have the “United Nations”
working there, and rightfully so.
I don’t miss work at all. I worked in the oil business for many years and was beginning to feel burnt out. The fifty six mile round trip that I was making every day since 1972 became more arduous as more people fled the inner city. I occasionally have nightmares about some aspect of the business usually involving an environmental problem.
I put in over 45 years on the job doing everything from credit and collection, buying oil, buying boilers, plumbing fittings, controlling parts inventory and checking in serviceman and drivers. I answered many phone calls myself, handled all sales, advertising, customer retention and solicitation of new accounts and real estate leads. I also bought and equipped all of our oil delivery and service trucks and company cars, and priced the service charges. My partner and I wore many hats. He mostly took care of the bookkeeping, billing and payables as well as dispatching. The new owner has eight people in the office doing what we did. We worked from seven A.M. until we closed whether it was six, seven or eight o’clock at night, sometimes six or seven days a week as needed. That work ethic is not there today. Maybe we were not as smart, but we worked hard and saved our money.
I have never looked back and have been to Brooklyn perhaps three times since I retired. I am so very happy to wake up here in sunny Florida. I turn on the TV as I get ready to go fishing or for an early swim. I hear Al Roker or some other weather person say how cold it is in New York. I am delighted to have gotten out when I did. I doubt that I would still be alive if I stayed in that business. I earned my retirement.
,
I am a past president of the New York Oil Heating Association. Each year we published a directory and it lists all the past presidents. Only a few who served before me are still alive and too many who served after me are gone as well. It became a very difficult business and I made the vow that I would not be carried out feet first. Dad retired only after he had a major heart attack at age 62. I retired at age 62 and didn’t want to tempt fate.
The nature of the business has changed. We used to buy and resell heating oil Today, you have to be a commodities buyer and hedge oil futures. Insurance rates have soared since 9-1-1. At one time it was fun to go to work, but not anymore. Severe price spikes became rampant in 1999 and the business was too volatile. The year ending before I retired we had our first negative balance sheet because of price guarantees. I felt the future of the industry was bleak. More and more companies were being swallowed up in the economic times of the business “roll up”.
Suddenly the largest buyer of oil companies ran into trouble and was considering going into Chapter 11. That company set the standard for a fuel company buy out price. I decided to get out while I can before the business became worth very little. I told my partner that I wanted to retire. He said he would not stay without me. I told him that since I was active in the dealers association that I would find a buyer. I found two companies who wanted to acquire us. We eventually sold to my partner’s son who had entered the business several years before. It was a logical move for him since he got his father to guarantee my buy out. He knew the business and is still being tested in the matter of business survival.
I sold my interest in my beloved building that we were housed in to my partner. That was a mixed blessing. I loved that piece of property but didn’t want to be tied to it. I had a five year payout which was completed in June2005 for which I am very grateful. The industry has shrunk further and is more precarious than ever.
I got out at a time of life when I could still enjoy whatever God given years I may have. I like to think like Mrs. Zander,
“Denks Gott, I don’t owe nobotty nottink”.
At twenty years of age, right after graduating from college, I entered our family home heating oil and service business in Brooklyn, N.Y. We had a customer base of about 1200 homes, small businesses, and multiple family residences. We were a service business where it was “hands on” by the owners. We knew our clients and they knew us.
My father was, “the Mr. Cohn” who the customers wanted to speak with when they had a heating problem and many years later it was me who stepped into those hard to fill shoes of his. Eventually I became the “Mr. Cohn” at Boro Fuel.
Dad retired in 1972.
When I was in college I had seen a quotation from Goethe which said,
“What you inherit from your fathers, you must earn to possess.” It is true and I never forgot it. I had seen many businesses similar to mine fall by the side because of inept management by the next generation.
I learned enough to find my place in the industry, become a respected owner, and enable the business to thrive despite fierce competition from within the industry. The deregulation of natural gas opened the home heating market for new gas heating sales by the utilities. This was the largest single negative factor impacting our business. Regional and national oil heating associations still spend vast amounts of money on advertising to slow the progression of the gas inroads.
Our customer base was so concentrated that we had to run one oil trunk every four blocks in our part of Brooklyn. This consisted of Boro Park and nearby Flatbush and Bensonhurst. At our peak we ran seven oil trucks and had five service technicians. Each truck had between 3500 to 5000 gallons and was refilled two or three times a day. Our clientele was mostly Jewish and Italian. They were for the most part loyal customers who came to you if they had a complaint and you rectified it. It kept the customer and us happy. We always met the customers demand at least halfway. If we did not give them something for their efforts we “won the battle but lost the war” and usually the customer as well.
Most of these people were tough, hard nosed, and obstinate. They bickered for the best price and the best service with a very demanding attitude but they were loyal customers. They had came to America and were determined to make a better life for their children. They were hard working honest people. We kept no inventory, there was no spoilage and the product disappeared into thin air and had to be replenished constantly. It was a beautiful business until the mid 1990's when marketing conditions changed.
Early on I decided to get to know the customers and spent several days on the truck with an oil delivery man. I am glad I did not deliver on my own as my mind wandered. I never would have paid attention to the “whistle”, or vent alarm, which signaled the driver to stop pumping when the tank was almost full. At my fathers suggestion I went door to door to try and get new accounts. This gave me an appreciation of how difficult it is to get a satisfied customer to change companies. Later on I went with a mechanic repairing and cleaning oil burners. I also helped install several boilers and learned more in the basement than I could have learned from books or in the office. It was an integral part of my learning how to be a heating man. It gave me the understanding and knowledge that only “hands on” can do. I never drove one of those massive oil trucks more than a few feet. It is like driving a railroad car. The driver actually counts the people approaching to cross in front of the truck and makes sure the same number of people comes out on the other side of the truck cab. When sitting up that high all you see are tops of heads. A lot of judgment is needed especially going in reverse gear to park such a large vehicle. Thank goodness, we never had a pedestrian accident.
I started from the ground level which I really felt gave me an appreciation and understanding of all aspects of the business. I obtained my own installer license and was certified to file plans and do work in New York City. It is a difficult license to obtain involving a written and practical (hands on) test.
I was ready for the office where I was to spend most of my time.
My desk was right up front close to the cashier’s window. Many customers came into pay because they either lived nearby or just liked to have a place to go to. Some just preferred to pay by cash. Sometimes they came in to try and bargain for a better price (every time).
A new customer, Mr. Assouline, came in to ask for a brick. I said to follow me and brought him to the garage where we had our installation supplies. I showed him common red brick, combustion chamber soft high temp brick, split bricks, refractory bricks, perhaps ten types in all. I asked him,
“Which do you need?” He replied,
“No, no, I need a ‘brick’ in the price of what you are charging me for the oil.”.
That was one of the funnier events.
I had many tradesmen for customers, but house painters and butchers were especially tough people to please. In particular I had three house painters who were known to be top quality painters who worked alone. Each owned three or four multiple dwellings that we serviced. They were hard workers and perfectionists. Today they would be called anal retentive.
Mr. Brisman would walk into the office and say in a heavy accent,
“First I want from you a smile and then a hello” each and every time he came in. Then he would pay his bills. After the smile and hello his gruff, brusque manner took over. Our office staff consisted of three bookkeepers, two senior bosses and the two junior bosses.
Mr. Taubin, another one of these house painters, always came in wearing a beret of one type or another. He sported a big moustache, wore eyeglasses halfway down his nose and used to say to Bill our male bookkeeper,
“Hallo Beel, how do you fill?” I loved his accent. He would crook a beckoning finger at you and say what he wanted. He took up considerable time because he made the bookkeeper recalculate each and every delivery slip by hand. He did not trust adding machines or later on computers. When the computation was finished, he would then take his figures out of his pocket and see if the tally was exactly the same was as his. If it was off by a penny he wanted to know why. When he called up on the telephone he refused to listen to music or our infomercial and would not be placed on hold. The office staff was instructed to lay the phone receiver down on the desk with the phone line “open.” He threatened that if he was placed on hold he would cancel his accounts. I didn’t doubt him for a minute. He was one of a kind, an original back breaker.
The last member of this trio was Mr Steinberg who owned two six family houses in Bensonhurst. He demanded that I come to his house when he got his rents and he paid his bill after I had a “glass of tea” with him. He remarried an appropriate woman after his wife passed on. His new wife told me,
“I had my own house and I did business with the Cirillo Brothers. They always did right by me. I tried to get Benny to switch”.
I let her know that the Cirillo Brothers had a fine company but Mr. Steinberg had the installation of oil heat done by us and he loved our service. I assured her that she would be very happy with us as well. She was just letting us know that she had some power and wanted to be respected. We gave her the respect and included her on any business decision he had to make regarding his oil account. I knew he was beginning to “lose it” when one day he said,
“Your daddy and your uncle look so much alike, which one is your poppa, your daddy or your uncle?”
The butchers were another story. They were a humorless bunch. However, some fancied themselves to be Romeos and tried to “hit” on the housewives. Perhaps they thought WW2 was still on. Several butchers owned multiple houses that we delivered oil to. Mr. Taub, I was told years after he died, propositioned my mother, step-mother and both mothers -in law. I think he propositioned any female. I guess once in awhile he got lucky. You can be sure he wasn’t lucky with the aforementioned ladies. One of my mothers card playing friends, Doris, called him up after getting “loaded” one New Years eve and said,
“Hey Taub, your schmuck should be as hard as your chuck!” I think she knew. He was a miserable person and very nasty as well.
Another butcher who left a lasting impression on me was Jack Fogel. One day I said to Mr. Fogel, when I went to his house on an estimate,
“How are you my friend?” as I had seen my father do with him in prior years. Mr. Fogel had been a heroic guerilla in the Warsaw Ghetto and I had great respect for him. He asked me,
“Have I ever sat down and had a cup of coffee in your house?”
“No,” I replied.
“Have you ever had a cup of coffee in my house?”
I again said,”No.”
“Than I am not your friend, I am your customer; your father, ‘Willie’, he was my friend.”
He taught me a lesson in humility.
I have remembered that story and told it countless times, including most recently to a roofer who was cheating me on a roof tile repair job , courtesy of Hurricane Wilma..
When he called me,
“My friend”, my hackles went up and I told him why he is NOT my friend, among other reasons.
Some of our clientele did not use the post office or banks. We were the “bank of Boro Fuel.” When their social security check came they would call up and say,” I got it.”
We immediately knew by the voice if it was Mrs Zander , Mrs Buccafusco or one of the dozen or so who insisted that we bring them the exact change for their check and pick up their payment. We stopped personal collections years ago.
Mrs Buccafusco, a skinny old crone with wire frame glasses was a nervous woman. Her late husband had been had an opera star in Italy and she had pictures of him in costume on the walls of her home. She never failed to point them out to me every month that she had an oil bill. When she did not owe money she still tried to get us to come and cash her check.
One day when I had to bring her change and pick up her check (very early in my career, I might add, before I rebelled against such tasks) she said to me,
“You know my granddaughter; she’s going to get married. She’s going to marry one of your kind”.
“Oh” I quickly asked,
“Do you mean a man, a tall person, or perhaps an earthling? I really don’t know what you mean”. In reality I knew very well.
“Come on, you know what I mean. He’s a Jew, BUT NICE!”
‘”Oh”, I said “Well thank God for that.”
I don’t think I would answer differently today.
When Mrs. Bertha Zander would call up, she would say,
“Please, you’ve got to come right away, I gotta give you your money, it’s not mine. Hurry up.”
Rain or snow or whatever, we had to run on that collection. She too was another old skinny lady who wore her hair in a bun and a house dress with an apron over it, as you would expect. On the top of her newspaper covered soggy staircase was at least six or eight yellow glass gallons of what was known as Javelle water or what we call Chlorine bleach today. The house reeked of it. She washed the hallway and staircase of that six family house multiple times each day. I don’t think her linoleum covered stairs ever saw daylight. She would hand over the money, look up toward heaven while wringing her hands and exclaim,
“Denks Gott!, denks gott, now I don’t owe nobotty nottink., Oy I am sooo heppy I can sleep tonight”.
We had lots of characters for customers. The more memorable ones earned nicknames like,
“Deaf Greenberg” who spoke so loudly that whoever answered the phone had to hold it a foot away from their head. There was “Dots Levine” who preceded every phone order with “Dots Levine” calling. Mrs Wein used to say this is Mrs. Wein, Boro. The same (stupid) office person always thought she said, this is Mrs. Weinboro and answered, “Yes Mrs. Weinboro”. Another lady started every call with,” Well, this is Miss Indelicato”. There was a lawyer, “Say, this is Nathan Ginsberg” etc. He had a voice just like Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo). After awhile I knew all the regular callers by voice before they got the second syllable out. I had a great deal of patience for the ones my Dad referred to as naked Santa Clauses, or “Nude-niks”. I always told the customers who thought they were pestering me,
“Never apologize, you are paying my salary and I am here to help you.” I tried to mean it even if
my patience was wearing thin.
One poor soul, Mr. Lamstein, kept calling every two minutes that he is cold and has no heat. The dispatcher kept telling him to stop calling or he will not send anyone. This did not help at all. We finally called up his daughter to tell him to stop calling. She told us that her father doesn’t realize what he is dong and that she would go over and take care of the matter. That was when we realized he was senile or had Alzheimer’s disease. So we now had an, “in office” buzzword, not meant unkindly, for people having the,”Lamstein Syndrome.” These were but a few of the more colorful and memorable people I had as customers.
