My gambling brought us free tickets to the Joan Rivers show mentioned in the last post. Also mentioned was my relative ignorance regarding Las Vegas and money.
Howevah . . . my ignorance was not total, if only because some things are universal.
When Mandy and I headed for the appropriate theater, I slipped a folded twenty into my right hand and used my left hand to direct Mandy, ever so subtly, toward whatever point seemed most likely to provide happiness. A gent with a book outlining all possible chair and table arrangements seated us, but only after I had shaken hands with him and announced that we were visiting from Chicago. He returned the handshake enthusiastically and hoped that we would enjoy not only the show biut the rest of our stay as well.
At that point our relative weights had exchanged hosts by the weight of one twenty dollar bill, and he lifted the cordon separating two imaginary classes of patrons, dropped it on the other side of us, and murmured "Any place you wish." I asked Mandy to choose a spot, she did, and our host seated us, bowed, and disappeared.
A couple of minutes later, while Mandy and I were awaiting our drinks, our host seated a party of six, all late twenties in age, I should think, a couple of tables away from us, and thus below the salt. Immediately, the group's alpha male began whining, "We were hoping for a better location than this. Can't we do better than this?"
(Ha! Yes, you can, but not by whining.)
Friday, September 5, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
JOAN RIVERS, R.I.P.
Joan Rivers has given up the ghost at age 81 and has reminded me of an unblogged Las Vegas story you might enjoy.
Perhaps 20 years ago Mandy and I saw Joan Rivers in Las Vegas, and she was top notch. Opening for her were the Smothers Brothers and Jim Stafford, all as one act and very amusing.
A funny thing happened. It was a dinner/show at one of the major casinos (the Frontier? I'm not sure.), and after we had ordered drinks we were given menus.
Now I knew Mandy really liked lobster, and the only two entrees on this menu were chicken and lobster - $25 and $50, respectively.
After a minute Mandy said "I'm getting the chicken." I said "Whaaat? You love lobster and seldom have a chance at it."
"I know, Donnie, but it's too expensive."
"So you're getting a $25 chicken?"
She came to her senses and had the lobster. I had the chicken 'cuz I'm not that big a lobster fan. I imagine the waiter thought I was the stereotypical cheapskate husband or something.
This, by the way, was the trip I blogged about in a string of entries beginning May 11, 2008, the trip during which she called her girlfriend and they had me make a bet for each of them.
At the time Mandy was worrying about the $50 lobster I was $9,000 ahead. I do b'lieve that if I'd been just a tad more informed, I could have slipped the waiter and the cook a few bucks each and had a perfectly good rare steak as a substitute for the chicken, but that trip was just the very beginning of my education about the effect of money in Las Vegas.
Perhaps 20 years ago Mandy and I saw Joan Rivers in Las Vegas, and she was top notch. Opening for her were the Smothers Brothers and Jim Stafford, all as one act and very amusing.
A funny thing happened. It was a dinner/show at one of the major casinos (the Frontier? I'm not sure.), and after we had ordered drinks we were given menus.
Now I knew Mandy really liked lobster, and the only two entrees on this menu were chicken and lobster - $25 and $50, respectively.
After a minute Mandy said "I'm getting the chicken." I said "Whaaat? You love lobster and seldom have a chance at it."
"I know, Donnie, but it's too expensive."
"So you're getting a $25 chicken?"
She came to her senses and had the lobster. I had the chicken 'cuz I'm not that big a lobster fan. I imagine the waiter thought I was the stereotypical cheapskate husband or something.
This, by the way, was the trip I blogged about in a string of entries beginning May 11, 2008, the trip during which she called her girlfriend and they had me make a bet for each of them.
At the time Mandy was worrying about the $50 lobster I was $9,000 ahead. I do b'lieve that if I'd been just a tad more informed, I could have slipped the waiter and the cook a few bucks each and had a perfectly good rare steak as a substitute for the chicken, but that trip was just the very beginning of my education about the effect of money in Las Vegas.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Music and Memories
With 2,805 songs in my jukebox, there is grist for many a fond (and occasionally not so fond) memory. I think it is safe to say that more than half of the songs carry with them the thought of some past event, friend, lover, or place. Many - most - of the memories are trivial, but do bring a smile to my face, or at least the thought of a smile to my mind.
Some songs that trigger a memory trigger *exactly* the same memory every time I hear them, although my mind might wander anywhere after the initial thought.
I cannot convey to you the substance of those memories, and if I tried then you might never return here, having learned that the printed word can indeed put one to sleep, but I'm not quite ready to abandon the subject of the jukebox, so I thought I'd give you some odd facts about it, at least a few of which you might find mildly interesting.
Some songs that trigger a memory trigger *exactly* the same memory every time I hear them, although my mind might wander anywhere after the initial thought.
I cannot convey to you the substance of those memories, and if I tried then you might never return here, having learned that the printed word can indeed put one to sleep, but I'm not quite ready to abandon the subject of the jukebox, so I thought I'd give you some odd facts about it, at least a few of which you might find mildly interesting.
- Artist with the most songs on the jukebox: Elvis Presley, with 60. It might have been The Beatles (47) but for the fact that many of their songs didn't make the top 20 only because they were not released as singles. Singles purchases and jukebox plays were part of the Billboard scoring criteria, so songs released only on albums paid a price for that.
- Song with the most radical difference in presentations: With a Little Help from My Friends, by The Beatles and by Joe Cocker.
(Note: this excludes a number of possiblities created by white artists covering releases of songs by black artists, a common practice in the 1950's. They are too numerous to recite, but a fine example would be Long Tall Sally by Little Richard and by Pat Boone. I once emailed a friend with links to YouTube versions of those two), and she subsequently told me that she simply could not listen to more than one verse of Pat Boone's version. Try it yourself:
Little Richard:
Pat Boone: )
- Best cover version done in the same style as the original: Angel of the Morning, Merrilee Rush and the Turnabouts, covered by Juice Newton
- Too good to leave out: That's All Right, by Elvis Presley (his first recording)
- Longest recording: Tubular Bells (Part One), (25:33) by Mike Oldfield. The ultimate stoner recording.
- Best disco number: Stayin' Alive, by The Bee Gees (To be fair, there is very little on the jukebox in the way of disco.)
- The song that breaks my heart: Adios Mi Corazon, by Juice Newton
- The song you wouldn't believe is on my jukebox if you knew me: Dance Hall Days, by Wang Chung
- Earliest recording: White Christmas, by Bing Crosby (1942)
- Latest recording: Time After Time, by Blaque
- Earliest Rock and Roll song: (We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock, by Bill Haley and His Comets, the one that kicked it all off.
- Longest (that made the charts): Money for Nothing, (8:13) by Dire Straits
- Artist with most duets that charted: Marvin Gaye, with 8 - 5 with Tammi Terrell, 2 with Mary Wells, and 1 with Kim Weston
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Wandering Through My Past
About 30 years ago I met Jeff (RIP), about whom I have posted here, and he and I became best friends. Jeff grew up in the Detroit area and knew a *lot* about the music of the 1950's and 1960's, and one day I told him that when technology permitted I would have a jukebox that included every tune that made the pop music top 20 from 1955 to 1969, the music of my youth, basically. We were both sure that one day technology *would* provide for this, but of course we had no idea of what form that might take.
In the 1990's mp3 came along, and in 1998 I decided that *this* was it, this was how I could acquire and store all tunes I needed. A company named MusicMatch had created a software jukebox that ran on home computers and sold for $19.95, with free updates as they were released. I bought a copy and I am here to tell you that there has *never* been a better music management program for home users and their PC's.
In the beginning, hard drives did not have the capacity to store all the music I wanted - I think that when I started I had a 20MB (roughly twenty million bytes) hard drive, but I knew that the technology would increase that at a faster rate than I would acquire music. My "completed" jukebox takes 7.02 GB, about seven billion bytes. Today you can get a drive with a trillion bytes.
I also needed to know *which* songs were top 20/1955-1969, and I acquired a copy of Joel Whitburn's "The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits." I recommend this book, which is updated and released every several years, to anyone seriously interested in pop music. I've owned three editions, and they all begin with 1955 and end at the year before the release. For all the top 40 songs it provides title, recording artist, charting information, record/CD label information, tidbits about artists and songs, yada yada yada. Did you know that the Herman's Hermits novelty hit "I'm Henry the VIII, I Am" was a hit in 1911 for someone named Henry Champion? Oh, stop it. You did not.
I began collecting "my" songs in 1998, purchasing music CD's based on the Whitburn book and using downloaded software to convert the songs to the mp3 format. With the acquisition of "Hopeless" by Andy Williams (#13, 1963) last week, I reached my goal of . . . well. what amounts to *my* definition of the top 20, 1955-1969.
Why "my" definition? Well, the Whitburn book blindsided me. When it was several years old I had worn it out. It's a large and thick book, and pages were falling out. I replaced it with the latest version, not seeing the trap. I'd bet you don't see it either.
In the interim between the releases, the creators of the book had consulted - and incorporated - more polls, more criteria, etc., and I found to my horror that the new book had a slightly *different* version of what songs had made the top 20. Got it? My first edition of the book said that *these* songs had made the top 20, and my second edition of the book said *those* songs had made the top 20. The two sets were *nearly* identical, but not quite.
