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!

The Pee Machine

 I was a hard core bed-wetter up until at least nine years old. By hard core, I mean I drenched my pajamas along with bed every single night! As a parent, I can now fully appreciate how hard it must have been on my mom  to have to wash my urine filled clothes and bedding every morning. I never did hear one word of complaint in all those years.

It was really embarrassing in many respects and I can clearly remember having to say no to any sleep over requests from my friends, lest they find out about my little secret.
So one day, without telling me why, my mom told me that it was super important that I come home right from school that day. When I got home , there was a stranger in our living room who my mom introduced as a representative of a company that rented out bed wetting alarm machines. What a sales job this guy had.
From that day forward in my house, we called this cool little device, the pee machine.

Here's the way it worked. A aluminum like pad was placed under your sheets. The pad was connected by wires to the little radio like device that was placed by your bed and the unit was plugged in to an outlet. When you let loose, the urine completed the electrical circuit and set off a piercing alarm. The sales guy actually demonstrated it by having a glass with some salt dissolved in it, which he pored on one the pads he had hooked up to the pee machine. Sure enough, when he spilled just a little of the salt water on it, the little unit let out a very shrill tone. I sat there listening to it squeal until the sales guy told me to shut off the pee machine , which I did.
Thankfully, my parents were able to buy the pee machine elsewhere, which was a lot less expensive than renting it.
Over the next several weeks, everyone in the family knew when I was wetting my bed. Sometimes, the piercing alarm would still be shrieking when my mom came in to assist, as I was still sound asleep.
My mom kept a "wetting the bed "report card by my bed, with room for comments and stars if I stayed dry. I remember one of the comments being a simple one word " flood", with others noting how I got up  quickly and actually emptied most of my bladder in the toilet instead of in my bed! Slowly, with some "accidents" in between, the dry nights became more and more frequent, as my body and brain started to understand that when I had to go, it meant that I had to wake up and then go. I'll bet it was an 8-12 week process, but in the end, I was cured!
So lift a glass and join me in saluting  the glorious pee machine!

The Dumbest Thing I Ever Did

The dumbest thing I ever did just happened yesterday. I'm still smarting from my mistake, but felt it best to blog about it now, while the wound is still fresh.
I've read some articles lately that say how when you plan an event in the future, that you are really looking forward to, that you actually benefit from the event several weeks prior to it actually occurring. I can attest that this is a true statement. Every summer, we take one week of what I call a real vacation. Not a "staycation" , where you take day trips, but a real away from it all vacation. We've been going to Cape Cod in Massachusetts on and off for over 20 years, since our kids were little. We are so familiar with The Cape, that it feels like a second home for us.

Usually in December, I start trolling http://www.homeaway.com and plug in the search criteria for the house we need and start emailing the owners who have listed their houses for rent. We bring our dog Newman with us, and searching for "pet friendly" rentals cuts down on the number of suitable places quite substantially.
I found a great place this year that matched our budget and needs and booked the house for a week before 2013 even started! Several emails and even a phone call were exchanged between myself and the owners and eventually they sent us the rental agreement and we sent them a deposit.
We were all set for the week of 7/14-7-21.

I'm not a last minute packer, so I spent about 2 weeks slowing gathering everything we need for vacation. I'm so organized that I've developed a "vacation to do/bring" list that I update every year, so we don't forget anything.  I notify our newspapers to suspend delivery, make sure the yard and garden are tended to before we're away for the week, etc. I research what live theater and music we might see during our vacation, and even search for new eateries that are highly rated on YELP. I buy our beach pass ahead of time too, so we don't waste a precious minute getting one in person. I arrange for our mail to be picked up by a neighbor, and lined up our kids (now adults), to water the garden during our absence.

Mentally, I start thinking about how great vacation is going to be, and how relaxing and wonderful the whole experience is going to be at least two weeks before we go. This year was no exception.

So Saturday night, we went to bed early, knowing we would be getting up at 4:30 AM for the over five hour drive to The Cape.
The car was already packed, the  GPS loaded with the vacation address, and our anticipation was high.  The ride up was easy and we were fortunate not to hit any traffic jams even as we took one of the two bridges which are the only means of entry onto Cape Cod. We were on The Cape before 11 AM, and knew we had several hours to spend before we could get into our rental house where check in time was three PM. We drove along beautiful Route 6A , and stopped for breakfast at our favorite place, the 6A Cafe.