Memories, memories, there were so many characters that came in to our street level office. There were con men, schemers, dreamers, beggars, hustlers, streetwalkers, bull throwers and sales people galore. Eventually we put in a buzzer system and intercom to screen who we admitted. The neighborhood changed as well as our clientele. The area became seedy. Many of the old customers sold to builders and the new houses used gas heat. Our customer base changed from mostly Jewish and Italian to more than three fourths Asiatic, Latino, and African-American. The Italian -Americans went to Staten Island and the secular Jewish customers to Long Island. The Orthodox Jews moved heavily into Boro Park.
Today the office personnel reflect the ethnicity of the customers. They have the “United Nations”
working there, and rightfully so.
I don’t miss work at all. I worked in the oil business for many years and was beginning to feel burnt out. The fifty six mile round trip that I was making every day since 1972 became more arduous as more people fled the inner city. I occasionally have nightmares about some aspect of the business usually involving an environmental problem.
I put in over 45 years on the job doing everything from credit and collection, buying oil, buying boilers, plumbing fittings, controlling parts inventory and checking in serviceman and drivers. I answered many phone calls myself, handled all sales, advertising, customer retention and solicitation of new accounts and real estate leads. I also bought and equipped all of our oil delivery and service trucks and company cars, and priced the service charges. My partner and I wore many hats. He mostly took care of the bookkeeping, billing and payables as well as dispatching. The new owner has eight people in the office doing what we did. We worked from seven A.M. until we closed whether it was six, seven or eight o’clock at night, sometimes six or seven days a week as needed. That work ethic is not there today. Maybe we were not as smart, but we worked hard and saved our money.
I have never looked back and have been to Brooklyn perhaps three times since I retired. I am so very happy to wake up here in sunny Florida. I turn on the TV as I get ready to go fishing or for an early swim. I hear Al Roker or some other weather person say how cold it is in New York. I am delighted to have gotten out when I did. I doubt that I would still be alive if I stayed in that business. I earned my retirement.
,
I am a past president of the New York Oil Heating Association. Each year we published a directory and it lists all the past presidents. Only a few who served before me are still alive and too many who served after me are gone as well. It became a very difficult business and I made the vow that I would not be carried out feet first. Dad retired only after he had a major heart attack at age 62. I retired at age 62 and didn’t want to tempt fate.
The nature of the business has changed. We used to buy and resell heating oil Today, you have to be a commodities buyer and hedge oil futures. Insurance rates have soared since 9-1-1. At one time it was fun to go to work, but not anymore. Severe price spikes became rampant in 1999 and the business was too volatile. The year ending before I retired we had our first negative balance sheet because of price guarantees. I felt the future of the industry was bleak. More and more companies were being swallowed up in the economic times of the business “roll up”.
Suddenly the largest buyer of oil companies ran into trouble and was considering going into Chapter 11. That company set the standard for a fuel company buy out price. I decided to get out while I can before the business became worth very little. I told my partner that I wanted to retire. He said he would not stay without me. I told him that since I was active in the dealers association that I would find a buyer. I found two companies who wanted to acquire us. We eventually sold to my partner’s son who had entered the business several years before. It was a logical move for him since he got his father to guarantee my buy out. He knew the business and is still being tested in the matter of business survival.
I sold my interest in my beloved building that we were housed in to my partner. That was a mixed blessing. I loved that piece of property but didn’t want to be tied to it. I had a five year payout which was completed in June2005 for which I am very grateful. The industry has shrunk further and is more precarious than ever.
I got out at a time of life when I could still enjoy whatever God given years I may have. I like to think like Mrs. Zander,
“Denks Gott, I don’t owe nobotty nottink”.
Mister Invisible
Mister Invisible
I’m sick and tired of it and I won’t take it anymore. I know I’m a small and dainty guy and hard to see but enough is enough. I used to like to go to “The Boys Farmers Market” with my wife for the sheer fun of seeing good merchandising. Alright, I’ll admit it; I like to graze as I walk around like the other mavens who sample all the goodies that are available for tasting. Heck, there are even some folks who go there to have a free lunch snacking on the samples.
More to the point I stopped going there last season because I was recuperating from a partially torn Achilles heel tendon and I was afraid of being banged into by some citizen pushing her wagon. I got into the habit of dragging my wagon behind me as I tried to navigate around the unorganized traffic flow. Last year when I still shopped there one
woman hit me not once , not twice , but three times in a row. I turned around and yelled at her. I bellowed ,
“Hit me with your wagon one more time and you will be wearing it over your head!” She screamed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
I told her to be careful, not sorry.
This year I have boycotted the place entirely. The parking lot is usually bedlam as well.
Recently I went with my wife to the new garden furniture in the shops of San Marco. I reluctantly walked with Paula to get the “one” (read nineteen) item she needed from Publix. Since it was a Saturday at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon I figured we can get in and out quickly. Paula turned a corner and here I was standing in an aisle all by myself when a matron came along and banged into me and looked at me as if I had three heads. She then said “oops”. I thought “oops “was something that Velma and Mama Morton sang about in the show “Chicago.” In the song “Whatever Happened to Class? They sang,
What happened to old values?
And good breeding
Now, no one even says “oops” when they’re
Passing their gas
Whatever happened to class?
So I held my nose and quickly moved away in case she was a Chicago aficionado and let one fly. I thought to myself, it seems she was supposed to say something like “I’m sorry” or “excuse me” or the like (at least for the bumping me part of the equation). I guess I would have said “Oh that’s o.k.” ( I have another ankle and/or more toes on the other side). But it’s not okay to get constantly run over by these denizens of the canned goods aisle. Slightly resentful I moved one aisle over to hide behind my wife when another roller derby queen banged into me. I’m telling you, we were the only ones in the aisle as well. She at least was a bit contrite.
I said to myself, “I’m out of here.” I will go super market shopping only if I have steel toed boots on. It’s not for the faint of heart. Going back to “Chicago” maybe I’m Mr. Cellophane and people look right through me. How embarrassing.
Recently I entered the clubhouse at my home base of Valencia Falls and was coming into the café through the rear screened door where three women were chatting. I said in “sotto voce”
“excuse me”
Then a little louder,
“EXCUSE ME! “
Then finally ,
“Excuse me means I want to get around you!”
They finally moved aside. When I sat down to eat my lunch a nice woman who I recognized from the morning water exercise class came over to me and said,
“Bernie, I know you are a nice guy but I was with some guest friends and you shook up one of my friends by admonishing her. She’s very nice too.
“Go make nice to her” she sweetly said.
Being a softy I asked her what her friends name was and then I walked over to her and said,
“Esther, I didn’t mean to yell at you, but I just wasn’t being heard and the three of you were blocking the entrance. I am sorry I took out on you, for something else that happened earlier on (all the sins of mankind, my ritual circumcision when I was eight days old was terrible, or was it the fall of Chunking during WW2), I sardonically thought. She smiled and said,
“No problem”
Her friend Barbara, my pool companion (who never spoke to me before this )smiled victoriously to her group.
Onward and forward we go. This should be everyone’s biggest problem.
I’m sick and tired of it and I won’t take it anymore. I know I’m a small and dainty guy and hard to see but enough is enough. I used to like to go to “The Boys Farmers Market” with my wife for the sheer fun of seeing good merchandising. Alright, I’ll admit it; I like to graze as I walk around like the other mavens who sample all the goodies that are available for tasting. Heck, there are even some folks who go there to have a free lunch snacking on the samples.
More to the point I stopped going there last season because I was recuperating from a partially torn Achilles heel tendon and I was afraid of being banged into by some citizen pushing her wagon. I got into the habit of dragging my wagon behind me as I tried to navigate around the unorganized traffic flow. Last year when I still shopped there one
woman hit me not once , not twice , but three times in a row. I turned around and yelled at her. I bellowed ,
“Hit me with your wagon one more time and you will be wearing it over your head!” She screamed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
I told her to be careful, not sorry.
This year I have boycotted the place entirely. The parking lot is usually bedlam as well.
Recently I went with my wife to the new garden furniture in the shops of San Marco. I reluctantly walked with Paula to get the “one” (read nineteen) item she needed from Publix. Since it was a Saturday at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon I figured we can get in and out quickly. Paula turned a corner and here I was standing in an aisle all by myself when a matron came along and banged into me and looked at me as if I had three heads. She then said “oops”. I thought “oops “was something that Velma and Mama Morton sang about in the show “Chicago.” In the song “Whatever Happened to Class? They sang,
What happened to old values?
And good breeding
Now, no one even says “oops” when they’re
Passing their gas
Whatever happened to class?
So I held my nose and quickly moved away in case she was a Chicago aficionado and let one fly. I thought to myself, it seems she was supposed to say something like “I’m sorry” or “excuse me” or the like (at least for the bumping me part of the equation). I guess I would have said “Oh that’s o.k.” ( I have another ankle and/or more toes on the other side). But it’s not okay to get constantly run over by these denizens of the canned goods aisle. Slightly resentful I moved one aisle over to hide behind my wife when another roller derby queen banged into me. I’m telling you, we were the only ones in the aisle as well. She at least was a bit contrite.
I said to myself, “I’m out of here.” I will go super market shopping only if I have steel toed boots on. It’s not for the faint of heart. Going back to “Chicago” maybe I’m Mr. Cellophane and people look right through me. How embarrassing.
Recently I entered the clubhouse at my home base of Valencia Falls and was coming into the café through the rear screened door where three women were chatting. I said in “sotto voce”
“excuse me”
Then a little louder,
“EXCUSE ME! “
Then finally ,
“Excuse me means I want to get around you!”
They finally moved aside. When I sat down to eat my lunch a nice woman who I recognized from the morning water exercise class came over to me and said,
“Bernie, I know you are a nice guy but I was with some guest friends and you shook up one of my friends by admonishing her. She’s very nice too.
“Go make nice to her” she sweetly said.
Being a softy I asked her what her friends name was and then I walked over to her and said,
“Esther, I didn’t mean to yell at you, but I just wasn’t being heard and the three of you were blocking the entrance. I am sorry I took out on you, for something else that happened earlier on (all the sins of mankind, my ritual circumcision when I was eight days old was terrible, or was it the fall of Chunking during WW2), I sardonically thought. She smiled and said,
“No problem”
Her friend Barbara, my pool companion (who never spoke to me before this )smiled victoriously to her group.
Onward and forward we go. This should be everyone’s biggest problem.
And Away We Go
And Away We Go
In the Hebrew religion there is a prayer put to song called “La Dor Va Dor”, from “generation to generation” and it is sung in a sweet rhythmic melody. I thought about it the other day and was thinking that some of us, specifically me goes from “crisis to crisis”. Like Rosanna Anna Danna said on Saturday Night Life, “If it’s not one thing it’s another”.
I suppose that’s why in Florida when a new shopping center or strip mall goes up, we all know what happens after the keystone stores go in such as the latest Publix and Walgreen’s. The next place that opens is the pain management center followed by a chiropractor, podiatrist, and doctor’s office of some kind. In the remaining space you can probably find a coffee shop, bagel store and beauty salon. There will probably be some low scale or upscale restaurant as well. The moderately priced restaurants are usually doomed to a short life in the “off season”. At least in the latest economy that’s what I have observed.
In any swimming pool in Florida or café the conversations go on about what happened to someone ,who they use as a doctor, which doctor is the best for “X” condition and what hospital they are affiliated with. Then the medicine list starts with , “What do you take for high blood pressure and the paraphrasing of “ My dog ‘s better than your dog, my dog’s better than yours” . Just the words are changed to. “My diuretic is better than yours is, my diuretic is better than yours”. I knew we all said we wouldn’t get like that, but like Pogo said “We have seen the enemy and the enemy is us”. I suppose that is part of human nature and the process we go through. We have become our parents.
In the last few years my wife and I have had many operations, broken or repaired feet, tendons, digestive issues, blood pressure problems and for good measure a bout of cancer and MOHS surgeries. Welcome to Florida, the sunshine state where most of the natives over fifty five years old can’t eat grapefruit because it exacerbates their statin drug’s abilities in an uncontrolled manner. It is strange because for twenty years I went to work and took my Lipitor, not at night like I was later told to followed by a whole grapefruit for breakfast almost every day, except when grapefruit was out of season. I was none the worse for it. A little lack knowledge is sometimes all right.
At any rate what is one days crisis when it is over is best suppressed by our blessed bodily process that enables us to go on and function in our normal manner and eagerly forget what was bothering us. That we can pick up the daily Sun Sentinel and see who has the best coupons to get our mega dose of salt for dinner tonight.
In the Hebrew religion there is a prayer put to song called “La Dor Va Dor”, from “generation to generation” and it is sung in a sweet rhythmic melody. I thought about it the other day and was thinking that some of us, specifically me goes from “crisis to crisis”. Like Rosanna Anna Danna said on Saturday Night Life, “If it’s not one thing it’s another”.
I suppose that’s why in Florida when a new shopping center or strip mall goes up, we all know what happens after the keystone stores go in such as the latest Publix and Walgreen’s. The next place that opens is the pain management center followed by a chiropractor, podiatrist, and doctor’s office of some kind. In the remaining space you can probably find a coffee shop, bagel store and beauty salon. There will probably be some low scale or upscale restaurant as well. The moderately priced restaurants are usually doomed to a short life in the “off season”. At least in the latest economy that’s what I have observed.
In any swimming pool in Florida or café the conversations go on about what happened to someone ,who they use as a doctor, which doctor is the best for “X” condition and what hospital they are affiliated with. Then the medicine list starts with , “What do you take for high blood pressure and the paraphrasing of “ My dog ‘s better than your dog, my dog’s better than yours” . Just the words are changed to. “My diuretic is better than yours is, my diuretic is better than yours”. I knew we all said we wouldn’t get like that, but like Pogo said “We have seen the enemy and the enemy is us”. I suppose that is part of human nature and the process we go through. We have become our parents.