I had a Notepad document which began as a complete list of the records that the first edition said made the top 20, and which was modified by deleting each entry as I acquired the song. I bit the bullet. I went through the new edition artist by artist, checking to see that either I already had each song I needed or that it was in my "needed" list. If neither of those things were true it was added to the "needed" list.
You know what's coming, right? Right. When I wore out the second edition and acquired a third, I ran into the same problem. However, I had anticipated it and decided that my "needed" list was frozen forever after the incorporation of second edition changes. We're talking about nearly 2,600 songs here, which had begun as 2,400 and something. I had (and have) no reason to believe that the book wouldn't alter that list with every edition, and I wasn't going to do several weeks of work with each new book.
In full screen mode, my MusicMatch Jukebox (MMJB) displays 30 songs at a time. I've set it up so that for each song I see (from left to right) the song title, the recording artist, the year in which it peaked, its peak position, and the song duration. More information is available by right clicking on one of those fields.
In addition to my originally defined set, I have a couple hundred songs on there which didn't make the top 20 or weren't in the 1955 to 1969 period, but are there simply because it's my jukebox and I want them there.
If this is already TMI, you might want to skip the next post.
In the 1990's mp3 came along, and in 1998 I decided that *this* was it, this was how I could acquire and store all tunes I needed. A company named MusicMatch had created a software jukebox that ran on home computers and sold for $19.95, with free updates as they were released. I bought a copy and I am here to tell you that there has *never* been a better music management program for home users and their PC's.
In the beginning, hard drives did not have the capacity to store all the music I wanted - I think that when I started I had a 20MB (roughly twenty million bytes) hard drive, but I knew that the technology would increase that at a faster rate than I would acquire music. My "completed" jukebox takes 7.02 GB, about seven billion bytes. Today you can get a drive with a trillion bytes.
I also needed to know *which* songs were top 20/1955-1969, and I acquired a copy of Joel Whitburn's "The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits." I recommend this book, which is updated and released every several years, to anyone seriously interested in pop music. I've owned three editions, and they all begin with 1955 and end at the year before the release. For all the top 40 songs it provides title, recording artist, charting information, record/CD label information, tidbits about artists and songs, yada yada yada. Did you know that the Herman's Hermits novelty hit "I'm Henry the VIII, I Am" was a hit in 1911 for someone named Henry Champion? Oh, stop it. You did not.
I began collecting "my" songs in 1998, purchasing music CD's based on the Whitburn book and using downloaded software to convert the songs to the mp3 format. With the acquisition of "Hopeless" by Andy Williams (#13, 1963) last week, I reached my goal of . . . well. what amounts to *my* definition of the top 20, 1955-1969.
Why "my" definition? Well, the Whitburn book blindsided me. When it was several years old I had worn it out. It's a large and thick book, and pages were falling out. I replaced it with the latest version, not seeing the trap. I'd bet you don't see it either.
In the interim between the releases, the creators of the book had consulted - and incorporated - more polls, more criteria, etc., and I found to my horror that the new book had a slightly *different* version of what songs had made the top 20. Got it? My first edition of the book said that *these* songs had made the top 20, and my second edition of the book said *those* songs had made the top 20. The two sets were *nearly* identical, but not quite.
I had a Notepad document which began as a complete list of the records that the first edition said made the top 20, and which was modified by deleting each entry as I acquired the song. I bit the bullet. I went through the new edition artist by artist, checking to see that either I already had each song I needed or that it was in my "needed" list. If neither of those things were true it was added to the "needed" list.
You know what's coming, right? Right. When I wore out the second edition and acquired a third, I ran into the same problem. However, I had anticipated it and decided that my "needed" list was frozen forever after the incorporation of second edition changes. We're talking about nearly 2,600 songs here, which had begun as 2,400 and something. I had (and have) no reason to believe that the book wouldn't alter that list with every edition, and I wasn't going to do several weeks of work with each new book.
In full screen mode, my MusicMatch Jukebox (MMJB) displays 30 songs at a time. I've set it up so that for each song I see (from left to right) the song title, the recording artist, the year in which it peaked, its peak position, and the song duration. More information is available by right clicking on one of those fields.
In addition to my originally defined set, I have a couple hundred songs on there which didn't make the top 20 or weren't in the 1955 to 1969 period, but are there simply because it's my jukebox and I want them there.
If this is already TMI, you might want to skip the next post.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Time Continues Its March
Five years ago today I published this.
It never occurred to me that some of the subject matter might be new to the occasional young adult who stumbled over this blog. I know that much of life just goes right over my head, but really, sometimes I am astonished at how oblivious I can be.
Last week I drove to a friend's house. On the way I got stopped by a red light. The driver on my immediate left began honking his horn. I rolled my window down and saw a thirtyish male driver. He pointed toward the rear of my can and yelled, "What's with the Jane Fonda sticker?"
Instantly, it flashed through my mind for the first time how long ago all that was.
I gave my questioner a very short description of the reason for the bumper sticker, the light turned green, he said "Gotcha," and we drove on.
You know, it was 41 years ago that she posed in that anti-aircraft gun embankment, and 46 years ago that I left Vietnam. To me it seems
. . . not "like yesterday," exactly, but only a few years ago.
Nevertheless, two generations of adult Americans now exist who were born after all that was over, and who are now personally and immediately affected by our Vietnam experience not much more than my generation was personally and immediately affected by . . . World War I, say.
Wow.
It never occurred to me that some of the subject matter might be new to the occasional young adult who stumbled over this blog. I know that much of life just goes right over my head, but really, sometimes I am astonished at how oblivious I can be.
Last week I drove to a friend's house. On the way I got stopped by a red light. The driver on my immediate left began honking his horn. I rolled my window down and saw a thirtyish male driver. He pointed toward the rear of my can and yelled, "What's with the Jane Fonda sticker?"
Instantly, it flashed through my mind for the first time how long ago all that was.
I gave my questioner a very short description of the reason for the bumper sticker, the light turned green, he said "Gotcha," and we drove on.
You know, it was 41 years ago that she posed in that anti-aircraft gun embankment, and 46 years ago that I left Vietnam. To me it seems
. . . not "like yesterday," exactly, but only a few years ago.
Nevertheless, two generations of adult Americans now exist who were born after all that was over, and who are now personally and immediately affected by our Vietnam experience not much more than my generation was personally and immediately affected by . . . World War I, say.
Wow.
Monday, June 3, 2013
WJMK Memories
For a while, WJMK in Chicago was an oldies station, playing music from the 1950's and
1960's. The following occurred (roughly) between 1979 and 1991.
- A father called in asking the DJ to play Tony Joe White's Polk Salad Annie because his
children would not believe that a song included the lines
Polk Salad Annie,
'Gators got your granny.
Chomp, chomp chomp.
And no, it's not Poke Salad Annie, it's Polk Salad Annie. - Another dad called in asking for a particular version of Land of 1000 Dances, and for the artists to be credited aloud because *his* children declined to believe that any recording group had been named "Cannibal and the Headhunters."
- The very first time I heard Amy Scott's voice she had just joined WJMK as a disc jockey. Marcie Blane's I Want to Be Bobby's Girl finished playing and Amy said, "Ah, yes, feed the starving children in Ethiopia and let me be Bobby's girl."
- Singer Shirley Ellis had only three top 40 hits, The Nitty Gritty, The Name Game, and The Clapping Song (Clap Pat Clap Slap). Once after Amy played The Name Game, she announced "That was the easily entertained Shirley Ellis."
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Dad's Memories: My Afterthoughts
Related to Part I:
First Class postage was very stable for a long time. During Dad's childhood it was two cents. During my childhood it was three cents. Also during my childhood, the postman delivered twice a day, entirely on foot - no house to house truck driving.
Regarding the knickers boys wore to school: Dad once told me that some boys, during the first few school days of their lives, deposited something into their trousers, which would slide down until stopped by the bunching of the tucked in pants at the boots. Before long you could tell by the smell. Also, one girl created quite a puddle under her chair.
Strafford went on to become the black sheep of the family. At 12 or 13 he hustled little bottles of booze in the stands at sports events, and eventually became a bookie.
Saved!
When I got out of the Army Strafford offered me a job as a runner. but that was the wrong side of the law for me
Related to Part II:
Tacetta Chevrolet is still in business in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
I do not remember either of the Portsmouth restaurants he mentions, but I do remember the neighboring Olympia Theater. And the Civic Theater, the Colonial Theater, and the Arcadia. That last was the one most frequented by children. On a Saturday afternoon we would see:
The "Yard in Portsmouth" is a reference to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which is actually in Kittery, Maine. Portsmouth is across the water in New Hampshire.
Regarding Dad's Army service "(boy did I hate that shit):" Dad was very short, about five foot one (and had flat feet, so don't believe the myths about flat feet being rejected). He was drafted and did his time at Fort Benning, Georgia. He particularly disliked the heat. Also, the clothing he was issued was too big for him. The worst consequence of this, I think, was during his basic training. When he had to enter a tent filled with gas (probably chlorine and sulphur), he had to take his mask off briefly before exiting. Unbeknownst to him, his too-large shirt filled up with the gas, and several minutes later, when the heat caused him to pull his shirt away from his body, he got a pretty good lungful of the gas. (You know, "lungful" is not a real word according to dictionary.com, but I've used it all my life and it's too late to stop now. Perhaps the dictionaries will catch up.) It was several days before he could smoke again.
