A Sure Thing

Throughout the 90's I was working at a defense contractor that made submarines. One of the employees at the company invested with a guy named Sam DelPresto. Sam worked for the now defunct New York City based brokerage firm L.C. Wegard & Co. Inc.

DelPresto must have convinced someone at my company to part with an employee directory because he was cold calling everyone with a job title that sounded like they had some coin. Sam eventually called me. He was full of optimism about all sorts of investments like business machines in Canada and earth moving equipment in Alaska. After a brief pitch, Sam asked exuberantly,

"So how much money do you think you would like to invest to risk a relationship?"

Large Impressive Buildings

Sam mentioned two things I didn't like to hear in the same sentence, my money and risk. I asked him to call later. He offered to send me a prospectus on L.C. Wegard. He tried to get my home phone number, but I declined. When the mail from Sam arrived, I looked through the glossy folder containing a seemingly inordinate amount of pictures of large impressive buildings and espousing the many great investment opportunities that were just waiting for me to risk a relationship. There were also a lot of intricate charts with heavy black lines, rising spikily from left to right. Sam eventually called back.

"Sam, my boss is at my desk right now. I can't talk," I explained.

"Bob, I have something you would have to move on right away."

Investment Graphic

"Sam, my boss is standing right over me."

"I have a warehouse full of office machines in Canada!"

"I really can’t talk right now."


"And the deal is we can't lose on this one because companies can't go bankrupt in Canada!" Sam explained with a confident laugh.

"That's fascinating, but my boss is right here."

"This is a sure thing we're offering only to a select few. You'll have to move on this right away Bob."

My boss left to chat with someone else. Sam's urgency as well as his complete disregard of what I was saying really put me off so I followed up with,

"Sam, you're like an old woman. You don't listen, and you keep talking."

There was a long pause as Sam absorbed my observation that he was similar to a feminine senior citizen. This may seem misogynistically ageist, but back then there wasn't any social media platforms to express anonymous rudeness so we were openly rude to each other. I was thinking more about my mother and her friends who all spoke in soliloquy when they gathered for tea and biscuits. They would carry on individual unrelated conversations at various volumes in between sips of tea. One of my mother's friends, Nancy, was so adept at steamrolling over the conversation that when she spoke I would mime a clenched fist holding an auger in front of my chest as I spun my other fist in a circle. My sister would laugh as I whispered, "corkscrew,” conveying the idea that when Nancy talked, it was like a corkscrew drilling through your torso.

"When you want to make money, you call me!" Sam angrily recited as he hung up.

Charles Ponzi

At least I got rid of him, and my boss left too so it was an all round win for me. A coworker explained that Sam was likely greatly exaggerating investment opportunities or running Ponzi schemes. He explained guys like him take money from a bunch of investors and give half back as a windfall. Some people lose their shirt while the winners throw even more coin into the sure thing. Sam then works on replacing the losers with even more suckers. I began posting notices in the office warning my colleagues about Sam DelPresto and L.C. Wegard. My boss saw me pinning the message onto the bulletin board.

"I made a lot of money with Sam DelPresto. He's brilliant," my boss exclaimed.

Another coworker's boss said the same thing. We theorized that they figured supervisors earned more money and might be more influential so they made up the first round investment winners. Eventually when the Ponzi scheme folds everyone loses. A few months later, I got a call from a guy named Jerry. He was not as exuberant as Sam. He spoke calmly about a great many investment opportunities.

"Jerry, you work with that idiot Sam DelPresto, right?" I asked.

Jerry respectfully defended Sam and L.C. Wegard. He concluded with,

"The world would be a better place if more people were like Sam DelPresto."

"What does 'L.C.' stand for anyway?" I asked.

"What? Huh? I don't know," Jerry fumbled.

Probably "Losing Chumps."

Recently I googled Sam, and this is what I learned. First of all, that was his real name. I know because 18 years ago he was busted on what was described as a "penny stock scam." Sam DelPresto swindled $3 million from investors in a "boiler room operation" before the Security Exchange Commission caught up with him. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years probation, six months home confinement and barred from the industry for two years. In 2015 he pleaded guilty to a "massive stock manipulation scheme" that netted him $13 million. He was also convicted of paying kickbacks to a Las Vegas investment advisor. This time he faces federal prison.

I also found Sam's blog dating back to 2010. In one post, entitled "Slow Wheels of Justice," he chronicles the fall of Bernie Madoff and asks why so many people never questioned the lack of any reported losses in Madoff's investment portfolio. He writes,

"I admit to a fascination that borders on awe of the enormity of the fraud."

Looks like Sam will be playing backgammon with his idol for the next few years. His light sentence on the first offense didn’t scare him straight. He committed a worse crime a few years later. By the time he gets out of the pen, he'll probably pick up a real education from the Madoff School of Embezzlement.

