The Elevator Accident

When I graduated college, I had absolutely no idea on what I wanted to do career wise. I had applied to several law schools, but did not get in any of them. So here it was, September, and I had to find a job. Turns out that Hahne and Co, an upscale department  store in  Newark, NJ, was looking for an executive management trainee in their warehouse. Management trainee was a code word for you're a college graduate who majored in something worthless, (mine was history) that can't find a job, and who was willing to work hard for a small salary.
The actual job I landed was as a warehouse supervisor, managing about 30 old ladies who checked in and price ticketed  all of the apparel that was to be sold in the 5 stores Hahne's operated in New Jersey, including the flagship location in Newark.  The warehouse was located on the top floor of the store. Trucks with the store merchandise would deliver on the street level, or "the walk" as it was known, and then the merchandise would be delivered up to the fourth floor where I worked, via 1 of the 2 giant freight elevators.
My area would check in the apparel deliveries, make price tickets, ticket the merchandise, then separate the orders that were destined for each of the five stores and then from there they would be transferred out daily in the merchandise  "cages" via a daily truck run.

The other side of the warehouse did the same with most of the non apparel merchandise that the store sold.
Working at Hahne's was like being in the cast of a soap opera, with a heavy dose of daily human drama. Working in retail is not for the faint of heart, as it's a very dynamic, stressful business, with a lot of pressure and daily, critical deadlines to meet.
 One particular day though  will always stick in my mind.
My immediate boss was a guy named Art who had limitless energy as he practically ran from one side of the warehouse to the other on a daily basis. He was really a nice guy who took me under his wing and taught me many lessons on how to handle people.
On this fateful day, Art was rushing around as usual and for some reason was going down to "the walk" and was going to use the old freight elevator, which was side by side with the "new " elevator. This old elevator was operated by hand, as you had to pull these giant thick  cables to get the elevator to start moving. What happened next was never fully explained, but just as Art was getting on the elevator,  Eddie, the guy who was riding down with Art and who was controlling the elevator, pulled the cable to get it moving just as Art was in the process of getting on it. As a result, Art lost his balance and his body fell into the small space between  the elevator car and the elevator shaft. He was literally pressed and scraped between the small space between the  cement elevator shaft and the body of the elevator.
I was doing my usual stuff on the other side of the warehouse when someone came running over and said Mr. H was injured in an elevator accident. I rushed over to the other side of the warehouse, made my way down to to walk area on the street, where an there was already a chaotic scene that included an ambulance ,fire rescue trucks, and the police. I looked in the elevator which was mangled by the rescue guys in the process of  extricating Art out of it.(The outside of the elevator and "the walk" are  shown in the photo below. The door that has the pink heart on it is THE elevator)


Next thing I knew, I was in the ambulance with my boss, flying down to the hospital that was close by. Art looked like he had been through a war, with giant bandages on the wounds he suffered on his torso and extremities.He was strapped into a gurney, talking like he was a crazy person, and obviously suffering from shock. He was in critical condition. He babbled something to me about not telling his wife Peggy right away about his condition.
I was flipping out, ready to cry , and totally devastated. We made it quickly to the hospital and the rest of that day's experience is a blur. I do remember walking back to Hahne's after they stabilized Art and completing the rest of my day in a trance.

I visited Art many times in the hospital after that day and eventually he did return to work, with a pronounced limp and some other visible damage.
Twenty or so years later, there was a human interest article about  my old boss in our local paper.  It did not mention that fateful day and Art's near fatal elevator accident.

The Sexton's Tale

Looking back at my childhood, it's apparent that we were somewhat poor as I was growing up. We never went out to eat...and I mean never. The first time we went out to eat as a family was when I was 16 or 17 years old and only because we had to as we were traveling in Canada to visit my older brother at school. I could give you some other examples, but you get the picture. One of the consequences of our economic status, was that my dad had to take on other employment besides his job at the brewery.
Since my dad was a porter at Ballantine (porter being the fancy word for janitor), he sought out similar work and ending up being the sexton at a church. (sexton being the fancy church word for janitor).

For a few years, he was actually sexton at 2 churches, the one we attended as a family as well as another one.