As we neared the town of Eastham, where our rental was, my wife and I excitedly pointed out several destinations we would surely hit during our stay...Nickerson State Park, Villa Pizza, Cape Cod Natural History Museum, and many others. It was going to be glorious week, with even the weather cooperating. We actually showed up about 1:30 at our rental, but the owner told us he had just arrived to clean it, and that we should come back at the check in time of 3 PM, which we did.

I started to feel slightly anxious when we pulled into the parking area where there were now 2 cars parked. We really wanted to unload the car, settle our dog and go out for a late lunch. What was even odder was that there were several people sitting on OUR deck (well at least it was ours for the week), drinking ice tea and chatting. We figured they were friend of the owners, who had stopped over to chat. I grabbed a few bags from our car and my wife asked if was ok to go in the house and the owners said sure. My wife noticed there was a "welcome " goody bag on the kitchen table, with someone else's name on it. She went back outside on the deck to tell the owners, and that's right about when all us started to realize something was amiss.

The people on the deck chatting with the owners were renters just like us. They had booked the week of 7-14, just like we had, or so I thought. The owner quickly took out his iPAD and said something like, "I hope I didn't make a mistake ."  While he fumbled with his iPAD, I fired up my laptop, where
I knew I had copies of the emails we had exchanged regarding the rental. Before I could connect up, the owner showed me a copy of the rental agreement I had signed. It was for the week of 7/7 to 7/14. That was last week! While it was hot in the kitchen where I was trying to get my laptop connected, my own internal temperature spiked to the point where beads of sweat were pouring off my face.

No matter what emails I found, the owner had the proverbial smoking gun with the copy of the signed rental agreement.. Somehow, I had messed up the dates. We were a week late!  Still disbelieving I had made such a moronic error, I continued to try to get my laptop connected to the internet , still thinking that maybe the owners had screwed up the dates. When I finally was able to view my emails, I couldn't find one that supported this week as the week we had asked for. I told the owner I had committed a colossal blunder. He was as nice as could be, feeling badly for us, but what could he really do? He helped me find a realtor in town as I was thinking at this point that maybe we could rent another place for the week.

But as we pulled away from our short lived vacation house, I started to realize that finding another suitable rental at 4 PM on a Sunday afternoon, was probably not going to happen. We also hadn't budgeted any monies for such an occurrence. The wife suggested we drive a short distance to Ben and Jerry's were she would get us some ice cream, and we could decide what to do.

Before she even came back to the car with my New York Fudge Chunk ice cream,

I realized that the best alternative was to head home and cut our losses. My wife agreed and some tears were shed by yours truly as I realized that all of my planning, anticipation, and excitement had just been dashed to bits. We were not going to be spending the week at The Cape. I had killed our vacation by messing up the date. Even as I write this, I still don't get what possessed me to do so.

We had spent a grand total of about four and half hours on the Cape. Talk about a vacation that flew by!

Flying Mushooms!

My mom would wash the kitchen floor now and then on Saturdays, on her hands and knees. It looked beautiful when it was done. We all knew that we should try as best we could to keep that floor as clean as possible at least for a while. She also cleaned the rest of the kitchen until it all glistened and shined.

My dad went fishing almost every Saturday and on this particular spring day came home late in the afternoon and strolled into the kitchen from the back door, which lead right into the kitchen. His muddy boots which he failed to take off, made a trail from the door to the kitchen stove. My dad had picked wild mushrooms that day and was eager to cook them up on the gas range immediately. So here he is, standing at the range, muddy fishing boots on, frying mushrooms which are splattering grease all over the newly cleaned range.

Enter my mom. Heated words were exchanged between this great couple who rarely fought over anything. The battle of words continued until my dad reached his boiling point. In one seamless motion, he shut off the frying mushrooms, walked over to the back door, and propped it open with one hand. He then flung the frying pan and mushrooms out the door into our back yard, which was four feet away from the door.


They were still sizzling when I went outside to retrieve them.

Lost?

My father was an avid fisherman and we often traveled far distances to fish at the most desirable locations. We fished a lot in New York's cities reservoir system. The bulk of their watersheds are in the Catskill Mountain region of New York State, which was about 2-3 hours from where we lived.
My trusty Datsun 1200 coupe also served as our sleeping quarters as we often stayed overnight. How 3 grown men got a good nights sleep in the back of this car still escapes me.