In the last few years my wife and I have had many operations, broken or repaired feet, tendons, digestive issues, blood pressure problems and for good measure a bout of cancer and MOHS surgeries. Welcome to Florida, the sunshine state where most of the natives over fifty five years old can’t eat grapefruit because it exacerbates their statin drug’s abilities in an uncontrolled manner. It is strange because for twenty years I went to work and took my Lipitor, not at night like I was later told to followed by a whole grapefruit for breakfast almost every day, except when grapefruit was out of season. I was none the worse for it. A little lack knowledge is sometimes all right.
At any rate what is one days crisis when it is over is best suppressed by our blessed bodily process that enables us to go on and function in our normal manner and eagerly forget what was bothering us. That we can pick up the daily Sun Sentinel and see who has the best coupons to get our mega dose of salt for dinner tonight.
An Unforgettable Character
An Unforgettable Character
I remember a feature in “Readers Digest called “The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met.” We all have had our share of characters come and go in our lives who had wonderful attributes and at the same time were flawed like all of us.
From time to time I think about some of the former employees of my family owned business. One of the oil truck drivers was a hard worker named Tony Raimo. He worked in the off season as a boiler installation man and did whatever we asked him to do i.e. truck maintenance if there were no deliveries of oil to be made. He was the second driver on the seniority list for over twenty five years before Frank Mastrando retired, after a stroke. Tony became the numero uno or shop steward. We ran between six to nine drivers during the winter season. Tony always did more deliveries than any other man and never said,” No” if a call came in to deliver oil on overtime or emergency. He would work endless hours because he was, “hungry for the buck.” He had the key to the premises and would let himself in and out. All of our men got paid for every minute they worked at Teamster union contract wages and conditions.
However,Tony was an exceptional miser like one of our mechanics Jimmy Conoglione. They never went to a restaurant or bought a ready made sandwich. These two who sometimes worked together would buy a package of cream cheese and an Italian hero bread and make their own sandwich and have it along with their thermos’ of coffee they brought from home.
Tony wore blue dungarees and fashioned a belt and suspenders from clothes line. When he needed eyeglasses he told me that he got them from his friend who worked at the local funeral home who took them from “someone who wouldn’t need them anymore.” He never took Frances his wife out, EVER. He never went to a physician outside of the Veterans Administration facilities.
When we had our company celebration prior to New Years Eve, he stayed around until cleanup time and then took all the leftover sandwiches, pretzels, chips, candies and anything else home for his wife. He swept up all the aforementioned items into a paper sack together! They would have it at night while TV programs of the New Year were being ushered in at Times Square. Fran never saw the inside of a restaurant or ever had “take out” food. Her only past time was going to doctors offices and perhaps church bingo.
He owned a three family house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and lived across the street from a small apartment house. He doubled as the janitor there washing the floors and taking out the trash barrels and doing small plumbing jobs. He also told me that he gave people who needed it “third mortgages” at high of course, interest rates. No one was stupid enough to default on him.
Physically he bore a great resemblance to the actor William Bendix, famous for the “Life of Riley” television series. He was medium height, thickly built, wide necked and as strong as a bull. I remember him breaking up the concrete slabs of our sidewalk and thick reinforced garage slabs with either a hand sledge or electric hammer like child’s play.
When he was delivering oil to a customers home if they weren’t standing nearby he would go through their trash can looking for metal or newspapers which he would accumulate and sell at the junk yards. Most of our workers would collect scrap and take them off the job when they changed pipes and valves during installations. They were supposed to turn them in at the shop and we would sell it a few times a year and split with everyone proportionately. He collected aluminum when it had very little value.
Obviously Tony was a child of the depression and must have suffered greatly. When a large part of our home delivery neighborhood became Orthodox Jewish Tony started wearing a skull cap to ingratiate him with the Jewish customers for tips. When someone complained to the office we made him stop by telling him it was disrespectful. One time when a customer was standing near the truck watching the oil meter, the customer sneezed. Tony said to him in perfect Yiddish,
“ Ver Gehargit.” The customer asked him where he learned that so well. Tony replied that his boss Joe Cohn, my uncle always told him that when he sneezed. The customer told him it would be better to say , “Gezundheit” or “God bless you.”
I don’t know if Tony ever found out that “Ver Gehargit” meant “get murdered,” which is a Yiddish curse. Uncle Joe said it to be cute.
What I will never forget Tony for follows:
It was a sub zero Sunday night, December 15th when union contract negotiations broke down and a strike was called for midnight. I called him at home and asked him to fill all the oil trucks. The union had called for ratification but the rank and file rejected the contract. No other driver would come when I called. I stayed in the office while he went and filled up our five empty trucks at the piers. He loaded over thirty thousand gallons of oil until the last truck was returned just before midnight.
We off loaded that oil for seven days and delivered it in forty, five gallon cans all week in rented U-Haul trucks. Our men worked in plain clothes without company logos so as not to be seen by other union workers or shop stewards driving around. That way our customers would not be cold. We did not lose any customers to non –union shops. We delivered forty eight thousand gallons that week and had only one truck left with oil when the contract was ratified. Normally we delivered more than that each day in such weather. In my forty four years in the business we only had two strikes and they were both horribly stressful. I hated and feared that more than any other aspect of the business.
Whenever we bought new equipment Tony was the driver who was awarded the new oil truck to break in. He would go over the specifications with the bosses and the salesman prior to ordering. All trucks are custom made. We used to have long nosed trucks but eventually went over to “cab over engine” where the engine was under the drivers’ seat. It gave more parking space and greater maneuverability.
Tony took out his new White Motors C.O.E. and on the way back from loading it the first time announced over his two way radio for the all to hear that he wanted his old truck back as this one “hurt my rectum.” A pillow solved the problem.
There came a time that Tony had a lot of pension money coming to him and he had a heart condition and decided to take it easy and retire from truck driving. He was retired for several years and one day his police detective son called to tell us that on Sunday morning Tony went out to pick up old newspapers at newsstands with his station wagon. He was shoving a pile of papers into the back of the wagon when he was struck with a fatal heart attack. The store owner saw his feet hanging out in the street from the rear of the wagon for a long time and called 911.
Fran was left with a lot of money and lived for many years but did not improve her living style to the best of my knowledge. But, I never forgot Tony and what a hard, loyal worker he was from a bygone era. They don’t come like that anymore.
Tony and Fran had two sons. One became one of New York Cities most highly decorated detectives and still lives in that house in Brooklyn. He is retired now.
His younger son is very entrepreneurial and devised the idea of a combination car wash and quick oil change facility. He had two of them when he sold out and moved to Florida. He imports quarry material, is a multi millionaire living off the intracoastal in a five million dollar house in an exclusive enclave. He invited me to a Christmas party with my wife to show me how he had “made it.” To keep up the looking like an actor tradition of his Dad, this guy is a dead ringer for Robert De Niro. Unlike his Dad, this fellow knows how to live and enjoy life.
He has a beautiful wife and two children almost of college age. I was happy to see that he was able to escape his environment and live a good life.
I remember a feature in “Readers Digest called “The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met.” We all have had our share of characters come and go in our lives who had wonderful attributes and at the same time were flawed like all of us.
From time to time I think about some of the former employees of my family owned business. One of the oil truck drivers was a hard worker named Tony Raimo. He worked in the off season as a boiler installation man and did whatever we asked him to do i.e. truck maintenance if there were no deliveries of oil to be made. He was the second driver on the seniority list for over twenty five years before Frank Mastrando retired, after a stroke. Tony became the numero uno or shop steward. We ran between six to nine drivers during the winter season. Tony always did more deliveries than any other man and never said,” No” if a call came in to deliver oil on overtime or emergency. He would work endless hours because he was, “hungry for the buck.” He had the key to the premises and would let himself in and out. All of our men got paid for every minute they worked at Teamster union contract wages and conditions.
However,Tony was an exceptional miser like one of our mechanics Jimmy Conoglione. They never went to a restaurant or bought a ready made sandwich. These two who sometimes worked together would buy a package of cream cheese and an Italian hero bread and make their own sandwich and have it along with their thermos’ of coffee they brought from home.
Tony wore blue dungarees and fashioned a belt and suspenders from clothes line. When he needed eyeglasses he told me that he got them from his friend who worked at the local funeral home who took them from “someone who wouldn’t need them anymore.” He never took Frances his wife out, EVER. He never went to a physician outside of the Veterans Administration facilities.
When we had our company celebration prior to New Years Eve, he stayed around until cleanup time and then took all the leftover sandwiches, pretzels, chips, candies and anything else home for his wife. He swept up all the aforementioned items into a paper sack together! They would have it at night while TV programs of the New Year were being ushered in at Times Square. Fran never saw the inside of a restaurant or ever had “take out” food. Her only past time was going to doctors offices and perhaps church bingo.
He owned a three family house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and lived across the street from a small apartment house. He doubled as the janitor there washing the floors and taking out the trash barrels and doing small plumbing jobs. He also told me that he gave people who needed it “third mortgages” at high of course, interest rates. No one was stupid enough to default on him.
Physically he bore a great resemblance to the actor William Bendix, famous for the “Life of Riley” television series. He was medium height, thickly built, wide necked and as strong as a bull. I remember him breaking up the concrete slabs of our sidewalk and thick reinforced garage slabs with either a hand sledge or electric hammer like child’s play.
When he was delivering oil to a customers home if they weren’t standing nearby he would go through their trash can looking for metal or newspapers which he would accumulate and sell at the junk yards. Most of our workers would collect scrap and take them off the job when they changed pipes and valves during installations. They were supposed to turn them in at the shop and we would sell it a few times a year and split with everyone proportionately. He collected aluminum when it had very little value.
Obviously Tony was a child of the depression and must have suffered greatly. When a large part of our home delivery neighborhood became Orthodox Jewish Tony started wearing a skull cap to ingratiate him with the Jewish customers for tips. When someone complained to the office we made him stop by telling him it was disrespectful. One time when a customer was standing near the truck watching the oil meter, the customer sneezed. Tony said to him in perfect Yiddish,
“ Ver Gehargit.” The customer asked him where he learned that so well. Tony replied that his boss Joe Cohn, my uncle always told him that when he sneezed. The customer told him it would be better to say , “Gezundheit” or “God bless you.”
I don’t know if Tony ever found out that “Ver Gehargit” meant “get murdered,” which is a Yiddish curse. Uncle Joe said it to be cute.
What I will never forget Tony for follows:
It was a sub zero Sunday night, December 15th when union contract negotiations broke down and a strike was called for midnight. I called him at home and asked him to fill all the oil trucks. The union had called for ratification but the rank and file rejected the contract. No other driver would come when I called. I stayed in the office while he went and filled up our five empty trucks at the piers. He loaded over thirty thousand gallons of oil until the last truck was returned just before midnight.
We off loaded that oil for seven days and delivered it in forty, five gallon cans all week in rented U-Haul trucks. Our men worked in plain clothes without company logos so as not to be seen by other union workers or shop stewards driving around. That way our customers would not be cold. We did not lose any customers to non –union shops. We delivered forty eight thousand gallons that week and had only one truck left with oil when the contract was ratified. Normally we delivered more than that each day in such weather. In my forty four years in the business we only had two strikes and they were both horribly stressful. I hated and feared that more than any other aspect of the business.
Whenever we bought new equipment Tony was the driver who was awarded the new oil truck to break in. He would go over the specifications with the bosses and the salesman prior to ordering. All trucks are custom made. We used to have long nosed trucks but eventually went over to “cab over engine” where the engine was under the drivers’ seat. It gave more parking space and greater maneuverability.
Tony took out his new White Motors C.O.E. and on the way back from loading it the first time announced over his two way radio for the all to hear that he wanted his old truck back as this one “hurt my rectum.” A pillow solved the problem.
There came a time that Tony had a lot of pension money coming to him and he had a heart condition and decided to take it easy and retire from truck driving. He was retired for several years and one day his police detective son called to tell us that on Sunday morning Tony went out to pick up old newspapers at newsstands with his station wagon. He was shoving a pile of papers into the back of the wagon when he was struck with a fatal heart attack. The store owner saw his feet hanging out in the street from the rear of the wagon for a long time and called 911.
Fran was left with a lot of money and lived for many years but did not improve her living style to the best of my knowledge. But, I never forgot Tony and what a hard, loyal worker he was from a bygone era. They don’t come like that anymore.
Tony and Fran had two sons. One became one of New York Cities most highly decorated detectives and still lives in that house in Brooklyn. He is retired now.
His younger son is very entrepreneurial and devised the idea of a combination car wash and quick oil change facility. He had two of them when he sold out and moved to Florida. He imports quarry material, is a multi millionaire living off the intracoastal in a five million dollar house in an exclusive enclave. He invited me to a Christmas party with my wife to show me how he had “made it.” To keep up the looking like an actor tradition of his Dad, this guy is a dead ringer for Robert De Niro. Unlike his Dad, this fellow knows how to live and enjoy life.
He has a beautiful wife and two children almost of college age. I was happy to see that he was able to escape his environment and live a good life.
An Exception to the Rule
An Exception to the Rule
Most people tell mother in law jokes and comics always make bad references about mothers in law. Perhaps some deserve it. My mother in law was an exception to the rule.
Frieda Kress, a lady nobody ever spoke poorly about minded her own business, never gave unsolicited advice, and appreciated and acknowledged with gratitude anything done for her. She never gossiped or betrayed confidences.
She was happy to be a baby sitter for her grand children, and then great grand children, until she got too frail to be responsible for them by herself. She had her full mental abilities well into her early nineties. She lived for her family and all welcomed her into their hearts and homes with love.
