bronsin writes a book!

[bronsin]

Its a collection of interesting things that have happened to me in my life. Its availible at:

www.outskirtspress.com

Click on bookstore and search for The Storys.

Thanks!

Here is a sample


In the summer of 1982 I was able to take my first vacation with my family. I only had one week
off and we had a grand total of $375 to spend. So we had to be thrifty. The first day we would
drive to NYC and spend two days and one night there. I grew up in Brooklyn but we moved
away when I was three. When we returned for visits we stayed at the Travel Lodge on 42nd
Street. I hadnt been there in almost 20 years but I remembered it as a nice family type of
place. I thought it would be a perfect place for us to stay on our one night in the city.

On the first day when we got to NYC we visited The Statue of Liberty. It was a very hot day and it was plenty hot inside The Statue. There is a spiral staircase going up and another one coming down. One is inside the other but you cannot see the people going in the other direction. My wife and I took turns carrying our daughter up the stairs. It took hours because the line moved slowly. When we got into the crown it was kind of a surprise to see how tiny the chamber was. The iconic windows were small and scratched but afforded a magnificent view of Manhattan. My daughter was only about two years old but the trip to The Statue of Liberty is one of her earliest memories.

After seeing The Statue we decided to call it a day. We headed for the Travel Lodge on 42nd Street. At the motel my wife wanted to pay for the room with her credit card. I did not approve of credit cards in those days. I advised her to pay cash in the morning when we checked out. But I was overruled and she gave her credit card to the motel. So before we even spent the night there they had our money. I sometimes (rarely) say to my wife "Remember the time we stayed in the Travel Lodge in NYC and I told you not to use your credit card to pay for it?"

After dinner we returned to the room for the evening. The plan was for us to walk down 42nd Street to Grand Central Station. From there you can take the subway to Yankee Stadium and catch a ball game. A great thing to do when seeing the City. But my wife and daughter were too tired to go. I also thought my wife was a little unnerved about being in The Big Apple. Being from Brooklyn I have no problems with the City. The trip home would involve a ride on the subway after midnight. So we decided I would go alone.

So about five o’clock I wended my way down 42nd Street. I like wandering around NY. It was a warm and pleasant summer afternoon. At Grand Central I got directions to the platform for the train. Its a big place and I asked directions a few times on my way from passersby. On the train I realized I would have to change to another train to complete the trip. But I wasn’t exactly sure where the change happened. So I asked my fellow passengers. That set off a spirited discussion! The guy next to me yelled down the packed aisle "Hey Vito, where does this kids change trains to get to The Stadium?" Vito wasn’t sure. So everybody offered their opinion. I got off where I was told, made my connection, and got to The Stadium in time for the first pitch.

The Yankees were playing the Seattle Mariners. Craig Nettles tied the game with a two run homer in the bottom of the 9th. The place exploded like only Yankee Stadium can when the Yankees do something like that. But Seattle scored a run in the tenth. With two outs and a man on second Oscar flied out to end the game. It was very exciting all the same.

The trip home on the subway was interesting but uneventful. I arrived safe and sound back at the Travel Lodge. When I put the key in the lock I noticed the light was on through the crack in the door. They were still up. What’s going on I wondered?

I was about to find out.

I entered the room to find two distinctly hysterical people in it. Wild eyed my wife ran up to me and said "Rats there are rats!! Hundreds of rats! They come out of the walls when you turn out the lights!" Rats? Hundreds of rats? Really? I though "Oh my God my wife has lost her mind!" I thought the City had just gotten to her. "Look" I said "There are no rats! Its all in your mind. Now...we have a long day ahead of us and we are going to need our sleep. I suggest we turn out the lights and all get to bed." My daughter said "No Daddy no don’t turn out the lights! The rats will come!"

Rats. I wasn’t having any of that. Rats. They were just afraid of being in The Big Apple. I asserted my position as man of the family and made them get in bed and turn off the lights. In the dark I heard whimpers coming from the two of them.

After about one second of darkness I heard a noise that did in fact suggest there might possibly be something to what they were saying. I reached over and turned on the light. There were three rats climbing up to cord from the wall that ran to it. Now to be honest it is an exaggeration to say there were hundreds of rats. I didn’t see any more than thirty. Quick as a flash they all vanished when the light was turned on. Well there might be rats but that didn’t change anything. We still needed our sleep after all! I left the light on, the rats remained behind the walls, and (after a while) we all went to sleep.