During the Pop and Rena years, the family owned a dairy farm which had been in the family a very long time. I have, passed down to me by my father, an 1875 medal for an Ayrshire cow. There was, at some point, a stud bull named Linwood, and for a few years a standard greeting between male members of the family was "How's your Linwood?"
Related to Part III: I caught bloody Hell for my little mention of having heard the Barbee story "at least two hundred times." He denied ever telling it before, but really, I'd been hearing it since my childhood and I was in my late forties at the time of my comment. But the wheel is coming full circle, and I am sometimes caught repeating myself by my friends.
The 110 House Dad mentioned was in Amesbury, Massachusetts. "Was" is the key word here, as the last time I went by the site, perhaps 30 years ago, it had been replaced by a car wash. George Lay, mentioned by Dad, married the owner and was the regular host. We despised each other, but mostly got along for the sake of my dad.
First Class postage was very stable for a long time. During Dad's childhood it was two cents. During my childhood it was three cents. Also during my childhood, the postman delivered twice a day, entirely on foot - no house to house truck driving.
Regarding the knickers boys wore to school: Dad once told me that some boys, during the first few school days of their lives, deposited something into their trousers, which would slide down until stopped by the bunching of the tucked in pants at the boots. Before long you could tell by the smell. Also, one girl created quite a puddle under her chair.
Strafford went on to become the black sheep of the family. At 12 or 13 he hustled little bottles of booze in the stands at sports events, and eventually became a bookie.
Saved!
When I got out of the Army Strafford offered me a job as a runner. but that was the wrong side of the law for me
Related to Part II:
Tacetta Chevrolet is still in business in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
I do not remember either of the Portsmouth restaurants he mentions, but I do remember the neighboring Olympia Theater. And the Civic Theater, the Colonial Theater, and the Arcadia. That last was the one most frequented by children. On a Saturday afternoon we would see:
- A newsreel
- A cartoon (occasionally two)
- Previews of coming attractions
- A serial (featuring Batman, Nyoka the Jungle Girl, Hopalong Cassidy, and others, always left in some kind of terrible trouble so you would have to come back next week).
- *Two* full length movies
The "Yard in Portsmouth" is a reference to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which is actually in Kittery, Maine. Portsmouth is across the water in New Hampshire.
Regarding Dad's Army service "(boy did I hate that shit):" Dad was very short, about five foot one (and had flat feet, so don't believe the myths about flat feet being rejected). He was drafted and did his time at Fort Benning, Georgia. He particularly disliked the heat. Also, the clothing he was issued was too big for him. The worst consequence of this, I think, was during his basic training. When he had to enter a tent filled with gas (probably chlorine and sulphur), he had to take his mask off briefly before exiting. Unbeknownst to him, his too-large shirt filled up with the gas, and several minutes later, when the heat caused him to pull his shirt away from his body, he got a pretty good lungful of the gas. (You know, "lungful" is not a real word according to dictionary.com, but I've used it all my life and it's too late to stop now. Perhaps the dictionaries will catch up.) It was several days before he could smoke again.
During the Pop and Rena years, the family owned a dairy farm which had been in the family a very long time. I have, passed down to me by my father, an 1875 medal for an Ayrshire cow. There was, at some point, a stud bull named Linwood, and for a few years a standard greeting between male members of the family was "How's your Linwood?"
Related to Part III: I caught bloody Hell for my little mention of having heard the Barbee story "at least two hundred times." He denied ever telling it before, but really, I'd been hearing it since my childhood and I was in my late forties at the time of my comment. But the wheel is coming full circle, and I am sometimes caught repeating myself by my friends.
The 110 House Dad mentioned was in Amesbury, Massachusetts. "Was" is the key word here, as the last time I went by the site, perhaps 30 years ago, it had been replaced by a car wash. George Lay, mentioned by Dad, married the owner and was the regular host. We despised each other, but mostly got along for the sake of my dad.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Dad's Memories, Part III
(Intro and Parts I and II in preceding posts.)
Addendum (Latin for "dumb addition?")
29 Nye Avenue was the last of "in a row" three deckers, probably sixty feet apart. On the top floor was a Mrs. Worsencroft (called Worsey). She was a fairly good pianist.
We had a nice Mason-Hamlin piano which was Aunt Ruth's pride and joy. Our church organist, Grace James (a 50 year old maiden lady with high black shoes) walked around Brockton giving piano lessons in the home, etc.
I had four lessons and that was it, so at least I faced the piano properly (1928 or 1929, I think).
Worsey often played a real bouncy and busy piece, which years down the road I learned was "The Rustic Dance." Before the summer was over, I could copy her playing note for note (no talent, but a good "ear").
"The Rustic Dance" happened to be in the key of E flat, which is three flats, using many black notes (which most try to avoid). In E flat, when you are looking for your pretty chords, they are in the "naturals," so anything I knew, I could play in E flat (not the best key for singing).
So, I have to thank Worsey for all the money I made playing out for fifteen years, and for my eight great years at the One Ten House in Amesbury, playing by ear (in E flat).
When we went to Portsmouth to live, Barbee had a nice piano, which was also a "player" piano. One afternoon when I was knocking off a tune or two, she asked me for a song which she described as, "You know, Kenny, the one where you get up in the morning and find something." It took me a couple days to figure out that one. What she wanted to hear was "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise."
MY OWN AFTERTHOUGHTS IN THE NEXT POST
-
(Jr again: A day or so after I received the foregoing,
I received a phone call from you know who. "It occurred
to me that I forget to tell you about my marvelous
musical ability, so I am sending you a little more.")
We had a nice Mason-Hamlin piano which was Aunt Ruth's pride and joy. Our church organist, Grace James (a 50 year old maiden lady with high black shoes) walked around Brockton giving piano lessons in the home, etc.
I had four lessons and that was it, so at least I faced the piano properly (1928 or 1929, I think).
Worsey often played a real bouncy and busy piece, which years down the road I learned was "The Rustic Dance." Before the summer was over, I could copy her playing note for note (no talent, but a good "ear").
"The Rustic Dance" happened to be in the key of E flat, which is three flats, using many black notes (which most try to avoid). In E flat, when you are looking for your pretty chords, they are in the "naturals," so anything I knew, I could play in E flat (not the best key for singing).
So, I have to thank Worsey for all the money I made playing out for fifteen years, and for my eight great years at the One Ten House in Amesbury, playing by ear (in E flat).
When we went to Portsmouth to live, Barbee had a nice piano, which was also a "player" piano. One afternoon when I was knocking off a tune or two, she asked me for a song which she described as, "You know, Kenny, the one where you get up in the morning and find something." It took me a couple days to figure out that one. What she wanted to hear was "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise."
-
(Jr again: I believe he is very proud of this, as I have
heard about it at least two hundred times.)
MY OWN AFTERTHOUGHTS IN THE NEXT POST
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Dad's Memories, Part II
(Intro and Part I in preceding two posts.)
I did my junior year at Portsmouth High School (1932-1933). My aunt, Florence G. Cummings (she was always called Barbee), wanted my mother to stay with her for a year, so I went along. My dad stayed in Brockton and worked, etc. Violet, Pop's mother, had been living with Barbee for years, as she had had a mild angina attack years before and wouldn't be alone.
Violet wanted to go to Oregon for a year to be with her family, so my mother and I were the subs. She had money left to her when her husband died (he was an M.D., with a practice in Brewster, on Cape Cod). She outlived him by thirty nine years. So my junior year passed, and the depression was still only in the newspapers and the movies.
Vi came back and we went back to Brockton, and I graduated from high school in 1934. Pop wanted Vi (his mother) to come and live with him, as he needed someone to care for his children so he and Rena could work.
So this time the three of us went back to Portsmouth. My father's brother (Uncle Charlie to me) died, so I had his room.
My father worked part time for a tailor in Portsmouth, as did my mother from time to time.
I got a job in Portsmouth at Rowe & Voudy's Restaurant and Cafeteria at 25 cents an hour for a 60 hour week as a counter man. I think I was there close to two years. They went out of business and the next day I went to work at Bert's Diner by the Olympia Theater on Vaughn Street.
I think I was there a year or so. I bought a 1931 Chevrolet 4 door sedan for $60 from Tacetta, and it took me four months to pay for it.
I quit the diner (owned by a local cop) and the next day I took a ride down the road and wound up at Mickey's diner in Saugus, where I stayed for three years or so. Met your mother, got married, got you, and got a call from Civil Service to show up for a job, all in that three year (or so) span.
Bobby showed up in Portland, and I think it was 1948 when I was transferred to the Yard in Portsmouth. During the above time period I was drafted for about a year (boy, did I hate that shit). I have met guys in the service that knew the dates of all that had happened to them, and I never could understand why they cared. I don't think I could put an exact date on anything written here. It was never of any importance to me at the time.
In much of the above the depression was with us for sure. It was of minor concern to me, I suppose, because once I started to work, I was never a single day without a job, although the pay wasn't good until I got into Civil Service.
I usually worked part time at something else, from diners to the One Ten House. World War II ended the depression I guess, but I didn't care because I had never joined it . . . Ha . . . .