When I met her as an adult, she lived just a few blocks away from her daughter who would become my future wife, Paula. She always walked to Paula’s house until it became too much for her. She enjoyed the fresh air and exercise. Never having been an automobile driver I am sure contributed to her longevity. About fifteen years ago I was speed walking to see how long it took to walk to her house. I remember the exact time it took and asked her how long it took her to get too our house. She told me it always takes her eleven minutes. This turned out to be two minutes less than it took me and I was thirty years younger than her.
I have never come across a more disciplined eater. Her weight never varied in all the years I knew her. I first met her when I was a teenager. We all lived in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn and she was a client of our family business and I was a friend of Paula’s. When she ate at our house after I came on the scene she always complained that Paula put too much on her plate. Mom always wanted the smallest portion of anything served. Eating between meals? Forget about it! It was not in her repertoire.
Frieda had been widowed at the age of 55 and moved out to Long Island shortly thereafter. This was at the time that Paula divorced her husband and went to work. Mom thought it would make it easier for Paula to have peace of mind that someone was around if the children needed her. Paula’s children now have grown children of their own and realize what a great presence she was in their lives.
Mom had several phrases she often repeated. One was “Self praise is no recommendation.” Another was “If you have years to live you will get through everything.”
This became apparent one spring day when she was ninety years old.
She went for a ride with a friend and neighbor who was fifteen years her junior. Sophie liked to stop at the town dock and feed the gulls and pigeons. She got back into the car with Frieda in the passenger seat and inadvertently stepped on the gas pedal very forcefully with the car in reverse instead of drive
Fortunately no one was behind her that Sunday afternoon, because she jumped a standard steel guard rail which caught the front wheels of her old Oldsmobile. The tide was out and the car was hanging over a jetty or breakwater. The car bent like the letter “L” from the center doorpost to the back wheels. Miraculously the gas tank remained intact, and there was no gasoline line or tank leak. The Port Washington Fire and Emergency Police hooked a huge chain around the front axle to keep the car from falling into Hempstead Harbor.
Paula and I happened to come along at that time returning from a pleasure drive. I parked my car and wanted to see what all of the commotion going on at the town dock was about. After a few minutes we saw firemen go with Ladders onto the jagged rocks to carry out the passengers. People were saying that they though there were two old ladies in the car.
At that point Paula saw Sophie, and realized her mother had to be in the car as well. She and I ran through the police ropes and saw them getting carried out. Frieda saw Paula and said “What are you doing here?” Paula replied hysterically crying, “Better yet, what are YOU doing here?” Mom was so calm. She did not realize that if the tide had been in she would have been under water, or that the car could have exploded or slipped into the bay before the fireman got there. If the car would have been hit by the jetty just a foot closer to the front compartment, it would have been over. She was on television that night and in the local papers. The medics made sure she was all right before they let us take her home. Her blood pressure didn’t vary one iota from normal. Sophie stayed in the hospital over night as she was very anxious and we insisted that Mom stay at our house.
The Port Washington Fire Department which is a volunteer department use pictures that their photographer took in their fund raising brochure. I told Mom that she always said “If you have years to live, you will, and when your time is up, it’s up”. That was the perfect example of it. Frieda died at he age of 95 in February 2004 in her own bed at home, after living what her now eight year old great grandson called a “very good life.”
Her great grandchildren ask and are taken to visit Grandma at her graveside and “talk to Grandma Frieda” and tell her how they are doing. It is an idyllic setting and we are all sure that nothing would have made her happier.
Most people tell mother in law jokes and comics always make bad references about mothers in law. Perhaps some deserve it. My mother in law was an exception to the rule.
Frieda Kress, a lady nobody ever spoke poorly about minded her own business, never gave unsolicited advice, and appreciated and acknowledged with gratitude anything done for her. She never gossiped or betrayed confidences.
She was happy to be a baby sitter for her grand children, and then great grand children, until she got too frail to be responsible for them by herself. She had her full mental abilities well into her early nineties. She lived for her family and all welcomed her into their hearts and homes with love.
When I met her as an adult, she lived just a few blocks away from her daughter who would become my future wife, Paula. She always walked to Paula’s house until it became too much for her. She enjoyed the fresh air and exercise. Never having been an automobile driver I am sure contributed to her longevity. About fifteen years ago I was speed walking to see how long it took to walk to her house. I remember the exact time it took and asked her how long it took her to get too our house. She told me it always takes her eleven minutes. This turned out to be two minutes less than it took me and I was thirty years younger than her.
I have never come across a more disciplined eater. Her weight never varied in all the years I knew her. I first met her when I was a teenager. We all lived in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn and she was a client of our family business and I was a friend of Paula’s. When she ate at our house after I came on the scene she always complained that Paula put too much on her plate. Mom always wanted the smallest portion of anything served. Eating between meals? Forget about it! It was not in her repertoire.
Frieda had been widowed at the age of 55 and moved out to Long Island shortly thereafter. This was at the time that Paula divorced her husband and went to work. Mom thought it would make it easier for Paula to have peace of mind that someone was around if the children needed her. Paula’s children now have grown children of their own and realize what a great presence she was in their lives.
Mom had several phrases she often repeated. One was “Self praise is no recommendation.” Another was “If you have years to live you will get through everything.”
This became apparent one spring day when she was ninety years old.
She went for a ride with a friend and neighbor who was fifteen years her junior. Sophie liked to stop at the town dock and feed the gulls and pigeons. She got back into the car with Frieda in the passenger seat and inadvertently stepped on the gas pedal very forcefully with the car in reverse instead of drive
Fortunately no one was behind her that Sunday afternoon, because she jumped a standard steel guard rail which caught the front wheels of her old Oldsmobile. The tide was out and the car was hanging over a jetty or breakwater. The car bent like the letter “L” from the center doorpost to the back wheels. Miraculously the gas tank remained intact, and there was no gasoline line or tank leak. The Port Washington Fire and Emergency Police hooked a huge chain around the front axle to keep the car from falling into Hempstead Harbor.
Paula and I happened to come along at that time returning from a pleasure drive. I parked my car and wanted to see what all of the commotion going on at the town dock was about. After a few minutes we saw firemen go with Ladders onto the jagged rocks to carry out the passengers. People were saying that they though there were two old ladies in the car.
At that point Paula saw Sophie, and realized her mother had to be in the car as well. She and I ran through the police ropes and saw them getting carried out. Frieda saw Paula and said “What are you doing here?” Paula replied hysterically crying, “Better yet, what are YOU doing here?” Mom was so calm. She did not realize that if the tide had been in she would have been under water, or that the car could have exploded or slipped into the bay before the fireman got there. If the car would have been hit by the jetty just a foot closer to the front compartment, it would have been over. She was on television that night and in the local papers. The medics made sure she was all right before they let us take her home. Her blood pressure didn’t vary one iota from normal. Sophie stayed in the hospital over night as she was very anxious and we insisted that Mom stay at our house.
The Port Washington Fire Department which is a volunteer department use pictures that their photographer took in their fund raising brochure. I told Mom that she always said “If you have years to live, you will, and when your time is up, it’s up”. That was the perfect example of it. Frieda died at he age of 95 in February 2004 in her own bed at home, after living what her now eight year old great grandson called a “very good life.”
Her great grandchildren ask and are taken to visit Grandma at her graveside and “talk to Grandma Frieda” and tell her how they are doing. It is an idyllic setting and we are all sure that nothing would have made her happier.
Just Like In the Movies
Just Like In the Movies
Paula and I took a vacation one winter in San Juan, P.R. We decided to take an excursion trip to do some shopping in St. Thomas. The hotel travel agent arranged our transportation to the airport. Two types of planes were available for us. One was a turboprop that held eight passengers. That was our first choice. The other was an old DC-3. Since there was a party of eight that was together who wanted the turboprop, we were had Hobson’s choice, which means no choice at all.
I had read all about how DC-3’s were the most dependable plane ever built and how they were able to fly over the hump of Burma with one engine operating carrying a full cargo during World War two. This was to supply to supply General Stillwell’s troops fighting the Japanese. Our plane held 23 passengers and a young pilot and flight attendant. When we were airborne on the way to St. Thomas we had noticed the aircraft carrier U.S.S.America was in port. St. Thomas was teeming with many very young sailors. Their general deportment was not the best, but they must have just been at sea for awhile and were letting off steam.
We went shopping all day even though St. Thomas was seedy looking compared to how it used to be, before the drug era.
I was particularly happy to buy a sweater from Hilda of Iceland that was made of Icelandic wool known for its exceptional warmth. I had desired one for some time after having seen one that a relative had. We had two full shopping bags after some successful shopping.
At the appointed hour we took off to return to San Juan. We were airborne for about five minutes when Paula my wife who was sitting near the window exclaimed to me, “Oh look, just like in the movies, the propeller is going in slow motion.” I looked and said, “My God, don’t you see the black smoke; the engine is on fire.” The pilot had “feathered” the engine. I saw the pilot jabbering away on the radio in rapid fire Spanish as he was pulling on a stick between the two seats in the cockpit. He was spraying powder or foam from a built in fire extinguisher onto the fire. He was not having great success at that point. I thought to myself that if we crash landed on the water and survived that my new sweater from Hilda of Iceland would shrink and be good enough for our future grandson.
. The pilot turned the plane around and I wondered if he was going to try and land on the aircraft carrier which was now at sea. I did not think at the time that DC-3’s were not designed for aircraft carriers, nor did they have a tail hook. Surely our young pilot was not trained for such things. I realized that in retrospect, much after the event.
The pilot announced that everything was under control, that he had shut down one engine and that we were returning to the airport. The fire seemed to be out even though the engine was still smoking black smoke. He said we could fly safely to Puerto Rico but even “though I am a little crazy, I am not stupid.” So like the coffee commercial where one pilot says to the other, “we forgot the Savarin”, the pilot turned around. We were later told that we had popped an engine rivet and the fuel was igniting on the hot propellor engine.
I said to Paula, it is amazing how calm everyone was. There was no time to do anything except sit still and listen to the usual instructions from the stewardess that we have all seen in every type of scarem’ airplane movie. We soon saw the airport coming into view and all the lime green fire engines racing down either side of the runway. They were followed by several ambulances trailing behind. We had a perfectly safe landing and were told where to wait until another DC-3 was available to continue back to San Juan.
Only after we went to the bathroom to empty our bladders did I begin to realize the enormity of the situation and of what could have been. We felt ourselves trembling until we got on the next plane and felt like the fellow who fellow off the horse and got right back on again. I said now we have a story to tell our grandchildren. Little did I know that I had a topic for an essay in case some year we move to Florida to a place called Valencia Falls, and I join the writers group!
Paula and I took a vacation one winter in San Juan, P.R. We decided to take an excursion trip to do some shopping in St. Thomas. The hotel travel agent arranged our transportation to the airport. Two types of planes were available for us. One was a turboprop that held eight passengers. That was our first choice. The other was an old DC-3. Since there was a party of eight that was together who wanted the turboprop, we were had Hobson’s choice, which means no choice at all.
I had read all about how DC-3’s were the most dependable plane ever built and how they were able to fly over the hump of Burma with one engine operating carrying a full cargo during World War two. This was to supply to supply General Stillwell’s troops fighting the Japanese. Our plane held 23 passengers and a young pilot and flight attendant. When we were airborne on the way to St. Thomas we had noticed the aircraft carrier U.S.S.America was in port. St. Thomas was teeming with many very young sailors. Their general deportment was not the best, but they must have just been at sea for awhile and were letting off steam.
We went shopping all day even though St. Thomas was seedy looking compared to how it used to be, before the drug era.
I was particularly happy to buy a sweater from Hilda of Iceland that was made of Icelandic wool known for its exceptional warmth. I had desired one for some time after having seen one that a relative had. We had two full shopping bags after some successful shopping.
At the appointed hour we took off to return to San Juan. We were airborne for about five minutes when Paula my wife who was sitting near the window exclaimed to me, “Oh look, just like in the movies, the propeller is going in slow motion.” I looked and said, “My God, don’t you see the black smoke; the engine is on fire.” The pilot had “feathered” the engine. I saw the pilot jabbering away on the radio in rapid fire Spanish as he was pulling on a stick between the two seats in the cockpit. He was spraying powder or foam from a built in fire extinguisher onto the fire. He was not having great success at that point. I thought to myself that if we crash landed on the water and survived that my new sweater from Hilda of Iceland would shrink and be good enough for our future grandson.
. The pilot turned the plane around and I wondered if he was going to try and land on the aircraft carrier which was now at sea. I did not think at the time that DC-3’s were not designed for aircraft carriers, nor did they have a tail hook. Surely our young pilot was not trained for such things. I realized that in retrospect, much after the event.
The pilot announced that everything was under control, that he had shut down one engine and that we were returning to the airport. The fire seemed to be out even though the engine was still smoking black smoke. He said we could fly safely to Puerto Rico but even “though I am a little crazy, I am not stupid.” So like the coffee commercial where one pilot says to the other, “we forgot the Savarin”, the pilot turned around. We were later told that we had popped an engine rivet and the fuel was igniting on the hot propellor engine.
I said to Paula, it is amazing how calm everyone was. There was no time to do anything except sit still and listen to the usual instructions from the stewardess that we have all seen in every type of scarem’ airplane movie. We soon saw the airport coming into view and all the lime green fire engines racing down either side of the runway. They were followed by several ambulances trailing behind. We had a perfectly safe landing and were told where to wait until another DC-3 was available to continue back to San Juan.