Jerry was wrong. The world is not a better place with people like Sam DelPresto.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on March 7, 2017.

Midway

In 2012, my son, Aidan and I were researching the remains of a historic building associated with the Central Vermont (CV) railroad in New London, Connecticut. I last saw the roundhouse used to store steam locomotives when I lived in the city in the late 80's. The Central Vermont Roundhouse burned down in 2002, just before Aidan was born. Years later he was homeschooled, and part of his history lesson involved what a friend calls "urban exploration."



Central Vermont Rail Yard                           Edward J. Ozog

Searching the site Aidan and I found tracks, railroad spikes, coal, a lot of what we affectionately called "train junk." In the picture above on the left, Aidan is standing in front of a brick structure known as the "flammable paint shed." The right image from 1956 is from the same angle and shows the turntable, steam engine CV467 (2-8-0) and a coal hopper in the distance. The crumbling brick building is the last structure standing at the site. Online searching led us to a gentleman named, John Paganoni, who built an extraordinarily detailed model of the New London CV Roundhouse. We exchanged many emails about railroad history. One day, Mr. Paganoni asked,

"Do you know where the Midway Roundhouse is located? I read in a book that it was near the town of Groton."

Midway Engine House Circa 1911

Groton is mostly known for submarines due to the defense contractor Electric Boat and the Naval Submarine Base. I wasn't aware that there was anything associated with the railroad industry in Groton. I knew of Midway Pizza, a local Italian restaurant. There was also a neighborhood circled by a road called Midway Oval. Electric Boat had a facility called "Midway" in the same area.

Aidan and I dove into an online search which unearthed a lot of information about the Midway rail yard. It was build in 1904 as a refueling stop for steam engines. The location and name was derived from the fact that it was mid way between Boston and New York City. The large facility had a 20 stall roundhouse with a 95 foot turntable, a coal hopper, and sand depot. Sand is still used today for traction on the rails. The facility closed after a decade of decline. The buildings were razed in 1939 after more powerful steam engines made the stop in Midway unnecessary.



Map of Midway

Although we found a lot of information online, we didn't discover any maps that would have helped us locate the facility. Aidan and I visited the public library in Groton to look for any information on railroads in the area. A very helpful person found a 1981 article about the Midway rail yard in the Shoreliner, a magazine about the history of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The article included a hand drawn map from 1935 which yielded only one key geographic feature, a body of water called Poquonnock River.

Aidan and I returned to the internet to orientate our copy of the map to any of the number of available online charts. Before long we determined that the Midway facility was located at Bluff Point State Park. We also discovered that a small land bridge that led to nowhere near the parking lot at the state park was the original railroad bed dating back to 1858. It was rerouted to its present position when the Groton Airport was built in 1929.

Old Rail Bed at Groton Airport

In the image above the land bridge is marked by the left arrow. Midway is located at the lower left, just below Bluff Point State Park. The blue line across the airport is the old railroad bed. The arrow on the right identifies the existing rail line. We discovered an aerial view online which clearly showed the remains of the Midway facility. In the image below the arrow marks the outline of the Midway roundhouse.

Remains of the Midway Roundhouse

My wife, Christine, and I recalled exploring the area years earlier and found many of the features identified on the map. At the time we hadn't a clue what any of the structures were.

Tracks Inside the Roundhouse

Now, my son and I had unearthed an answer for Mr. Paganoni. A few days later we explored the site and discovered rails that were once inside the roundhouse and piles of fine sand dotted with lumps of coal which were destined to power steam engines plying the east coast in the 1920's.



Sand and Coal

In a newspaper article from 1939, we read that when a roundhouse was demolished workers often left tools in the pits, used by mechanics to access the underside of the engines. It was an act of respect as they laid the implements of their trade to rest. Aidan and I spent three summers excavating a pit by hand, hoping to find those tools left so many years ago. We found numerous artifacts including, bottles, boots, bits of newspaper, plates and eating utensils. We got down three feet before the pit flooded. The smallest things that Aidan and I discovered were historically significant to us. One of the interesting things we unearthed was a bottle embossed with the following inscription,

FEDERAL LAW FORBIDS THE SALE OR RE-USE OF THIS BOTTLE

Markings on the bottom of the bottle indicate that it was made by the Brockway Glass Company in 1942 at the plant located in Ada, Oklahoma. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, some legislators wanted to hamper bootlegging by making it illegal to reuse empty glass bottles. The inscription appeared on all liquor bottles sold in the United States between 1935 and 1964.

In 2015 Midway was designated a State Archaeological Preserve which halted any further investigation on our part. I'm glad someone is looking into the site for historical significance. Aidan is a senior in high school now so he no longer has time for urban exploration. Occasionally, I visit Midway and wander among the ruins and think of the time when I stumbled upon the site with my wife while we were dating, when I rediscovered it with our boys years later, and when people lived and loved a life long ago working for the railroad.

