Chapter 3 Total Manipulative Systems

Total Manipulative Systems

I have decided that to create this book (blog) in a chronological format would get excessively boring. Therefore I am going to jump around a bit and bring in some of the newer tools in my life. This one could not wait for me to get to it had I decided to follow a given timeline format. So, here we go with the newest and best tool in the toolbox!

I met Jack Jackson through my younger brother Joe. Joe and I have a very good business relationship, not to mention personal relationship. We share our ever-growing networks with each other and this has proven to benefit both of us greatly. However, not even Joe’s filtering process could keep this tool out of our lives. I met Jack one cold wintery afternoon in January over a planned lunch, which Joe had set up for me. Jack showed up with his son in tow and it was a very invigorating lunch. We talked about the things that he had going on with the health care industry and his plans to incorporate food stuff into this plan.

Jack was working with a concept whereby he would take management control over various segments of hospital retail outlets. These include gift shops and food service areas as well as other things like barbershops, beauty salons, mail services, etc., anything that the hospital would like to incorporate into its offerings to the consumers. Jack’s main idea is that hospitals usually rent out these facilities and they only get a fixed income from the rental areas. His management company would theoretically manage these areas and give the hospitals a percentage of the profits from these retail outlets, thus creating a stronger and much more profitable revenue stream.

When I met with Jack, he told me that he had deals in place with about 45 hospitals, and that a number of them were very interested in adding a “green grocer” to their retail offerings. Since I am in the produce business, and I was Joe’s brother, I could consult on these projects and create a revenue stream for myself. Nice! We kept throwing ideas back and forth, and pretty soon, we started to talk about coffee shops within the retail offerings. My lovely wife, Gina, had just taken a job with Queen’s Coffee and Tea Service as a salesperson. And so it began!

I told Jack about this and also about a new product that Gina was working with. It is a self-enclosed espresso/cappuccino/coffee machine that kicked out incredible product, without the need of a certified barista. It has a card reader/bill acceptor that turns it into a vending machine. Jack was all over this product and his eyes got as big as his line of bullshit. He saw dollar signs firing up and filling his wallet. He wanted to meet Gina and see this product as soon as possible. I set the meeting up that day for the following week.

Jack showed up the next week at Gina’s office and met with her, me and her boss. We talked about the machine and about getting the whole line of gourmet coffees into the hospitals that Jack had “locked up” with a buddy of his. He started talking about the volume of coffee that this hospital’s coffee shop went through and bragged about how his friend Tim Flipp was “the man” and could get Queen’s products in as soon as possible. The deal was that we would run it through Jack’s company and he would make a management fee (kickback) on every pound of coffee sold. After running the numbers, he was looking at about $4500 a month for himself, off of this one coffee shop. Sweet!

And so began the cycle of promises made and promises broken. Jack is the consummate bullshit artist. He starts by ingratiating himself and his smooth delivery is unbelievable. You cannot even smell the lingering effects of his bull shit, I do not think a bloodhound could. He sold this idea to Gina’s boss, Phil. He got Phil to install a high-dollar espresso machine in Tim’s coffee shop in Ann Arbor Hospital’s main lobby. Tim was supposed to start purchasing the coffee immediately, but never placed a single order with Queen’s Coffee and Tea Service (QCTS). There was always a story about how Tim had to negotiate his way through the upper rungs of management to make this happen. But Jack, I thought he was the man? “Well, you do not understand the tangled web of the health care industry business cycle, blah, blah, blah..” was Jack’s response. Don’t worry, I have it under control and it will happen.

Jack is by far and away the biggest bull-shitter I have ever met. He can shovel with both hands and he even gets his feet in on the action. Imagine a mime doing a jig and telling you with his hands what he is doing! I introduced him to some other friends in my network, one of them in the tea business and one of them in the excavating/odd jobs business. Jack met with both of them and got them some small jobs with promises of larger ones to come. He had connections like a “made” man in the mafia, so he had us believing. I was introducing Jack around my network like he was the best thing since sliced bread. He delivered just enough to make it believable and with the economy the way was in Detroit at the time, even the small jobs were appreciated. Jack was having my friends sign contracts with him that paid him a monthly stipend to look for jobs and opportunities for them. Since he had delivered a few for free, they bought into the concept. They were all excited and thanked me for introducing them to Jack.