Only after we went to the bathroom to empty our bladders did I begin to realize the enormity of the situation and of what could have been. We felt ourselves trembling until we got on the next plane and felt like the fellow who fellow off the horse and got right back on again. I said now we have a story to tell our grandchildren. Little did I know that I had a topic for an essay in case some year we move to Florida to a place called Valencia Falls, and I join the writers group!
You Do Something to Me
You Do Something To Me
It was on a bright cold Boston Saturday afternoon in autumn 1955. I headed toward the Boston Braves Field that Boston University had bought as our new stadium. It would soon be named for the Golden Greek Harry Agganis who had died tragically the year before at age 25. He was an amazing triple threat athlete. Accompanying me was a platonic friend Deanna Rothschild a wonderful gal who I knew from my old sleep away camp days. Deanna was a sophomore at Simmons College and I invited her hoping to introduce her to one of fraternity brothers at the football game. We brothers of Phi Alpha sat together, drank Southern Comfort out of our flasks to keep warm and cheered Buff Donelli’s Boys on. He was the celebrated coach of Boston University’s Terriers.
Arthur, one of my fraternity brothers came to the stadium with a neighbor girl from his home town, Bridgeport Connecticut. She was there for a peek at Simmons College where she hoped to start her studies the next year. Even before introductions were made I looked at Susan and she looked at me and it was if we were both struck by “chemical lightening.” We all made small talk but I just kept looking at her and her at me and I knew something big was happening. Deanna told Susan about Simmons and I took Arthur on the side and told him I want to know all about this girl and that I want to go out with her next year if she comes up to Boston. She had already asked about me and expressed the same keen desire.
This was the first person who I ever was attracted to with chestnut color hair. She had beautiful high cheekbones, doe like brown eyes and looked like she would have a nice figure under her camel Loden coat. I was absolutely smitten. She somehow reminded me of a picture I had seen of my own Mom at that age. I could not wait to see her again.
What I was able to garner from Arthur was that she and a boyfriend back home recently broke up with and she known to be warm but not really promiscuous.
The months went by and Arthur told me that Susan was accepted to Simmons. After Labor Day we all returned to school. Arthur arrived a few hours after I did. I reminded him that I wanted Susan’s phone number. He had it ready for me and said she reminded him to have me call her as soon as he sees me. I called her immediately. She told me that she was required to go with her dorm sisters to a mixer at Harvard that night and that she would love if I could join her there. I boldly accepted to go and pass as one of the boys from “Ha-vid Yahd”.
I entered the reception area where the mixer was being held. We saw each other her and she immediately took my hand and I felt the current go through us.. The musicians started to play a Cole Porter standard and we locked into the closest possible embrace on the dance floor that just missed being obscene and she said,
“This will be our song.”
I quickly agreed and we danced and chatted all evening long and no one else even stood a chance to get near her. When the dance ended I drove her back towards her dorm. I already had a car at school and was in my sophomore year. We stopped about a block away and kissed the most passionate kisses imaginable that only young love can produce. We became an item and saw each other exclusively. Our intense passion for each other at our tender age had the boundaries of the morals of the time. But we burned with desire and she wrote me the most beautiful love letters that I have ever seen praising me, loving me, lauding my intelligence and looks and making me want her so much more.
.
On the Jewish Holy Days she accompanied me to Hillel House for services and then I borrowed the keys to a friends’ apartment who had gone home for the Holy Days. We kissed and embraced and I caressed and cuddled with her for hours. We were delirious with passion.
I was able to feast my hands and eyes for the first time on her more than magnificent body. It has been over fifty two years since then and I have experienced it all but never have I come across a more beautiful well appointed body than she had. Her breasts were like those described in Song of Songs in the bible. She had milk white skin, curvy hips and was nothing short of perfect. I just wanted to swallow the entire scene and etch it on to my brain so that I would never forget it, as I have done so many times after this with many women.
But she was special and I knew it. I was shaking like a leaf because from my background this was not something one did on Yom Kippur! I expected the ground to open before me and fall in. This was to be the first of many such repeated scenes with her that were never to be consummated.
Eventually she started to get me nervous by saying she was going to have my fraternity pin by Thanksgiving and get engaged by the springtime and married by next year. I felt like I was riding on a fast train that the engineer had no control over. I was the engineer of a runaway train. Whenever she talked like that I started to get my old nervous stomach reaction and it was very uncomfortable.
I heard she was telling everyone in her dormitory that she had these great plans for us.
This all started in September and I was seeing Susan every night because we both had steaming knickers. My grades were suffering and I never studied and I felt that drastic times called for drastic measures. I was in a state of panic and as long as we are talking train metaphors I felt that I was being railroaded. I knew I had to end it or flunk out of school or even worse have my car taken away from me by my parents.
One night while we were talking in my Plymouth car I told her that,
“the train is stopping at Back Bay station and, you are getting off” She exclaimed,
“What do you mean?”
I proceeded to tell her that my grades were falling off and that we were too young to be making the kind of plans that she was talking about and that I felt like I was in a pressure cooker and we must cool down.
She cried terribly for a few minutes and then I took her back to her dorm and she slammed the door to my car and ran inside the dormitory and that was that.
Two weeks later she showed up at one of my fraternity parties with one of the brothers who I regarded as a dorky type of guy who I never thought she would be seen with. then Two weeks later with an upper classman and I was annoyed. I was not seeing her anymore so no one needed my permission to ask her out but I was annoyed at her and them. I was even more annoyed when I heard she was partying with them the same way she was making what I considered love with me. Perhaps she was trying to get even with me.
Over the months Deanna told me that she heard Susan was upset, looked terrible and had lost a lot of weight. I felt very guilty about it, but I never promised her anything. What I felt for her was as real as could be at the time but she was in a faster lane than I was.
The new school year came and I began in retrospect to realize that what I did was terrible. I acted like an old Bogart movie in the way that I broke up with her. I mustered up the courage to ask one of my close friends to accompany me to her dorm. He consented and I went up the steps, entered the reception area and asked the dorm Gestapo to call down Susan Dorman. She announced my name ands rang up for Susan Dorman to come down. I heard her footsteps running across the second floor and she emerged from the staircase. She looked a little drawn and not as I remembered her from last year. She asked why I was there. I told her that,
“I acted terribly last year.”
She replied,
What do you mean
“I mean the way we parted, I was wrong and immature and I apologize for that, but I just wasn’t ready yet”
“”I hardly remember even going out with you; I can’t imagine what you mean.”
Not having mastered my silver tongue or having the gift of great oratory at that tender age, I was only able to come up with what crossed my mind.
“Go screw yourself “is what came out and I turned around followed by my “second” as "Eva Braun’s" jaw hit the floor.
I was so angry that after I worked up the ability to apologize, she figuratively spit in my eye
I felt better at the time, but I am older and wiser now.
I recently saw Arthur and asked him if he ever heard what happened to Susan but he did not know. I told him that I just had the feeling that she must have been married multiple times. I don’t know why, but it is a gut feeling.
To this day when I hear, “You do Something to Me” I think of Susan and quickly dismiss it from my mind.
It was on a bright cold Boston Saturday afternoon in autumn 1955. I headed toward the Boston Braves Field that Boston University had bought as our new stadium. It would soon be named for the Golden Greek Harry Agganis who had died tragically the year before at age 25. He was an amazing triple threat athlete. Accompanying me was a platonic friend Deanna Rothschild a wonderful gal who I knew from my old sleep away camp days. Deanna was a sophomore at Simmons College and I invited her hoping to introduce her to one of fraternity brothers at the football game. We brothers of Phi Alpha sat together, drank Southern Comfort out of our flasks to keep warm and cheered Buff Donelli’s Boys on. He was the celebrated coach of Boston University’s Terriers.
Arthur, one of my fraternity brothers came to the stadium with a neighbor girl from his home town, Bridgeport Connecticut. She was there for a peek at Simmons College where she hoped to start her studies the next year. Even before introductions were made I looked at Susan and she looked at me and it was if we were both struck by “chemical lightening.” We all made small talk but I just kept looking at her and her at me and I knew something big was happening. Deanna told Susan about Simmons and I took Arthur on the side and told him I want to know all about this girl and that I want to go out with her next year if she comes up to Boston. She had already asked about me and expressed the same keen desire.
This was the first person who I ever was attracted to with chestnut color hair. She had beautiful high cheekbones, doe like brown eyes and looked like she would have a nice figure under her camel Loden coat. I was absolutely smitten. She somehow reminded me of a picture I had seen of my own Mom at that age. I could not wait to see her again.
What I was able to garner from Arthur was that she and a boyfriend back home recently broke up with and she known to be warm but not really promiscuous.
The months went by and Arthur told me that Susan was accepted to Simmons. After Labor Day we all returned to school. Arthur arrived a few hours after I did. I reminded him that I wanted Susan’s phone number. He had it ready for me and said she reminded him to have me call her as soon as he sees me. I called her immediately. She told me that she was required to go with her dorm sisters to a mixer at Harvard that night and that she would love if I could join her there. I boldly accepted to go and pass as one of the boys from “Ha-vid Yahd”.
I entered the reception area where the mixer was being held. We saw each other her and she immediately took my hand and I felt the current go through us.. The musicians started to play a Cole Porter standard and we locked into the closest possible embrace on the dance floor that just missed being obscene and she said,
“This will be our song.”
I quickly agreed and we danced and chatted all evening long and no one else even stood a chance to get near her. When the dance ended I drove her back towards her dorm. I already had a car at school and was in my sophomore year. We stopped about a block away and kissed the most passionate kisses imaginable that only young love can produce. We became an item and saw each other exclusively. Our intense passion for each other at our tender age had the boundaries of the morals of the time. But we burned with desire and she wrote me the most beautiful love letters that I have ever seen praising me, loving me, lauding my intelligence and looks and making me want her so much more.
.
On the Jewish Holy Days she accompanied me to Hillel House for services and then I borrowed the keys to a friends’ apartment who had gone home for the Holy Days. We kissed and embraced and I caressed and cuddled with her for hours. We were delirious with passion.
I was able to feast my hands and eyes for the first time on her more than magnificent body. It has been over fifty two years since then and I have experienced it all but never have I come across a more beautiful well appointed body than she had. Her breasts were like those described in Song of Songs in the bible. She had milk white skin, curvy hips and was nothing short of perfect. I just wanted to swallow the entire scene and etch it on to my brain so that I would never forget it, as I have done so many times after this with many women.
But she was special and I knew it. I was shaking like a leaf because from my background this was not something one did on Yom Kippur! I expected the ground to open before me and fall in. This was to be the first of many such repeated scenes with her that were never to be consummated.
Eventually she started to get me nervous by saying she was going to have my fraternity pin by Thanksgiving and get engaged by the springtime and married by next year. I felt like I was riding on a fast train that the engineer had no control over. I was the engineer of a runaway train. Whenever she talked like that I started to get my old nervous stomach reaction and it was very uncomfortable.
I heard she was telling everyone in her dormitory that she had these great plans for us.
This all started in September and I was seeing Susan every night because we both had steaming knickers. My grades were suffering and I never studied and I felt that drastic times called for drastic measures. I was in a state of panic and as long as we are talking train metaphors I felt that I was being railroaded. I knew I had to end it or flunk out of school or even worse have my car taken away from me by my parents.
One night while we were talking in my Plymouth car I told her that,
“the train is stopping at Back Bay station and, you are getting off” She exclaimed,
“What do you mean?”
I proceeded to tell her that my grades were falling off and that we were too young to be making the kind of plans that she was talking about and that I felt like I was in a pressure cooker and we must cool down.
She cried terribly for a few minutes and then I took her back to her dorm and she slammed the door to my car and ran inside the dormitory and that was that.
Two weeks later she showed up at one of my fraternity parties with one of the brothers who I regarded as a dorky type of guy who I never thought she would be seen with. then Two weeks later with an upper classman and I was annoyed. I was not seeing her anymore so no one needed my permission to ask her out but I was annoyed at her and them. I was even more annoyed when I heard she was partying with them the same way she was making what I considered love with me. Perhaps she was trying to get even with me.
Over the months Deanna told me that she heard Susan was upset, looked terrible and had lost a lot of weight. I felt very guilty about it, but I never promised her anything. What I felt for her was as real as could be at the time but she was in a faster lane than I was.
The new school year came and I began in retrospect to realize that what I did was terrible. I acted like an old Bogart movie in the way that I broke up with her. I mustered up the courage to ask one of my close friends to accompany me to her dorm. He consented and I went up the steps, entered the reception area and asked the dorm Gestapo to call down Susan Dorman. She announced my name ands rang up for Susan Dorman to come down. I heard her footsteps running across the second floor and she emerged from the staircase. She looked a little drawn and not as I remembered her from last year. She asked why I was there. I told her that,
“I acted terribly last year.”
She replied,
What do you mean
“I mean the way we parted, I was wrong and immature and I apologize for that, but I just wasn’t ready yet”
“”I hardly remember even going out with you; I can’t imagine what you mean.”
Not having mastered my silver tongue or having the gift of great oratory at that tender age, I was only able to come up with what crossed my mind.
“Go screw yourself “is what came out and I turned around followed by my “second” as "Eva Braun’s" jaw hit the floor.
I was so angry that after I worked up the ability to apologize, she figuratively spit in my eye
I felt better at the time, but I am older and wiser now.
I recently saw Arthur and asked him if he ever heard what happened to Susan but he did not know. I told him that I just had the feeling that she must have been married multiple times. I don’t know why, but it is a gut feeling.
To this day when I hear, “You do Something to Me” I think of Susan and quickly dismiss it from my mind.
