Famous for a Reason

It is a testament to someone’s memory at the NYT when they can write a column dovetailing the events of the Jet Blue flight attendant who executed his own outplacement procedure with that of a bus driver, William Cimillo, who, in 1947, drove his Bronx bus to Florida’s Gulfstream Park racetrack and wasn’t heard from for four days, until he needed $50 wired to him.

The recent episode of the Jet Blue flight attendant who, fed up with passenger rudeness over barbell luggage clunking him on the coconut, berates the captive passengers on manners, and then grabs a few beers and activates the emergency slide and then runs away, is a startling echo of Bill and the bus. Both men were fed up with what they were putting up with from the public, and just plain bolted.

Jack Parr, the late night Tonight show host before Johnny Carson became so fed up with the nitpicking of the NBC censors that he announced there had to be a better way to make a living, and just plain left the show. He proved there really was a better way to make a living when he relocated in Maine, owning some radio and TV stations.

Dan Rather had his own moment of pique when he wasn’t at the anchor desk for several minutes when they were broadcasting live. He didn’t get fired, but eventually did himself in when he didn’t want to believe that something was a hoax.

Bill and the bus became such a story that news items appeared in the Times 11 times in a nearly a three week period. There was nearly a story every other day. The first story appeared in the papers on April 1st, generally known as April Fools' Day. But of course Mr. Cimillo hadn't been kidding. He really did take the bus, play the horses and later had to wire the boss for $50.

The story stayed in the papers until April 19, the day after he started back on the job. In between his surrender and return there had been an arrest, indictments, and the airing of a little dirty laundry when it is disclosed he had been arrested and fined twice for bookkmaking. This couldn't be missed, when one story's headline blared: "Errant Bus Driver Called a Bookie." The ignominy of it all.

The Jet Blue flight attendant, Steven Slater, has become a celebrity. Mr. Cimillo did as well, receiving a benefit dinner from his friends to help with the legal expenses. He was on shows. He went to California with his wife. Years later there was even a proposed movie with Elizabeth Taylor in the works, that for several reasons didn’t get past the planning stage. Mr. Cimillo eventually got his job back, and strayed no more.

There are several things to marvel at about the bus detour. The first is that a fully marked NYC bus can appear in Florida and not attract too much attention. Myself being a bit of a racetrack denizen clearly remembers the era when there were usually all kinds of commercial vehicles parked at Aqueduct by guys who were at the track hoping to hit the Daily Double, a linked bet on the first two races. In that era it was the only type of “exotic” wager there was. The parking lot would empty out a bit after the second race became official. UPS and other trucks were back on the road.

So Bill’s bus, “a red-and-green job with a silver roof," as described in the first Times story is hiding in plain sight. It’s the kind of bus I remember on the city’s streets. It’s the kind of bus Robert DeNiro drove in “A Bronx Tale.”

The other aspect is Mr. Cimillo must have been a pretty good horse player to hang out in Florida for several days before tapping out. People aren’t always given enough credit for what they accomplish.

And as much attention the bus caper got, when Mr. Cimillo passed away in 1975 there wasn’t any evidence that the Times noted it in a news item obituary. Times change. Today, that wouldn’t be the case.

Today’s obituaries are known to capture unusual highlights of people’s lives, no matter who they are. The highlight is the thing. This is easily noted by anyone who reads obituaries these days. Only a few weeks ago the Times did a news story obituary about the man who scored a 100 on a NYC Sanitation pre-employment physical test. The test was considered the Superman test, and Bill McCabe, in 1940 was the first and only person to score that high.

Mr. Slater from Jet Blue will forever be remembered by today’s tabloid headlines: 'Flying High'; 'Bag Nazi.' And his ultimate fate is still unraveling before our eyes. The umpire, James Joyce, who blew the call on what would have been a perfect game, will forever be enshrined in an obituary lede.

So, in a way, did Mr. Cimillo get cheated by not being remembered in 1975 for what he did in 1947? Hardly. Thanks to someone’s memory and database retrievals, Bill’s son, now 75, gets to read about Dad again, and know that others have read about him as well.

Forms of recognition can sometimes take a long time.

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Trunks 50 Cents Extra

Someone the other day remarked that they were rolling a steamer trunk through the mall as part of their effort to outfit their offspring for college. Half of this came as no surprise. Outfitting kids for college in August is not unheard of in 2010. Rolling a steamer trunk in 2010 is though something I didn't expect anyone to announce.