In the morning my wife was furious. "I’m not paying for this room! I’m going down there and getting my money back!" I told her I did not think so. "This is NY dear. I don’t think they are going to give us our money back."

In the lobby the clerk sat behind six inches of bulletproof glass. There was a little space at the bottom of the glass to pass money through. With the sense of righteous outrage that women have when they are wronged (and quite sure they are going to get what they want) my wife told the clerk "We had rats! We had rats! I want my money back!" The clerk laughed and said "You didn’t take any home with you, did you?" Realizing it was fruitless to say anything, I kept my mouth shut. It took a while but it finally sunk in to her head that no refund would be forthcoming. Picking up our suitcases we beat a hasty retreat from the Travel Lodge.

[bronsin]

Here is another story. Its from the chapter "Medical! Get to Medical!" In the movie Aliens Ripley says that.

Philip
One day in 1986 when I got home from work my wife said “Your mother called. She said Philip has been in a car accident in another state. The State Police there called her and said he will be DOA at the hospital.”
I called Mom and it turned out he arrived alive but in serious condition. She asked me to go there and do what I could for my brother. As it was four o clock and my destination was a good four hours away I decided to go to bed and get some sleep. When I woke up early in the morning I left.
Nothing like this had ever happened to anyone in our family or anyone else I knew for that matter. I wasn’t really sure what I would find when I got to got there. It was not a pleasant drive.
I arrived about 7 or 8 in the morning. I found the intensive care unit and my brother who was the only one in there. There was a nurse looking after him. It turned out he had a shattered right femur and a skull fracture. The right side of his face appeared to be puffed out about a couple of inches. His right eye was swollen shut. He was unconscious and I noticed his arms and left leg were tired to the bed. I said nothing to the nurse and she said nothing to me. Philip was hooked up to a battery of instruments monitoring his vital signs. For the moment there were just flashing red lights.
Suddenly the lights began to flash faster and now there were beeps coming from the instruments. My brother began to stir as he regained consciousness. Soon he began to groan and move about. The groans became blood curdling screams of agony and the movements became wild thrashings. I had never seen suffering like that. It seemed anyone going through that could not survive for long. This went on for about ten minutes, then mercifully he became unconscious and still after a few minutes. The nurse went about her business seemingly unconcerned.
After this repeated itself two or three times in half an hour I said to the nurse
“How long until he dies?”
“Oh he’s going to be fine.” she said. “He’s just had a bop on the head.”
Because the orbit of his right eye was fractured and damage to that organ was feared, a specialist arrived to check his eye out. When he was conscious the doctor pried open his swollen shut eye and asked him if he could see. Philip was able to cooperate and it was confirmed he still had sight in the eye although the muscles that control its left to right and up and down movement were damaged.
As horrible as it was to see my brother like that I appreciated the experience of the nurse and was thankful beyond words that he would recover. That he would live. I could tell from what the nurse said as accidents went in intensive care this one, as bad as it was, was relatively minor. Because of his skull fracture and the fact that there was internal bleeding in his brain resulting in dangerous levels of pressure, Philip could have no pain killers. That was the reason for his being tied to the bed.
I had heard there were two other friends of my brother in the car and one of them with a fractured wrist was someplace in the hospital. The other friend with a fractured ankle was taken to another hospital. Since there was nothing I could do for Philip and it was disturbing to see him suffer so, I left to find his friend. I wanted to see how he was and hear what had happened. When I found him although his injuries were nowhere near as bad nevertheless his suffering was every bit as terrible. His face was covered with beads of sweat and he could hardly carry on a conversation, in spite of the fact he probably had been able to have pain meds.
Fortunately another friend was in the hospital and I soon met up with him. He told me what happened.
Philip and his two friends were on a dirt back road somewhere in the boonies coming back from a caving expedition. They were in his 1983 Renault Alliance, a small car with a 1300cc 50 horsepower engine. A Ford F150 pickup truck going in the opposite direction crossed the center line of the road and hit them head on. The combined speed of the vehicles was 50 miles an hour. The driver of the Ford was also injured but not as severely. Philip was pinned in the car and bleeding badly. The two friends could do nothing for him. They tried to help the driver of the truck and when they did, his breath smelled of alcohol and there were empty cans of beer in his vehicle. They were in the middle of nowhere. Afraid Philip would die if he didn’t get help soon, the two friends began hobbling down the road in search of someone to help.
