Stories From My Life


Today I am years old.

Book 2 - (1962 - 1984)

    Here's what I traded it in for: a 1962 Oldsmobile F-85.  Yes, in puke green...

    After the wedding ceremony, as we were coming down the steps outside the church, my new bride started waving both arms above her head vigorously.

   
An aside: THIRTY years later I found out that my Mother had been married and divorced before marrying Dad.  I really resent now that when I was hurting, she never told me; never said, "You'll get through it", never said "You're not the first to have this happen in the family".  Nothing.
 

   


Notice the NAPA tag on the front; that'll become significant soon.

    .. had only one computer installed in any of their locations in 1964 -- their warehouse in New York City.  Genuine Parts was and is headquartered in Atlanta.  The computer installation in New York was the responsibility of the IBM New York Distribution office -- but the 1401 installed there was really small potatoes to them -- but the first computer in Genuine Parts Company was a HUGE deal to the Atlanta IBM office. Just like General Telephone in Tampa last year, this installation wasn't going well; and RCA had threatened to install across the hall (again).  They were still stinging from getting whipped by us in Tampa.

    Based on all this, Paul decided that it would be good for me to have a change of scene and good for IBM and Genuine Parts for me to go to NY for a few weeks and save the day.

    I was to go to New York for six weeks (again on full expenses, banking my salary), live in a nearby hotel and work at Genuine Parts to save the IBM 1401 account.  Meantime, I'd get a couple of fraternity brothers to move into the house, pay me enough to make the mortgage payment and leave the master bedroom for me to use when IBM flew me home every other weekend to see toddler daughter Debbie.  Flying me home every two weeks to see my daughter was a non-negotiable part of the deal.

    I was eager to do this (though I'd miss driving the new 'Vette).  Fraternity brother Ken Lane and a friend of his named Phil moved into the house and I was off for New York.

    I'd only been to NYC once or twice before and the prospect of living in Manhattan, the hub of the world, was pretty darned attractive!  I booked myself at a weekly rate at the Holiday Inn at 57th street and Ninth Avenue:


Mr. Rosenstiel sponsored an award to Brandeis University

    "You want to fly to New York tomorrow?"  Their advice was to come to the airport right now and see if I could get on something going somewhere.  That's what I did.

    I sat/slept at the airport for 36 hours before getting a flight to New York on noon the day of the dinner.  Took a cab to the hotel, met Gael and my folks (they were surprised) and napped until time to go.

    No expense was shared for this gala.  The Lester Lanin Orchestra:

    .. was hired and Lester himself was there to lead it.  Not a big deal today, but in society bashes in 1966 - it was a big deal. While still outside the hotel, Gael and I were talking about the possibility of her moving to Atlanta, moving in with me and attending Georgia State to complete her degree.  She asked, with a plan that signficant, "Doesn't love have anything to do with it?"  I said, "Well, you love me, don't you?"  She said she did.  I said, "I guess that settles it then!"  I'm a hopeless romantic.

    In the ballroom, the tables were set for ten and the centerpiece featured a giant 3" plastic diamond ("75th" celebration, y'know).

    Sometime during the meal I removed the plastic diamond from the centerpiece (it was held in place by a pipecleaner).  I offered her the big plastic diamond and asked if she'd marry me.  I wrapped that green pipe cleaner around her finger and she had the biggest diamond in the room!

    The word spread up and down the table until it got to my father.  He was pretty much in his cups and Mother had to tell him what was going on a couple of times.  He called Gael over and told her not to hurt me.  I liked that.  And, she hasn't (much )

    We left the table and called her parents; they were more than OK with it.  We decided that we'd invite them and everyone at the table to an engagement lunch the next day at our favorite restaurant, Whyte's on 57th street up the street from Carnegie Hall.  We went there often whenever I was in New York and became friends with the owner, the captains and the waiters.

    We met there and the owner, George Machrist, came over and treated us all to cocktails; it was very nice.  And then he said that, if we would come to the restaurant on our wedding day, he would provide crepe-suzette and champagne - on the house.  We said we'd be there.