Editor’s Note: Originally published on February 9, 2017, this post marked the halfway point for the Year of the Blog.

Kill Them with Kindness

Scraggly Old Dude

A few years ago, I was late to a doctor's appointment so I did what we all do. I drove like an idiot. As I neared my destination, I turned onto a road with a red traffic light. A beat up, green, Hyundai was waiting at the intersection. There was just enough room for my Honda Ridgeline to fit behind the little, green car. Or so I thought.

When the light changed, the car in front of me pulled into my doctor's parking lot while trailing a plume of dark, grey exhaust. As I got out of my car, I noticed this scraggly, old dude, exiting the banged up Hyundai. He made a beeline right for me.

"You know, it's people like you with their big trucks always getting too close!" he yelled.

My first thought was that a Honda Ridgeline wasn't a big truck. The dude was slightly taller than me by a few inches, but no real threat. He had an impressive beer gut which slowed his progress. When he neared, he smelled of booze and BO. I thought,

"There are tall men, and there are short men, but the Colt 45 made them all equal."

Gun owners are always going on about an armed society being a polite society, but I don't think that's true. People are way more aggressive when they're packing hardware. I didn't have a gun, and my second thought was this guy just might. It was a logical conclusion given his advanced age and gut coupled with his brazen desire to tangle with strangers. So I fell back on a tactic my mother used to say I should employ when I was a kid and about to be pummeled by a bully.

Kill them with kindness.

"I'm very sorry, sir," I said.

"Fuck you!" he yelled.

Okay. It didn't work. I pressed on.

"I should be more considerate."

"It's people like you that drive like assholes."

"Yes, you're right again," I said as I began heading towards the office.

"Don't walk away from me!" the old fart yelled.

"I'm late for my appointment, sir," I explained.

He followed me screaming all sorts of obscenities mixed in with my subpar driving ability. I took the blame for all of it and apologized no less than a half dozen times. It was a long walk. As I neared the door, I held it open for my new, fat friend. He looked at me suspiciously then scooted into the office. His Chubbiness walked up to the receptionist person and started barking at her. I decided I would stand unusually close to my loud companion, well inside the HIPAA zone. The receptionist person informed him that he had an outstanding balance.

"I don't got no insurance," the dude whispered.

This was before Obamacare. The guy was one of the 20 million uninsured people that my rates went up to cover. I'm sure the other 19,999,999 are probably way nicer than this disagreeable person (prick).

"I got a agreement with my doctor," he explained.

"Okay, have a seat," the nurse receptionist person said.

Next was my turn.

"How are you on this beautiful day!" I exclaimed cheerfully.

I finished up my business, topped with a copay then entered the waiting area. The scruffy old douchbag with no medical insurance and I were the only two people in there. I sat right next to him.

"You drive like an asshole," he resumed.

"Yes, I know," I said.

The television displayed a story about flood victims in the south.

"Those poor, unfortunate people," I exclaimed.

"Fuck them! They probably deserve it like you," he blurted.

I forged ahead.

"Imagine losing your house and everything," I said as I made the sign of the cross.

The guy looked down to the ground. If there was a shred of decency inside the deep bowels of this turd’s soul, it was playing solitaire by itself. As he looked up, he muttered,

"I guess, I didn't have to be so loud."

"No, you were right. I drive poorly," I said as I resumed watching the television.

A nurse person dressed in an odd mismatch of multicolored floral patterns suddenly appeared.

"Mr. Fitzpatrick," she called out.

The old guy got up. He looked me over and then followed the nurse. As he walked off, he stopped and turned,

"I guess I'm sorry for swearing and all that," he muttered.

"No, you were right, sir. Have a good day," I answered.

He turned solemnly and left and that was the last I ever saw of him. In the end my mother was right. Killing people with kindness works really well and is actually quite a lot of fun. Anyone can succumb to anger. It takes genuine self-control to kill somebody with kindness. So the next time you run across one of these uptight ass hats who played too much contact sports with an improperly fitting helmet, kill them with kindness.

There are tall men and there are short men, but kindness made the short guy taller.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on January 31, 2017.

Debatable Outcome

The first presidential debate of 2020 last week was best described as Bizarro World’s version of the Ice Capades. History does seem to be playing on a continuous loop. Trump reminded me of Dan Quayle during the vice presidential debates in 1992 when Quayle told Al Gore to inhale after repeatedly asserting,

“My turn!”

Biden was reminiscent of Admiral James Stockdale, Ross Perot’s bewildered running mate, who opened with,

“Who am I? Why am I here?”