It was four hours until a medivac helicopter arrived and the crew got Philip to a hospital.
Four hours.
Ye Gods!
After spending the morning in the hospital with my brother and his injured friend I left to go to his apartment. When I got there I got out the Yellow Pages and called a lawyer. Although I understood he would live it seemed likely that Philip would have trouble working. If he would be able to work at all. The other party was clearly drunk and had caused the accident. I picked out a likely looking ad and called the number. A secretary answered and listened to my story and promised the lawyer would call back soon. I could tell from her voice I had made the right decision to call this firm. Sure enough the lawyer called back in a few minutes. He asked all the right questions and that day went to see my brother. I felt if nothing else I had found someone who would help my brother.
It turned out that I had chosen very well indeed.
Back at the hospital my parents had arrived. My father was stoic but the reaction of my mother can easily be imagined. It was decided that since I had a family with young children that my parents could take over from here and I should return home. Before I did some more of Philip’s friends arrived. They had driven to the accident scene and retrieved a gun Philip kept in his car. The also found his Canon F1 camera hanging in a branch of a tree. How it got there was anyone’s guess. It still worked and he has it today.
I was also able to speak to the surgeon who would repair my brother’s leg. He had served in the same capacity in Vietnam and appeared to be a very capable doctor. He also reassured me Philip would recover from the accident was far as his leg went anyways. He showed me an x-ray of his femur. The femur was in three parts, the two on each end about six inches long with a two inch section neatly displaced about in inch from the others. A metal rod would be added with screws to tie all three bones together. The doctor explained this was a very common operation performed after a motorcycle accident. Indeed it wasn’t all that unusual for motorcyclists to have two or three such operations. The process of removing the now bent metal rod made it complicated however.
My parents stayed about a week as I recall. The most serious part of the accident was his skull fracture. The orbit of his right eye was broken and he had bleeding in his brain which raised the possibility of brain damage. He was given medication which lowered the pressure and the problem resolved itself however. He did have hallucinations before that. Philip had hiked extensively out west and was concerned about animals he might encounter. He had told me about turning a corner on a trail once and encountering a moose. Before he turned and ran he snapped a picture. The picture showed an impressive set of antlers but also revealed the fact that he had been facing the rear end of the animal.
Now as my parents watched him in his hospital bed he said to my mother. “Mom! Be still!. There’s a bear over there in the corner!”
After I returned home and my parents left the hospital it proved impossible to communicate with Philip. This was well before the days of cell phones. We knew he would be discharged after a month or so but had no idea when that would happen. The plan was for me to go there and help him get situated back at his apartment.
As it happened the hospital did not inform us of the event. Philip was wheeled to the front door in a wheelchair and walked from the hospital on crutches to a city bus and took that home!
I did speak to him on the phone soon after that however. He was getting along fine and some friends were taking care of him. Nevertheless I went to see him as soon as I could.
His friends were there and they proved to be from India. They cooked his meals and fed him. They did his laundry. They did everything he needed to have done. Although I thanked them profusely I am sure words could never express my gratitude.
I took Philip to the local mall for his first ride in a car since the accident. He was still on crutches and there was no place to park near the entrance except a handicapped spot. I didn’t have handicapped plates however under the circumstances I had no qualms about parking there. Another motorist, seeing my New Jersey plates, did however. She said “In New Jersey you might park in a handicapped parking space but here in…” Her voice trailed off as Philip came into her view, hobbling on his crutches.
The driver of the pickup truck proved to have no insurance. In addition as a young man he was injured in a coal mine accident. He had a drinking problem and was in a lot of physical pain. Suing him proved impossible. Although my brother had uninsured driver insurance his insurance company refused to pay. The lawyer I arranged for had to sue them to get even that. He did do an able job of managing my brother’s financial affairs in many other aspects for which our family was thankful.
A few years later I was sitting on the couch at home watching 60 Minutes. The story was about a group of women working in a coal mine. Just like their male counterparts after a day’s work in the mine they took a shower in their locker room. Unlike the men’s locker room theirs had a peephole and they found it. It turned out that if a man did a good job that week he was allowed to look through the peephole! They sued and their lawyer got them $5 million dollars.
When I saw their lawyer I leapt to my feet and pointed excitedly at the TV screen.
“That’s the lawyer I got for Philip!”
So it was.