Cleaning the churches meant that almost all of my Saturdays for a good many years, were spent helping my dad, along with the rest of the family, getting these 2 churches clean on a weekly basis. While the other kids my age  were enjoying their Saturdays off, I was busy as one of my dad's helpers. At both churches, we were also responsible for the grounds-keeping, which meant shoveling snow and mowing the lawn, and most horrifically at one of the churches, raking leaves in the autumn. Most of the time I didn't complain about pressed into what we called around our house, The Communist Labor Farm.
I did get paid a very modest sum. Every other week or so my dad would give me a quarter. As in twenty five cents.  In today's terms, that was less than $2, for about 5 hours work every Saturday. Occasionally, actually very occasionally, he would take me out for ice cream.

 One particular Saturday when I was about 10 or so, my older brother and I accompanied my dad to one of the churches. I was in a rather foul mood, complaining about how I had to work while every other kid my age, was out playing with their friends. As we arrived at the church, I guess my dad had enough of my attitude that day and said that if I didn't want to help, that was fine. "Go home", he said. With that he and my brother walked in, leaving me standing outside the church.
The church was one town over from where we lived , about 3 and half miles away,  I contemplated my options, and decided I would take my dad up on his offer. Without telling my dad what I had decided, I started down the street, very confident of the route home as we made this trek twice a week. Right down the street there was some parking lot construction going on, and I watched that for probably a half hour. I then proceeded to walk the rest of the way home, taking my sweet time.
My mom was startled when I arrived at our house by myself. She asked where everyone else was and I told her what had happened. At this point, I was sure that I was in no trouble, as I had simply taken up my dad on his offer. Man, was I wrong.
My dad was really mad at what I had done. Corporal punishment back then was the norm. I got the norm, and then some.

Oh Deer!

Living in a town that still has some farms left and a great deal of wooded areas still intact, can lead to unexpected animal encounters. A few years ago, when our beloved dog Moses was still with us, I took him outside to do his business early one evening, when what should be walking down my street, but a huge brown and white cow! 

It was so unexpected and really caught me by surprise. The cow was moving fast, seemingly headed for some special destination. I quickly went back inside, Moses in tow, and called the cops. By the time I got back outside to see where the cow was, he was out of sight. No doubt that one of the local farms was shy one cow that day.

One creature I'm never surprised to see in our area are deer. Our town is overrun by them and you can see herds of them, groups of 10-12 deer, at any given time. 
It's a weekly job in every season but winter, to go to the back yard and pick up their deposits. One warm, sunny afternoon in the spring a few years ago, I was headed home on Route 202 and when I was almost at my exit, I noticed that everyone ahead of me was hitting their brakes. I slowed down as well, and saw that several deer were
crossing the highway. Everyone in my direction avoided hitting any of the deer.
But, it was a different story on the other side of the highway, where there was less traffic. A speeding
car in the other direction, hit one of the deer with such impact, that the deer was propelled up in the air like 30 feet and it began rotating in the air, end over end in an arc over the highway.

By pure chance a  convertible, with it's top down was heading in the deer's direction, as it made it's inevitable downward descent. The deer landed in the convertible's back seat, positioned perfectly like a stuffed animal, it's head resting against the side cushions. If you had manually placed the deer in the back seat, you could not have done a better job at situating the deer so perfectly!
The horrified couple in the convertible  quickly

pulled over to a nearby shopping center and hastily exited their car. I called the police on their behalf. As you can see, I've made some bizarre calls to the cops over the years.

The Greatest Fishing Day Ever!

As regular readers of my blog know, my dad was a very avid fisherman. Whenever he had a day off, he usually went fishing. When we had our summer vacations however, he could not join my brother and my mom during the week, as vacation slots were determined by seniority. Here was a guy with like 8 weeks of vacation, but he never had one in the summer!
This one summer, we were on vacation again in the Catskill Region of New York state, in a town called Hunter. We stayed at a house which could hold 4-5 families or so, with some shared kitchens.
The Schoharie creek ran in the backyard, and my younger brother and I spent countless hours on the creek, fishing, swimming, and catching minnows and crayfish for use as bait .

When my father came up on the weekends,it would be non stop fishing the whole weekend. His fishing partner, Andrew, from my blog story "Andrew Rode the Boat Ashore", spent his entire summer staying at this house , so he of course would join my father and I on any fishing trips.