Dateless Dad
CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST
I did my junior year at Portsmouth High School (1932-1933). My aunt, Florence G. Cummings (she was always called Barbee), wanted my mother to stay with her for a year, so I went along. My dad stayed in Brockton and worked, etc. Violet, Pop's mother, had been living with Barbee for years, as she had had a mild angina attack years before and wouldn't be alone.
Violet wanted to go to Oregon for a year to be with her family, so my mother and I were the subs. She had money left to her when her husband died (he was an M.D., with a practice in Brewster, on Cape Cod). She outlived him by thirty nine years. So my junior year passed, and the depression was still only in the newspapers and the movies.
Vi came back and we went back to Brockton, and I graduated from high school in 1934. Pop wanted Vi (his mother) to come and live with him, as he needed someone to care for his children so he and Rena could work.
So this time the three of us went back to Portsmouth. My father's brother (Uncle Charlie to me) died, so I had his room.
My father worked part time for a tailor in Portsmouth, as did my mother from time to time.
I got a job in Portsmouth at Rowe & Voudy's Restaurant and Cafeteria at 25 cents an hour for a 60 hour week as a counter man. I think I was there close to two years. They went out of business and the next day I went to work at Bert's Diner by the Olympia Theater on Vaughn Street.
I think I was there a year or so. I bought a 1931 Chevrolet 4 door sedan for $60 from Tacetta, and it took me four months to pay for it.
I quit the diner (owned by a local cop) and the next day I took a ride down the road and wound up at Mickey's diner in Saugus, where I stayed for three years or so. Met your mother, got married, got you, and got a call from Civil Service to show up for a job, all in that three year (or so) span.
-
(Jr here: The beginning of this paragraph begged
for explanation, so I asked Dad why he quit Bert's
Diner. He was annoyed by something, but he no
longer remembers what. This did trigger some other
thoughts, however. Mickey (Helen Riewinski's step-
father sold the diner in Saugus to a Russian. The
whole next week was spent by all in improving the
appearance of the diner - scrubbing floors, varnishing
the ceiling with rags, etc.On payday, when the employees wanted their pay,
they were told, "Oh, no. You did that to keep
your jobs." Dad went to work Monday. At the end
of the day he took his pay from the register and
never went back. Driving home, he thought of various
ways to tell Mom that he had quit, although he was
sure he could get a job at another diner the next
day. When he got home, the Civil Service letter
was on the table.)
Bobby showed up in Portland, and I think it was 1948 when I was transferred to the Yard in Portsmouth. During the above time period I was drafted for about a year (boy, did I hate that shit). I have met guys in the service that knew the dates of all that had happened to them, and I never could understand why they cared. I don't think I could put an exact date on anything written here. It was never of any importance to me at the time.
In much of the above the depression was with us for sure. It was of minor concern to me, I suppose, because once I started to work, I was never a single day without a job, although the pay wasn't good until I got into Civil Service.
I usually worked part time at something else, from diners to the One Ten House. World War II ended the depression I guess, but I didn't care because I had never joined it . . . Ha . . . .
Dateless Dad
CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Dad's Memories, Part I
(Intro in preceding post.)
Jr,
You asked me for my memory of the depression. It is pretty dim, as I didn't know it was going on, and if it affected me I didn't know it at the time.
October, 1929 seems to be the date it hit this country. I only knew about it through the movies; the first thing would always be "Pathe News." We saw men splattered on the sidewalks of New York after losing their shirts on the stock market and taking off from their office windows etc. in a high dive
It was big for the newspapers and since I always read the papers, I was aware, but not concerned to any degree. Our local paper, "The Brockton Enterprise," cost two cents, twelve cents for the six days it printed, and the paper boy was always given fifteen cents. First class postage was also two cents, and haircuts were twenty five cents.
In 1929 my folks bought me my first bike. It was a "Miami," made by Columbia, and I was never more thrilled. I think it cost $29.00, a lot of money at the time. No depression yet.
My bike and my hormones kicked in at the same time. My first "kissy face" was just down the street and her name was Eleanor Gorman. My bike was often parked by her back steps. Her father was never home and her mother didn't pay much attention to what was going on on the back steps.
Most shirts were white at the time, and were long sleeved. When the cuffs got a bit frayed, the sleeves were cut off at about the elbow. Then you had a shirt for summer.
We lived at 29 Nye Avenue from the time I was born until I was about sixteen. It was a "three decker" with large rooms. My grandmother and Bertha shared one bedroom; Irving, Ruth, and later Strafford had another bedroom; and my mother and father had another. When they went to bed, I was on a couch on a living room for the rest of the night
I can imagine that so many living together was the result of the depression, but I didn't know it. Bertha, Irving, and my father were still working, although I know nothing of their wages.
Do you remember the watch that Gramp wanted Bobby to have (probably because he sat on his lap, listened to his stories, and stole cigarettes and matches)? In the watch case was a pawn ticket from a Brockton pawn shop. At some point (1931 or 1932) he had pawned it for $15.00, possibly for reasons depression related, but I just don't know. Why he saved the pawn ticket for so many years I can't imagine. It was redeemed less than a year later.
CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST
Jr,
You asked me for my memory of the depression. It is pretty dim, as I didn't know it was going on, and if it affected me I didn't know it at the time.
October, 1929 seems to be the date it hit this country. I only knew about it through the movies; the first thing would always be "Pathe News." We saw men splattered on the sidewalks of New York after losing their shirts on the stock market and taking off from their office windows etc. in a high dive
It was big for the newspapers and since I always read the papers, I was aware, but not concerned to any degree. Our local paper, "The Brockton Enterprise," cost two cents, twelve cents for the six days it printed, and the paper boy was always given fifteen cents. First class postage was also two cents, and haircuts were twenty five cents.
In 1929 my folks bought me my first bike. It was a "Miami," made by Columbia, and I was never more thrilled. I think it cost $29.00, a lot of money at the time. No depression yet.
My bike and my hormones kicked in at the same time. My first "kissy face" was just down the street and her name was Eleanor Gorman. My bike was often parked by her back steps. Her father was never home and her mother didn't pay much attention to what was going on on the back steps.
Most shirts were white at the time, and were long sleeved. When the cuffs got a bit frayed, the sleeves were cut off at about the elbow. Then you had a shirt for summer.
- (Jr here: Dad has also told me that when boys got suits in
those days they got two pair of pants, one of them knickers.
They didn't get to wear the long pants until the knickers were
worn out. During the winter they wore long underwear, tucked
into their stockings. Going to school in the knickers, the
bulges in the stockings showed, and were very embarrassing.)
We lived at 29 Nye Avenue from the time I was born until I was about sixteen. It was a "three decker" with large rooms. My grandmother and Bertha shared one bedroom; Irving, Ruth, and later Strafford had another bedroom; and my mother and father had another. When they went to bed, I was on a couch on a living room for the rest of the night
-
(Jr again: Dad said that when he was very young, they would
put him to bed in a bedroom, and he would wake up in the
morning on the couch.)
I can imagine that so many living together was the result of the depression, but I didn't know it. Bertha, Irving, and my father were still working, although I know nothing of their wages.
Do you remember the watch that Gramp wanted Bobby to have (probably because he sat on his lap, listened to his stories, and stole cigarettes and matches)? In the watch case was a pawn ticket from a Brockton pawn shop. At some point (1931 or 1932) he had pawned it for $15.00, possibly for reasons depression related, but I just don't know. Why he saved the pawn ticket for so many years I can't imagine. It was redeemed less than a year later.
CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST
Monday, May 27, 2013
What Changing PC's Can Do for You
I just swapped out an old PC for a new one. Before doing that I backed up everything important by sending it to the cloud. This reminded me that I had *years* (eleven, it turned out) of backup CD's and DVD's. I decided to go through them, keeping only the latest version of everything, "just in case." In fact, although I'll have cloud backup for everything, I have now resolved to make a DVD backup of everything important once a year, again just in case. Uneverno.
Without segue, I must tell you that before my father died I had a conversation with him in which I hoped aloud that he would document whatever he knew about the family, because "When you go, nobody is going to know anything."
This got him interested in genealogy. He was retired, and wound up spending many a day in public libraries and in cemeteries in various parts of New England. I do think it made his declining years more interesting.
This also led to conversations about his childhood and I asked him to write down whatever he remembered about his life during the depression. He sent me a number of typewritten pages (typed on an old Underwood typewriter which had only capital letters), and asked me to make copies or transcribe the material and send a copy to each of my three siblings. This I did, sending him a copy as well. The material he sent covered more than the depression period, beginning prior to that and ending nearly fifty years after it.
I found a copy of my transcription in my old PC backup files (Aha! The missing segue appears.)
The material is a treasure to me, and while it won't be that to you, you might find some of it interesting. Beginning with my next post here, sometime in the next several days, I will post what I transcribed and sent to him, my brothers, and my sister.
That material included some parenthetic comments from me, generally identified as being from "Jr," which I will break out from the main body of the text so that those of you not familiar with the family (aka "everybody") will be able to keep track of the main thread. I'll leave all names intact. I'll not provide information about names that pop in and out of the story as they are simply tangential references he thought I might be interested in.
I thnk this is going to appear in three parts, which is how he broke it down for me.
Without segue, I must tell you that before my father died I had a conversation with him in which I hoped aloud that he would document whatever he knew about the family, because "When you go, nobody is going to know anything."