Then, in June, my close friend that has the tea company ran into a small problem. She had set up a retail kiosk in the lobby of the hospital and sold her products for two days. By the end of the second day, she had done reasonably well. However, she decided that she would rather have her product in the retail store, than have to do these kiosks on special days (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.). She told this to Jack and he agreed. Then, she ran into problems getting paid for the product that she sold, as it was all billed through the hospital’s system and she was to get reimbursed from Tim after the sales were calculated. It took her about 3 months to get paid and at that point, she had become so tired of Jack’s excuses for the lapses, that she decided to terminate her agreement with him. She got out in the nick of time!

While I was introducing Jack to everyone that I could, I started to put together a plan in my head. Gina had been having issues with Phil at work and was thinking that it was time to move on with her career. Phil had become less enamored with Jack and that relationship was souring. Phil was not getting orders from Tim in Ann Arbor and his machine was being used at no charge. Jack kept promising him the coffee business, but Tim was not delivering. Finally, Gina went and asked Tim whether she could start selling him QCTS’s coffee products. Tim told her that he had no intention of switching from his current coffee vendor. This is not what Jack had been telling Gina and Phil for the past 3 months! Jack said that Tim and him were best of friends and that Tim was going to be going to work for Jack and Tim had all of these great food ideas that the both of them were going to implement into the health care retail industry, blah, blah, blah.

The bottom line is that Phil from QCTS and my friend from the tea business had seen that Jack was a bull-shitter and a world class jackass. They had experienced his lack of being able to deliver on 95% of what he said that he could. Too bad I did not listen to my gut, because I was sensing the same thing.

Jack finally convinced Gina and me that we should start our own coffee business and that the revenue generated from this would pay Gina. On a sidenote, she left QCTS and the best service technician from QCTS had been let go by Phil. So, we sat down with Gina, Jack, DJ (the service tech) and myself to discuss the possibility of getting a coffee company up and running. After a month of deliberation, it was decided to move ahead with the idea, since Jack had the financing in place to get this venture going. Jack put $8000 into an account, got the LLC papers, a van and away they went. A very long story will be shortened here. Jack never got the money together and after 8 month of living hand to mouth, Gina quit working with Jack. He never once delivered on anything. I had called him out in November, a month after they started the company, and told him that he needed to deliver on his promises. Finally, in March, I sent him an email and explained to him that his lack of performance was making it impossible for Gina and DJ to keep going. He got upset and cried like a school girl with a yeast infection.

In the meantime, my entire network that had been introduced to Jack began to hum with dissatisfaction. We found out that Jack had not paid my friend, Devon, in the excavating business about $11,000. He had taken the profits from a job and supposedly put a down payment on some park benches that were to be custom made for another job. After stringing Devon along with some odd jobs, Jack told him that he had lost the deposit on the park benches, because the city of Southfield had cancelled the project and he could not get the money back for the benches. In May of 2010, Devon finally contacted the city of Southfield and asked about the project. He was told that jack lost the bid on the project, because he could not get bonded. He had lost the bond deposit. Then, Devon contacted the manufacturer of the park benches and was told that they had quoted the benches for Jack twice, but never received a purchase order. Bottom line, Jack had taken the $11,000 to fund other schemes. Jack was robbing Devon to pay Paul.

Being in the produce industry, I am fully aware that the more you peel back the layers of an onion, the more you realize that peeling brings much pain. Your eyes well up, your nose twitches and you begin to cry. Peeling back the layers of Jack Jackson was worse. It increasingly smelled of feces and not only made your eyes water, it made your stomach wretch. This guy is by far the worst piece of crap that I ever met. He comes off like a strong, religious, easy going, intelligent, well-connected individual. He will do anything for you, leverage any of his contacts to help you. He is Jackie Blue Skies. You are the most important person to him. Yeah, right. He is truly a devious, scheming, lying, conniving bastard.

The stories about Jack get better. In a nut shell, he never once delivered a hospital retail services contract to the table. He went from Trinity Health to St. Joe’s to St. Johns to another one to another one. This guy had more meetings than anyone I have ever known. He set up meetings to set up meetings. He had meetings to talk about what just went on in the meetings. He could not close a deal, because he liked having meetings too much! To him, closing a deal is like keeping water from getting over Niagra Falls.