Trump was prepped by none other than the former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, who advised the President to pants Biden if he strays from the lectern. After the debate, Christie said Trump “was too hot” for his numerous interruptions even though Christie showed Trump how to properly execute a weapons grade wedgie. All the President had to do is let Biden drone on about his 110 page plan Bernie Sanders co-wrote since by the third sentence he would’ve been talking about cockroaches, the blonde hair on his legs and loading spaghetti sauce with forklifts. Trump interrupted him so frequently he never gave Biden a chance to drift to that special place where the former Vice President cavorts with his childhood Pooh Bear.

Biden answered very few questions. Instead, he mostly looked into the camera and told the American people to vote. Admittedly, Biden did assert that he was the leader of his party more forcibly than Trump denounced the Proud Boys, a male-only organization that derives its name from the tune, Proud of You Boy, featured in the animated Disney musical, Aladdin. Like the President, I never heard of the Proud Boys before, and I doubt a group named after a song from a Disney cartoon are much of a real threat.

Trump erroneously thought the debate would be like one of his midwestern rallies attended by people taking a break from shooting hogs from a helicopter with an AR-15 to convene on the tarmac of the local airport and listen to the President credit his administration with saving Jesus from crucifixion. There was no screaming crowds waving signs of support like,

Combine Harvester Mechanics

for Trump

The President was expecting everyone in the audience to yell and scream in support even though moderator, Chris Wallace, told the audience at the onset to treat the debate like an Amish funeral. Instead of his mostly reserved family in the audience, Trump should’ve handpicked a few of his rally attendees, preferably those who spend Friday nights swinging from a rope tied to the bucket of an excavator as they soar over lukewarm, pea-green pond water.

Trump interjected more times than a Fox opinion anchor plugging their latest book. The President even interrupted Chris Wallace's verbose questions. Wallace seemed like he aspired to the presidency himself instead of settling on the salutatorian of the Sean Hannity Conservatory. Wallace even rolled out the tired old Charlottesville “both sides” quote and made Trump yet again explain himself. Biden thought they were talking about the Joni Mitchell tune and broke into song,

Rows and flows of orange hair

And ice cream castles in Pelosi’s lair

And pony soldiers everywhere

I've looked at clouds that way

Not to be outdone Trump dove in,

But now they only block the gun

They complain and snow everyone

So many things I would have done

But Schiff got in my way

Trump took the next verse too,

I've looked real loud from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow

It's Russian collusion I recall

I really don't know Putin at all

Biden cleared his throat then crooned,

Moons and Junes and CornPop fears

The racist things I sometimes sneer

As every sniff of shoulder length hair

I've looked at girls that way

Wallace jumped in for the next verse confirming the rumor that he secretly shits in Sean Hannity’s bathroom and doesn’t flush,

But now it's just another show

I leave 'em gagging when I go

And if you dump, don't let them know

Don't give yourself away

Trump grabbed the next verses,

Impeached by clowns from both sides now

From Schumer to Romney, and still somehow

It’s Teflon Don I recall

I really won’t ever go at all

Germs and firms and feeling proud

To say "I love me" right out loud

Dreams and schemes and casino crowds

I've looked at life that way

Biden pointed to himself and belted,

But now old friends say I’m acting strange

They shake their heads, they say I've changed

Well something's lost, but Harris gained

It’s warming more every day

I've looked for life from both sides now

From shut up and clown, and still somehow

It’s all illusion I can’t recall

I really don't know where I am at all

All three brought it home with,

We’ve looked at polls from both sides now

From win and lose, and still somehow

It’s disinformation we recall

We really don't know truth at all

So who won the first presidential debate? Many news outlets were quick to declare Biden the victor mainly because the bar was set so low. Biden's entire campaign was concerned that he was going to excuse himself for the bathroom only to return with his shirttail poking out his fly and toilet paper streaming from his shoe. Biden refused to answer Wallace's question concerning his party's push to get rid of the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court. He responded that whatever position he takes "that'll become the issue." I think it's already an issue since some in his party want to pack the senate by granting statehood to Puerto Rico and Washington DC and pack the country by granting citizenship to millions of undocumented pole vaulters.

Gone was any of the wit Trump unloaded on Hillary in the 2016 debates. Neither candidate delivered a single, notable quip. The most memorable moments in past debates were always those that made us laugh like in 1984 when Ronald Regan responded to concerns that at the age of 73, he was too old to run for president,

"I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponents youth and inexperience."

Or in 1988 when Lloyde Bentsen responded to Dan Quayle's claim that he had as much experience as JFK,

"I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.”

Since neither candidate entertained us with memorable zingers, I have to declare Chris Wallace the winner. Wallace maintained marginal control wedged between two enormous egos and Biden’s also. His questions were often pointed and nearly as long as either candidate’s answers. Also, his hair looked good.

I’m hoping next time we’ll have less squabbling and more clapback. Maybe then people might get enthusiastic enough to vote for someone other than a third party candidate who is on the ballot in only one state. When a live presidential debate is less interesting than reruns of reality TV, you know it's time to reimagine the process of selecting the leader of the free world.