A Blessed Event
A Blessed Event
It was one of those early July “dog days” like we had not experienced in years. The temperature hovered at about 99 degrees and had reached 101 for the last few days. It felt like the weather in an Erskine Caldwell novel. You could almost cut the humidity.
I had watched my prize specimen Hosta plants get bleached by the broiling sun. Their wide leaves looked like blanched Broccoli Rabe. In the early morning of July 4th weekend I walked outside and was happy to see that the local realtor had once again planted an American Flag on a stick in everybody’s curbside walk. I got up with the early light of day to water my plantings where the sprinkler system was inadequate. This occurred in the late 1990’s.
Our house was inland and not within miles of any lakes, streams and ponds. We were in a thickly residential development of single family homes. There is an ocean bay about a half mile from home. When I went to the spigot to attach the sprinkler hose from the back of the house to the front, I was amazed to see the largest bull frog sitting in a depression right under the hose spigot. There was a very slow drip of water emanating from the spigot, dripping just enough water to keep this poor creature from drying out. I turned the valve to allow the flow to drip a bit faster. I quickly called my wife to see this frog which was about the size of a baseball cap, but much taller. It just sat there and did not attempt to get away. We tried to imagine where he might have come from but drew no conclusions.
Not wanting to disturb nature I rigged up other hoses from the back of the house to the front to do my watering before the full sun could further burn my plantings. At various times of the day I kept coming back to see if the errant creature was still there. He was.
It was too hot to go anywhere or do anything except watch 4th of July celebrations and festivities on television. As the sun set on a pink horizon we went to observe our visitor. He had only turned around at a 45 degree angle. I tried to prod him with a twig and he moved slightly. I then saw that his rear leg looked slightly askew, and just not right.
I concluded that this is the reason he was not heading back from where ever he came from. This really bothered Paula and me. The next morning I said to her,
“ This frog survived to get this big and doesn’t deserve to die here. I f he is still in the same spot we have to do something to save him. Who knows, maybe he’s a prince. Do you want to kiss him and see?”
She laughed and said,
“No thanks, maybe it’s a she and a princess, I’ll let you have the honor.”
“After breakfast let’s do something to save him”, I said.
“ I hope he survived the heat of the night. I don’t want him to starve here either.”
We took a five gallon painters pail that I had and put a grass clippings and an inch or two of water in it. I then took a flat bladed shovel and dug in behind him so as not to hurt the poor thing. He was one heavy guy. I gingerly place him in the pail and covered the top with a wet piece of toweling. We concluded that we should drive a few miles to the town of Roslyn where there is a beautiful park with a fresh water pond fed from nearby Silver Lake. We pass that idyllic spot when going to a parkway or the expressway. It looks like a scene from a Currier and Ives post card.
I found a parking spot because it was early in the day and we carried our quarry in the pail to the edge of the pond. I slowly tilted the pail and let it start to fill with the fresh water. The frog went right out of the pail and went first to the surface and the dove to the bottom letting out a few air bubbles. We felt so elated to save this magnificent frog. We only hope that he or maybe she found a soul mate and had reproduced in due time. I asked Paula if this counted as a random act of kindness, I felt it sure did.
We speculated that someone picked him up while on vacation and did not what to do with it after coming home. It’s been over fifteen years since we released that frog and not a time goes by when we pass that spot that one of us looks out of the left side of the car towards Roslyn Pond as we pass by and calls out,
“Hi Froggy, it’s us”.
In this world where everyone is so busy, it felt so good to try and help one of God’s creatures that deserved to survive. On the 4th of July we always say
“God bless America, and our froggy.” Do you think perhaps we should have kissed it?
It was one of those early July “dog days” like we had not experienced in years. The temperature hovered at about 99 degrees and had reached 101 for the last few days. It felt like the weather in an Erskine Caldwell novel. You could almost cut the humidity.
I had watched my prize specimen Hosta plants get bleached by the broiling sun. Their wide leaves looked like blanched Broccoli Rabe. In the early morning of July 4th weekend I walked outside and was happy to see that the local realtor had once again planted an American Flag on a stick in everybody’s curbside walk. I got up with the early light of day to water my plantings where the sprinkler system was inadequate. This occurred in the late 1990’s.
Our house was inland and not within miles of any lakes, streams and ponds. We were in a thickly residential development of single family homes. There is an ocean bay about a half mile from home. When I went to the spigot to attach the sprinkler hose from the back of the house to the front, I was amazed to see the largest bull frog sitting in a depression right under the hose spigot. There was a very slow drip of water emanating from the spigot, dripping just enough water to keep this poor creature from drying out. I turned the valve to allow the flow to drip a bit faster. I quickly called my wife to see this frog which was about the size of a baseball cap, but much taller. It just sat there and did not attempt to get away. We tried to imagine where he might have come from but drew no conclusions.
Not wanting to disturb nature I rigged up other hoses from the back of the house to the front to do my watering before the full sun could further burn my plantings. At various times of the day I kept coming back to see if the errant creature was still there. He was.
It was too hot to go anywhere or do anything except watch 4th of July celebrations and festivities on television. As the sun set on a pink horizon we went to observe our visitor. He had only turned around at a 45 degree angle. I tried to prod him with a twig and he moved slightly. I then saw that his rear leg looked slightly askew, and just not right.
I concluded that this is the reason he was not heading back from where ever he came from. This really bothered Paula and me. The next morning I said to her,
“ This frog survived to get this big and doesn’t deserve to die here. I f he is still in the same spot we have to do something to save him. Who knows, maybe he’s a prince. Do you want to kiss him and see?”
She laughed and said,
“No thanks, maybe it’s a she and a princess, I’ll let you have the honor.”
“After breakfast let’s do something to save him”, I said.
“ I hope he survived the heat of the night. I don’t want him to starve here either.”
We took a five gallon painters pail that I had and put a grass clippings and an inch or two of water in it. I then took a flat bladed shovel and dug in behind him so as not to hurt the poor thing. He was one heavy guy. I gingerly place him in the pail and covered the top with a wet piece of toweling. We concluded that we should drive a few miles to the town of Roslyn where there is a beautiful park with a fresh water pond fed from nearby Silver Lake. We pass that idyllic spot when going to a parkway or the expressway. It looks like a scene from a Currier and Ives post card.
I found a parking spot because it was early in the day and we carried our quarry in the pail to the edge of the pond. I slowly tilted the pail and let it start to fill with the fresh water. The frog went right out of the pail and went first to the surface and the dove to the bottom letting out a few air bubbles. We felt so elated to save this magnificent frog. We only hope that he or maybe she found a soul mate and had reproduced in due time. I asked Paula if this counted as a random act of kindness, I felt it sure did.
We speculated that someone picked him up while on vacation and did not what to do with it after coming home. It’s been over fifteen years since we released that frog and not a time goes by when we pass that spot that one of us looks out of the left side of the car towards Roslyn Pond as we pass by and calls out,
“Hi Froggy, it’s us”.
In this world where everyone is so busy, it felt so good to try and help one of God’s creatures that deserved to survive. On the 4th of July we always say
“God bless America, and our froggy.” Do you think perhaps we should have kissed it?
My Enemy-The Personal Computer
My Enemy- The Personal Computer
Why couldn’t Bill Gates preoccupy himself like other young men with girls, masturbation, television programs or sports instead of making the world smaller and my brain taxed, by inventing the computer platform for Windows? Computers have influenced and changed commerce, education, communication, research and almost every aspect of human existence. This is an over simplification of the reality of it. A new world of business and education has grown into a mega billion dollar era of progress for war and peace.
This is in spite of the computer ineptness which I excel in.
In 1989 I bought my first IBM clone. I bought it and set it up so that I could sit and write at home while I recovered from a double hernia operation. I wrote many pages that had to be destroyed because I had what was called ”widows and orphans” . I would start a sentence and it would start a new paragraph or indent and cause me to be frustrated. I wanted it out of my life. I don’t remember dollar amounts but I sold the darn thing to a friend who wanted it for his wife for about a third of what I paid for it. I was delighted to get it out of my house.
I resisted buying a new computer for a few years, during which time the Internet was created and developed. An employee of mine helped me buy my next computer which was a Compaq . It had dedicated proprietary parts and computer repairs could only be handled by the company. I was a dolt with it and called Billy Crocker my computer knowledgeable employee, for help from time to time. His wife was a high tech government computer software designer for the military. What he didn’t know about computers, she knew.
I spent long hours into the night calling up far away places with strange sounding names for service and help. Just about that time I found my old camp buddy and missing pal Harold Grossman. He’s the friend I lost track of since 1951. I told him about my frustration speaking to folks in India who spoke English words and not sentences. I told of my frustration and how I called Hewlett Packard and told them that If I can’t speak to a person in the United States that I would never, ever, buy an H-P product again. They offered me a free twenty five dollar certificate for H-P accessories. I told them to shove it where the “sun don’t shine” and hung up on them.
Hal Grossman told me about his son in law Michael Martinez who was a self taught computer expert. He was in the business of making and selling computers by himself. He also tutored computer incompetents like me. We were introduced and he really was remarkable. He took my computer and gave me a few bucks for the parts. Michael then proceeded to build a wonderful computer for me. It was upgraded and rebuilt about six times over the next few years for very healthy sums of money as technology grew. I was his personal cash cow. I always wanted the newest and best.
His business started to grow exponentially when he met a television personality and his famous actress wife. He built a whole system for a couple in their Connecticut home and on their boat and was on call to them 24/7. He also wired and alarmed all kinds of gadgets and gizmos for them for home and water craft. Michael also was introduced to their friends and got them as clients as well. He had to sign all kinds of legal privacy documents not to discuss them or where and how they lived. He became the computer expert for the stars, and a putz named Bernie Cohn. Eventually his work took me too far out of the way to service my needs. out of my life.
I met up with a young Asian fellow who was recommended to me in Glen Cove, New York. He was a terrific young man who I befriended and he sold me a lap top to have fun with as well as my first digital camera. He outfitted me with my first Dell PC’s for Florida and New York. All are old news by today’s standards. In fact the two PC’s crashed and died from being off and idle while I was away from each home. I also still have a laptop for simple tasks and games for my wife. It is a relic by today’s standards. Danny Chong and his business disappeared when the Big Box stores got too close to his business.
My second Dell computer in Florida as of late was in computer hospice and so was my printer . They were both near death. I went to Best Buy and fell in love with, of all things an H-P laptop which I can take back and forth and use all the time at home in Florida and New York. I did not want to buy from Best Buy because of all of their bad press about restocking fees. A Russian engineer shopping there told me that the particular model we were looking at makes all other computers out of date. I had to have it. Damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead. I would not let cost discourage me.
I went online with H-P shopping and found out that most stores use proprietary numbers, but I described the one I wanted and they custom designed the options and they shipped it. I had to call for help a few times to have some questions answered and spoke to people who sounded like Alvin, Theodore and Simon, the chipmunks, in the Phillipines.
This computer is their Pucci Manulli of laptops and has everything in it you can imagine. I also learned that mine apparently came with an alcoholic mouse with the Dt’s. Over the last weekend this new computer started to act up. The mouse gets tremors when more than three windows are open or, when I wanted to change screens, it refuses to move.
I waited until night here and called at 10:15 PM Monday evening for tech support. At night there is less phone waiting time. It was mid morning in the Pacific time zone. I spoke to a woman whose name was Shadap. I wasn’t sure if it would be appreciated if I ask if that was last name, or if her first name was, “ Aw”, hence “Aw Shadup”. She and I were on the phone until 2:30 in the morning, during which time the computer over heated and shut itself down. I overheated with annoyance as well. She spoke with am heavy Indian accent and I was getting very annoyed at her inability to solve my problem despite her cocky demeanor. The new computer crashed four times featuring the blue screen of death with accompanying sounds. Many times Shadup had taken over control of my computer from Munchkinville by remote control. I granted permission for her to do that. Even that did not go smoothly. She “futzed” around enough with the computer to no avail for four and a half hours.
I told her that I am not young like her and am crashing myself and that I would call to customer service next day and demand a new computer. She tried to persist in wanting to fix it the next morning. I said “Fugetaboutit”. I fully expected her to say that “Fugetaboutit” is on the other phone helping someone else, a la Abbot and Costello. I was about to ask her if she had another friend named “Shove-it”.
I was too over tired to fall asleep and took a Xanax. I was still up at four in the morning. I got out of bed at seven A.M., took a shower, and called H-P. I got yanked around to two extensions before I reached our friends to the north in Canada and told Rowley, my Canadian correspondent in no uncertain way that I was sending this computer back. He agreed readily and I reordered the same model sans HDMI TV tuner and Blu-Ray player. I should save $400.00 and am ready for the next round of being stepped on by Mr. Gates’ &^&)@ invention Hopefully I won’t have to deal with” AwShadup and won’t have to Fugetaboutit” anymore. Amen. If this doesn’t please me I will get an Apple which I still have resisted.
Why couldn’t Bill Gates preoccupy himself like other young men with girls, masturbation, television programs or sports instead of making the world smaller and my brain taxed, by inventing the computer platform for Windows? Computers have influenced and changed commerce, education, communication, research and almost every aspect of human existence. This is an over simplification of the reality of it. A new world of business and education has grown into a mega billion dollar era of progress for war and peace.
This is in spite of the computer ineptness which I excel in.
In 1989 I bought my first IBM clone. I bought it and set it up so that I could sit and write at home while I recovered from a double hernia operation. I wrote many pages that had to be destroyed because I had what was called ”widows and orphans” . I would start a sentence and it would start a new paragraph or indent and cause me to be frustrated. I wanted it out of my life. I don’t remember dollar amounts but I sold the darn thing to a friend who wanted it for his wife for about a third of what I paid for it. I was delighted to get it out of my house.