In March, he began running his traps from years ago, because more people were getting wise to his line of crap. I told him I was having a meeting with a friend of a friend and he happened to know this guy from 15 years ago when he sold him product at F&M. When I met with Stan, he told me that he had spoken to Jack and that Jack wanted to meet him. You see, Jack was looking for another financer to fund the health care retail management company. He is trying to get them to put in capital to carry him until he lands his big deal. I say “is”, because this guy is still out there looking for money. Any smart business person not only walks away from this guy, they turn and run like Usain Bolt! He is rotting from the inside out and you can smell him coming from miles away.

The final straw in the coffee company concept and Gina’s involvement in it was when Jack said that he had a deal to sell 4 of the espresso machines. He placed the orders for this equipment valued at $50,000. The company had to make them in Germany and send them to the states. Jack had a PO in hand from one of his hospitals and Gina and he were going to make $30,000 on it. Gina handled all of the books for the coffee company, and since I have been in sales, I told her to get a copy of the POs for these systems, before she ordered them. Jack sent over the POs and they had a different company for the “bill to portion” of it. Surprise!, the company was owned by Jack! He was selling them to himself and then to the hospital. When I questioned him on that, he changed it to the hospital as the “bill to”. Still no good, since the hospital did not sign off on the project. I asked Gina to contact Jack’s buyer at the hospital. When she did, she found out that there was never an order placed and that the project was not going to happen unless Jack provided the machines for free. Jack tried to bull-shit his way out of that one by saying that his company was going to purchase the machine and then split the profits with Gina’s company. Then, he blasted Gina for talking to his contact, because she belonged to Jack and his company, not the coffee company. Needless to say, Gina killed the deal right there and that was the end of her relationship with Jack Jackson.

To put an end to this chapter, let me say that Jack has screwed over at least 10 people in my network. I am sorry that I ever introduced this asshole to any of them. He truly is the most un-delivering lying person I have ever met. He cannot even talk to me, since he knows that I know what he truly is. He is, to this day, still trying to leverage my contacts. Trust me, I have muddied the waters wherever I can and with anyone that might, even remotely, come into contact with this idiot. Obviously his real name is not Jack Jackson, but if you are interested in staying away from this predator, contact me and we can talk. I would consider him to be the screwdriver in my toolbox, since that is his main function. There is very little humor in this chapter, since it has only been a few months since this idiot has been removed from my life. I have not had the time to remove the pain and filter out the humor yet. Since I am taking a while to write this book, I still may find some humor here and add it in.

Joe, you owe me a 17 ½ for this one brother!

Chapter 2: The Smelly Deli (Who Wins)

Life at the Smelly Deli (Who wins)

I was 15 years old, had my learner’s permit to drive and my best friend George’s older brother had opened up a restaurant in a nearby town and needed some good help. This was my first go around working with friends and friend’s families. I was asked to come to work and learn the wonderful trade of washing dishes. I took to this like I did my paper routes and soon I was moved up to busboy status. Eventually I worked my way up to host and prep cook. The experience at the Smelly Deli was awesome. I met and worked with many kids my own age and developed lifelong friendships with a few of them. I would not change this experience for the world. However, I was under the tutelage of the biggest tool I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

Mark was an over-achieving sloth to give you a good mental picture of this guy. He stood about 6’3 and weighed all of 280 pounds. He never met a meal that he would not eat, or give you the history of it’s preparation. He was a chain smoking Marlboro man that was prematurely going bald. He had an over-sized melon of a head and an all-pro spitting gap in his front teeth. His mustache would make prepubescent boys look like they were cavemen, think of the cheesiest thin mustache you can imagine and this was worse. He also had a habit of drooling excessively while he slept. I have seen camels that spew less saliva than this man child would generate, all the while snoring like a freight train. I know this, because I spent many nights at his house with his brother and I always got offered his bed to sleep in, since he was passed out on the beanbag chairs in the family room. All this and he was only 23 years old!

He must have had a bunch of bad experiences in school, because he treated his employees like his personal slaves. Think power monger. He actually had the busboys cleaning and waxing his car. There was no work that would be too demeaning for an employee, as long as he was paying them. Unfortunately for many people, he got into the shorts of a very wealthy Detroit businessman and ended up with an umbilical cord to the old man’s wallet. He ended up opening (and closing) many restaurants in the Detroit area. He was a successful businessman for many years, but eventually his arrogance brought him down. That and the fact that he had a very hard time paying his bills.