This got him interested in genealogy. He was retired, and wound up spending many a day in public libraries and in cemeteries in various parts of New England. I do think it made his declining years more interesting.
This also led to conversations about his childhood and I asked him to write down whatever he remembered about his life during the depression. He sent me a number of typewritten pages (typed on an old Underwood typewriter which had only capital letters), and asked me to make copies or transcribe the material and send a copy to each of my three siblings. This I did, sending him a copy as well. The material he sent covered more than the depression period, beginning prior to that and ending nearly fifty years after it.
I found a copy of my transcription in my old PC backup files (Aha! The missing segue appears.)
The material is a treasure to me, and while it won't be that to you, you might find some of it interesting. Beginning with my next post here, sometime in the next several days, I will post what I transcribed and sent to him, my brothers, and my sister.
That material included some parenthetic comments from me, generally identified as being from "Jr," which I will break out from the main body of the text so that those of you not familiar with the family (aka "everybody") will be able to keep track of the main thread. I'll leave all names intact. I'll not provide information about names that pop in and out of the story as they are simply tangential references he thought I might be interested in.
I thnk this is going to appear in three parts, which is how he broke it down for me.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Talking with Strangers
I have mentioned my friend Rick, a former IBM colleague. I left the IBM job a dozen years ago, but five of us from the department have lunch roughly once a month, and Rick and I go to a movie and have dinner, also roughly once a month.
I'm not sure whether it's just shyness or what, but he really doesn't like to interact with strangers and doesn't like it at all when I do.
Several years ago we were having dinner in a restaurant and talking about movies in general, and neither of us could remember the title of a Brad Pitt movie. It was a well known movie, and at some point I turned to a middle aged couple at the next table (Rick, mumbling: "Oh, Christ") and asked whether they knew the name of the Brad Pitt movie involving vampires. It turned out they were British, pleased at being acknowledged, and were in the same boat - they'd seen the movie but couldn't remember the title.
Rick and I resumed our futile attempts to come up with the title. I began to become annoyed with it all and scanned our neighbors for likely prospects. Perhaps ten feet away there was a booth occupied by six young women. Now at that time virtually any young woman in the English speaking world could tell you whatever you needed to know about Brad Pitt, and I said to Rick "I *have* to know the name of that movie."
I stood up, turned toward the young women, and managed to avoid cracking up when I heard Rick say, "Oh, Jesus." I walked over to the booth and was greeted by six upturned faces, no paranoia, just curiosity and friendliness.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm sure you can tell me something I need to know: What was the title of the Brad Pitt movie about vampires?"
Six women, in concert: "Interview with the Vampire."
"I thank you, and I'm just going to stand here for a few seconds and ramble on about nothing because for some reason my doing this embarrasses my friend."
Giggles from the six of them, and I returned to Rick, who was very well hidden by the menu he was holding in front of his face, and was greeted by "I can't *believe* you do that."
"That's nothing, watch this." I turned to our British neighbors and told them the title, and they responded with delight and thanks.
We got through the meal (Rick suffering no indigestion due to my activities), eventually paid the waitress, and as we put on our overcoats (it was winter) I said, "I have to thank them."
Rick rolled his eyes and I walked back to the women once more. "I thank you once again, and thank you for helping me embarrass my friend." We all turned to look at Rick, who was . . . gone.
I'm not sure whether it's just shyness or what, but he really doesn't like to interact with strangers and doesn't like it at all when I do.
Several years ago we were having dinner in a restaurant and talking about movies in general, and neither of us could remember the title of a Brad Pitt movie. It was a well known movie, and at some point I turned to a middle aged couple at the next table (Rick, mumbling: "Oh, Christ") and asked whether they knew the name of the Brad Pitt movie involving vampires. It turned out they were British, pleased at being acknowledged, and were in the same boat - they'd seen the movie but couldn't remember the title.
Rick and I resumed our futile attempts to come up with the title. I began to become annoyed with it all and scanned our neighbors for likely prospects. Perhaps ten feet away there was a booth occupied by six young women. Now at that time virtually any young woman in the English speaking world could tell you whatever you needed to know about Brad Pitt, and I said to Rick "I *have* to know the name of that movie."
I stood up, turned toward the young women, and managed to avoid cracking up when I heard Rick say, "Oh, Jesus." I walked over to the booth and was greeted by six upturned faces, no paranoia, just curiosity and friendliness.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm sure you can tell me something I need to know: What was the title of the Brad Pitt movie about vampires?"
Six women, in concert: "Interview with the Vampire."
"I thank you, and I'm just going to stand here for a few seconds and ramble on about nothing because for some reason my doing this embarrasses my friend."
Giggles from the six of them, and I returned to Rick, who was very well hidden by the menu he was holding in front of his face, and was greeted by "I can't *believe* you do that."
"That's nothing, watch this." I turned to our British neighbors and told them the title, and they responded with delight and thanks.
We got through the meal (Rick suffering no indigestion due to my activities), eventually paid the waitress, and as we put on our overcoats (it was winter) I said, "I have to thank them."
Rick rolled his eyes and I walked back to the women once more. "I thank you once again, and thank you for helping me embarrass my friend." We all turned to look at Rick, who was . . . gone.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
It's What I Do
A bit of dialogue from a scene in the movie Van Helsing, a farcical Dracula story:
Nat, a coworker at a firm in Virginia, was an Irish Catholic, a transplanted Illinoisan, and a *big* Notre Dame fan, especially during the football season. He was so partisan he was blind to reason. I once heard him complaining about the treatment of Notre Dame football teams by sportswriters.
Now let me tell you, over the years no team has received better treatment from national sportswriters than the Notre Dame football team. At least once they have been ranked in the top ten with a record that included *two* losses.
Nat left us to return to Illinois and get married, and it happened that his departure coincided with the football season. A few weeks after Nat left, Notre Dame, favored also by post-season bowl committees, had been given a berth in a bowl game despite a 6-5 record. Not unexpectedly, they lost.
I cut a column out of the next day's sports section of a local newspaper, did a little shopping, and found the perfect sympathy card, a "Sorry for your loss" sort of card, vague about what the loss might have been. I signed the card, took it to work, and got everyone there to sign it.
I sent the card to Nat, the column about Notre Dame's loss enclosed. Several evenings later the phone rang.
Loudly, and with outrage:
Don't you have anything to DO? Don't you have a fucking JOB?
-
(Igor is poking a caged werewolf with a cattle prod.)
-
Dracula: "Why do you torment that thing so?"
-
Igor: "It's what I do."
Nat, a coworker at a firm in Virginia, was an Irish Catholic, a transplanted Illinoisan, and a *big* Notre Dame fan, especially during the football season. He was so partisan he was blind to reason. I once heard him complaining about the treatment of Notre Dame football teams by sportswriters.
Now let me tell you, over the years no team has received better treatment from national sportswriters than the Notre Dame football team. At least once they have been ranked in the top ten with a record that included *two* losses.
Nat left us to return to Illinois and get married, and it happened that his departure coincided with the football season. A few weeks after Nat left, Notre Dame, favored also by post-season bowl committees, had been given a berth in a bowl game despite a 6-5 record. Not unexpectedly, they lost.
I cut a column out of the next day's sports section of a local newspaper, did a little shopping, and found the perfect sympathy card, a "Sorry for your loss" sort of card, vague about what the loss might have been. I signed the card, took it to work, and got everyone there to sign it.
I sent the card to Nat, the column about Notre Dame's loss enclosed. Several evenings later the phone rang.
Loudly, and with outrage:
Don't you have anything to DO? Don't you have a fucking JOB?
Monday, March 25, 2013
They Listen Better . . .
My nephew Jeremy, sister Kat's son, was a handsome boy and is now a handsome man. He was and is very personable, with a great smile.
One Christmas while I was visiting Kat and her family, Jeremy, then perhaps eight or nine years old, sat beside me on a sofa while I looked through the past year's photos. You know the drill.
I came across one with Jeremy and his little sister, and in the picture Jeremy was wearing a smile that would melt the hardest heart. I said, "Boy, look at that smile."
Jeremy: "Yeah. It's fake."
Donnie: "What?"
Jeremy: "It's fake. They told me to smile, so I did."
A few years later Jeremy experienced some problems. He became more rebellious than one might reasonably expect a teenage boy to be. His parents were just unable to find the key to calming him down. Nothing seemed to work.
During our Christmas visit, brother Billy volunteered to take Jeremy back to Maryland to live with him and attend school there. Jeremy was consulted and all agreed that it seemed like a good idea, and when Billy drove back home Jeremy went with him.
On arrival, he got his own bedroom and a set of ground rules. Only several rules, but rules my brother considered important. The *most* important dealt with when Jeremy was expected home. He was told that he was to be home by nine o'clock on school nights, and if for some reason he couldn't make it he was to call Billy and fill him in.
On the very first school night, Jeremy returned home around midnight, having made no telephone call to Billy. Billy told me about it later. Billy, BTW, was perhaps a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Jeremy.
"I heard him come in at about midnight, but I just let him go to bed. I wanted to start the new day with the rule fresh in his mind. In the morning I got up early, showered and shaved, and just before leaving for work I went into his bedroom and grabbed him by the throat. I find people listen better when you have them by the throat."