    I wanted to be married on my birthday, November 1st (Dad and Mother had married on his birthday) but that was a Tuesday and unsuitable (I was informed) for a wedding.  We agreed on the next Saturday after my birthday: November 5th:

    The reception at the Governor Morris Hotel in Morristown was terrific.  During the meal, one of my groomsmen, fraternity brother Dick Schwartz, asked me for the key to our honeymoon suite; he had left film for his camera there.  I gave it to him.  Gael asked me what I was doing and I told her.  She looked at me like I was the biggest idiot on the planet.  "What?!??"  She said that Dick and the others were going to "do something" to our room; that never occurred to me.

    After the reception we went back to Gael's house for another informal celebration.  And then we remembered George Machrist's invitation.  It's now 10pm in New Jersey -- but we got into Dick Schwarz's Buick Riviera and he drove us into the city:

    When we walked into Whyte's at about 10:30, Gael in her wedding dress, me in my tux, the whole place went silent, forks in the air, mid-bite.  And then, someone started to applaud -- and we got a standing ovation -- from jaded New Yorkers who didn't know who the hell we were.

    They quickly manufactured a table for three in the middle of the restaurant (Dick had to sit somewhere) and George made an announcement that he'd offered us dessert on our wedding day and here we were to collect.  Another ovation.

    And then the champagne started coming.  I think every dinner party there sent a bottle of champagne.  At one time there were eight or ten champagne buckets arrayed around the table.  Champagne isn't my favorite drink and it's not Gael's either.  Fortunately we had Dick Schwartz along.

    All in all it was a wonderful experience.  But now we have to drive back to Morristown, NJ with Dick who, on his best day, isn't a great nighttime driver.  He has narcolepsy AND he'd had lots of champagne.  But the gods must have been smiling and we arrived back at the hotel safely.

    When we got to our room, it looked just fine.  I told her that her earlier fears about giving Dick the room key were groundless; Dick had just needed his film.

    And then we tried to turn down the bed.  In the bed were about 10lbs of Sen-Sen (a breath mint):

    .. and another 10lbs of peppermint lifesavers:

    I'm not sure I understand the significance, but they did render the bed pretty messy.  We dumped the mess onto the floor (sorry, Governor Morris housekeeping staff) and slept on top of the bare mattress.

    We met my folks for breakfast the next morning and then headed out for Gael's home.  We had rented a car and a U-Haul trailer one-way from New Jersey to Atlanta.  We loaded the trailer up with wedding gifts and Gael's stuff and hit the road.  Remember that I'm a hopeless romantic.  The plan was to stop overnight with fraternity brothers on the way to Atlanta.  Perfect honeymoon, huh?

    We spent one night in Washington DC with Darryl and Huddie Mexic and the next in Charlotte with Steve and Carolyn Brenner.  And, when we reached our home in Atlanta we found the refrigerator had been emptied and then filled with bottles of Frostie Root Beer (my (then) drug of choice):

    Click HERE for Phyllis' (and now our) turkey prep methodology.

    Working together at IBM

    Gael interviewed and got a job with IBM Office Products Division as a receptionist.  In those days, the Office Products Division was where the real IBM salesmen worked; "OP" sold typewriters, copiers and dictation equipment.

    Gael grew bored pretty quickly in the receptionist job and started embellishing it.  She loved to answer the phone in her best Marilyn Monroe voice: "Good morning (huskily)....... IBM".  Men would stammer, hang up, get themselves back together, and then call back.

    The Office Products Division office was just a block away from my office so we'd drive to and from work together in the Corvette every morning.  Often my hours were later than hers and it became clear that one car wasn't going to cut it long.

    Pay Close Attention To This!!

    Around the first of December I made a really big mistake.  A REALLY BIG MISTAKE.

   
NOTE:  This mistake has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next 60+ years.

DO NOT REPEAT THIS MISTAKE IN YOUR OWN LIFE!

 

   

    ... in on a used yellow 1966 Cadillac Sedan de Ville:

 

    Heading South, you have the Atlantic Ocean on the left and the Gulf of Mexico on the right.  It's dark and we're tired.  And a tire blew.

    The Travco had a lot of tires, ten in all.  The one that blew was the inner tire on one of the right side pairs.  There's no way to pull off the road (water to the left and right) so we limped at 10MPH all the rest of the way to Key West.  We had to go so slowly because of the vibration the ruined tire set up at higher speeds.  We got there well after midnight and collapsed in the local Holiday Inn.