I resisted buying a new computer for a few years, during which time the Internet was created and developed. An employee of mine helped me buy my next computer which was a Compaq . It had dedicated proprietary parts and computer repairs could only be handled by the company. I was a dolt with it and called Billy Crocker my computer knowledgeable employee, for help from time to time. His wife was a high tech government computer software designer for the military. What he didn’t know about computers, she knew.
I spent long hours into the night calling up far away places with strange sounding names for service and help. Just about that time I found my old camp buddy and missing pal Harold Grossman. He’s the friend I lost track of since 1951. I told him about my frustration speaking to folks in India who spoke English words and not sentences. I told of my frustration and how I called Hewlett Packard and told them that If I can’t speak to a person in the United States that I would never, ever, buy an H-P product again. They offered me a free twenty five dollar certificate for H-P accessories. I told them to shove it where the “sun don’t shine” and hung up on them.
Hal Grossman told me about his son in law Michael Martinez who was a self taught computer expert. He was in the business of making and selling computers by himself. He also tutored computer incompetents like me. We were introduced and he really was remarkable. He took my computer and gave me a few bucks for the parts. Michael then proceeded to build a wonderful computer for me. It was upgraded and rebuilt about six times over the next few years for very healthy sums of money as technology grew. I was his personal cash cow. I always wanted the newest and best.
His business started to grow exponentially when he met a television personality and his famous actress wife. He built a whole system for a couple in their Connecticut home and on their boat and was on call to them 24/7. He also wired and alarmed all kinds of gadgets and gizmos for them for home and water craft. Michael also was introduced to their friends and got them as clients as well. He had to sign all kinds of legal privacy documents not to discuss them or where and how they lived. He became the computer expert for the stars, and a putz named Bernie Cohn. Eventually his work took me too far out of the way to service my needs. out of my life.
I met up with a young Asian fellow who was recommended to me in Glen Cove, New York. He was a terrific young man who I befriended and he sold me a lap top to have fun with as well as my first digital camera. He outfitted me with my first Dell PC’s for Florida and New York. All are old news by today’s standards. In fact the two PC’s crashed and died from being off and idle while I was away from each home. I also still have a laptop for simple tasks and games for my wife. It is a relic by today’s standards. Danny Chong and his business disappeared when the Big Box stores got too close to his business.
My second Dell computer in Florida as of late was in computer hospice and so was my printer . They were both near death. I went to Best Buy and fell in love with, of all things an H-P laptop which I can take back and forth and use all the time at home in Florida and New York. I did not want to buy from Best Buy because of all of their bad press about restocking fees. A Russian engineer shopping there told me that the particular model we were looking at makes all other computers out of date. I had to have it. Damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead. I would not let cost discourage me.
I went online with H-P shopping and found out that most stores use proprietary numbers, but I described the one I wanted and they custom designed the options and they shipped it. I had to call for help a few times to have some questions answered and spoke to people who sounded like Alvin, Theodore and Simon, the chipmunks, in the Phillipines.
This computer is their Pucci Manulli of laptops and has everything in it you can imagine. I also learned that mine apparently came with an alcoholic mouse with the Dt’s. Over the last weekend this new computer started to act up. The mouse gets tremors when more than three windows are open or, when I wanted to change screens, it refuses to move.
I waited until night here and called at 10:15 PM Monday evening for tech support. At night there is less phone waiting time. It was mid morning in the Pacific time zone. I spoke to a woman whose name was Shadap. I wasn’t sure if it would be appreciated if I ask if that was last name, or if her first name was, “ Aw”, hence “Aw Shadup”. She and I were on the phone until 2:30 in the morning, during which time the computer over heated and shut itself down. I overheated with annoyance as well. She spoke with am heavy Indian accent and I was getting very annoyed at her inability to solve my problem despite her cocky demeanor. The new computer crashed four times featuring the blue screen of death with accompanying sounds. Many times Shadup had taken over control of my computer from Munchkinville by remote control. I granted permission for her to do that. Even that did not go smoothly. She “futzed” around enough with the computer to no avail for four and a half hours.
I told her that I am not young like her and am crashing myself and that I would call to customer service next day and demand a new computer. She tried to persist in wanting to fix it the next morning. I said “Fugetaboutit”. I fully expected her to say that “Fugetaboutit” is on the other phone helping someone else, a la Abbot and Costello. I was about to ask her if she had another friend named “Shove-it”.
I was too over tired to fall asleep and took a Xanax. I was still up at four in the morning. I got out of bed at seven A.M., took a shower, and called H-P. I got yanked around to two extensions before I reached our friends to the north in Canada and told Rowley, my Canadian correspondent in no uncertain way that I was sending this computer back. He agreed readily and I reordered the same model sans HDMI TV tuner and Blu-Ray player. I should save $400.00 and am ready for the next round of being stepped on by Mr. Gates’ &^&)@ invention Hopefully I won’t have to deal with” AwShadup and won’t have to Fugetaboutit” anymore. Amen. If this doesn’t please me I will get an Apple which I still have resisted.
Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life
Last September my wife Paula , our new friends and neighbors Irma and Dave went for a day out on the North Fork of Long Island. It is still quite rural with a few remaining farms, farm stands and lots of wineries. When I went to the wineries a few years ago I stopped at many of these wineries for wine tasting. Many tasted like they all came from Chateau Listerine or Casa di Peepi.
I’ll take my California, Australia or if I have to, French wine over these any day. It was clear cut to me. It doesn’t make it for me at any price, and they aren’t inexpensive either.
Dave and Irma knew where to get the best home made peach pie, breads, fresh brown jumbo eggs and many places for sweet corn. We stopped at a fantastic Greek lunch and dinner restaurant and had a wonderful lunch al fresco. It was an idyllic calm day with perfect temperature outside. We decided that we would do it again if we could before we snowbirds would be taking off for Florida.
Alas, the days flew by and we went back to our separate Florida havens and got together with them and others from our Port Washington, L.I. community a few times in Florida. I reminded them that we were getting in to the right weather to head east towards Greenport for another shot at the farm stands. We went on July 15th which looked good for the ladies as it wasn’t a Bridge or Canasta day for them. We men are more flexible and were happy to go anytime. I am one of these guys who feel most comfortable when I drive. I am not comfortable going on a road trip of 200 miles unless I am driving. I follow the rules; don’t speed and am not a constant lane changer. I don’t drive like an old man either. I am aware of my surroundings and let the crazies have plenty of room to whiz by me. People who drive with me usually tell me how relaxed they were and that they were so relaxed that they dozed off. I am talking about big trips not a sortie to the mall.
We stopped at Breimeir’s for Dave & Irma to get peach juice and peach muffins. I bought a blueberry muffin which I ate half of the next morning. Either my taste buds weren’t working or something was amiss. I just decided it wasn’t worth the calories. I threw away almost two bucks worth of muffin.
When we got underway we stopped at another place to check out the corn. I bought some really nice looking plums and nectarines but would not disclose to anyone how much I paid. I really overpaid because they looked spectacular. There is something special and nostalgic about buying fruit in a rural setting. You are led to believe that they are home grown but of course it was too early in the season for that.
Irma was dying to get Raspberries; well almost. I’ll explain what I mean. As we headed east again we decided we would stop for lunch at that same Greek bistro that we enjoyed so much last year. All of a sudden I passed a wagon that looked like a New York City hot dog stand displaying raspberries. Irma cried out,
“Look, there are my raspberries.”
I said, “I’ll turn around and go back” and Irma thanked me.
At the next intersection about a half of a mile up I made a U-turn and went back west, came to a traffic light and tuned east again and pulled over onto the dirt shoulder of the road. Dave was the shopper and got out of the front passenger seat to check out the raspberries. The honor system is used on that part of Long Island. There was a lock box and plastic bags. If you buy, you put three dollars into the lock box as the sign directed and take your goods.
Suddenly we heard a loud bang. A large dump truck came hurtling by and just missed my car and came to a halt with smoke pouring out from underneath it about 150 feet up the road. In the right rear of where his truck passed a few seconds before and 30 feet behind my car was a mass of smoldering hot rubber that was once a truck tire. He had a blowout and fortunately was able to avoid us. The tire came off the rim and it must have been an inside right rear tire. Paula was in the rear seat right behind me and Irma was behind the right passenger seat.
I said that by the grace of God and the skill of he driver our time wasn’t up. We all have been having flashbacks about it for the last two days. We would have been on the cover of Newsday our local paper. I had a full tank of gasoline that I had just filled and we would have been incinerated. It reminded me of the book I had read in high school called , “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” It was about a group of strangers who cross a foot bridge at the time of it’s collapse over a river gorge. It’s about fate and circumstance. Irma said that our time wasn’t up.
There is a lesson in here as well. If you want to stop to buy anything pull into a regular place that has off the road clearly marked parking spaces. What I did was downright foolish and dangerous. It is best not stop on a highway unless absolutely necessary and then only in a spot that is highly visible to vehicular traffic.
A few minutes later we found our little charming Greek restaurant, had lunch and so as not to make the day incomplete we turned around and at my suggestion went to the Tanger outlet near Riverhead. I bought a pair of Reeboks and the ladies had great success at Chico’s. They got such markdowns that the store almost paid them to take the merchandise! The day was perfect and we had easy traffic heading back home.
Life is mysterious and like I have been saying these last few years,
“Weather doesn’t matter. When you get up in the morning look at the grass from up to down you know and you’re still here on the right side. God gave you this day, enjoy every minute of it.’’
Even more so, now!.
Last September my wife Paula , our new friends and neighbors Irma and Dave went for a day out on the North Fork of Long Island. It is still quite rural with a few remaining farms, farm stands and lots of wineries. When I went to the wineries a few years ago I stopped at many of these wineries for wine tasting. Many tasted like they all came from Chateau Listerine or Casa di Peepi.
I’ll take my California, Australia or if I have to, French wine over these any day. It was clear cut to me. It doesn’t make it for me at any price, and they aren’t inexpensive either.
Dave and Irma knew where to get the best home made peach pie, breads, fresh brown jumbo eggs and many places for sweet corn. We stopped at a fantastic Greek lunch and dinner restaurant and had a wonderful lunch al fresco. It was an idyllic calm day with perfect temperature outside. We decided that we would do it again if we could before we snowbirds would be taking off for Florida.
Alas, the days flew by and we went back to our separate Florida havens and got together with them and others from our Port Washington, L.I. community a few times in Florida. I reminded them that we were getting in to the right weather to head east towards Greenport for another shot at the farm stands. We went on July 15th which looked good for the ladies as it wasn’t a Bridge or Canasta day for them. We men are more flexible and were happy to go anytime. I am one of these guys who feel most comfortable when I drive. I am not comfortable going on a road trip of 200 miles unless I am driving. I follow the rules; don’t speed and am not a constant lane changer. I don’t drive like an old man either. I am aware of my surroundings and let the crazies have plenty of room to whiz by me. People who drive with me usually tell me how relaxed they were and that they were so relaxed that they dozed off. I am talking about big trips not a sortie to the mall.
We stopped at Breimeir’s for Dave & Irma to get peach juice and peach muffins. I bought a blueberry muffin which I ate half of the next morning. Either my taste buds weren’t working or something was amiss. I just decided it wasn’t worth the calories. I threw away almost two bucks worth of muffin.
When we got underway we stopped at another place to check out the corn. I bought some really nice looking plums and nectarines but would not disclose to anyone how much I paid. I really overpaid because they looked spectacular. There is something special and nostalgic about buying fruit in a rural setting. You are led to believe that they are home grown but of course it was too early in the season for that.
Irma was dying to get Raspberries; well almost. I’ll explain what I mean. As we headed east again we decided we would stop for lunch at that same Greek bistro that we enjoyed so much last year. All of a sudden I passed a wagon that looked like a New York City hot dog stand displaying raspberries. Irma cried out,
“Look, there are my raspberries.”
I said, “I’ll turn around and go back” and Irma thanked me.
At the next intersection about a half of a mile up I made a U-turn and went back west, came to a traffic light and tuned east again and pulled over onto the dirt shoulder of the road. Dave was the shopper and got out of the front passenger seat to check out the raspberries. The honor system is used on that part of Long Island. There was a lock box and plastic bags. If you buy, you put three dollars into the lock box as the sign directed and take your goods.
Suddenly we heard a loud bang. A large dump truck came hurtling by and just missed my car and came to a halt with smoke pouring out from underneath it about 150 feet up the road. In the right rear of where his truck passed a few seconds before and 30 feet behind my car was a mass of smoldering hot rubber that was once a truck tire. He had a blowout and fortunately was able to avoid us. The tire came off the rim and it must have been an inside right rear tire. Paula was in the rear seat right behind me and Irma was behind the right passenger seat.
I said that by the grace of God and the skill of he driver our time wasn’t up. We all have been having flashbacks about it for the last two days. We would have been on the cover of Newsday our local paper. I had a full tank of gasoline that I had just filled and we would have been incinerated. It reminded me of the book I had read in high school called , “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” It was about a group of strangers who cross a foot bridge at the time of it’s collapse over a river gorge. It’s about fate and circumstance. Irma said that our time wasn’t up.
There is a lesson in here as well. If you want to stop to buy anything pull into a regular place that has off the road clearly marked parking spaces. What I did was downright foolish and dangerous. It is best not stop on a highway unless absolutely necessary and then only in a spot that is highly visible to vehicular traffic.
A few minutes later we found our little charming Greek restaurant, had lunch and so as not to make the day incomplete we turned around and at my suggestion went to the Tanger outlet near Riverhead. I bought a pair of Reeboks and the ladies had great success at Chico’s. They got such markdowns that the store almost paid them to take the merchandise! The day was perfect and we had easy traffic heading back home.