This particular summer was a very dry one and the drought had really taken a toll on the Schoharie Reservoir

where we were headed that day. The creek of the same name flowed for miles, eventually ending up at this huge reservoir which was probably 15-20 miles from where we were staying. The minnows I caught on the creek were so fragile, that we would stop at least 2 times on the way to the reservoir, to change the water in the minnow bucket.
When we finally made it to the water, after winding our way thru the forest path, we were all astonished at how low the water level was.There were only a few "ponds" of water here and there where the remaining waters had collected.
We quickly got our poles ready and began to fish. You've heard the expression of "shooting fish in a barrel". Well, this was hooking fish in a barrel. With virtually every cast in the water, regardless of what bait was used, a fish of some type was after it! We started to pull in walleyes, pickerel, perch, bass, crappies, and sunfish. It was a feeding frenzy! At one point, I had lost my bait  and was reeling my pole in when a fish struck at my line, because there was a small flashy metal blade that went with the hook!

Within  less than an hour, the three of us hauled in over 50 fish of all sizes and shapes. We would have caught more, but got lackadaisical when reeling them in and lost more than we would have on a normal fishing day!
Our success no doubt, was because the fish population, which was normally spread out over miles of water, were now crowded into some pretty small pockets of water.

With 50 fish caught in about an hours time, we decided to call it a day. We hauled the heavy load of fish back to the car and once we got back to our vacation house, gutted and cleaned all of them and boasted to anyone who would listen, about the greatest fishing day ever!

Stranded- Part 2

As I've outlined in Part 1 of "Stranded" , my son and I were stuck  at the Newark Penn Station train station due to a blizzard.
I quickly inventoried our possible alternatives. Transportation wise, there were none. Driving was impossible at this point and I wasn't about to call my wife and have her attempt to pick us up as my home is about 45 minutes in normal traffic from Newark.
I decided to call my daughter as she lived much closer to Newark. But she was stuck in her car, on Rt 280 one exit away from her house ,as she had been for over an hour! I explained our situation to her and she said she would call me once she got home.We tried calling one of my son's friends as he lived close by, but got no answer.
My thoughts now turned to finding a place to stay over that night. I knew there was a hotel right across the street from the train station, so my son and I ventured outside for the first time since the blizzard had started. It was not until that moment that I realized how bad the snow was. There was probably almost 10" by then and it was snowing like crazy!

We went into the hotel lobby and I asked the clerk if they had any rooms available and he gave me a classic reply:
"If President Obama showed up right now and asked us for a room, I would tell him what I'm telling you..we are 100% booked."

My son and I trudged back to the train station, where minute by minute, the chaos was growing. My cell phone rang and it was daughter! She had managed to finally get home and of course had her own horror story about her commute from NYC herself. My daughter had taken the initiative to find us a hotel room and actually found one and booked it for us! Only problem was, it was back in NYC near where the Twin Towers had stood. My daughter added that  was only 20 minutes away via the  PATH train, which was still running!

My son and I quickly found where the PATH trains departed from out of the terminal and bought our tickets. We waited for the next train for probably a half hour, but it did show up! We got on and joined the other anxious passengers.
The train ride was slow and we had several stops in Jersey to endure before we would enter the final tunnel to get into NYC. At one of the last stops, the train doors opened, people got on and off, and then we went nowhere. The train doors were open, allowing the incredibly  cold air into our train car. The public address system continued to babble unintelligibly with it's pre-recorded messages that made no sense and only served to irritate everyone..  No official updates were given, and we sat there for a half an hour. At one point, I glanced over at my son, and we both burst out laughing at the incredibly absurd situation.
Without warning, the doors closed, and we were on our way again, albeit very slowly. As we neared the last stop in NJ, the public address system announcer advised us that due to the blizzard the train would NOT be going onto the World Trade Center stop, where our hotel was. He indicated that bus service would be provided to take us into the city. I was highly skeptical that the bus, if there was one, would be able to go a block before getting stuck.
I got back on my phone, trying to book us a hotel room somewhere in Hoboken, NJ, which was going to be the last stop.
Then without any announcement, it was evident that we were going to get to the WTC stop after all. The train pulled into our station, and my son and I quickly bounded up the steps of the station into the winter wonderland. We trudged to the hotel and exhausted, made it up to our room. The 20 minute train ride had taken over 2 hours!

The next morning we got up early and made our way back to Penn Station in Newark. Many people were still sleeping there , stranded passengers like ourselves.
We finally got on the train that would take us back to our car in Jersey. We didn't know it at the time, but we caught the last train back to Jersey that morning...all trains out of Newark were suspended for the day right after ours departed.

Stranded!