    At dawn I arranged for the tire to be changed by a local tire store.  I parked Gael at the motel, a local IBMer picked me up, and we headed off for the demo.

    The prospect was the local power and light company serving Key West.  It, as well as a number of other local businesses, was owned by State Senator Spottswood:

    He, along with a dozen or so of his minions came out to see the demo in the parking lot.  The Travco could comfortably hold me and four others; since there were more, I did back-to-back demos.  They went well, I thought, but they took most of the day.

    Gael had been trapped in the lobby of the Holiday Inn all day since checkout at 11am.  She was not happy.  Not happy at all.  At the end of the day, as things were winding down with Senator Spottswood and his entourage, I sent the local IBM Sales Rep back to the hotel to picked Gael up.  I'm afraid she was less than pleasant to him on the ride out to Key West Power and Light.  When I saw her, I knew I was in for it.

    I introduced her all around and we made small talk with the Senator.  He asked where we were going next.  I told him that we were scheduled in Orlando on Monday morning, so we were going to leave (now), drive back to Atlanta, and then drive down to Orlando on Sunday.  We'd be driving until late tonight (Friday), get to Atlanta on Saturday afternoon and then I'd be leaving again for Orlando on Sunday mid-day.

      The Senator was appalled: "How can IBM expect you to do that?  It's ridiculous!"

      He called out: "Charlie!!"

      Charlie ran over with a "Yessir, Senator?"

      "Charlie, drive this thing to Orlando for these nice kids."

    He plucked the keys out of my hand and hopped in the Travco while I yelled, "Wait!!!"

    We arranged that Charlie would leave the van and the keys at the Howard Johnson's Motel at McCoy Field (the Orlando airport).  Gael and I would fly home from Key West and I would fly to Orlando Sunday evening to reunite with the van.

    I don't know how much thought I gave to handing over the $50K Travco with the $100K computer inside it to some guy named Charlie that materialized out of a crowd at the sound of his name -- but that's what I did.

    The local IBM rep took Gael and me to the airport where there was a close-in flight to Atlanta.  But, believe it or not, the airport didn't take credit cards!  Only cash or personal check.  Gael wrote them a (bad) check and we were home late Friday night.

    On Sunday, with some trepidation, I flew to Orlando.  I took the hotel shuttle to the HoJo's -- and there was the van in the parking lot, keys waiting at the desk.

    Think about the Senator's power for a minute.  With no notice, he told a minion to drive this big truck to Orlando and (I guess) fly home.  And he (Charlie) did it.

    The "Take the Model 20 to the prospect" program was successful -- but the thing that made the biggest difference in my income in 1968 was that IBM announced the "Submodels 3 and 4" of the System/360 Model 20.  This was simply a price and performance reduction for the Model 20 and it solved its biggest sales obstacle: price.

    How IBM controls salesman income

    Sales took off in the back half of the year exceeding everyone's expectations.  A brief aside at how IBM salesmen were paid back then:

   
IBM Sales Reps were paid based on two elements.  IBM management set a sales quota plus a "commission per monthly lease amount" points formula to control the Sales Rep's income.

Management could either alter the points formula (which they did once a year) or alter the quota (which they did whenever they liked).
 

In 1968, nearly the entire New Business Sales Force had quit on the same day.


When IBM paid a commission, it was always just a loan, never earned.  Say you sold something and received a commission of $1,000.  That was yours to keep -- unless that lease was ever cancelled.  If it was, you paid back the $1,000 commission to IBM; all of it.

If you upgraded someone who was paying $500/month for a machine to a new machine that leased for $1,000/month, you didn't get $1,000 commission.  You only got the $500 difference between the new equipment and the displaced gear.

Sounds bad, doesn't it?  The rationale is that you were, therefore, heavily incentivized to protect your installations.  If a competitor came along and displaced your stuff, you paid the commission back to IBM.

But it was even worse than that.  When you are initially assigned a territory, you get liability for the accounts already installed there.  If anything in the territory comes out on your watch, you pay back the commission on that sale -- a commission you never received!