Life is mysterious and like I have been saying these last few years,
“Weather doesn’t matter. When you get up in the morning look at the grass from up to down you know and you’re still here on the right side. God gave you this day, enjoy every minute of it.’’
Even more so, now!.
Friday, March 12, 2010
How I Meet My B’Sherta
This is the story of how I met my B’sherta (a wonderful Yiddish word which means “meant to be” or predestined). It is a story my wife often tells to discouraged widows or divorced people who are waiting for the right person to come along. It makes them smile and gives them encouragement. This is about a series of events that enabled my wife and me to meet and correct something that happened over 50 years ago.
On March 16, 1953 my happiness and elation were doubled. I had received my acceptance to Boston University, my future alma mater. It was also the Saturday that I had a double date with my friend Joel and two girls who were destined to play important roles in my life. I had been looking for an introduction to a then-nameless-to-me girl who I passed every day between classes in New Utrecht High School, in Brooklyn,N.Y. For some time I had been smitten by her fresh-scrubbed beautiful face. My classmate Carole greeted her one day and I asked her the name of the girl she had just spoken with and to please get me her telephone number. Carole said she would, and advised me to ask a friend to go out with her cousin Paula who was acquainted with the girl I was interested in. I was sixteen years old and the girls were fourteen. Double dating was the style at that tender age.
When Joel and I called for the girls I thought to myself that they were both beauties. I could have gone for either one of them. However, my mind was set as I had promised myself that someday I was going to marry the gal I was first attracted to. (Neither Paula nor Joel remember going out with each other, but they know it happened.)
I kept my vow and pursued my first love in an off-and-on relationship until I wore her down and married her six years later. Without going into unnecessary details for this story the marriage had its ups and downs and we were divorced almost 25 years later.
Going back to the early times in high school, I maintained my friendship with Carole and Paula who lived two streets away from me in a two-family house. Paula and I dated from time to time. I taught her how to drive a car and she even visited me for a fraternity weekend at B.U.. I always had on her on my mind as someone who was very special.
We all got married in 1959 and I lost track of the cousins Carole and Paula.
I like to think that coincidences are minor miracles planned by God. In 1967 I developed an inguinal hernia. I saw the surgeon and arranged to have the operation in late August. I lived in Brooklyn at the time and was going to have my surgery done at Maimonides Hospital. At the check-in time, 2PM on August 25th, I saw Paula on line to check in as well. We all exchanged greetings and I learned that Paula was also there for a hernia repair. She had just moved to Port Washington and hurt herself pushing around big boxes. Her uncle was a physician at that hospital and she elected to be treated there. In 1967 hernia repair involved a full week stay at the hospital. (Today they’d probably do it in the hospital parking lot with one foot on the ground while you are half out of the car door.) I told Paula that I would call her in a few days to see how she was doing.
We spoke on the hospital phone and brought each other up to date on our lives. She did not reveal to me that she was personally disappointed in her own marriage, nor did I reveal that I was totally miserable. After much soul searching in my hospital room I knew I had made a bad choice and that I had married the wrong girl. When I came home from the hospital I went on with my life and we had no further contact.
In the mid 1970’s when my kids were going to a sleep away camp in Pennsylvania, I saw Paula and her family at the bus departure point as well as on visiting day. We all said our hello’s and went about our business. This happened two years in a row and it was nice to see her. It was another part of the miracle growing. I admired her from afar and kicked myself for letting her slip through my fingers.
My own nest was empty at home as my kids were all away and my marriage was as empty as the house was. We both went to lawyers and were tied up in the system for almost five years.
One evening I was waiting in line at the Jade King restaurant in Roslyn, which was not a place I frequented. A voice behind me called my name and I turned around and saw Carole with her husband. Years later she told me that was the first time they ate there and they did not know what made them go that evening. I asked her where Paula was and how she was doing.
Carole told me that Paula was divorced for some years and worked for a dentist in the area. She was concentrating on working and keeping her house while bringing up her children. I told Carole of my own unhappiness, and that I was trying to negotiate a divorce.
One day, when God and I were ready, I found myself staring at the office building in which Paula worked on Northern Boulevard. I went to the very first dental office and asked if a “Paula” worked there. I was assured that I was at the right place and that she was off that day. I hastily scribbled a note on my business card. She called me the following day and was happy to hear from me. I told her where I was at and she asked me if I tried everything to try and save the marriage; it seemed as if she was trying to dissuade me from my course. I replied that it was over.
During the next months we spoke on the telephone and got reacquainted. We had not seen each other for over fourteen years despite the fact that I had moved to East Hills in 1972 and she lived in Port Washington. One Saturday morning I took the plunge. I called from the phone booth right outside of her office building and told her after a minute or two where I was. I think that I wanted to see her off guard and see how the years had treated her. She invited me in to say hello. We both were delighted to finally see each other after all these years and were pleasantly surprised with how we looked to each other. I truly believe we fell in love over the phone because we knew each others’ values and there was no game playing.
A short time after this I wanted to see where she lived and only knew the name of the section of Port that she lived in. I saw a car in a driveway that had the right set of college stickers on the rear window. I called her on the telephone and told her that I was nearby and she invited me in for lunch. Paula whipped up a sardine platter that looked like it came out of a woman’s magazine. I kissed her hello that day when I came into the house and felt something magic. I sat down in the den and pensively looked out of the window at the pouring rain
Paula asked what was on my mind. I blurted out, “ Are you going to marry me?” Instantly she replied, “Of course I am.” When I left that afternoon, I discovered the giant puddle that forms in front of that house whenever it rained. Paula was on the porch and I started to splash and dance in the puddle giving my best imitation of Gene Kelly in “Singing In The Rain.” Paula laughed along with me and said that she always admired my sense of humor and ability to laugh at myself. Rain has always brought me good luck (and lots of tomatoes as well),
We were finally able to get married in 1990 and did so in March at the George Washington Manor in Roslyn. We shared our joy with our extended family and friends, and said our own vows. Our Rabbi married us in a very touching ceremony.
The wedding was seventeen years ago and our lives together have been one big blessing. We thank God every day for each other and that we were brought back together by some mysterious forces. I am not sure if it was caused by the hospital stay, the camp meeting, by seeing cousin Carole (as she is called by us these days) at the restaurant, or by whatever power led me to her doorstep. Paula always told her friends that if she ever remarried it would only be to someone she knew and trusted from the past. Paula and I are still best friends and favorite company, inseparable companions and lovers. I still open the car door for her and feel like I am out on my first date every time we go out. I am totally smitten by her charm and talents. She is a beautiful lady who people are charmed by. I feel like we met yesterday and yet it feels like forever. I pray that we love each other as we do now forever in decent health.
I retired from the heating oil business seven years ago and Paula retired five years prior to me. We spend our time in Port Washington and in Florida both in active adult communities. We have five children and six grandchildren between us.
The frosting on the cake is that Paula’s Mom and my Dad lived to dance with each other at our wedding and see something happen that they had speculated about nearly 40 years earlier. My father said to Paula’s mom in a basement in Brooklyn when he was there on business, “Wouldn’t it be nice if our kids got together.”
We did and it is.
On March 16, 1953 my happiness and elation were doubled. I had received my acceptance to Boston University, my future alma mater. It was also the Saturday that I had a double date with my friend Joel and two girls who were destined to play important roles in my life. I had been looking for an introduction to a then-nameless-to-me girl who I passed every day between classes in New Utrecht High School, in Brooklyn,N.Y. For some time I had been smitten by her fresh-scrubbed beautiful face. My classmate Carole greeted her one day and I asked her the name of the girl she had just spoken with and to please get me her telephone number. Carole said she would, and advised me to ask a friend to go out with her cousin Paula who was acquainted with the girl I was interested in. I was sixteen years old and the girls were fourteen. Double dating was the style at that tender age.
When Joel and I called for the girls I thought to myself that they were both beauties. I could have gone for either one of them. However, my mind was set as I had promised myself that someday I was going to marry the gal I was first attracted to. (Neither Paula nor Joel remember going out with each other, but they know it happened.)
I kept my vow and pursued my first love in an off-and-on relationship until I wore her down and married her six years later. Without going into unnecessary details for this story the marriage had its ups and downs and we were divorced almost 25 years later.
Going back to the early times in high school, I maintained my friendship with Carole and Paula who lived two streets away from me in a two-family house. Paula and I dated from time to time. I taught her how to drive a car and she even visited me for a fraternity weekend at B.U.. I always had on her on my mind as someone who was very special.
We all got married in 1959 and I lost track of the cousins Carole and Paula.
I like to think that coincidences are minor miracles planned by God. In 1967 I developed an inguinal hernia. I saw the surgeon and arranged to have the operation in late August. I lived in Brooklyn at the time and was going to have my surgery done at Maimonides Hospital. At the check-in time, 2PM on August 25th, I saw Paula on line to check in as well. We all exchanged greetings and I learned that Paula was also there for a hernia repair. She had just moved to Port Washington and hurt herself pushing around big boxes. Her uncle was a physician at that hospital and she elected to be treated there. In 1967 hernia repair involved a full week stay at the hospital. (Today they’d probably do it in the hospital parking lot with one foot on the ground while you are half out of the car door.) I told Paula that I would call her in a few days to see how she was doing.
We spoke on the hospital phone and brought each other up to date on our lives. She did not reveal to me that she was personally disappointed in her own marriage, nor did I reveal that I was totally miserable. After much soul searching in my hospital room I knew I had made a bad choice and that I had married the wrong girl. When I came home from the hospital I went on with my life and we had no further contact.
In the mid 1970’s when my kids were going to a sleep away camp in Pennsylvania, I saw Paula and her family at the bus departure point as well as on visiting day. We all said our hello’s and went about our business. This happened two years in a row and it was nice to see her. It was another part of the miracle growing. I admired her from afar and kicked myself for letting her slip through my fingers.
My own nest was empty at home as my kids were all away and my marriage was as empty as the house was. We both went to lawyers and were tied up in the system for almost five years.
One evening I was waiting in line at the Jade King restaurant in Roslyn, which was not a place I frequented. A voice behind me called my name and I turned around and saw Carole with her husband. Years later she told me that was the first time they ate there and they did not know what made them go that evening. I asked her where Paula was and how she was doing.
Carole told me that Paula was divorced for some years and worked for a dentist in the area. She was concentrating on working and keeping her house while bringing up her children. I told Carole of my own unhappiness, and that I was trying to negotiate a divorce.
One day, when God and I were ready, I found myself staring at the office building in which Paula worked on Northern Boulevard. I went to the very first dental office and asked if a “Paula” worked there. I was assured that I was at the right place and that she was off that day. I hastily scribbled a note on my business card. She called me the following day and was happy to hear from me. I told her where I was at and she asked me if I tried everything to try and save the marriage; it seemed as if she was trying to dissuade me from my course. I replied that it was over.
During the next months we spoke on the telephone and got reacquainted. We had not seen each other for over fourteen years despite the fact that I had moved to East Hills in 1972 and she lived in Port Washington. One Saturday morning I took the plunge. I called from the phone booth right outside of her office building and told her after a minute or two where I was. I think that I wanted to see her off guard and see how the years had treated her. She invited me in to say hello. We both were delighted to finally see each other after all these years and were pleasantly surprised with how we looked to each other. I truly believe we fell in love over the phone because we knew each others’ values and there was no game playing.
A short time after this I wanted to see where she lived and only knew the name of the section of Port that she lived in. I saw a car in a driveway that had the right set of college stickers on the rear window. I called her on the telephone and told her that I was nearby and she invited me in for lunch. Paula whipped up a sardine platter that looked like it came out of a woman’s magazine. I kissed her hello that day when I came into the house and felt something magic. I sat down in the den and pensively looked out of the window at the pouring rain
Paula asked what was on my mind. I blurted out, “ Are you going to marry me?” Instantly she replied, “Of course I am.” When I left that afternoon, I discovered the giant puddle that forms in front of that house whenever it rained. Paula was on the porch and I started to splash and dance in the puddle giving my best imitation of Gene Kelly in “Singing In The Rain.” Paula laughed along with me and said that she always admired my sense of humor and ability to laugh at myself. Rain has always brought me good luck (and lots of tomatoes as well),
We were finally able to get married in 1990 and did so in March at the George Washington Manor in Roslyn. We shared our joy with our extended family and friends, and said our own vows. Our Rabbi married us in a very touching ceremony.
The wedding was seventeen years ago and our lives together have been one big blessing. We thank God every day for each other and that we were brought back together by some mysterious forces. I am not sure if it was caused by the hospital stay, the camp meeting, by seeing cousin Carole (as she is called by us these days) at the restaurant, or by whatever power led me to her doorstep. Paula always told her friends that if she ever remarried it would only be to someone she knew and trusted from the past. Paula and I are still best friends and favorite company, inseparable companions and lovers. I still open the car door for her and feel like I am out on my first date every time we go out. I am totally smitten by her charm and talents. She is a beautiful lady who people are charmed by. I feel like we met yesterday and yet it feels like forever. I pray that we love each other as we do now forever in decent health.
I retired from the heating oil business seven years ago and Paula retired five years prior to me. We spend our time in Port Washington and in Florida both in active adult communities. We have five children and six grandchildren between us.
The frosting on the cake is that Paula’s Mom and my Dad lived to dance with each other at our wedding and see something happen that they had speculated about nearly 40 years earlier. My father said to Paula’s mom in a basement in Brooklyn when he was there on business, “Wouldn’t it be nice if our kids got together.”
We did and it is.
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