It's actually a time warp setting, if you think about it. Mall. Steamer trunk. Like something on an aptitude test (for college, for instance) that would be an example of what doesn't "match." Definitely different eras.

Upon hearing this I thought that if that person took the wrong left at the water fountain they might reach the edge of the terrazzo floor and bump right into a Railway Express office. If this were to happen, they would have certainly entered the Twilight Zone.

Steamer trunks. Railway Express. Green trucks that came to the house to haul the clothes off to camp. Or college. Labels. Stiff card stock labels with brown reinforcements, attached with wire to front and side trunk handles that announced destination and origin.

Steamer trunks. What was upstairs in the attic that brought my parents' belongings from their first place together in Philadelphia to the house they bought in Flushing. Delivered by a Railway Express truck, not a stagecoach. Dusty, faded labels still attached.

Taxis in New York City had a sign on the meter that announced that trunks were 50 cents extra. Of course the sign used the cents symbol, and I can't find that using this application.

Cabs and trunks came together when people actually did get off, or head to, steamers (or later diesel ships), with trunks, and were headed somewhere away from the pier. Now they hit golf balls on the pier.

None of this would rate any effort to recount if it wasn't for today, on getting off the train and going through the Amtrak level of Penn Station, that there wasn't someone else rolling a steamer trunk through the place.

This fellow was definitely not a parent outfitting their child for college. They were themselves only somewhat past college age, long shoulder length hair, six foot three, wearing a long sleeve sweatshirt on what at 7:30 A.M. was already an 80 degree day. And there was an electric guitar slung over their shoulder, no case, and what looked like noise cancelling headphones somewhere under their hair.

They slid the steamer trunk toward the outside men's room wall and went in. I fully expected that if they lingered for whatever reason the next thing I was going to see was bomb sniffing dogs poking their noses at the unattended luggage. This didn't happen, because the fellow was young enough not to have a swollen prostate, and/or also didn't care about washing and drying his hands. He was out before the dogs got there, and rolled away.

So, within two days I've heard of and seen two very different people pushing steamer trunks through public places. Men hardly wear suits anymore.

I wonder if steamer trunks are somehow making a comeback.

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Star Island

Carl Hiassen has a new book out, Star Island. I read and enjoyed his last two books, Nature Girl and Skinny Dip. Despite finishing those two books, I didn't review them. And although I have bought Star Island, I've barely started it and have no immediate plans to review it. Reviewing unfinished book is frowned on in some quarters and is probably a good habit to get out of. Waiting for me to finish a book and then review it will likely take you to the author's next release.

So, as much as this might be a pre-review of Star Island, it is also just a few words about Carl, the people he writes about, and some observations on books in general.

Maybe you can't, or shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but boy, does a good one help. A good cover should be able to help sell a book. Carl's 'Florida' series comes in South Beach pastels, glossy dust jackets with embossed lettering. I had a cousin who printed these kind of book covers from a business he had on Hudson Street. He made his living printing book covers, and it was quite an operation with a huge Heidelberg press.

Star Island. Two word title. Two words for Carl's name, and two small print words that tell you 'a novel.' Anyone who has recently spent some time cruising book store tables knows that non-fiction books generally have subtitles that seem to go on like chapter headings, or chapters themselves. Two examples.

The Story of Success
Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

The departed comedian Alan King would remark that if you wanted to read about love and marriage you had to buy two books. Can you imagine what subtitles they'd have in today's publishing era? Just cruise the tables.

So,we've got simplicity with Carl, right on the cover. And the back? The usual effusive praise from cross-pollinated businesses or folks who have been over Carl's house lately? Hard to tell. But the back of Star Island has blurb praise about his prior book, Nature Girl. Five raves from media companies. Nothing from anyone about the current book. That's confidence.

And the people who inhabit the books? Carl claims that writers are attracted to "lowlifes and bottom-feeders." I'm sure this is not universally true, but he does seem to make the most of describing fictional surrogates for the real ones. You might say these people are just folks, but they are people whose reproductive glands control their thoughts. Drained of secretions, they'd have no minds at all. These aren't necessarily "my kind of people," but if Florida had OTBs, I'd probably run into them there.