That's right.  You have instant liability for all the gear installed in your new territory.  You are paid nothing for it, but have to repay commission on anything that is discontinued.

Only IBM and Xerox had such a sales plan back in the '60s. 
 


Click the image to see the belt larger...
    Morgan Payne was one of my teammates and his sales territory was south of Atlanta in an industrial area.  One of the ways we searched for new business prospects was to drive through the territory and count the cars in an industrial building's parking lot.  That would give us some idea of the size of the company and whether they might be a real prospect.

    In Morgan's territory was a company called Southern Saw.  They were a foundry operation manufacturing saw blades for manual and electric saw markets.  They'd been an IBM prospect for years.  Morgan had finally gotten a meeting with the plant manager who agreed to hear how the IBM System/360 Model 20 could be of use to his company.

    Because Morgan was a little green, our manager Jim Yongue sent Brue Chandler along on the sales call.

    The meeting was in August just after lunch.  In Atlanta, August was hot.  And the meeting at Southern Saw was in the foundry.  Hotter.  Brue sat down; Morgan and his flipcharts were set up to pitch the System/360:

    Brue was really warm so he took off his jacket, pushed his chair up close to the desk and rested his chin on his hand while Morgan did his pitch.  Morgan noticed that the prospect would look away and shuffle papers while he was pitching.  This went on for a while until Morgan noticed that Brue had fallen asleep -- and was drooling heavily.

    The drool dripped down his arm and pooled on the desktop.  As the pool grew, the prospect was moving papers out of the way.

    The call eventually ended and Brue and Morgan headed back to the office.  Their manager was expecting a call report...

    Morgan didn't know what to do.  Did he tell Jim about Brue?  How to do that?  He agonized for much of the afternoon talking with the rest of us for advice.  The consensus was that he had to tell Jim what happened.  During the afternoon he headed toward Jim's office, chickened out, tried again.  Several times.

    Finally at about 5pm he knocked on Jim's door and was waved in.  He sat down and started telling Jim what happened.

    What he didn't know is that someone had already spilled the beans -- so as Morgan was talking, Jim started closing his eyes, then jerking awake, rinse and repeat.

    We heard Morgan shout, "My voice DOES NOT PUT PEOPLE TO SLEEP!!!!"

    We had wanted to do what was asked and we'd ruined the evening.  We had no idea.

    We made our way back to the hotel, talking over the mess we'd made and went to bed.

    At 1:30am, the phone rang in our room.  It's was Bob.  He said that family had been meeting for FOUR hours since the dinner and they had decided it would be best if we and the other groomsmen did not come to the wedding.  He called the other guys with the same message.  His brother would be allowed at the wedding but the rest of us, no.

    Everyone gathered in our room and we decided there was no reason to remain in Louisville so we packed up, headed out to the FBO and at 3:00a flew home to Charlie Brown Airport in Atlanta.  We were feeling low, embarrassed and so contrite.

    Somewhere over Nashville our attitude turned from sorrow to anger.

       
                              Tom Watson (Chairman)                Vin Learson (President)

    This is a methodology that Brue understood thoroughly -- computers, not so much.

    So Brue had the Model 20 installed to emulate a tub file card system; dead wrong for a computer inventory application -- it's no wonder the client was unhappy.

    I did a systems analysis and recommended that they switch from punched cards and add a hard disk drive to their system:


(For computer historians, the drive used a removable
hard disk pak with the capacity of a whopping 2 Mb..)

    Since the Model 20 Submodel 4 was recently announced, the configuration actually would cost less than what they were paying now.  In other words, they'd have the proper configuration at a lower cost.  Because of IBM's Sales Plan, making this "sale" would actually mean I had to pay back to IBM nearly $1,000 in commission -- commission that I'd never received in the first place (Brue did).

    This should be an easy presentation; selling a $$ downgrade usually results in a happy client.

    I scheduled my presentation with Mike Carlos, President of National Distributors:

    Mike had an imposing office with his desk on a dais, putting him a head above any seated visitors.  I took my flipchart easel in there and made the pitch.  Net result if he accepted my proposal: Saving them about $1,000/month -- while costing me $1,000 out-of-pocket on commission to be paid back to IBM.