Mark liked to show off his new-found wealth by racing his Trans AM, and later his sweet electric blue Z-28, around the neighborhood. He really impressed all of us kids by these acts of male dominance. He also liked to tell people that he was a chef, because he spent a couple of months at the Culinary Institute of America. No, he did not graduate, but to hear him tell it, he was at the top of his class when he left. Yes, there were some extenuating circumstances around his leaving, mainly family obligations that he needed to tend to. However, for many years after that, and even to this very day, he always wore chef’s clothes everywhere. I mean everywhere. He would show up for family functions in his chef clothes, he would wear them to meetings and he would wear them out for the night. Everywhere! I saw him not wearing chef’s clothes twice. The first time was at his wedding and the next time was at George’s second wedding. Talk about getting into a role! At least they finally came up with other chef’s togs in the 1990’s and he could wear his new denim look. Fabulous!

He ended up dating, and eventually marrying, one of the hostesses from the Smelly Deli. I could write a book about her, but I won’t. Lucy was an adopted girl, raised Jewish, and boy was she wild. Think hooker only with more makeup. 5’3, huge breasts, a little overweight and “Oy” she was extremely annoying with that high-pitched whiny voice. She thought she was a lot hotter than she really was. However, her later attempts at age reduction, “Joan Rivers-esque”, made her even less attractive. It was like her squared-off face melted into her over-sized breasts that all came to rest, past her tucked belly, onto her plump ass.

Back then, she “dated” everyone from the Smelly Deli. She had a special thing for the black male employees, but that would turn this book into a racy soap opera. She even dated Mark’s brother Gary for a while. It would seem that the only thing looser than her was the back door to the alley. But to the doors credit, it got banged hard about 50 times a day. Anyway, Mark fell madly in love with Lucy, since she was probably the first action that he had since Rosie Palmer. The dating phase of their relationship was awesome.

Mark would take Lucy out on Saturday nights and leave the crew there to close up. We were all great friends and used to hang out and party after work. Well, when Mark and Lucy would leave, the Smelly Deli would become our personal home away from home. We kept the liquor chilling in the walk-in and Jerry and Madeline would have their personal stashes of pot to share with the crew. By 10:00 pm the Smelly was rocking. However, Mark wanted to impress Lucy with his authoritarian power and try to sneak back to the Smelly after hours and catch us. It is probably a good thing that Lucy was still enjoying the men of color (think alley door) and she did not want them to get caught partying in Mark’s place of business, or he would fire her salami injectors. So, when she was out with Mark, she would excuse herself to go to the ladies room. While there, she would find a pay phone and call the crew back at the Smelly Deli and tell them that Mark and she would be back there in a certain period of time. Mark only caught us once. Poor Mark.

Back to the Z-28. Mark loved this car. It was fast, it looked sweet and it made his male ego puffy. Since he started to date Lucy, she was allowed to drive the testosterone-mobile. She would actually use this car to go hang out with her other male friends. One afternoon, Lucy decided it was quallude time. Oh, I forgot to mention that her nickname was Elvis. She had more pills than the King of Rock and Roll! Whilst driving under the influence of these lovely sedatives, she ran the Z into a highway concrete median. Bye Bye Z. The best part about this was that she was not injured, much. A few bumps and bruises and maybe a cut or two. It was nothing that she could not self-medicate for. He ended up getting an even sweeter car for them to drive, a Corvette, and then asked her to marry him. Oh, can you feel the love?

Since I was almost part of the family, I got to attend the wedding as a guest. There were probably 300-400 people at this event and we got to set the whole thing up. Mark was such an animal about his work that he kept going back into the kitchen and riding the staff like a bunch of rented mules. Good thing that Jerry and Madeline had their secret stash with them. I guess it made the night bearable for the crew. The preparation of the festivities took it out of the crew and I was so happy that Mark wanted me to bail on the reception. After dinner was served, I got to help the crew get the dishes washed and packed up to take back to the restaurant. Yes, this moron catered his own wedding to save money and make sure it was perfect. I have another story about the accident with the van in the parking lot, but it will wait for a later date. I still don’t think that Mark realizes that he actually got married. I am pretty sure his new wife forgot about it very soon after the nuptials, right Stevie?