The Education Bubble

For some time now, I've been engaged in an informal survey of college majors. Whenever I cross paths with a person speaking about upcoming college plans, I always ask them what their major is. Although I've talked with many people, only one was majoring in STEM. He was a recent high school graduate who was spending the summer waiting tables to earn some money before embarking on a four degree in Chemistry. My wife, Christine, congratulated the young man on his stellar choice of study, telling him that her company hires interns each summer in that field. In my day there was never an abundance of students majoring in science and math, but today it's as if there are none. What gives?

Instead of bashing millennials which my generation is fond of doing, I put the blame squarely on the vast number of colleges across the country which are all vying for the billions of dollars doled out by the Department of Education via Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Back when I was in school colleges got money too through government grants made directly to the institutions, and financial aid and Pell Grants issued to the students. The fed gave out money to schools with the caveat that the institutions had to ensure that their dropout rate was kept to a minimum. Back then legislators didn't want young people to become encumbered by a debt for an education they didn't complete. Colleges sought talented students who had the tenacity to get through a four year degree. The carrot and stick policy ensured that federal money gave each party something of value. That was 35 years ago when about 20% of the population earned a college degree.

Today federal money is disseminated to academic institutions primarily through financial aid. Colleges are allowed to have as much as 90% of their profits come from federal sources. Initially the restriction on funding from federal sources was much lower. Lobbyists for educational institutions managed to get the limit raised over the years. Federal law requires institutions to provide a quality education, but drop out rate is no longer used as a metric impacting funds. Unconcerned if a student actually graduates, educational institutions now lure in high schoolers with simplified programs which give them little chance of landing a job.

In my informal survey many students told me that they were seeking degrees in anthropology, communications, theology and exercise science. Worse yet there are fields of study which are mostly activities turned into college degrees as in animal rescue, turf and golf course landscape maintenance, puppetry, equine care, fermentation science, bowling industry technology, packaging, poultry science, piano pedagogy and floral auctioneering. One kid was majoring in Canadian Studies. What's to learn about Canada other than their chief exports are Canadian money and Justin Bieber? Another told me that a college counselor asked him what he enjoyed doing. He answered,

"I like to wash my car."

So he's getting a business degree with an emphasis on car detailing. There's always been degrees that are worthless, but back in my day a liberal arts degree would land you a good paying full time job with benefits managing a department store. Today those jobs are mostly part time and filled from the floor. A degree in Communications, often sited as one of the worst college majors, is what you get if you tell your guidance counselor that you hate math. The problem is you can't succeed in this world by avoiding math. Additionally, many institutions let students "make your own major," a policy which vastly expands enrollment while diluting the value of a college degree. Today 30% of the US population gets an undergraduate degree, up fifty percent.

When I was applying to colleges in the early 80's, the brochures for the schools mostly highlighted what the institutions were known for academically, any renown laureates on the faculty, and significant research conducted at the institution. Today high school graduates are recruited by colleges who send unsolicited brochures which espouse the wonderful "campus life" and the many amenities they offer including the views from the dorms and the extensive food programs. The advertisements read more like a country club rather than an academic institution.

During the 2016 presidential election, Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, espoused the idea of making two year community colleges free. Hillary Clinton chimed in and said that all community colleges should offer free tuition paid through increased taxes on the rich. More recently Cardi B told Joe Biden that her fans mostly want a "free college education."

To which he responded,

"By the way, we're going to have, if I get elected president, free college education for four years of college, flat out."

The problem with government subsidies is that federal money drives costs up, not down. Biden's tuition free program applies only to families making less than $125,000 a year which includes undocumented students. Many kids transfer credits from community colleges as a more economical means of obtaining a degree. As federal money rolls in, the cost of college will soar. There is also no restriction on the majors a student can aspire to under the Biden program. As a taxpayer I don't want to indirectly fund some kid's anthropology degree unless I at least get a chance to impart on them parental wisdom at the proper decibel level. I usually start with "a worthless degree is still worthless even if it's free." 

When I was young, my juvenile head didn't need to tap out for me to understand that you can't do much with an easily obtainable degree, but the recruitment effort was vastly different. Today young people are courted by institutions of higher learning offering useless degrees in exchange for massive debt. The education bubble is not going to burst. It will slowly deflate as fewer students sign up for a worthless education offering a phony promise of success.

When it comes to this latest bubble, the education is in front of us not behind.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on August 3, 2017.

Fire House

All the news about the wildfires in California and the blaze Jimmy Kimmel lit in a trashcan on stage during the Emmy’s got me thinking about my childhood experiences with fire. We didn’t have gender reveal pyrotechnics when I was a kid nor did we have large scale forest fires in New England, but our house did almost burn down twice.

