Junkie, But Not What You Think

 Football junkie that I am, I had to watch the NFL Draft, once again, Thursday night, round one, like it was a Sunday afternoon and Big Blue is ready lock horns with the hated Eagles.

Nope, just a regular old Thursday watching young men become millionaires. Good for them. 

Amazing the drafts that the professional leagues have. You stink, so you get to pick first, putting all your faith, and your lively hood in the hands of a 20 something year old.

Thursday was also bring your child to work day. Right! This wasn't a novelty thing to do for us, this was a way of life. Our boys grew up going to work at Perfect Limo. I remember our youngest at 3 or 4 would ride his tricycle around the building. HQ, the Octagon House, after all the crappy interior walls were removed, became a regular Daytona racetrack. Around and around and around he would go. When he got older and knew how to answer a phone and say, "hello, Perfect Limo", the tricycle got parked in the closet.

Yes, if you were inside the eight walls (octagon) of the business and a phone rang, it had to be answered. We didn't care if you were a dispatcher, chauffeur, the mailman or the bosses kid. That phone had to picked up before two rings!

Phones ringing reminded me of the early years of the business. Not sure what year we were finally ready to go on a vacation, but it wasn't easy to walk away. We left the business with a teenager, who was still in high school! Desperate to get away? What do think?

Anyway, at the time we were dealing with a company in Los Angeles and they would wait until after 5 PM their time to call us to give us rides. Calculate that folks! 8 PM Eastern Standard Time.

So, Doris and I head to Miami for a weekend getaway. While in South Beach, we find a Cuban restaurant that someone recommended. Unfortunately, they only had one table available The owners table. What's the problem we wondered? The restaurants phone was on the table, it was for the big boss man. Oh, they had a second one at the front desk, but this was the old Ma Bell rotary phone. Ring, ring.

I'm hungry, let's do it. Yes, the phone rang, but the beauty was, we didn't have to pick it up by the second ring.

For those young men drafted by the Giants and Jets in the NFL Draft,  Travel and Leisure had this story:

According to a new study by DuelBits, New Jersey is one of the best states in the U.S. to see the American dream in action—and to work to achieve it for yourself.

Live the dream.

Be safe.

John A Sutich

Just Another Story Blog

Brain Freeze

 I'm stuck. Got nothing to talk about.

Let's try this. I turned 72 yesterday. April 16th, Is that anything to chat about? Look, when I went to bed on the 15th I was wondering what it was going to be like on the 16th. Nothing. Same old aches and pains, nothing new.

Remember when we would look forward to the big day. When the new calendars came out you would flip through the months and see what day your birthday would fall on, even though it was simple enough to figure it out unless it was a Leap year. That would freeze the brain for a minute.

If the big day fell on a weekend you would mentally work your plans for the big night, even though it was six months out. I'm gonna have a heck of a great time!

One thing I never did was take off from work on my birthday. Here's the best part. At Perfect Limo, whose ever birthday it was on any particular day, they got to choose where lunch was going to purchased from for the big day. Lunch on the bosses for everybody. Some would choose Davey's Locker, others pizza or maybe Manhattan Bagel for some fabulous pastrami sandwiches.

Me, I wanted burgers from Montvale Bowling alley, right across the street from the Octagon House. Take your Davey's burger. Me, the bowling alley had the greasiest grill that made the most delicious burger. And the fries! Followed in the same foot steps as that greasy burger. You can taste the oil dripping out of them. I sought of wonder how I made it to 72?

Funny thing is, no one ever chose to go for sushi or a salad. It was always the most fattening crap we could find.

Something that has nothing to do with food, but about the Octagon House. We got a letter the other day, in Point Pleasant, from the zoning board, pretty much off season, that one of our neighbors wants to build a cabana on their property, in a spot that probably will not be great for everybody in the surrounding homes. Maybe no one will notice it in their mailbox!

When we bought the Octagon House, back in 1998, we needed to do the zoning letters ourselves to able to run a limousine business out of the building. I believe it was around Labor Day weekend and the woman we were working with at Borough Hall, said send them out on Thursday. Surrounding us were businesses, so she said, "send them out on Thursday, no one will be around to open their mail". So we rushed, to get names and mailing addresses, of everyone within the zone. 

Now, we were fortunate, because we got no pushback. Not sure if they happy to have us, or they never saw the letter.

Be safe.

John A Sutich

Just Another Story Blog

 Hatuna Makata. (no worries)

Yes, a motto our 21/2 year old Granddaughter lives by. Well, at least when she is in the bathtub swimming around rubber duckies and bubbles.

Maybe it's not a a bad way to go through life. Yeah, staying in nice tub with hot water and bubbles isn't a bad idea either.