Apparently so, as the rest of the year went much more smoothly, and even today Jeremy is what people once referred to as a straight arrow.
One Christmas while I was visiting Kat and her family, Jeremy, then perhaps eight or nine years old, sat beside me on a sofa while I looked through the past year's photos. You know the drill.
I came across one with Jeremy and his little sister, and in the picture Jeremy was wearing a smile that would melt the hardest heart. I said, "Boy, look at that smile."
Jeremy: "Yeah. It's fake."
Donnie: "What?"
Jeremy: "It's fake. They told me to smile, so I did."
A few years later Jeremy experienced some problems. He became more rebellious than one might reasonably expect a teenage boy to be. His parents were just unable to find the key to calming him down. Nothing seemed to work.
During our Christmas visit, brother Billy volunteered to take Jeremy back to Maryland to live with him and attend school there. Jeremy was consulted and all agreed that it seemed like a good idea, and when Billy drove back home Jeremy went with him.
On arrival, he got his own bedroom and a set of ground rules. Only several rules, but rules my brother considered important. The *most* important dealt with when Jeremy was expected home. He was told that he was to be home by nine o'clock on school nights, and if for some reason he couldn't make it he was to call Billy and fill him in.
On the very first school night, Jeremy returned home around midnight, having made no telephone call to Billy. Billy told me about it later. Billy, BTW, was perhaps a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Jeremy.
"I heard him come in at about midnight, but I just let him go to bed. I wanted to start the new day with the rule fresh in his mind. In the morning I got up early, showered and shaved, and just before leaving for work I went into his bedroom and grabbed him by the throat. I find people listen better when you have them by the throat."
Apparently so, as the rest of the year went much more smoothly, and even today Jeremy is what people once referred to as a straight arrow.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Karma
I once wrote about Joan here, a friend whose New Years Eve date stood her up - no call, nothing, just stood her up.
One night after work several weeks later, a couple of friends and I went to the bar at which he was a bartender. He was way down in the dumps and after a few minutes someone asked him what was bothering him.
"I made a big mistake." That was all he would say, but the word spread like wildfire, and we soon learned that he had been the victim of an old scam. A bar patron, a stranger, had quietly and confidentially offered him a deal: as many color TV's as he would like for $250 apiece. In the late 1970's this was a *major* bargain.
He asked around and five others, including the owners of the bar at which he worked, counted themselves in.
He was given the address of a warehouse and a time (at night) and date to show up. He borrowed a truck and kept the appointment. When he got there he was met by the stranger, who told him "Give me the money and back the truck up to the warehouse."
He turned over the money and the stranger counted it, said "Six TV's," and walked into the warehouse. Bartender backed the truck up and waited.
And waited.
And would be waiting there still if his departure depended on seeing those television sets. The stranger had gone into the back of the warehouse and out the front.
He was now out $250 of his own money and $1,250 he had to repay those he had cut in on the "bargain."
It isn't always true, alas, that what goes around comes around, but karma wasted no time on this one.
One night after work several weeks later, a couple of friends and I went to the bar at which he was a bartender. He was way down in the dumps and after a few minutes someone asked him what was bothering him.
"I made a big mistake." That was all he would say, but the word spread like wildfire, and we soon learned that he had been the victim of an old scam. A bar patron, a stranger, had quietly and confidentially offered him a deal: as many color TV's as he would like for $250 apiece. In the late 1970's this was a *major* bargain.
He asked around and five others, including the owners of the bar at which he worked, counted themselves in.
He was given the address of a warehouse and a time (at night) and date to show up. He borrowed a truck and kept the appointment. When he got there he was met by the stranger, who told him "Give me the money and back the truck up to the warehouse."
He turned over the money and the stranger counted it, said "Six TV's," and walked into the warehouse. Bartender backed the truck up and waited.
And waited.
And would be waiting there still if his departure depended on seeing those television sets. The stranger had gone into the back of the warehouse and out the front.
He was now out $250 of his own money and $1,250 he had to repay those he had cut in on the "bargain."
It isn't always true, alas, that what goes around comes around, but karma wasted no time on this one.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
An Unsatisfactory Conclusion
Toward the end of 2011 I wrote this, the second half of which (beginning with "This has been a strange year") is required reading for the rest of this post.
Fred's granddaughter made it a practice to check up on me (via email) periodically, and always emailed before the major holidays. She predicted that her mother (Fred's daughter) and her uncle (Fred's son) would be contacting me if that was OK, to ask whatever questions they thought I might be able to answer. I encouraged her to encourage them.
I never heard from her mother and didn't hear from her uncle for a long time. He was career Army and at about the time that the granddaughter and I connected he was getting ready for deployment to Iraq.
A few months ago he emailed me. He had returned to the US. He provided his phone number and asked if we might talk. I agreed, of course, and asked him for a convenient date and time.
I have not heard from him since.
After several weeks had passed I emailed the granddaughter and filled her in. I told her I didn't want to push anything, but wanted to be sure her uncle was OK. She replied immediately, saying that she would check on him and get back to me right away.
I have not heard from her since.
It's a mystery, and destined to stay that way barring some communication on their part. I have no need to poke at it.
Fred's granddaughter made it a practice to check up on me (via email) periodically, and always emailed before the major holidays. She predicted that her mother (Fred's daughter) and her uncle (Fred's son) would be contacting me if that was OK, to ask whatever questions they thought I might be able to answer. I encouraged her to encourage them.
I never heard from her mother and didn't hear from her uncle for a long time. He was career Army and at about the time that the granddaughter and I connected he was getting ready for deployment to Iraq.
A few months ago he emailed me. He had returned to the US. He provided his phone number and asked if we might talk. I agreed, of course, and asked him for a convenient date and time.
I have not heard from him since.
After several weeks had passed I emailed the granddaughter and filled her in. I told her I didn't want to push anything, but wanted to be sure her uncle was OK. She replied immediately, saying that she would check on him and get back to me right away.
I have not heard from her since.
It's a mystery, and destined to stay that way barring some communication on their part. I have no need to poke at it.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Need a Microwave Oven? Don't buy Emerson.
OK, my
last post was a product endorsement - unsolicited, as is everything I
post. That's a joke, son.
In the interests of keeping the universe in balance, today a product gets slammed, a product nearer and dearer to most of you than cloud storage: microwave ovens; more precisely, one maker of microwave ovens.
A few years ago Debbie and I were living in Hoffman Estates, Illinois and planning to move to the east coast. One day Debbie was nuking something and called me into the kitchen. There was a sense of urgency in the call so I hopped to it. The microwave was flashing red. Right after I got into the kitchen it glowed red steadily - no more flashing.
I yanked it away from the wall and pulled the plug out of the outlet, and everything was OK, except, of course the microwave.
Now this was an Emerson microwave oven, less than a year old (I think. In any case it was still under warranty). When I was younger, and perhaps even at the moment of the glowing microwave, Emerson had a reputation as a first class maker of products. I had, in fact, had it in mind to acquire an Emerson TV at some point, just for that reason.
I called the 800 number, explained the situation, and was given the name of a local business which Emerson used for the repair of their products under warranty. I no longer recall the name of the business, so let's just call it "Repair."
I took the microwave to Repair, they gave me a receipt with make, model, and complaint, and estimated three days for repair, telling me they would call when it was ready.
After a week I called to see what was going on and was told that for six days they'd had a request in to Emerson for replacement parts. They would call Emerson and call me right back. A few minutes later they did so, saying that Emerson had promised to ship the parts immediately and I should just pop in three days later, because it would be fixed.
Pop in I did, but the trip was wasted. Emerson had not had the parts on hand and had sent parts for a different model. The gentleman behind the counter at Repair said he had called Emerson to tell them they'd sent the wrong parts and was told, "We know, but we had to send something. The customer was complaining."
What?
Whaaaaat?
I was sure I had missed a phrase or two somewhere, and asked him to repeat what he said. He laughed, shook his head, and repeated the information.
How, exactly, does sending the wrong parts make the customer happier, as opposed to incredulous?
He explained that the "real" problem was that Emerson no longer sold that model and so did not *have* the parts, but were trying to find some.
Well.
It's funnier today than it was then, I assure you.
The move to the east coast was at hand and Debbie and I wound up in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. I gave Repair our new address and asked about progress, receiving the expected answer of "None," although surrounded by more conciliatory words.
I wrote the President or the Chairman of the Board of Emerson, I no longer remember which, explained the situation, and asked him to boot someone's butt. I included my new address. In fact it was on the envelope, at the top of the letter, and especially repeated in the body of the letter.
In return, I received a letter from a woman (hereinafter "Assistant"). I received this reply somewhat later than I had expected because it had been mailed to Hoffman Estates. Sigh.
The reply confirmed what Repair had said. They no longer sold that model and had no parts for it, alas. However, they offered a replacement, another Emerson microwave oven, one that was perhaps two thirds the size of the one I had bought.
I responded, saying that the smaller oven was inadequate and I would need one the same size or larger, or a refund. In this response I wrote (yes I did, trust me) "Please, please, please, no matter what your records show" yada yada yada Upper Marlboro not Hoffman Estates.
A week or so later, having traveled first to Hoffman Estates and then to Upper Marlboro, a response from Assistant arrived. I wondered whether anyone at Emerson could hit their butt with either hand.
Cutting to the chase, we wound up with a smaller Emerson microwave.