I was hoping to catch Carl at his New York book signing at a Manhattan Barnes and Noble on Tuesday. Unfortunately for me my real work required more of me than I usually like to give it, and I couldn't make it.

I did however substitute it by taking in Carl's interview with Al Roker on the Today show that was held that morning. Like many, I was able to do this through the miracle of the Web. This of course was a poor substitute for hoping to be in the presence of someone who put the words "vodka, Red Bull, hydrocodone, birdseed and stool softener" in a single sentence when describing consumed ingredients. I got that far into the book. Chapter one.

Thus, I missed my chance to ask Carl if there was an antidote to that mixture, or, were we going to have to wait for FDA approval on it?

Maybe it's in the book. I'll get there.

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The View

There are no good reasons for ‘The View’ to exist other than to afford Barbara Walters the opportunity to be in broadcasting longer than Arthur Godfrey.

I'm sure however harsh this sentiment is, it's not the only one. Nor, I'm sure would an opninion of praise be the only one. It's a big world, with a lot of time and a lot of stations. It's the punch line to a great Myron Cohen joke: everybody's got to be someplace. (Of course Myron Cohen's joke has to do with a lover being discovered in a bedroom closet by a husband whose wife is under the sheets, but this shouldn't get in the way of anything.)

Even the president has to be someplace when he's not where he usually might be. How else to explain President Obama dovetailing a New York fund raising appearance with an appearance on the show.

And there we have it. A front page tabloid picture of President Obama once again on a show with 5 women.

I don't know how a guy crosses his legs like they do and still manages to sit still.

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There's A Call

There's a cute story in today's NYT about how the White House switchboard operators may not be the vaunted locator of people they used to me.

As one might expect, the story revolves around the attempts that were made to get an Agriculture Department employee, Shirley Sherrod, (former employee) to call the boss.

The story is a little tough to follow, but basically comes through that Ms. Sherrod didn't call the Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack back to discuss the aftermath of Ms. Sherrod's "resignation." The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs sets out to explain to the press corps the attempts that have been made to get Mr. Sherrod to call in, even while she's appearing on television giving interviews left and right.

We don't really get a clear picture if Ms. Sherrod is not responding because she doesn't want anything to do with Mr. Vilsack (he did fire her), or she's really not getting the message that there's a message for her.

And that might really be the problem. A message that there's a message. The story is filled with tales of people being confronted that the White House (not the secretary of agriculture) is trying to get them, and that the bearer gets results and the intended calls in. This is attributed to the prowess of the White House switchboard operators who act like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and always get who they're after.

The story about these White House operators is not new. I distinctly remember reading one that told of the time they got someone to show up on the shoreline of a lake, wave two officials in who were fishing, and tell them that president Eisenhower wanted them to call. They did.

In somewhat typical Times angst, the fact that Ms. Sherrod either couldn't be reached, or didn't call back is offered as "a metaphor for social incompetence," as Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice, seems to sigh out loud.

But when it's apparent that's it's the president who's trying to get a hold of her, and not the secretary of agriculture, the loop is closed. Ms. Sherrod makes contact with president Obama.

But face it. Not everyone wants to be reached, even when the bearer of the message is right in front of them. Years and years ago there was a fellow at work who was a pompous jerk.
His name was Ed. In those days, people answered other people’s phones, and told them of a call. He didn’t like those that did this to tell him, “Ed, there’s a call for you.” (Thank God, “Yo” was unheard of then.)

He insisted on being called Mr. Ahr. It was then they started calling him Mr. Ed.

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Finally, A Bit of Kookiness

With the passing of Robert McG. Thomas we haven't been treated to many off-beat obituaries in the NYT. They're usually all very GOOD obituaries, but the subjects, through no fault of their own, just can't be held even remotely close to The Goat Man.

The recent winners of Nathan’s Coney Island hot dog eating content are still with us, but Bill McCabe, who may have been the only man to score a 100 on the NYC Sanitation Department employment physical—known as the “Superman” test—has, at the age of 90, left us. Apparently, he always stayed fit.

His life wasn't really all that interesting. A NYC resident passes a civil service exam and physical in 1940 and becomes a Sanitation man, all the while waiting to get on the list for the police, becomes a cop, desiring even more to become like four other family members and become a fireman, which be eventually does. He retires from the Fire Department, works at the airport and passes away in a nearby NYC suburb.