We lived in a 1200 square foot ranch located in a working class neighborhood of a town that was historically founded on the principles of gerrymandering. In 1980 when I was in high school our town went bankrupt due to a combination of budgetary mismanagement and grassroots efforts to resist increases in property taxes. The school board had to make some tough decisions to save money so they offered to cut buses or the football team. The townsfolk rallied to save the football team. After the cheese wagons were nixed in favor of preserving the jock's glory days, I walked to school carrying my 20 year old physics book which predicted that “someday men would walk on the moon.”

Red Fire Alarm Box

Our house was located a block down the road from The Station, a nightclub that caught fire in 2003 during a set by the headlining band, Great White. Pyrotechnics set the place ablaze killing a hundred people and injuring many more. I recall that the tragic event was covered by all the national news outlets including CNN. My hometown is best known not as the birthplace of a famous scientist who postulated groundbreaking theories that changed the world, but for the fourth deadliest nightclub fire in the United States. Mediocrity was so inbred in my town that in a competition for avoidable catastrophes, we couldn’t even pull off a bronze.

Years earlier when I was in middle school, two fires occurred in my childhood house, both in the kitchen. Residential smoke alarms were not required by code back then, and we didn’t even own a fire extinguisher. No matter. There was a red fire alarm box affixed to the telephone pole at the head of our driveway. As kids we were told never to touch that box unless, of course, something was on fire.

The red metal box always intrigued me, thermostat level intrigue. The central emergency number, 9-1-1, wasn’t yet nationally adopted. No matter. Having a fire alarm right down our short driveway was like living next door to a firehouse. My friend, who I considered to be brought up wrong, sometimes pulled down the white cover to reveal the business end of the fire alarm, the mysterious metal lever. For me touching that thing was sacrilegious.

Once as I rode past the red box on my bike, I envisioned a meteor streaking across the sky then crashing into our neighbor's house. I imagined that I darted for the alarm, pulled down the white cover, then yanked on the elusive lever, summoning the emergency calvary. I was heralded as a hero for my quick thinking which saved my neighbor’s lives. Unfortunately, their house was a total loss.

“Bobby! Dinner,” my mother hollered from the side door that opened to the kitchen.

My mother always called everyone to the table before the meal was ready. She knew we all had to wait our turn to wash hands in the one bathroom of our house. She wanted us clean, relatively, and seated when she was ready to serve. So I wasn’t surprised that as I passed through the kitchen, the large pot of oil on the stove was just coming to a boil.

My oldest sister, the firstborn, was taking her sweet time in the loo as I queued up behind my sister, Jeannine. Jeannine is the middle child while I am the youngest. As the alpha vacated, she pushed past both of us with indifference, broken only momentarily to convey disgust. Jeannine went in next.

“Come on Bobby! I’m just washing my hands,” she called out.

Confident I wasn’t going to see my sister involved in bodily functions on the throne, I entered the bathroom.

“Mom’s making mushy chicken,” Jeannine announced as we washed.

My mother liked to fry chicken except she never left the chicken in the oil long enough to crisp up. The egg and bread formed a soft coating which although mildly tasty probably still contained live bacteria. Jeannine darted from the bathroom. As I entered the kitchen, something was wrong. My oldest sister was seated at the table, tending to her nails with an emery board. My mother was on the phone, her hand to her mouth as she looked out the kitchen window. My father, always last to sit, was in the living room reading the newspaper. Jeannine had stopped in her tracks and was staring at the pot on the stove.

“What’s she doing?” I thought, “Why’s she not sitting at the table?”

I watched Jeanine’s hand rise like the moon. She was pointing at the pot of boiling oil. As the frothy liquid popped and sputtered over the lip, it ignited into a spectacular orange flame. My mother dropped the phone as she screamed for my father. My dad burst into the kitchen still clutching his newspaper. In a move best described as superhuman, my father jettisoned the paper, reached through the flames and spun the knob on the stove. The thick orange glow of the metal burner faded, but this did little to dissuade the grease fire now raging in the pot. Someone brushed past me. It was the alpha receding to her room. As my family was locked in a life and death struggle to save our home, the firstborn's first thought was to return to the safety of her room as if the David Cassidy posters on the wall would save her.

While my father stepped backwards trying to think of his next best move, my mother filled a glass of water from the sink. She ventured to the cauldron on the stove with the glass held aloft. When she dumped the water into the flames, a fireball arose from the pot and spread out over the ceiling. Jeannine and I mentally came to the same conclusion,

"ABANDON SHIP! Every man for himself!"

She bolted for the door with me not too far behind. As I traversed the kitchen, a second fireball belched from the pot. My parents recoiled as I ducked my head. When I reached the threshold, I yelled to Jeannine who had made it to the driveway,

“Pull the fire alarm!”