A year or so later Debbie and I split. She went back to New Hampshire and I remained in Falls Church, which we had moved to when we both found employment there. One of the things that went with her was the microwave. Our separation was amicable and we frequently emailed, occasionally talked on the phone, and even visited each other a couple of times.
One day she informed me that Emerson Microwave Junior had pulled the same stunt - flashing red while cooking and then settling down to a solid and permanent red. She was an apt student and had learned two things from our experience, as a result of which
1. She pulled the plug immediately.
2. She junked the microwave. This was wise. It had a downside, however, in that it deprived us of the humor of seeing responses to her letters travel to Hoffman Estates, Upper Marlboro, Falls Church, and, finally, catching up with her in New Hampshire, no doubt in a state of complete exhaustion.
Soooo . . . don't buy an Emerson microwave if you want my advice, which, by the way, you did not take the trouble to solicit.
The quality of the customer service, in my experience, is diametrically opposed to the quality of the customer service cited in the preceding post here.
I, in fact, would dip my arm in boiling oil before buying *any* Emerson product.
An afterthought: I just googled and sure enough, Emerson still sells microwaves. Perhaps they offer choices now. microwave ovens that glow blue or green instead of red when they break down.
In the interests of keeping the universe in balance, today a product gets slammed, a product nearer and dearer to most of you than cloud storage: microwave ovens; more precisely, one maker of microwave ovens.
A few years ago Debbie and I were living in Hoffman Estates, Illinois and planning to move to the east coast. One day Debbie was nuking something and called me into the kitchen. There was a sense of urgency in the call so I hopped to it. The microwave was flashing red. Right after I got into the kitchen it glowed red steadily - no more flashing.
I yanked it away from the wall and pulled the plug out of the outlet, and everything was OK, except, of course the microwave.
Now this was an Emerson microwave oven, less than a year old (I think. In any case it was still under warranty). When I was younger, and perhaps even at the moment of the glowing microwave, Emerson had a reputation as a first class maker of products. I had, in fact, had it in mind to acquire an Emerson TV at some point, just for that reason.
I called the 800 number, explained the situation, and was given the name of a local business which Emerson used for the repair of their products under warranty. I no longer recall the name of the business, so let's just call it "Repair."
I took the microwave to Repair, they gave me a receipt with make, model, and complaint, and estimated three days for repair, telling me they would call when it was ready.
After a week I called to see what was going on and was told that for six days they'd had a request in to Emerson for replacement parts. They would call Emerson and call me right back. A few minutes later they did so, saying that Emerson had promised to ship the parts immediately and I should just pop in three days later, because it would be fixed.
Pop in I did, but the trip was wasted. Emerson had not had the parts on hand and had sent parts for a different model. The gentleman behind the counter at Repair said he had called Emerson to tell them they'd sent the wrong parts and was told, "We know, but we had to send something. The customer was complaining."
What?
Whaaaaat?
I was sure I had missed a phrase or two somewhere, and asked him to repeat what he said. He laughed, shook his head, and repeated the information.
How, exactly, does sending the wrong parts make the customer happier, as opposed to incredulous?
He explained that the "real" problem was that Emerson no longer sold that model and so did not *have* the parts, but were trying to find some.
Well.
It's funnier today than it was then, I assure you.
The move to the east coast was at hand and Debbie and I wound up in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. I gave Repair our new address and asked about progress, receiving the expected answer of "None," although surrounded by more conciliatory words.
I wrote the President or the Chairman of the Board of Emerson, I no longer remember which, explained the situation, and asked him to boot someone's butt. I included my new address. In fact it was on the envelope, at the top of the letter, and especially repeated in the body of the letter.
In return, I received a letter from a woman (hereinafter "Assistant"). I received this reply somewhat later than I had expected because it had been mailed to Hoffman Estates. Sigh.
The reply confirmed what Repair had said. They no longer sold that model and had no parts for it, alas. However, they offered a replacement, another Emerson microwave oven, one that was perhaps two thirds the size of the one I had bought.
I responded, saying that the smaller oven was inadequate and I would need one the same size or larger, or a refund. In this response I wrote (yes I did, trust me) "Please, please, please, no matter what your records show" yada yada yada Upper Marlboro not Hoffman Estates.
A week or so later, having traveled first to Hoffman Estates and then to Upper Marlboro, a response from Assistant arrived. I wondered whether anyone at Emerson could hit their butt with either hand.
Cutting to the chase, we wound up with a smaller Emerson microwave.
A year or so later Debbie and I split. She went back to New Hampshire and I remained in Falls Church, which we had moved to when we both found employment there. One of the things that went with her was the microwave. Our separation was amicable and we frequently emailed, occasionally talked on the phone, and even visited each other a couple of times.
One day she informed me that Emerson Microwave Junior had pulled the same stunt - flashing red while cooking and then settling down to a solid and permanent red. She was an apt student and had learned two things from our experience, as a result of which
1. She pulled the plug immediately.
2. She junked the microwave. This was wise. It had a downside, however, in that it deprived us of the humor of seeing responses to her letters travel to Hoffman Estates, Upper Marlboro, Falls Church, and, finally, catching up with her in New Hampshire, no doubt in a state of complete exhaustion.
Soooo . . . don't buy an Emerson microwave if you want my advice, which, by the way, you did not take the trouble to solicit.
The quality of the customer service, in my experience, is diametrically opposed to the quality of the customer service cited in the preceding post here.
I, in fact, would dip my arm in boiling oil before buying *any* Emerson product.
An afterthought: I just googled and sure enough, Emerson still sells microwaves. Perhaps they offer choices now. microwave ovens that glow blue or green instead of red when they break down.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Thinking of Cloud Backup?
Without reservation, I recommend Savvis Direct.
I'm pretty sure this is the first *evah* endorsement of a product on this blog. In any case it is unsolicited. In fact, the company doesn't know about it, although I intend to change that.
My desktop computer is on its last legs. It's about four years old, and suffers various ailments, a sort of electronic arthritis. One symptom is my current inability to write on either the internal or external DVD-RW drives. Now I have little need for that beyond backup, but backup is critical in that I have hundreds of items for sale on different internet sites, and for each item I have a Windows folder containing the listing text or HTML and the associated jpegs. Also, there is my music. As you know, I am within a hair of having every song that hit the top 20 from 1955 to 1969, along with several hundred others. At the moment, this comes to 2,784 mp3's which use just over 6GB.
Most of the listings and songs - the overwhelming majority - are backed up on DVD, but of course "most" is insufficient.I decided it was time to deal with the situation, googled for cloud backup information, and ultimately settled on Savvis Direct as the first company to explore.
For the casual user (yours truly, and many of you), the two options that seemed most appropriate were:
1. $4.99 a month for unlimited storage and automated backup. Most attractive was the idea that if you change anything on your PC that has been backed up by Savvis Direct, then the backup is automatically replaced with your newer version.
2. 10GB of free storage, the *only* charge being fifteen cents for each GB you download.
I entered a live chat with a Savvis Direct employee and we narrowed the options down to the above two. He was knowledgeable, polite, and friendly. I'd *guess* we spent about twenty minutes chatting and I settled on the $4.99 package, mainly for the automatic backup of changed files.
Well.
That was the end of the fun, for a brief period at least. Did you ever try to install the uninstallable?
But you can get help from Savvis Direct by calling, live chatting, or scheduling a chat - half hour choices for the next several days. I picked a half hour segment for 9:00 the next morning, at which time my telephone rang and I had my first conversation with one of the support people.
I was a nightmare for them in a minor way, and *seven* of them (I think) talked with me over the next several days - six men, one woman, all thoroughly professional, all friendly, all helpful, none willing to give up.
The problem was with a program that produced a pop-up saying it was installing a specific program. It would run for a few minutes and then the pop-up would disappear, the installer would stop running, and there was no trace of the allegedly forthcoming program.
Cutting to the chase, it got kicked upstairs, techie-wise, and it turned out that my clunky old PC had insufficient resources. The installation required 4GB of RAM and I had 1.5GB. We were never going to make it work on this computer.
(My only criticism: why isn't this information presented to customers when they are looking at options, and why were some of the Savvis Direct techies unaware of it? To be fair, there may be an assumption that "everyone" has at least 4 GB, and that may be close to true at this late date.)
Switching over to the fifteen cent per GB option, we encountered two different problems. The 2,784 files clogged up a queue, and in the aftermath a problem eventually turned out to be caused by a camouflaged typo. In a long key of mixed alpha and numeric characters, an upper case I was mistaken for a lower case L or vice versa. This can happen very easily with some fonts.
Eventually it was discovered and everything was coming up roses, which is the case even today. It's taken a while to get to this point in this monologue, but what I really want to say is this:
I've never encountered customer support so close to perfect. Every single one of the people I spoke to on the phone or chatted with live was a pleasure to deal with. When one went off duty and turned me over to someone else, the replacement was 100% on top of the history - what had transpired and what problems had been encountered. There was no "Have you tried this?" or "What's happened so far?" to deal with.
Things got done on my PC in one of two ways: either I did them in response to direction from the Savvis Direct people or *they* did them while sharing my computer - using a mouse at their end to manipulate things here. And every single time they explained what I was going to do or what they were going to do. There was no click-click-damn-that-didn't-work, or just-do-this, or whatever. I knew (or perhaps in some cases I should say only that I was told) what was supposed to happen.