[nookandcrannycar]

Originally Posted by bronsin

Its a collection of interesting things that have happened to me in my life. Its availible at:

www.outskirtspress.com

Click on bookstore and search for The Storys.

Thanks!

Here is a sample


In the summer of 1982 I was able to take my first vacation with my family. I only had one week
off and we had a grand total of $375 to spend. So we had to be thrifty. The first day we would
drive to NYC and spend two days and one night there. I grew up in Brooklyn but we moved
away when I was three. When we returned for visits we stayed at the Travel Lodge on 42nd
Street. I hadnt been there in almost 20 years but I remembered it as a nice family type of
place. I thought it would be a perfect place for us to stay on our one night in the city.

On the first day when we got to NYC we visited The Statue of Liberty. It was a very hot day and it was plenty hot inside The Statue. There is a spiral staircase going up and another one coming down. One is inside the other but you cannot see the people going in the other direction. My wife and I took turns carrying our daughter up the stairs. It took hours because the line moved slowly. When we got into the crown it was kind of a surprise to see how tiny the chamber was. The iconic windows were small and scratched but afforded a magnificent view of Manhattan. My daughter was only about two years old but the trip to The Statue of Liberty is one of her earliest memories.

After seeing The Statue we decided to call it a day. We headed for the Travel Lodge on 42nd Street. At the motel my wife wanted to pay for the room with her credit card. I did not approve of credit cards in those days. I advised her to pay cash in the morning when we checked out. But I was overruled and she gave her credit card to the motel. So before we even spent the night there they had our money. I sometimes (rarely) say to my wife "Remember the time we stayed in the Travel Lodge in NYC and I told you not to use your credit card to pay for it?"

After dinner we returned to the room for the evening. The plan was for us to walk down 42nd Street to Grand Central Station. From there you can take the subway to Yankee Stadium and catch a ball game. A great thing to do when seeing the City. But my wife and daughter were too tired to go. I also thought my wife was a little unnerved about being in The Big Apple. Being from Brooklyn I have no problems with the City. The trip home would involve a ride on the subway after midnight. So we decided I would go alone.

So about five o’clock I wended my way down 42nd Street. I like wandering around NY. It was a warm and pleasant summer afternoon. At Grand Central I got directions to the platform for the train. Its a big place and I asked directions a few times on my way from passersby. On the train I realized I would have to change to another train to complete the trip. But I wasn’t exactly sure where the change happened. So I asked my fellow passengers. That set off a spirited discussion! The guy next to me yelled down the packed aisle "Hey Vito, where does this kids change trains to get to The Stadium?" Vito wasn’t sure. So everybody offered their opinion. I got off where I was told, made my connection, and got to The Stadium in time for the first pitch.

The Yankees were playing the Seattle Mariners. Craig Nettles tied the game with a two run homer in the bottom of the 9th. The place exploded like only Yankee Stadium can when the Yankees do something like that. But Seattle scored a run in the tenth. With two outs and a man on second Oscar flied out to end the game. It was very exciting all the same.

The trip home on the subway was interesting but uneventful. I arrived safe and sound back at the Travel Lodge. When I put the key in the lock I noticed the light was on through the crack in the door. They were still up. What’s going on I wondered?

I was about to find out.

I entered the room to find two distinctly hysterical people in it. Wild eyed my wife ran up to me and said "Rats there are rats!! Hundreds of rats! They come out of the walls when you turn out the lights!" Rats? Hundreds of rats? Really? I though "Oh my God my wife has lost her mind!" I thought the City had just gotten to her. "Look" I said "There are no rats! Its all in your mind. Now...we have a long day ahead of us and we are going to need our sleep. I suggest we turn out the lights and all get to bed." My daughter said "No Daddy no don’t turn out the lights! The rats will come!"

Rats. I wasn’t having any of that. Rats. They were just afraid of being in The Big Apple. I asserted my position as man of the family and made them get in bed and turn off the lights. In the dark I heard whimpers coming from the two of them.

