It was 1964, and I was nine years-old, when my youthful innocence was taken from me. The process took eleven excruciating days, and Chico Ruiz was the initial culprit. It was painful, and my recovery was slow. I didn’t realize it at the time, but… Read More »Finish the Job
A standard offering in any Jewish deli that wishes to retain its clientele is a wide array of pickles and other pickled products. I am not talking about mass-produced jarred products from companies such as Vlasic. Instead, I am referring to lovingly created items that… Read More »The Pickle Thief
Are you familiar with Hot Rod Lincoln, the 1972 top ten hit by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen? What a great bit of rockabilly that achieved commercial success! And the fabulous guitar riff that propelled the song was provided by Bill Kirchen, one… Read More »Excellence … Even When No One is Watching
[This is the conclusion of my Wildwood story, following part 1 and part 2.] To recap, my 1967 summer of joy in Wildwood, New Jersey, had turned into a mini-disaster. I had lost my promised dishwashing job and ended up flat broke in a kid’s… Read More »Joe the Shoeshine Boy
[For Part One of this tale of woe and occasional joy, go here.] So, my summer of wonder and enchantment in the kid’s dreamland of Wildwood, New Jersey, had come to an abrupt halt. I was unemployed, tapped out, and the prospects for money were… Read More »Joe the Lifeguard’s Errand Boy
It was supposed to have been a dream-come-true summer back when I turning from eleven to twelve. It was 1967, and elsewhere it was the summer of love. For me, it was going to be an entire summer at Wildwood, a beach resort in New… Read More »A Summer Dream Then Poof – the Job Disappears
A few decades ago, a crowd of people, in confusion, mistook me for a huge Hollywood movie star. The cameras clicked, and the flashbulbs popped in front of me. It was mesmerizing for a moment. For a couple of years in the late seventies, I… Read More »I Am Not Sylvester Stallone
My father taught me to drive. That was a mistake. It is fair to say that my father had a driving style that reflected the man himself. His formative years in the 1920s were spent on the streets of South Philly, running with a bunch… Read More »How Not to Learn to Drive
Customers are the lifeblood of every business. That is true in all types of enterprises but is especially so for retail establishments, from the behemoths like Walmart to your local Mom and Pop store. Dave’s Deli, where I worked as a teenager, was a bit… Read More »Six Pounds of Corned Beef???
There are just a few times in your life when you consciously make a decision that you know will alter your life significantly. Most of our decisions do not rise to that level of importance, although even the seemingly unimportant ones hold the potential of… Read More »A Hurricane and a Decision