    Not surprisingly, Mike bought the concept at once.  I said that all I needed from him was a letter authorizing the change; once we put the order in, the new system would be installed in about eighteen to twenty-four months.

    You'd have thought I suggested dismemberment of his first-born.

    Mike had a terrible temper and he began to yell at me, saying that he wanted that new system (and the attendant savings) next week.  I explained that the lead time for the order was eighteen to twenty-four months and, as soon as I was able to enter the order, we'd begin to press for a schedule improvement.  Logical, reasonable.

    Not to Mike.  He exploded, cursing and calling me all manner of a dog and finally demanded that I go get Jim Yongue (my boss) and bring him back to solve this problem (me).  He pronounced Jim's name as "yon-gue" (like it's spelled) instead of "young".

    I slunk back to the office.  Nice job, Chaz.  Selling a downgrade and it didn't go well.  I explained to Jim what had happened (he knew what I was proposing and was on board with the plan).  He said, "We can't get the new system for at least eighteen months."  I told him that's what I told Mike and that he had exploded at that news.  Jim sighed, put out his cigarette, and we drove back out to National Distributors.

    Mike made us wait a half-hour before allowing us entry into his office.  I sat in a side chair, Jim sat on the sofa opposite Mike's desk, lit up a cigarette and said:

        "So, Mike, what seems to be the problem?"

    Mike went back to the 1950s and dredged up every event where he thought IBM had taken advantage of him.  Every late service call, every failure to meet his expectations, every billing error and on, and on, and on.  As he ranted, he got angrier and angrier and his face got redder and redder.  Finally, he said, "And today, this #*&@% little punk comes in here and tells me I can't have the #^%*&$ computer I need for eighteen #%@&* months!!!!!!!!  What are you going to $%^& do about it?!!!!!

Kristyn in 2025

    .. accepted this project called "Operation Touch" as a church mission and were helping mount an expedition to Honduras.  They had recruited doctors, dentists and nurses and were sending a dozen young people from the church to go and assist.  They were going to be in the bush (no electricity, no services) for six weeks.

    Another Atlanta ham, Dale Schwartz K4ROZ and I were asked if we could provide phone patches from Honduras the the young people's parents here in Atlanta.  We readily agreed.

    Since there was no electricity in the bush, Harold had a small bicycle-operated generator he took along with his ham gear to keep in radio contact.

    Over the six week period, Dale and I handled the phone patches to the kids' folks here in Atlanta.  Each youngster was able to talk home every three or four days and it really was great to give them that contact.

    The mission ended and we didn't hear any more about it for a few months.

    Then Gael and I received an invitation to a dinner and reception at the Governor's Mansion honoring the participants of the Honduras Medical Mission!

    I checked with Dale and he and Susan had received one as well.  Wow!  A dinner and reception at the Governor's Mansion.  I guess the mission had friends in high places.

    It turns out that one of the young people on the mission was Chip Carter, son of Governor Jimmy Carter.  Several of our phone patches were between Chip and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter -- but we didn't recognize the phone number or voices.  What a thing!

    The evening came and, dolled up to the nines, we arrived at the Mansion.  We were met at the door by the Governor, Mrs. Carter and the Governor's mother, Miss Lillian:

    They called us by name and were most gracious in welcoming us to the event.

    In due time we were ushered downstairs to the basement where there was a large meeting room.  It was outfitted with a number of cafeteria tables with red and white checked paper tablecloths.  The food service was another four or five tables laid out with potato salad, Cokes in bottles, potato chips -- and Spam.  That's right; Spam sliced directly from the can (can't miss those oblong rectangles).

       

    We're in line with our paper plate, paper napkin and forks.  Gael and Susan (and many of the other folks) were in cocktail dresses and gowns (after all, we'd been invited to a "dinner (we read: "banquet") and reception" at the Governor's mansion).

    I whispered (I thought) to Gael, "It's obvious that the Carters aren't wasting state money on this event!". A voice from behind me said, "Yes, my Jimmy is very frugal." His mother, Miss Lillian.  Gulp!

    It was a pleasant evening for a worthwhile cause but when I drive by it, I never look at the Mansion the same way again.