After about one second of darkness I heard a noise that did in fact suggest there might possibly be something to what they were saying. I reached over and turned on the light. There were three rats climbing up to cord from the wall that ran to it. Now to be honest it is an exaggeration to say there were hundreds of rats. I didn’t see any more than thirty. Quick as a flash they all vanished when the light was turned on. Well there might be rats but that didn’t change anything. We still needed our sleep after all! I left the light on, the rats remained behind the walls, and (after a while) we all went to sleep.

In the morning my wife was furious. "I’m not paying for this room! I’m going down there and getting my money back!" I told her I did not think so. "This is NY dear. I don’t think they are going to give us our money back."

In the lobby the clerk sat behind six inches of bulletproof glass. There was a little space at the bottom of the glass to pass money through. With the sense of righteous outrage that women have when they are wronged (and quite sure they are going to get what they want) my wife told the clerk "We had rats! We had rats! I want my money back!" The clerk laughed and said "You didn’t take any home with you, did you?" Realizing it was fruitless to say anything, I kept my mouth shut. It took a while but it finally sunk in to her head that no refund would be forthcoming. Picking up our suitcases we beat a hasty retreat from the Travel Lodge.

LOL. This reminds me of a story. I set off on a ski trip with two of my fraternity brothers during Christmas/New Year's Break. Headed toward a resort that was a fair distance away from Lake Tahoe. That lodging fell through, and we headed to South Lake Tahoe. After checking many motels, we finally found one that had a vacancy (this was a large property). We were given a room with two king sized beds (one for me and one for them...I was paying more than 1/3). We made our way to the room and opened the door with the key the clerk gave us. Four girls (about our age) sat up in the beds and started screaming. We closed the door. Obviously the room was occupied. We headed back to the lobby (in another building) and told the clerk what happened. He apologized and gave us another room (upstairs in the same building). We made our way to that room. We opened the door and all the furniture was piled against one wall and the carpet had been removed. Obviously this room was slated for carpet replacement. We headed back to the lobby. The clerk apologized again and assigned us another room. We made our way to that room. It was a normal room and the rest of the night was normal. We spent the next night in another motel on our way up the eastern shore of the lake. We had pre-planned to pick up one of our favorite women (the next night -- New Year's Eve) at her parent's lake house and take her out for New Year's Eve. Her father (a very wise MD) thought staying with them (her parents were there) was a better idea and we spent New Year's Eve and the rest of the trip (except time on the slopes) at her parent's place.

[nookandcrannycar]

Originally Posted by bronsin

Here is another story. Its from the chapter "Medical! Get to Medical!" In the movie Aliens Ripley says that.