“No don’t!” my mother shot back.

I turned to my mother in disbelief. The inside of our house looked like the launch pad for a Saturn V rocket at T plus 2 seconds, and she didn’t want to alert emergency services? Best I could come up with in the middle of the chaos was that she probably didn't want the firemen to track mud in her house. My father grabbed the closest thing in reach, my vinyl schoolbag. He beat back the flames which now covered the entire top of the stove. Knowing that my books, pencils and papers were now in peril, I yelled,

“Not my schoolbag!”

The smoldering remains of my education hit the floor with a thud. My dad snatched up the braided area rug which he piled onto the stovetop, adjusting it each time a flame snuck out from underneath. I called to Jeannine who was poised in front of the fire alarm,

“It’s out!”

My father periodically lifted the rug to check on the status of the rest of our lives in that house. Any hint of orange, and he would slam the rug back down. Once he was sure the crisis was over, he hauled my mother’s smoldering mess of a rug outside to the lawn where he hosed it down. As the commotion subsided, I recall hearing the muffled lyrics of a Partridge Family song emanating from my sister's room,

So what am I so afraid of?
I'm afraid that I'm not sure of
a love there is no cure for.

I think I love you.

I'll tell you what I was afraid of. Fried food! The second kitchen fire took place a year later. It wasn’t as ominous of an event as The Great Grease Fire of 1974, but since we never had a family debriefing after the first fire, we were equally unprepared for the second. It was the day after a holiday party. My mother was cleaning up the debris from the previous day's cheer and merriment, which included a large, yellow Tupperware bowl filled to the brim with Cheez doodles. (I have no idea why "doodles" is not capitalized). The large bowl full of orange baked puffs that sort of resemble insect larvae kept getting in my mother's way. Now when I say that this was a large bowl, I mean it was much more than merely big. It was a Fix N Mix Bowl #274 which according to the internet can hold 26 cups of your favorite shit. She kept moving it here and there as she cleaned so eventually she came up with the master class idea to stow the plastic container and all 26 cups of Cheez doodles in, wait for it...

the oven.

Hours later when my mother was preparing to reheat leftovers for dinner, she put the oven on "preheat." Momentarily, a foul oder permeated our tiny home. My father, the house whisperer, noted it first from the living room,

"What's that smell?" he asked aloud.

My dad sniffed in different directions then took two steps then sniffed again. He olfactorily dead reckoned right into the kitchen where he met me trying to retrieve a box of crackers from a high cabinet.

"Something stinks," I announced.

My mother's muffled voice emanated from the bathroom.

"The Cheez doodles!"

"Get your mother the Cheez doodles," my father ordered.

I looked about.

"Where are they?"

My father scanned the kitchen.

"They're in the goddamn stove!" my mother said frantically.

My father and I looked at each other puzzled.

"They're not in the stove," my dad exclaimed with a chuckle.

"You don't cook Cheese doodles," I offered.

"They must be around here someplace."

The door to the bathroom cracked open.

"They’re in the oven!" my encumbered mother screamed through the opening.

My father and I both looked to each other then to the oven. Through the dark, charred flin caked on the glass window in the oven door, I could just make out a faint yellow glow. My father reached for the handle. As he was getting ready to yank it open, he paused then released the handle. He pointed in succession to each of the many knobs and levers on the console above the burners, looking for the one that was set to "Go For the Moon." As my dad reacquired the handle, I stepped back. My father cautiously cracked open the door. A foul vapor poured out from the oven but no flames. Yellow goo was dripping from the grate and pooling at the bottom of the oven. My dad released the door.

"Not too bad," he ascertained.

Before he finished his assessment, the yellow glowing flicker, fanned by a backdraft, ignited. My father saw it right off.

"Oh shit!" my dad shouted.

He reached for the rug I was standing on and pulled it into the air. I fell backwards onto my fundament. Briefly, I thought that this just might be the chance I was waiting for. Maybe, just maybe, I might get to pull the fire alarm. My father swung open the door then proceeded to beat the flaming pile of Cheez doodles with the rug which sent fiery bits of doodle in every direction. They landed on the floor. Some even made it up to the counter. While my father's go-to method of fire suppression did, yet again, suppress the flames, embers were drifted about the kitchen. Although I wasn't going to have any snacks in my lunch this week, at least we weren't going to lose the family home.

Unbeknownst to my dad and I, my mother had exited the john. After seeing the mess my father was making, she armed her favorite cleaning implement, the canister vacuum cleaner. My father hated the sound of that thing, partly because it was loud and partly because my mother loved it so that when she vacuumed it was like a trip on the S.S. Minnow, a three hour tour. He retreated to his chair in the living room and resumed the word jumble in the newspaper as I picked myself up off the floor. Hours passed as my mother vacuumed with delight. She was on her hands and knees working on freeing up the burnt yellow, solidified plastic blob in the oven with a butter knife when I crossed through the kitchen. My mother momentarily stopped scraping.