    1972

    The most memorable event of 1972 was the Ham Radio DXpedition I led to Navassa Island.  If you're (really, really) interested in this event, you can check out the website dedicated to it: Click     HERE; here's the short version:

    Hams like to talk to foreign countries.  There are awards for talking with (called "working") as many as you can.  Unfortunately, some of the places that count as "countries" are uninhabited.  Makes it tough to talk to someone there if no one lives there.  For that reason, hams around the world often mount expeditions (called "DXpeditions") to such places in order to provide contacts to the rest of the world.

    In 1971, I took a world map and drew an arbitrary 2,000 mile circle centered on Atlanta figuring that was as far as I could afford to go.  I determined that the rarest "country" in that circle was Navassa Island.  Navassa is located between Jamaica and Haiti and due South of Cuba.

    Navassa had a history as a guano mining operation starting just after the American Civil War.  A lighthouse was erected there in 1917 and was converted to an unmanned light in 1929.  It was later deactivated in 1996.  Why did Navassa qualify as a "country" (or an "entity" in the Ham Radio awards lingo)?

    The rules for entity status include possessions more than 250 miles from the entity that owns it.  The US owns Navassa island so it qualifies as an entity.

    Because it was uninhabited and difficult to access, it had been a long time since any DXpedition had been there.  Its rarity was assured.

    My first task was to secure a vessel to make the 12 hour trip from Kingston, Jamaica to Navassa, to stand by while we were there, and to bring us the 12 hours back.  A local ham in Jamaica Lloyd Alberga 6Y5LA helped me make those arrangements.  The total fee for the motor vessel Tycoon was $5,000 with a three-day stay on Navassa.

    The Tycoon could carry ten people plus its crew of three so my next task was to recruit nine others to come along.  I gave no thought to the total headcount being thirteen (not a lucky number).  In these days of monster DXpeditions costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, it may seem odd that raising $5,000 to pay for the boat was a problem.  It was.  I had strict criteria when recruiting members of the team:

    1. Do you have $500 (your share of the $5,000)?

    Operating skills were not even mentioned!

    At that time, permission to visit Navassa was under the control of the US Coast Guard.  The Coast Guard was responsible for maintaining the light in the lighthouse so it fell to them to grant or deny access.  I researched the rules and submitted an application which was approved.  To get that approval, each DXpedition member had to sign a ten-page application which said that we were on our own; that the Coast Guard was released from any obligation to rescue us.  Gulp!

    Here are the ten of us:

    Getting to and onto the island was a challenge; read all about it HERE.

    We made 5,700 contacts in three days and everyone got home alive.  Great trip!

    Hamilton Cottage

    While on the island I was able to talk to Gael frequently.  I described the     "phone patch" earlier: It allowed me to talk to another state-side ham and for him to "patch" Gael into the conversation by telephone.  She had flown with the baby to NJ to visit her folks while I was away -- it was easy to get someone to do the phone patch.

    In one of those conversations I suggested that she and the baby fly down to Jamaica to meet us and we'd spend a week in a rented cottage with Ray Cobb (one of our DXpedition members) and his wife B.A.  And so it was done.  When Tycoon docked in Kingston, there were Gael and B.A. ready to meet us.

    The next day we drove to Ocho Rios (on the northern coast of Jamaica) and took possession of the rented cottage called "Hamilton Cottage".  It sat on a cliff overlooking the sea and had a salt-water pool.  There were two bedrooms and came with a staff of three.  The agent told us it was customary to tip the staff a week's wages upon departure.  We gulped -- until we found that the three of them made $90/week combined!

    Kristyn's first taste of international travel went down well.


    She STILL loves Red Stripe Beer!

    One night Ray disappeared into town and returned with two reggae and steel bands.  He set up a "battle of the bands" out by the pool and we had the best time!

    We had such a good time that Gael and I decided to return to Hamilton Cottage next year with another couple -- and no baby.

    Somehow Ray had met and befriended a Jamaican ham operator, John Manley.  He was a physician and was the brother of the Prime Minister.  He came by the house once and said that he had trouble importing a decent antenna.  I said that Gael and I would be returning next year and I would bring one along and "lose" it in Jamaica.