Philip
One day in 1986 when I got home from work my wife said “Your mother called. She said Philip has been in a car accident in another state. The State Police there called her and said he will be DOA at the hospital.”
I called Mom and it turned out he arrived alive but in serious condition. She asked me to go there and do what I could for my brother. As it was four o clock and my destination was a good four hours away I decided to go to bed and get some sleep. When I woke up early in the morning I left.
Nothing like this had ever happened to anyone in our family or anyone else I knew for that matter. I wasn’t really sure what I would find when I got to got there. It was not a pleasant drive.
I arrived about 7 or 8 in the morning. I found the intensive care unit and my brother who was the only one in there. There was a nurse looking after him. It turned out he had a shattered right femur and a skull fracture. The right side of his face appeared to be puffed out about a couple of inches. His right eye was swollen shut. He was unconscious and I noticed his arms and left leg were tired to the bed. I said nothing to the nurse and she said nothing to me. Philip was hooked up to a battery of instruments monitoring his vital signs. For the moment there were just flashing red lights.
Suddenly the lights began to flash faster and now there were beeps coming from the instruments. My brother began to stir as he regained consciousness. Soon he began to groan and move about. The groans became blood curdling screams of agony and the movements became wild thrashings. I had never seen suffering like that. It seemed anyone going through that could not survive for long. This went on for about ten minutes, then mercifully he became unconscious and still after a few minutes. The nurse went about her business seemingly unconcerned.
After this repeated itself two or three times in half an hour I said to the nurse
“How long until he dies?”
“Oh he’s going to be fine.” she said. “He’s just had a bop on the head.”
Because the orbit of his right eye was fractured and damage to that organ was feared, a specialist arrived to check his eye out. When he was conscious the doctor pried open his swollen shut eye and asked him if he could see. Philip was able to cooperate and it was confirmed he still had sight in the eye although the muscles that control its left to right and up and down movement were damaged.
As horrible as it was to see my brother like that I appreciated the experience of the nurse and was thankful beyond words that he would recover. That he would live. I could tell from what the nurse said as accidents went in intensive care this one, as bad as it was, was relatively minor. Because of his skull fracture and the fact that there was internal bleeding in his brain resulting in dangerous levels of pressure, Philip could have no pain killers. That was the reason for his being tied to the bed.
I had heard there were two other friends of my brother in the car and one of them with a fractured wrist was someplace in the hospital. The other friend with a fractured ankle was taken to another hospital. Since there was nothing I could do for Philip and it was disturbing to see him suffer so, I left to find his friend. I wanted to see how he was and hear what had happened. When I found him although his injuries were nowhere near as bad nevertheless his suffering was every bit as terrible. His face was covered with beads of sweat and he could hardly carry on a conversation, in spite of the fact he probably had been able to have pain meds.
Fortunately another friend was in the hospital and I soon met up with him. He told me what happened.
Philip and his two friends were on a dirt back road somewhere in the boonies coming back from a caving expedition. They were in his 1983 Renault Alliance, a small car with a 1300cc 50 horsepower engine. A Ford F150 pickup truck going in the opposite direction crossed the center line of the road and hit them head on. The combined speed of the vehicles was 50 miles an hour. The driver of the Ford was also injured but not as severely. Philip was pinned in the car and bleeding badly. The two friends could do nothing for him. They tried to help the driver of the truck and when they did, his breath smelled of alcohol and there were empty cans of beer in his vehicle. They were in the middle of nowhere. Afraid Philip would die if he didn’t get help soon, the two friends began hobbling down the road in search of someone to help.
It was four hours until a medivac helicopter arrived and the crew got Philip to a hospital.
Four hours.
Ye Gods!
After spending the morning in the hospital with my brother and his injured friend I left to go to his apartment. When I got there I got out the Yellow Pages and called a lawyer. Although I understood he would live it seemed likely that Philip would have trouble working. If he would be able to work at all. The other party was clearly drunk and had caused the accident. I picked out a likely looking ad and called the number. A secretary answered and listened to my story and promised the lawyer would call back soon. I could tell from her voice I had made the right decision to call this firm. Sure enough the lawyer called back in a few minutes. He asked all the right questions and that day went to see my brother. I felt if nothing else I had found someone who would help my brother.
It turned out that I had chosen very well indeed.
Back at the hospital my parents had arrived. My father was stoic but the reaction of my mother can easily be imagined. It was decided that since I had a family with young children that my parents could take over from here and I should return home. Before I did some more of Philip’s friends arrived. They had driven to the accident scene and retrieved a gun Philip kept in his car. The also found his Canon F1 camera hanging in a branch of a tree. How it got there was anyone’s guess. It still worked and he has it today.
I was also able to speak to the surgeon who would repair my brother’s leg. He had served in the same capacity in Vietnam and appeared to be a very capable doctor. He also reassured me Philip would recover from the accident was far as his leg went anyways. He showed me an x-ray of his femur. The femur was in three parts, the two on each end about six inches long with a two inch section neatly displaced about in inch from the others. A metal rod would be added with screws to tie all three bones together. The doctor explained this was a very common operation performed after a motorcycle accident. Indeed it wasn’t all that unusual for motorcyclists to have two or three such operations. The process of removing the now bent metal rod made it complicated however.
My parents stayed about a week as I recall. The most serious part of the accident was his skull fracture. The orbit of his right eye was broken and he had bleeding in his brain which raised the possibility of brain damage. He was given medication which lowered the pressure and the problem resolved itself however. He did have hallucinations before that. Philip had hiked extensively out west and was concerned about animals he might encounter. He had told me about turning a corner on a trail once and encountering a moose. Before he turned and ran he snapped a picture. The picture showed an impressive set of antlers but also revealed the fact that he had been facing the rear end of the animal.
Now as my parents watched him in his hospital bed he said to my mother. “Mom! Be still!. There’s a bear over there in the corner!”
After I returned home and my parents left the hospital it proved impossible to communicate with Philip. This was well before the days of cell phones. We knew he would be discharged after a month or so but had no idea when that would happen. The plan was for me to go there and help him get situated back at his apartment.
As it happened the hospital did not inform us of the event. Philip was wheeled to the front door in a wheelchair and walked from the hospital on crutches to a city bus and took that home!
I did speak to him on the phone soon after that however. He was getting along fine and some friends were taking care of him. Nevertheless I went to see him as soon as I could.
His friends were there and they proved to be from India. They cooked his meals and fed him. They did his laundry. They did everything he needed to have done. Although I thanked them profusely I am sure words could never express my gratitude.
I took Philip to the local mall for his first ride in a car since the accident. He was still on crutches and there was no place to park near the entrance except a handicapped spot. I didn’t have handicapped plates however under the circumstances I had no qualms about parking there. Another motorist, seeing my New Jersey plates, did however. She said “In New Jersey you might park in a handicapped parking space but here in…” Her voice trailed off as Philip came into her view, hobbling on his crutches.
The driver of the pickup truck proved to have no insurance. In addition as a young man he was injured in a coal mine accident. He had a drinking problem and was in a lot of physical pain. Suing him proved impossible. Although my brother had uninsured driver insurance his insurance company refused to pay. The lawyer I arranged for had to sue them to get even that. He did do an able job of managing my brother’s financial affairs in many other aspects for which our family was thankful.
A few years later I was sitting on the couch at home watching 60 Minutes. The story was about a group of women working in a coal mine. Just like their male counterparts after a day’s work in the mine they took a shower in their locker room. Unlike the men’s locker room theirs had a peephole and they found it. It turned out that if a man did a good job that week he was allowed to look through the peephole! They sued and their lawyer got them $5 million dollars.
When I saw their lawyer I leapt to my feet and pointed excitedly at the TV screen.
“That’s the lawyer I got for Philip!”
So it was.