Three years ago, nearly two feet of snow fell in New York City, in a blizzard of historic proportions.
As fate would have it, I was right in the middle of it. Here's the story.
I am fortunate enough to be employed as a sales manager for a big company that has a skybox suite at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It's used to entertain our biggest clients. The sales pros are free to invite their customers for most of the events that are held at the Garden, from the New York Knicks to Elton John and everything in between, including professional wrestling, which my son and I are fans of.

There's much demand for tickets for most events, but wrestling isn't the most popular event on the list. As it's a requirement that a manager attend all events, I am usually the only one who actually wants to help host the wrestling events and be the required managerial presence.
 I had agreed to host the event which was to be held at 7:30 on on 12-26-2010. No other folks from my company would be attending. I think about 6 people were scheduled to attend as my company's guests.
As the fates would have it, the weatherman were predicting an all out blizzard for that day and for once, they got it right. By the time we drove to the parking lot of the train station late that  afternoon, it was already snowing, and snowing hard. Under any other circumstances, I would not have ventured out beyond my own driveway, but I had made a commitment to host the event and I had a responsibility to fufill that promise.
We did pack the car with snow shovels and extra clothing and gear, but we traveled light on the train, since we would be indoors while traveling, the whole time. The train takes you right underneath MSG. We made it to the Garden on schedule, with few issues.

The wrestling event itself was mediocre at best, as the wrestlers themselves were distracted by the thought of not knowing how they were going to get to their next destination later that evening. Only 2 customers showed up, leaving the four of us to try and eat enough food to feed a dozen people. The 2 customers left before the event was over, worried about getting home. My son and I stayed till the end, probably about 10:30. Before we left, I stuffed a few leftover cookies into the pockets of my winter coat.
We got our first glimpse of what was going on outside as we left the Garden and got on the train from NYC's
Penn Station to Newark's Penn Station. From the windows looking out of MSG, it looked insane outside. At Newark Penn station, we could take the train that would bring us back to our car. Or so we thought.

The train ride from NYC to Newark went remarkably well, and we immediately went to the information booth to find out when the next train was back to the Somerville, NJ station, where our car was parked. Pandemonium was already underfoot, and I saw  a lot of fellow train riders with worried looks on their faces. The attendant at the information gave us the bad news. The storm was already so bad that ALL trains out of Newark were cancelled. Period. We had no transportation alternatives out of Newark. It was a little before 11PM and we were stranded.

To be continued.

My Lunch With Donovan

A few years ago, I subscribed to an internet  mailing list for Donovan, so I could keep track of his album releases and concerts. Rather than assume that you know who Donovan is, here's a brief bio on this very underrated musical talent.

From 1966 through 1969, Donovan scored a string of eleven Top 40 hits in a row, including Mellow Yellow, Sunshine Superman, Epistle To Dippy, There Is A Mountain, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, Hurdy Gurdy Man, Jennifer Juniper, Lalena, Atlantis, and Riki Tiki Tavi.
Donovan was one of the few artists to collaborate on songs with the Beatles, contributing lyrics and vocals to the song Yellow Submarine. Donovan was also invited by The Beatles to join them at Abbey Road Studios for the final orchestral overdub session for the Lennon-McCartney collaboration A Day in the Life, the grand finale of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Donovan influenced Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison in their guitar styles, and during his career played with folk music greats Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan, as well as rock musicians Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones.

Enough said, this guy is a legend!  In any event, one day I get an email that went to all members of this Donovan mailing list stating that Donovan would be having lunch before his gig in New Jersey and that everyone on the list was invited to join him!
My son Greg and I showed up at the appointed time and place and sure enough there was Donovan, having lunch with about 15-20 fans. I walked up to the table and said "I guess we're in the right place!"

Indeed, we were. As the lunch progressed, we played a musical chairs type of maneuver, where once you got to speak with Donovan for a spell, you moved down, so everyone got a chance. I of course quickly put my foot in my mouth by describing one of my favorite songs of his  to Donovan as "simple". His reply of : "Do you play?", made me realize I had insulted him , although no insult was intended. We moved on and had a delightful  conversation. My son Greg asked him about some nefarious business dealings from the past where Don (this is what us insiders call him) had gotten shafted by some recording execs.

Before you know it, lunch was over. I shared another moment with Don in the men's room as we relieved ourselves. Goodbyes were exchanged and I told him how we were looking forward to hearing him later that day in concert.

He gave a great concert that night!