So, I wanted to write about Artemis II making history by reaching the dark side of the moon and parlaying it with Pink Floyds album Dark Side of the Moon. The ironic part, and I lived in this generation, is I Googled what it was about, only to get this answer through AI:

The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) by Pink Floyd is a concept album exploring the pressures of modern life, focusing on themes of time, greed, conflict, death, and mental illness.

I think it would of been better if they sang Hatuna Makata. Would of been pretty cool, don't you think?

If you want to live the Hatuna Makata life, maybe you should consider packing your bags and moving west to Fremont, CA. According to a poll by WalletHub, this little piece of paradise is ranked number one as the "Happiest" place to live.

Look, you can always settle on number two, Bismarck, North Dakota, but me, I'm looking to stay close my roots and pack the U-Haul and get myself all the way down to Jersey City, coming in at number 31.

AOL just did a poll a few days ago of rudest states in the US. Proud to announce, NY and NJ were one and two respectively. Turns out, according to this poll, we are not really rude, just in a hurry living in a busy section of the world. We don't have time for the small stuff, so we come across that way to the visiting public.

Let's hope for a safe return today for Artemis II today and a safe splashdown in warm Pacific Ocean.

Be safe.

John A Sutich

Just Another Story Blog

 My last train story.

I was on the auto train last Friday getting all prepared to watch the big game between Duke and St Johns. I had dinner at 7 PM and didn't get back to my room until 835 PM. I was planning to eat real fast and hurry back to stream it on my phone. Because it was starting at 705 PM, I figured, maybe I'll skip the dessert and just miss some of the first half.

Slight problem with the dinner plans. The people I was seated with were actually a good time. This is probably the first time I enjoyed other peoples company on this trip since I've been doing this adventure. Besides, although I was planning on skipping dessert, this gave me a reason to stay and eat the blueberry cheesecake, which is very, very good.

Did not plan on the wi-fi being this lousy though. I was attempting to watch it on Paramount on their live stream. This was not working too well so I switched to Pluto TV. No good. Then, on the game scoreboard feed was a live button which brought me to the good old CBS app. I got it finally, but with less then a minute to go in the game. Hey, I'll take it. I watched about 30 seconds then it froze again, then all I got from there, about 5 minutes later, was final score of 80-75 Duke victory.

This jubilation didn't last long because Sunday Duke blew a 19 point lead to lose in the final second. Hey, football will be here before we know it.

Speaking of Sunday! Doris and I were at a Church in Naples, like most weekends, and in Naples the Churches all have this audience of well aged customers. Chances are, you will normally get a little cough splattered around the crowd.

This Sunday, it was like an orchestra playing the 'cough' throughout the theater. All around us. Cough, hack and kackle. Just like the cereal commercial!

I wasn't worried though, because a number of years back, I had a customer in my vehicle, who I was taking to an airport. We got into a conversation of health because I mentioned when I was doing my Sunday duties there was a family of five in front of me, sniffling and sneezing and I was very concerned about my well being.

This is when she was kind enough to inform me of the the golden rule of Sunday Mass. You don't get sick when you are inside the four walls and praying! It's that simple.

Be safe.

John A Sutich

Just Another Story Blog

 "On the road again, I just can't wait to get on the road again".

Yeah, Willie Nelson at his best. Well, I'm on the road again, but I'm going to fill in the verse with:

"On the auto train, I just can't wait to get on the auto train".

I was thinking about this auto train ride. When I was about 10 years old or so, my neighbor in North Bergen used to take his family to Florida on the auto train. That would be around 1964! Now, I'm not really sure if these are the same trains from then, but some of them appear to be aged.

We rented in East Naples this time around, and the house was on a big circle. When we came off the main road, you had to make a right and another right and make our way around the block. About the third house in on the left side of the route home, there is a guy. No, he's not my guy. He is the neighborhood guy. Larry.

Larry has four chairs outside his house, and he is there almost all the time. So, one day I decided to stop and say hello. Turns out Larry is from Pennsylvania, but also lives in Florida. At the house on the left.

Also, he knew Mahwah, NJ, because when he was young, he worked at the Ford plant that was on the property of the Sheraton.

Anyway, Larry is a big guy, and we got to talking about the auto train, which he uses. The auto train has different types of arrangements for traveling. A coach seat, a roomette, tight, but you have a bed. A one-room, which is bigger and comes with a bed, toilet, and shower. This is the best, but they get taken quickly, and they are pricey.

All those options are upstairs. Or you can get a family room, which is downstairs, fits a family of four, but the shower and toilet are outside the room, so basically, the roomette people can use it if you don't mind the stairs.

While talking to Larry, he said that because of his size, he gets the family room for himself. That is the way to go. We were talking about the ride in general, and he mentioned that last year, the room he was in was reupholstered with new leather. I can't for the life of me think it is leather, though. I'm thinking the famous leatherette!

Maybe, when I board the train today, I might be getting a whiff of some new leather seats!

Be safe.

John A. Sutich

Just Another Story Blog