I ended up working until 3:00 am with the crew and we successfully got all of the catering accessories back to the Smelly Deli. We had two vans, one slightly more damaged than the day before, which were packed to the ceilings with “rinsed off” dishes, etc. That day (Sunday), the restaurant was closed, but there were 5 of us there washing all of the pots and pans, dishes, silverware, etc. from the night before. Then we had to Saran-wrap them, stack them in milk crates and store them in the warehouse behind the restaurant. We actually got paid to do this, but Mark told us it was at a lower rate, since we did not have to do it during “work” hours and he was giving us cash. What a sweetheart. It must have been because he finally got laid on his wedding night.

I have another story that is burnt into my memory about Mark. It just proves out my theory that there are tools for every job. About a year after I began my career as a ceramic platter cleanser, this opportunity presented itself. I must preface this story by saying that I am a smartass. I come from a long line of smartasses. My dad is the smartass king. My children are smartasses. My 6 brothers and 4 sisters are smartasses. We try to out smart-ass each other at every family get together. For us, it is sport. Mark is not a smartass. He never did know how to deal with my humor and smart-ass mouth, he probably still couldn’t.

Mark always told the staff that we had to eat our meals at the back three tables of the restaurant. This was to keep the paid help, who smelled like deli food, away from the nice smelling customers. If you have ever eaten in a deli on the weekend nights with the older blue-haired Jewish ladies, I am guessing that that perfume overdose is seared into your brain as well. There is absolutely no way that body odor mixed with corned beef, salami and gefilte fish could over power the perfume. Well, one night, right before closing, one of our best customers came into the restaurant. The crew hated people that came in 15 minutes before closing and wanted to sit there and eat, smoke cigars and bullshit the night away. This guy was notorious for doing just that. He would look at us vacuuming the floor, mopping, wiping down tables and have the balls to ask us if we were in a hurry to get home. We would just smile and mentally flip him off and kick his old parchment thin ass.

His name was Nicky Stores. He owned a chain of stereo shops in the area and was a former disc jockey at a local radio station. Nicky had a very distinct voice that kids loved to imitate. Well, I was eating my dinner at the rear table and I could not resist imitating Nicky. I blurted out the tag line for his commercial that was airing on local TV and radio stations. In my deepest voice I let out a big “It’s Niccckkkkyyyy!” I think I may have been a little too loud, because my friend Bobby, who was on the line at the front of the restaurant, 40 feet away, cleaning the slicer up for the night. He heard me as clearly as a church bell on Sunday and started chuckling. Well Mark did not find this amusing and told me that I could no longer eat in the front of the house and that I had to eat in the back. Now I know what slavery was all about.

Being a smartass, I could not let this opportunity pass without taking advantage of it. So, the next evening, a fine Sunday night during the middle of the summer months, I took my bosses words to heart. I went into the warehouse and took out a table. I set the table with the finest linens and all of the finest silverware and China I could find. I even put a flower vase on the table. I put two chairs there and summoned my good friend Robert to cook me and him our employee meals. We took our break and went out into the alley, where we dined in the manner we deserved. Mark came outside to have a smoke and nearly blew a gasket when he saw the spread we had prepared for ourselves, not to mention the fact that we were dining between the dumpster and the warehouse, in the middle of the alley. Just think what his patrons would say if they saw us eating out there! Bobby and I still laugh whenever we talk about that one.

I think the anvil that broke Mark’s back was the day I wore my new shirt to work. He had been treating all of the crew rather poorly and I decided it was time to spruce up the old wardrobe. Now our uniform was supposed to consist of black pants, white shirts, a white apron and clean shoes. Well this was back in the day when ¾ length jerseys were all the rage. Most kids would get the customized with their favorite bands, radio stations, pot selections, beer choices or sayings on them. We could wear these under our white short-sleeved shirts. Well I got a brand new jersey that had black sleeves on it, so I could wear it under my uniform white shirt. Unfortunately for Mark, I happened to get the phrase “MARK SUCKS” screened onto the back of the shirt in huge lettering. Think Bill-board.

That night, I wore my new uniform to work. I happened to be bussing tables that night and most of my friends were dying laughing every time they passed me. I worked extremely hard that night, keeping tables cleaned and the dishwasher busy. There were two bus tubs up near the cooking line where Mark was playing Chef. He ignored the paid help as much as possible and it was killing me that he had not noticed the shirt. Finally, about an hour and a half into my shift, the fire alarm went off. Mark had seen my new wardrobe and for some reason he was not very pleased with my selection. My boys were on the ground rolling. They could not believe that he did not can me right then and there. Well, sometimes hard work does pay off. I was good at what I did, as were the entire group that worked there. He had the best crew in town and he knew it. My punishment was that he told me to go home and change. Little did he know that I hopped in the car, drove around the block and sat there enjoying a long break. I had brought an extra shirt to work, just in case. I am laughing as I write this. I cannot imagine a kid doing this anymore. Talk about creativity.