"Look at the mess your father made!" she bellowed.

I was near the canister which, the best I could tell, was glowing.

"You better change the bag in that thing," I offered, believing that the motor was overheating after three hours of sucking up Cheez doodles.

My mother resumed scraping. I went into the living room to continue my self-study of The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. Actually, I was going to try to tune in the UHF selector on the TV to Channel 56 to watch Speed Racer. After a few minutes of fiddling, I got it.

Go Speed Racer go!

I was just wondering how Trixie learned to fly a helicopter when my dad lowered his newspaper.

"What's that?" he asked while looking up in a seemingly random direction.

"What?"

As my dad rose, he dropped his paper onto his chair. He made his way down the short hallway to the kitchen. I looked through the passageway to see him staring at my mother as she scraped the stove. Returning to my cartoon, I thought,

"Where did she even get a helicopter?"

Picking up the vacuum wand, my father sniffed the end. Recoiling, my dad was satisfied that he had found the source of the miasma. As he inspected the vacuum cleaner, I confidently explained,

"I told her to change the bag. The motor is overheating." 

My father looked down the hallway as I rattled off my expert advice. As his attention shifted to the handle, he adjusted his grip while demonstrating excellent trigger discipline. With a flick of his thumb, the vacuum sprang to life. I looked towards the noise, unsure why my father was powering up a machine he loathed so completely. As I focussed on the canister, he shut it off. I thought I saw for just a moment a flame coming out of the exhaust port. To this day, I recall that it was blue. I half expected the canister to start rolling across the floor then after reaching take off speed, lift skyward. My father looked to the canister then tried the trigger once more.

"What the heck!" he shouted as he abruptly switched off the machine.

He quickly rolled the vacuum to the door then tossed it down the stairs. As it bounced off the concrete steps, the canister broke open revealing a core of smoldering dust, dander and doodles that had burned through the bag. Once it breeched the filter, the compressed air driven by the motor created a low thrust jet engine that fried the inside of the canister.

The opportunity to activate the red fire alarm box at the end of the driveway never presented itself to me again even though we were hardly an accident free family. Back in those days you went to the hospital if you couldn't stop bleeding from an artery. You passed on an emergency room visit for a concussion even if you blacked out. My family depended on a general practitioner who gave you a bottle of orange medicine for every malady with instructions to "finish the bottle." It didn’t work and stained your teeth, but it didn’t kill you either so down the hatch!

After I was on my own on a bright Sunday morning my father choked hard on some steak grizzle. Having worked so memorably well with the grease fire, my mother rolled out her glass of water trick. As my asphyxiating father drank the warm water, the steak lodged even deeper. Eventually, he had to choose either entering a white tunnel to the afterlife or performing the Heimlich maneuver on himself. When they told me the story, I asked my mother if she called 9-1-1. She hadn't.

My parents generation never felt that their emergency rose to a level which required intervention by trained professionals. They treated the fires which could've easily claimed our home or one or more of us as an embarrassment. I know this because my mother put us kids under an explicit gag order not to disclose the fires to our friends, especially the Cheez doodle Syndrome of 1975. She regarded that incident as her fault even though the first time around she poured a glass of water in a pot of boiling oil.

As an adult I sat them down and explained that emergency personnel want you to call them, but it never sunk in. When a ladder my father was on slipped down the house, and he broke his nose on a rung, my mother called a neighbor who rushed over to find my father holding a towel to his face as he bled profusely. The neighbor wisely called emergency services against my father's wishes. When the paramedics arrived he refused to go with them because as he put it,

"I have to take my wife to her hair appointment this afternoon."

He didn't tell me about his accident until I saw him a week later. I was shocked to see my dad so banged up. He said,

"I didn't mess up anything I need. I just broke my face."

Later when we talked, he wondered aloud what the paramedics must have thought of him. He asked,

"You think they thought I was nuts?"

After a long pause, I answered,

"Yes, definitely."

He confided in me that the whole experience alleviated his fear of hospitals. He recalled all the jokes he played on the staff during his brief visit including asking them if he would be able to play the tuba after they fix his nose. They reassured him that he would to which he said,

"Oh good! I never could before."

When I think of how as kids we were unrestrained in car seats for all those years, crossed active train bridges that spanned raging rivers, avoided the groovy drugged out hippies of the 1970's, roamed forests and rivers alone all day long, ventured at night into deep trenches being dug in the streets for sewer pipes, passed on going to the hospital for a concussion and survived our homes catching fire, I wonder if any of it built character or took some away. This is when writers usually proclaim that if they could do it all over again, they wouldn't change a thing. I, for one, would've taken a pass on The Great Grease Fire of 1974.

It still gives me nightmares to this day.