On this fateful summer trip, we fished at The Pepacton Resevoir,

a sprawling lake near Liberty, NY.  Our plan was simple, as we would arrive late afternoon, fish till it got dark, go back to the car, sleep, and then get up as early as possible and fish in the morning.

The path to the part of the reservoir we wanted to fish in was probably a mile long, all downhill to the water, all uphill back. It was almost as wide as a car, but overgrown in spots. It was probably there as a fire road. As it got closer to the water, it was much less defined and sort of petered out. We sauntered down with all of our fishing gear and some food and water as well, and spent that late afternoon fishing the resevoir. In the many times we fished there, I never encountered another fisherman in the area.

Nighttime came quickly and with that came a darkness that is only experienced when you are in a remote area like this where there is no ambient light at all. We had a few pretty crappy flashlights with us. We stowed our fishing stuff by some trees so we would not have to lug it back and forth to the car, and then we were ready to head back up the trail to our car.

As we turned towards the woods where the path was, one thing became alarmingly clear. While it was easy to see the path back to the car in the daytime, it was impossible at night. Everything kind of looked the same. We started to walk a pathway, only to have it dead end in a maze of prickly bushes and shrubs. Over and over again, we would think we found the right "entrance" to the fire road, only to find that it wasn't the right one. We went right, we went left, and became increasingly stressed as we wandered back and forth for probably an hour.

We had to get back to the car, as sleeping on the water's edge would have been meant not only a horrible nights sleep, but danger as well, as there were plenty of bears in these woods.  It was a hot summer's night and by this point we were very tired and thirsty, having finished the last of our water a while ago.

I know I speak for the three of us when I say we were scared and panicky. We also felt so dumb that we hadn't marked the entrance to the fire road back in some manner.  I for one had given up, imagining a pretty horrible, sleepless night , being sweaty, hungry, and thirsty.

I don't know if it was my dad or my younger brother who finally found the path after what seemed like an eternity. While we didn't wander like  Moses for forty years, it sure felt like it. It was so great to finally get back to our car, quench our thirst, and  eventually bed down for the night. We made plans right then as to how we would mark the entrance to the path the next time we fished at Pepacton.




I was speaking to my younger brother about this story a few years ago, and we were both reliving the experience. He then told me something I hadn't known. Just before we found the path, he had prayed fervently that we would. Thank God for answered prayers!

The Young Academicians Speech

Eighth  grade graduation was a pretty big deal in my town, so when one of my teachers told me I would be giving a speech during the ceremony I was pretty excited. I'm not really sure why I was chosen as I was not the valedictorian or even close . I was to be listed on the program as a "young academician."  Whatever that was.

Mr. B, who was the teacher who advised me of this honor, wrote out the whole speech for me and of course I spent many hours practicing it. I had the speech transcribed to some index cards, but after a short while, I had the speech down pat. Or so I thought.
The speech was in two parts, the first part being the longer part, followed by what was supposed to be a short pause, followed by me saying " honored guests, parents, blah blah blah. I present to you the class of 1967." I have absolutely no recollection of what my speech was about besides those words.

So the big day came that fateful day in June and the auditorium was packed to the rafters with family members and friends. My speech was to follow a stirring rendition of Bless This House sung by one of my classmates. I stepped lively up to the podium with my index cards with the speech on it tucked into my back pocket.  Brimming with all the confidence a cocky 13 year old can have, I was sure I would never have to even glance at my note cards.

Sure enough, I eloquently gave the first part of my speech, using the gestures and inflections I had so carefully practiced for several weeks. Then came the dramatic pause before I gave the "honored guests" part ending. So, I paused. Then, for some inexplicable reason, my mind went totally blank. I had no idea what I was supposed to say next. My mind was racing wildly. Should I grab the note cards from my back pocket? No, I reasoned, that would look awkward. I sought out Mr. B, hoping he could prompt me as to what the next words were. He shrugged his shoulders. I started to get really hot and nervously patted my hands against the sides of my suit. The audience started to realize I had forgotten the rest of my speech.

There was a quiet buzzing in the crowd as they too were unsure of what to do, or how this was going to play out. I looked out at the crowd hoping an answer to this nightmare was somewhere out there, but it wasn't! I don't know how long I stood there like a  clueless moron, but it still seems even today, like it was an eternity.

Then, without warning, the words came back to me. I finished off the speech and got what I thought was an extra loud round of applause from the relieved crowd.

I returned to my seat and one of my snarky classmates greeted me with the two words I would hear many times over the next few days: "nice speech".