This also jogs my memory re a series of events. Back in the S F Bay Area, a girlfriend and I used to go see one of her friends perform and would party afterwards with that group. My friend lost touch with her friend. A few years later my friend ran into her old friend and told me the friend was attending law school. More years go by. I'm waiting for a girlfriend to get ready (at her place) before we go out. I'm watching the TV station she had on when I arrived. I'm watching a celebrity on the screen (the subject of the story). I hear a voice coming from the TV, but off screen. I said to myself 'OMG ________ is ________'s attorney! Sure enough, the camera pans to where the voice is coming from and a graphic appears on the screen. ________ is __________'s attorney. She has the most distinctive voice I've likely ever heard in my life. When I heard that voice, I knew it was she.

[bronsin]

You can self publish now for $200 at Outskirtspress.

Write it all up!

[nookandcrannycar]

Originally Posted by bronsin

Its a collection of interesting things that have happened to me in my life. Its availible at:

www.outskirtspress.com

Click on bookstore and search for The Storys.

Thanks!

Here is a sample


In the summer of 1982 I was able to take my first vacation with my family. I only had one week
off and we had a grand total of $375 to spend. So we had to be thrifty. The first day we would
drive to NYC and spend two days and one night there. I grew up in Brooklyn but we moved
away when I was three. When we returned for visits we stayed at the Travel Lodge on 42nd
Street. I hadnt been there in almost 20 years but I remembered it as a nice family type of
place. I thought it would be a perfect place for us to stay on our one night in the city.

On the first day when we got to NYC we visited The Statue of Liberty. It was a very hot day and it was plenty hot inside The Statue. There is a spiral staircase going up and another one coming down. One is inside the other but you cannot see the people going in the other direction. My wife and I took turns carrying our daughter up the stairs. It took hours because the line moved slowly. When we got into the crown it was kind of a surprise to see how tiny the chamber was. The iconic windows were small and scratched but afforded a magnificent view of Manhattan. My daughter was only about two years old but the trip to The Statue of Liberty is one of her earliest memories.

After seeing The Statue we decided to call it a day. We headed for the Travel Lodge on 42nd Street. At the motel my wife wanted to pay for the room with her credit card. I did not approve of credit cards in those days. I advised her to pay cash in the morning when we checked out. But I was overruled and she gave her credit card to the motel. So before we even spent the night there they had our money. I sometimes (rarely) say to my wife "Remember the time we stayed in the Travel Lodge in NYC and I told you not to use your credit card to pay for it?"