    1973

    Back to Jamaica, Mon!

    We returned to Jamaica in May of 1973 with good friends Pete and Marianne Butler:

    Gael's Mom (now called GrandMommy) stepped up to care for Kristyn. I wanted to "ham" in Jamaica (of course) so I brought along a transceiver and an antenna:


Photo credit to Pete Butler (he insisted..)

That's Pete and Tom at the left side.
    Pete and Tom were fans and soon were chatting Betsy up between sets.  They asked why she didn't have a record.  She explained that she'd love to make a record, but didn't have the money or financial backing to produce one.

    I don't know why, but Pete thought that I could make that happen for her.  I went to hear her and agreed her voice was great.  I knew nothing about producing an LP but, hey, how hard could it be?  I did some research and learned the steps and costs of doing that.  The four of us met and decided to go forward with the project as four equal partners.  We called the company BCG Record Company (ButlerConeGable).  Betsy would put up her talent, I would handle the production/logisticd and Pete and Tom would put up the money.

    We booked studio time at a local studio called Kin-Tel Recording.  Betsy brought in two friends to play lead guitar and bass while she played rhythm guitar.  She was quite the perfectionist so the studio time quickly exceeded budget.  She had a friend take the photos that became the record jacket.

    Once the tracks were frozen, I sent the recording to be mastered in Nashville (where else?).  I found the company to do the vinyl pressings.  I found a printer in Nashville who specialized in creating LP album covers.  You may not know it, but the album cover is the most expensive component of creating a record.  Once the studio time and mastering were done, pressing albums was a matter of pennies -- but the jackets...

    We had decided to press 500 LPs but I decided to print 1,000 album covers in case the record was more successful than we expected.   The marginal printing cost between 500 covers and 1,000 was quite small.  Because this part of the project was so costly, we elected to go with black and white rather than full color (as you can see above).

    We eagerly awaited the delivery of our 500 albums.  Record albums are HEAVY so we had them shipped by Greyhound bus.  Pete and I went to the terminal at 2am to pick them up, then to my home to open a box and play "our" records.  It looked and sounded great!

    The next day I took 50 albums to Jim Sallee's Record Shop in Buckhead...

    ...where Jim agreed to take the albums on consignment.  We're ON OUR WAY!

    But then...

    At 11:30p that night, the doorbell rang.  When I opened it there were two gentlemen in black silk suits with white-on-white shirts standing there.  One had my box of records under his arm.  He asked if they were mine.  When I agreed that they were they handed them to me and said, "You don't sell records in Atlanta.  WE sell records in Atlanta."  It seems I had stumbled onto a "business" run by the Atlanta mob.  Oops.

    They offered to distribute them for me at a price well below our cost.  I said no thanks and they went away.

    It seems that there was a gaping hole in my reseach into our business plan.  Now we had 500 albums with no idea how to sell them.  I called a meeting of the four partners to discuss next steps.  The only choice was for Betsy to sell the albums from the bandstand.  Betsy is an artist.  Selling records was beneath her.  She didn't want to do it.  Round and round went the discussion.  At the end it was the only option we could come up with.  Betsy would sell the albums, Tom/Pete would come to Dante's at closing, pickup the proceeds and drop off replenishment albums.  No one was in love with that plan but it was all we had.

    For several months we worked that plan until all 500 albums were sold.  Betsy had grown more and more upset with ths process.  She called a company meeting and we agreed to dissolve the company and distribute the net cash equally among the four of us.

    Done.  Project closed; but then...

    I forgot to contact the printer and have the extra 500 album covers distroyed.  And then we discovered that Betsy had ordered 500 more albums (using the left-over cover prints) and continued selling them from the bandstand keeping 100% of the sales instead of 25%.

    A letter from my daughter whom I hadn't seen since she was a baby?  I cried and then wrote her back to say I'd be coming.

    There was a family-visit weekend on the camp schedule and I called the camp to discuss my coming up.  I explained to the Camp Director that I hadn't seen my daughter since she was two and I worried I wouldn't recognize her.  This would be extremely distressing for both of us, I felt.  She assured me that they've had this situation many times over the years and knew exactly how to handle it.  She said the girls nap for an hour after lunch and for me to arrive during naptime would be best so we could work out the details.