But the hook is the singular event, the perfect score on the Sanitation physical that helps land Bill on the Times obituary page, complete with three column of story and a picture at 19 years old (when he passed the exam) that would now probably put him on the short list for a fitness billboard, or an underwear ad.

What Bill accomplished became an unrecognized world record. He lifted, hoisted, lifted, ran, broad-jumped (long jumped), dashed, jumped, dodged, ran, climbed, vaulted, and ran--at times with various weights over different heights and distances--the course in 10.8 seconds.

Given as we are to slogans, it might then be expected to call Sanitation workers New York’s Fittest. Pass a test like that, you’ve got to be fit. Police are already referred to as Finest, and the Fire Department uses Bravest.

In fact, it’s not urban legend, it’s true, that when the Sanitation workers went out on strike in January 1968 and the garbage started piling up at the curb, Governor Rockefeller would not call out the National Guard to remove the trash. He claimed they were not in the demanding physical shape it takes to do that job.

Luckily, it was a very cold January, and stink and health hazards didn’t get too bad before the strike was settled. And the Guardsmen weren’t suddenly forced into doing pushups, situps, and running over things while carrying weights.

Being fit does remind me of the time I was so taken with Carlos Lopes’s World Championship cross country running performance at the Meadowlands sometime in the 80s, that I took to making my own hurdle course. Being a bit of an avid track and field fan and a persistent runner, I always knew it was hard to run AND jump over things at the same time. To keep going, and to do it fast. I always admired steeplechasers. I always thought they were the fittest.

So I stacked an apple crate on top of a picnic bench in the back yard. I ran down the driveway, make a turn into the yard, and made my leap. I cleared everything, but distinctly remember hearing something in one of my knees make a sound. It didn’t sound encouraging. I landed fine and was not hurt. But I listened. The bench went back where it had been, and the apple crate went back in the garage.

Finest, Bravest, Fittest. Safest?

I’m not exactly sure, but I can almost swear the NYC Correction officers had an ad out recently that said they were NYC’s Safest. One can only imagine the T-shirts and the wearer’s leering looks after a few drinks.

I think the ad was meant to imply we are all safe because they keep everyone who is supposed to be removed from us away from us and don’t let escapes happen. They have a point.

I don't know if they got the raise.

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Karate Kicks

The reader might remember back in March a bit of a rant on the naked men statues that began appearing in NYC.

A letter I wrote to Mayor Mike with a copy to the Daily News got prominently placed in the Daily News in their Voice of the People feature. I have to say, very prominently placed. It appeared in the April 8th edition of the paper, complete with headline, puns fully intended, and an appropriate picture of the mayor contemplating something. Perhaps a navel. Perhaps not. The picture was worth many words.

Well, the statues are still there, and by all accounts will still be with us through August. They’ve held up well, and I can recount how well.

I pass a statue that graces the northeast corner of 26th Street and Fifth Avenue. (Pictured above.) It’s a busy Madison Square Park area. Going home, I’m headed for Penn Station, so I’m walking west on 26th, with a view of the statue before I actually reach the corner. Last week I spotted someone who quite plainly wasn’t all there, who was taking a keen interest in the figure. I knew something was going to happen.

This was around 6 P.M. and the spot was busy. The interested individual was somewhat husky, had his baseball ball cap askew on his head, and was dressed somewhat shabbily, but not automatically homeless looking. His eyes did appear to be on the side of his head. He was distracted by the figure.

I reached the corner and had to wait for the light. The distracted fellow by now had measured how far to stand away from the statue so he could deliver smashing karate kicks to its groin. The statue didn’t budge, much as I hoped someone would fulfill a wish.

As he was kicking I made sure I stayed in motion at the corner, pacing in small circles. I didn’t want the kicker to think I too was a statue (despite being dressed) and that he had to deal with two of them.

A few kicks at a well cemented piece of bronze and the kicker gave up. But now he took out a large marker and was scrawling on the statue’s forehead. A price, maybe?

Quite honestly, others were starting to look, but I’m not a gaper. The traffic stopped, the light was in my favor, and I just plain kept going, somewhat disappointed he wasn't able to accomplish what it seemed he set out to do. It's hard to make something cast in bronze double over in pain.

The statue is still there. No price on his head.

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