After dinner we returned to the room for the evening. The plan was for us to walk down 42nd Street to Grand Central Station. From there you can take the subway to Yankee Stadium and catch a ball game. A great thing to do when seeing the City. But my wife and daughter were too tired to go. I also thought my wife was a little unnerved about being in The Big Apple. Being from Brooklyn I have no problems with the City. The trip home would involve a ride on the subway after midnight. So we decided I would go alone.

So about five o’clock I wended my way down 42nd Street. I like wandering around NY. It was a warm and pleasant summer afternoon. At Grand Central I got directions to the platform for the train. Its a big place and I asked directions a few times on my way from passersby. On the train I realized I would have to change to another train to complete the trip. But I wasn’t exactly sure where the change happened. So I asked my fellow passengers. That set off a spirited discussion! The guy next to me yelled down the packed aisle "Hey Vito, where does this kids change trains to get to The Stadium?" Vito wasn’t sure. So everybody offered their opinion. I got off where I was told, made my connection, and got to The Stadium in time for the first pitch.

The Yankees were playing the Seattle Mariners. Craig Nettles tied the game with a two run homer in the bottom of the 9th. The place exploded like only Yankee Stadium can when the Yankees do something like that. But Seattle scored a run in the tenth. With two outs and a man on second Oscar flied out to end the game. It was very exciting all the same.

The trip home on the subway was interesting but uneventful. I arrived safe and sound back at the Travel Lodge. When I put the key in the lock I noticed the light was on through the crack in the door. They were still up. What’s going on I wondered?

I was about to find out.

I entered the room to find two distinctly hysterical people in it. Wild eyed my wife ran up to me and said "Rats there are rats!! Hundreds of rats! They come out of the walls when you turn out the lights!" Rats? Hundreds of rats? Really? I though "Oh my God my wife has lost her mind!" I thought the City had just gotten to her. "Look" I said "There are no rats! Its all in your mind. Now...we have a long day ahead of us and we are going to need our sleep. I suggest we turn out the lights and all get to bed." My daughter said "No Daddy no don’t turn out the lights! The rats will come!"

Rats. I wasn’t having any of that. Rats. They were just afraid of being in The Big Apple. I asserted my position as man of the family and made them get in bed and turn off the lights. In the dark I heard whimpers coming from the two of them.

After about one second of darkness I heard a noise that did in fact suggest there might possibly be something to what they were saying. I reached over and turned on the light. There were three rats climbing up to cord from the wall that ran to it. Now to be honest it is an exaggeration to say there were hundreds of rats. I didn’t see any more than thirty. Quick as a flash they all vanished when the light was turned on. Well there might be rats but that didn’t change anything. We still needed our sleep after all! I left the light on, the rats remained behind the walls, and (after a while) we all went to sleep.

In the morning my wife was furious. "I’m not paying for this room! I’m going down there and getting my money back!" I told her I did not think so. "This is NY dear. I don’t think they are going to give us our money back."

In the lobby the clerk sat behind six inches of bulletproof glass. There was a little space at the bottom of the glass to pass money through. With the sense of righteous outrage that women have when they are wronged (and quite sure they are going to get what they want) my wife told the clerk "We had rats! We had rats! I want my money back!" The clerk laughed and said "You didn’t take any home with you, did you?" Realizing it was fruitless to say anything, I kept my mouth shut. It took a while but it finally sunk in to her head that no refund would be forthcoming. Picking up our suitcases we beat a hasty retreat from the Travel Lodge.

I was just reading a post on another thread (not one of yours) and it popped into my head that I forgot to include the baseball point I wanted to make. The point -- as much as I despise the Yankees (in a fun competitive way ), I agree with your "explode only the way Yankee Stadium can explode" comment. I've seen a game in every park in the majors, and some that no longer exist or at least are no longer used for baseball (Exhibition Park in Toronto, Candlestick Park in SF, the previous Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Shea in NYC, Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, (unfortunately) a sparsely attended game at the previous Yankee Stadium, the Metrodome in Minneapolis, the Dolphins stadium in Miami, and RFK Stadium in DC). I've been to 4 World Series, including all of the playoff and World Series games during the A's 3 championships in a row in '72, '73, and '74...and many other playoff games. Given that, I've never heard a park explode with pure baseball excitement the way the new Yankee Stadium did during the game I saw during Father's Day Weekend in 2010. It has to be the fans themselves, as the game you describe was in the old Yankee Stadium.