The successful installation was accomplished by an employee on his day off, calling from home, and just as professional, helpful, and friendly as everyone at the office.
I imagine that much of what Savvis Direct sells isn't substantially different from what its competitors sell, but I'll tell you this: My experience is that this company will not rest easy while you have a problem, and you can't beat the level of customer support.
I'm pretty sure this is the first *evah* endorsement of a product on this blog. In any case it is unsolicited. In fact, the company doesn't know about it, although I intend to change that.
My desktop computer is on its last legs. It's about four years old, and suffers various ailments, a sort of electronic arthritis. One symptom is my current inability to write on either the internal or external DVD-RW drives. Now I have little need for that beyond backup, but backup is critical in that I have hundreds of items for sale on different internet sites, and for each item I have a Windows folder containing the listing text or HTML and the associated jpegs. Also, there is my music. As you know, I am within a hair of having every song that hit the top 20 from 1955 to 1969, along with several hundred others. At the moment, this comes to 2,784 mp3's which use just over 6GB.
Most of the listings and songs - the overwhelming majority - are backed up on DVD, but of course "most" is insufficient.I decided it was time to deal with the situation, googled for cloud backup information, and ultimately settled on Savvis Direct as the first company to explore.
For the casual user (yours truly, and many of you), the two options that seemed most appropriate were:
1. $4.99 a month for unlimited storage and automated backup. Most attractive was the idea that if you change anything on your PC that has been backed up by Savvis Direct, then the backup is automatically replaced with your newer version.
2. 10GB of free storage, the *only* charge being fifteen cents for each GB you download.
I entered a live chat with a Savvis Direct employee and we narrowed the options down to the above two. He was knowledgeable, polite, and friendly. I'd *guess* we spent about twenty minutes chatting and I settled on the $4.99 package, mainly for the automatic backup of changed files.
Well.
That was the end of the fun, for a brief period at least. Did you ever try to install the uninstallable?
But you can get help from Savvis Direct by calling, live chatting, or scheduling a chat - half hour choices for the next several days. I picked a half hour segment for 9:00 the next morning, at which time my telephone rang and I had my first conversation with one of the support people.
I was a nightmare for them in a minor way, and *seven* of them (I think) talked with me over the next several days - six men, one woman, all thoroughly professional, all friendly, all helpful, none willing to give up.
The problem was with a program that produced a pop-up saying it was installing a specific program. It would run for a few minutes and then the pop-up would disappear, the installer would stop running, and there was no trace of the allegedly forthcoming program.
Cutting to the chase, it got kicked upstairs, techie-wise, and it turned out that my clunky old PC had insufficient resources. The installation required 4GB of RAM and I had 1.5GB. We were never going to make it work on this computer.
(My only criticism: why isn't this information presented to customers when they are looking at options, and why were some of the Savvis Direct techies unaware of it? To be fair, there may be an assumption that "everyone" has at least 4 GB, and that may be close to true at this late date.)
Switching over to the fifteen cent per GB option, we encountered two different problems. The 2,784 files clogged up a queue, and in the aftermath a problem eventually turned out to be caused by a camouflaged typo. In a long key of mixed alpha and numeric characters, an upper case I was mistaken for a lower case L or vice versa. This can happen very easily with some fonts.
Eventually it was discovered and everything was coming up roses, which is the case even today. It's taken a while to get to this point in this monologue, but what I really want to say is this:
I've never encountered customer support so close to perfect. Every single one of the people I spoke to on the phone or chatted with live was a pleasure to deal with. When one went off duty and turned me over to someone else, the replacement was 100% on top of the history - what had transpired and what problems had been encountered. There was no "Have you tried this?" or "What's happened so far?" to deal with.
Things got done on my PC in one of two ways: either I did them in response to direction from the Savvis Direct people or *they* did them while sharing my computer - using a mouse at their end to manipulate things here. And every single time they explained what I was going to do or what they were going to do. There was no click-click-damn-that-didn't-work, or just-do-this, or whatever. I knew (or perhaps in some cases I should say only that I was told) what was supposed to happen.
The successful installation was accomplished by an employee on his day off, calling from home, and just as professional, helpful, and friendly as everyone at the office.
I imagine that much of what Savvis Direct sells isn't substantially different from what its competitors sell, but I'll tell you this: My experience is that this company will not rest easy while you have a problem, and you can't beat the level of customer support.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
A Special Yearbook
I occasionally joined some of my people in a coffee break in the company cafeteria. There would be eight or ten of us, typically, all gathered around one large table.
One day, not long after our area had conducted a "baby naming" contest for which everyone brought in a baby picture, we were gathered for coffee and discussing what kind of fun thing we might do next.
Someone suggested that everyone bring in their high school yearbooks. "Alas," said I," I don't *have* a high school yearbook. I dropped out after flunking every subject in the eleventh grade."
After a moment's thought, one of my managers suggested, "You could bring in your reform school yearbook."
I am now reminded of another such coffee break. I had a deal with everyone else. I would ask ten trivia questions during the break, and if they ever got all ten answers I would take everyone present to lunch. One day I asked "What was the name of the prison team in The Longest Yard?"
Everyone went into a huddle, and at last Peggy, the team's best hope, squeezed her eyes shut and said, "Ooo. I can *see* the scoreboard." The "reform school" manager mentioned above asked, "Well, what does it say?"
Peggy: "It says, 'Home.'"
And finally, for this post at least, the reform school manager capped off ten in a row one day by answering correctly the question "What is the motto at West Point?" ¹
¹ Duty, Honor, Country
One day, not long after our area had conducted a "baby naming" contest for which everyone brought in a baby picture, we were gathered for coffee and discussing what kind of fun thing we might do next.
Someone suggested that everyone bring in their high school yearbooks. "Alas," said I," I don't *have* a high school yearbook. I dropped out after flunking every subject in the eleventh grade."
After a moment's thought, one of my managers suggested, "You could bring in your reform school yearbook."
I am now reminded of another such coffee break. I had a deal with everyone else. I would ask ten trivia questions during the break, and if they ever got all ten answers I would take everyone present to lunch. One day I asked "What was the name of the prison team in The Longest Yard?"
Everyone went into a huddle, and at last Peggy, the team's best hope, squeezed her eyes shut and said, "Ooo. I can *see* the scoreboard." The "reform school" manager mentioned above asked, "Well, what does it say?"
Peggy: "It says, 'Home.'"
And finally, for this post at least, the reform school manager capped off ten in a row one day by answering correctly the question "What is the motto at West Point?" ¹
¹ Duty, Honor, Country
Thursday, January 10, 2013
More Customer Stories
- In addition to wine, beer, hard liquor, mixes, cigarettes, yada, yada, yada, the store sold tickets for various lotteries: Mega Millions (a multi-state lottery), Illinois Lotto, Powerball, Little Lotto (a nightly drawing that starts at $100,000 and rolls over if there's no winner), and Pick 3 and Pick 4 lotteries. There was also a vending machine for "instant" tickets, ranging in price from a dollar to twenty dollars.
One day when Mega Millions was up over $100 million. A customer bought a ticket, examined it, and said, "If I win this, the old lady can cut back to part time."
- Customer, reading aloud from newspaper: "North Carolina law describes malicious castration as cutting off, maiming or disfiguring a person's gentiles . . . ."
(Yes, I know that the above two appeared on an "overheard" site several years ago. I sent them in.)
- On occasion I found myself one of only two employees at the store, the other usually being someone who deals strictly with stock. Very occasionally this created a brief conflict between my responsibilities. One afternoon a regular customer walked in, an Indian and a taxi driver. He routinely bought one can of beer and several minis. He went to the cooler and got his beer, but just as he approached the counter the phone rang. I answered and found that the caller was the store owner. He had a couple of brief instructions and we talked for perhaps thirty to forty-five seconds. I walked back to the counter and the customer.
Impatient customer: "You shouldn't answer the phone. You should take care of your customers first."
Donnie: "Oh, we're going to give each other job advice? Don't drink when you're driving a cab."
We've gotten along much better since then.
- It's not only drivers who are PITA cell phone users. Customers would walk in talking on a phone, transact their business, and walk out still talking on the phone. It's rude, but I could live with that. However . . .
One busy night a customer approached the counter, arms loaded with bottles of various kinds and cell phone jammed between his shoulder and his ear. He put the bottles on the counter and I began scanning them. Several customers got into line behind him. I got a total, bagged his purchases, and quoted him the amount he owed. He looked at me, held up a finger signaling me to wait, and continued his conversation. I waited a few seconds and told him I needed to finish this sale. He held up his finger again and turned away, still talking.
I deleted his items from the register, pushed the bags aside, and took the next customer. About halfway through this transaction, the first customer finished his conversation, turned around, and saw what I had done. He was hopping from foot to foot, unable to believe that I didn't just continue to wait for him. The line had grown to five or six customers and I pointed to them.
"You see these people? Your conversation may have been fascinating to you, but . . . ."
He fumed, but his choices were putting up with me or starting all over again at some other liquor store. The next couple of times he came in he walked by me silently, ignoring my greeting, but he got over it eventually. We resumed smiling and chatting, and although he sometimes repeated the phone conversation routine, he never again tried to make everyone else wait until he finished.
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