I could go on for hours about all of the stories I have about this putz, but I do not want to waste the space. Besides, he shows up later too. Let me tell you, I have a handful of friends from my Smelly Deli days, and it has been 30 years since I worked (and played) there. We still talk frequently and often have a great chuckle about Mark and his escapades around Detroit. We even laugh harder about Lucy’s!

The end of an era at the Smelly Deli began In April of 1982. The Who announced the first “Final Tour” dates. My friends and I are ardent Who fanatics and this was definitely on the Fall agenda. The show was scheduled for September 30^th at the Pontiac Silverdome. We got main floor seats and asked for the day off right after we scored these tickets. The day before the concert, Mark tells me and George that we had to work the next day. George and I were the first ones to write up our requests for that particular day off, months prior to the event. Mark said that this was too bad for us and we had to work. His exact words were, “You need to make a decision, your concert or your job.” My reply was very simple. “Pete Townshend plays a much better guitar than you. Later asshole.”

And so my brief yet story-packed career at the Smelly Deli was done. I still get a craving for a lean 17 ½ every month or so. My brother Joe and I, along with a great friend RJ (Bobby to us) King head to the old neighborhood and get a bowl of Matzo ball or Kreplock soup and a towering sandwich. Then we bust out the old stories and laugh our fool heads off. That stuff never gets old and never let’s you down. Kind of like The Who.

Chapter 1: Home delivery

Chapter One: Home Delivery

Growing up in Royal Oak, Michigan, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to deliver newspapers door to door. For those of you not familiar with this occupation, it was once the denizen of young men who were entrepreneurial and business savvy. You could get a Detroit Free Press, Detroit News or Royal Oak Daily Tribune route when you were 12 years old. This career is now the place for adults who drive cars around your neighborhood and sling papers to the bottom of your driveway. It was formerly a career monopolized by teenagers who walked, rode bikes or if they were non-industrious, they got their parents to drive them around. The latter type usually never lasted, because their parents actually had real jobs and careers, or were busy raising a gaggle of kids at home. These parents soon tired of having a second vocation that entailed them getting up at 5:00 am and driving through the streets of Royal Oak like a prowler.

I was fortunate enough to acquire a Detroit Free Press route from one of the local delivery boys. Did I mention that you actually had to buy the routes from kids? This was not the way the Detroit Free Press handed out these routes, but if you wanted a plum route, you had to have some capital to invest into the purchase of said route. I bought my route for the low, low price of $50, payable out over a 3 month schedule. As it turned out, this was money well-spent. So, at the young age of 11 years old, I was in business for myself.

The Detroit Free Press was the early morning paper for metro Detroit. This meant that you had to get up at 4:30 am and get out there to deliver your wares. For a young man, this could be a daunting task. That alarm clock became a despised adversary, who tore you out of your warm bed on those cold winter mornings. After a while, you actually got used to it and this form of living was a good building block for various careers. You could either plan on a military career or go into the produce business. Believe it or not, I ended up slinging fruits and vegetables, but that is another chapter.

The set up that the Free Press used was actually pretty simple. The circulation manager would have his own route that he had to manage. He would drop papers off at his carrier’s houses, so that they could complete the process of getting the paper to the customers doors before 7:30 am. Yes, back then we would actually put the paper in your mailbox, on your doorstep or even inside your storm door. Your level of service received was in direct proportion to the tip that you provided your carrier every week. And since we actually had to collect for our deliveries every week, we knew who the good tippers were.

The first few months went by very smoothly. So smoothly in fact, I was ready to increase my market share of the early morning paper delivery business. Another carrier was going to be going to high school soon and had decided that it was not cool for a high school student to have a paper route. Why get up early, deliver papers, spend 3 hours a week collecting the money for them and have to work 7 days a week? Remember, paper boys did not pay taxes back then and what you earned, you kept. No, this kid wanted to get a job at a restaurant, washing dishes, dumping garbage and other fun food service work. He wanted to give Uncle Sam his due and take orders from another pimple-faced teenager. Yeah, he was moving up in the world. Anyway, it was good for me that I was pretty good at running my route and the district manager, Frank Grayson, asked me if I would be interested in another one. It so happened that the route he wanted me to take was right next to the route I had. So, for a few more dollars, I doubled the size of my route. Things were going well.