    Whew!  I was really worried about this and the Camp Director's assurance was welcome.

    I drove up and arrived as planned during naptime.  I met the Director and she said that when the bell rang and all the girls ran down the hill from the cabins, she would surrepticiously point out Debbie to me so we could meet. The bell rang and the cabins emptied fast.  And that's when I learned that all the little girls were in uniform.  White T-shirts and blue shorts.  And there were scores of them.  Scores...

    The Camp Director pointed her out and I went up to her and said, "Hi, Debbie! I'm your Daddy!"

    She said, "No, my Daddy is in New York."

    That's right.  After all that worrying and planning, the Director pointed out

THE WRONG DEBBIE!!!

    It quickly got straightened out, the (right) Debbie and I met and spent a lovely day together -- and a relationship was established.

Debbie in 2024

    Getting screwed by IBM

    You may recall my explanation of how the     IBM Sales Plan worked.  Briefly, if any account in your territory should decide to leave IBM for any reason, the commission paid (when the account was originally sold) was charged back to the current salesman -- even if the salesman currently in the territory wasn't the salesman who originally received the commission.  Yes, that's right.

    After nearly five successful years in sales I had amassed 20-30 accounts for which I was responsible.  I was haunted by the chance that some competitor would sneak in and steal away an account and I'd be charged back the commission originally paid even if I never received it.  It was impossible to cover properly all those accounts so I became eager to escape the territory and to move on to another job within IBM.

    What I didn't expect is that I would be improperly charged back for an account who was still an IBM customer.  Here's that story:

    My largest account was Matsushita Electronics known in the US as Panasonic.  I had sold and installed a system a few years ago and had a great relationship with the local DP Manager there.  Matsushita was an IBM National Account based out of New York and they had several warehouses across the country.

    In Atlanta there were several branch offices with specific industry responsibility.  I was in the New Business Office which operated independently of the Distribution office, the Manufacturing office and the Banking/Financial office.

    After a couple of years, any account in the New Business office was to be transferred to the appropriate industry office to cover and grow.  Management decided it was now time to move Matsushita from New Business to Distribution; an entirely appropriate decision.

    But someone in the Atlanta IBM Distribution office heard a rumor that Matsushita was going to leave IBM nationally and install Honeywell computer systems throughout.  I checked with my guy and he said that wasn't true at all.  Nevertheless, because of that rumor, the Atlanta Distribution office wouldn't accept the transfer from New Business without charging back the commission.  There was no precedent for this; when an account is transferred, liability for it transfers as well.  It's always been that way.  The commision was about $3,500 (quite a sum in 1973 dollars) which I'd received several years ago.

    I was called into the Branch Manager's office and told that Matsushita would be transferred to the Distribution office -- but they would not accept the liability and so the commission would be charged back to New Business (me) with the tranfer.  In other words this inter-office transfer would cost me $3,500

    WHAT!!!??!!?

    I argued that I'd be glad to transfer the account with the liability OR keep the account and the liablity -- but one without the other made no sense.  I said that if they did this that the Distribution office would immediately credit the commision to their salesman effectively transferring my money to someone there for no reason.

    My Branch Manager Hugh Larkey who, curiously enough was the godfather to Kristyn, said to suck it up and take it.  I did (there was really no choice)  And, surprise, surprise, the minute the account was transferred the Distribution office credited the commision back to their guy.

    I had this plaque made to remind me of this injustice forever...


(well, maybe, a mild exaggeration...)

WRONG!
    He pointed across the street.  If a tourist had that situation in New York, the taxi driver would have taken him for a half-hour tour of Queens before bringing him back across the street!

    The hotel let us check in and I took an hour's nap before being picked up and driven to Sindelfingen.  Gael went shopping.

    That night we dined at the restaurant in the hotel and had the best French food of our trip.  Yep; fantastic French food in a German hotel.  The next day we flew home.

    1983

    The Kreplach Festival

    I first told you about kreplach when Gael and I got engaged in     Little Rock.  Over the years whenever her Mom came to visit, she brought a half-gallon jar of kreplach soup for me.  She got the soup from the Clairmont Diner in Clifton NJ.  YES!