Frank was a great manager. He was about 6’3 and 260 pounds (maybe a biscuit shy of 275) and as fun-loving and gregarious as possible. My best guess puts him at 42-43 years old. He was an olive-skinned, Mexican. He sported thick black hair and always had a thick, bushy jet-black mustache. His mustache was his pride and joy.

He drove a beat up old Dodge maxi-van that was perfectly suited for the newspaper delivery business. He was married and had a few kids that were making their way through junior high school. Frank loved to smoke Tiparillos and eat greasy hamburgers from the Lantern restaurant in Royal Oak. He worked hard and told me to make sure that I did well in school, so that I did not have to sling papers for a career. He was Mexican through and through and gave me a deep respect for hard, meaningful work, no matter what the occupation was. He was always on time and rarely missed a day of work. He was not even close to being a slacker.

Did you ever hear the story about counting chickens before they hatch? Well, I did. I was not ready for my district manager to take his vacation. He had to get another substitute manager to run his route while he was enjoying the sunny Florida winter. He selected Jim Mayor to run his route. Mr. Mayor was also now going to be the substitute manager every Wednesday. Up until then, Frank had another substitute manager named Marty. Marty was an interesting character and actually you could write a book solely about him. However, he was a good guy and that would not serve the purpose of this book. Let’s put it this way. Marty could have played Shaggy on the Scooby Doo cartoons on Saturday morning. Actually, he may have.

Mr. Mayor was not Frank. He was a whole different package all together. He was in his late 50’s and was Lebanese by birth. He was about 5’9 and weighed all of about 150 pounds, soaking wet. He chain smoked Marlboros, which definitely did not help his already wrinkled complexion. He wore frumpy old clothes and drove a beat-up old Ford van. He always had a Donnegal cap on his head and a cup of coffee in his hand. If he could get you to take the papers out of his truck, so that he did not have to put down his cigarette and coffee, you would be life-long buddies. He was married and had a brood of about 7 kids. He looked worn out and my best guess says that he was. I never saw him smile and with the kind of attitude he was pumping, I could understand why.

Well, Mr. Mayor had a whole different idea about getting the papers to the carrier’s houses. He would drop them off about 90 minutes later than Frank. This meant that I had to bust tail to get my routes done before I had to leave for school in the morning. It got so bad that I was late getting to school, which was not acceptable to the nuns at Shrine Elementary. Soon I was asked by the nuns to spend some quality time with them on Saturday, picking up trash around the school or looking for 9 letter words in that months National Geographic. I had just assumed my place in the Saturday Jug lexicon. Soon I would be a regular there and the nuns would have a chair with my name plastered all over it. Eventually, when the Friday announcements would begin, I would start my trek down to Sister Patricia Marie’s office to pick up the hated Jug slip. I did not even have to wait for the Jug roll call to be announced, I just knew I was a welcomed member every week.

This went on for about 6 months and finally I got sick of spending my Saturdays being the nun’s personal janitorial crew. I asked Frank if he could talk to Jim and get him to deliver my papers earlier. He must have gotten through to Jim, because on the following Wednesday, my papers ended up in a huge puddle in my driveway. I guess Jim did not like little kids complaining about his work habits. Now, I had to call the office and get him to bring me some dry papers that I could get to my customers. Needless to say, I was late for school again.

Eventually, Mr. Mayor and I had it out completely. I got on the phone with Frank’s boss and told him what was happening and that I felt that Jim was treating me this way because I had complained. Well someone told Frank about it and told him that he needed to deal with it. By that time, my route had expanded enormously, and I was delivering the most newspapers of any paper boy in the area. Frank even asked me if I would like to make extra money stuffing the Sunday advertising sections into the newspapers that he had to deliver to the newsstand boxes. He told me to just put up with Mr. Mayor and things would work themselves out.

Sure enough, they did. After another episode of wet papers, Mr. Mayor was asked by the Detroit Free Press office to move to another district. This was my first experience of dealing with a real tool of the trade. I had my paper routes for the next few years and those were pretty uneventful. By the time I got to be a junior in high school, it was time to trade the papers for ceramics.