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Health & Fitness

PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF – PART XXI

The struggles associated with early mariage often include career positioning as we try to find ourselves at work and attempt to make ends meet.

Married life seemed to agree with Betsy and me.  We were married at 23; much younger than most the average age that most people get married these days.  But, we also realize how much more mature we were than twenty-three year olds seem to be, today.  Despite not having great jobs and making little money, we toughed marriage out – with no complaints - and worked together to make ends meet.

Together, we worked Englishtown Auction to help supplement out income. We do not regret our decision to marry at such a young age and both agree that our early struggles better prepared us for the even tougher struggles yet to come.

One of the best things that come out of writing and ongoing autobiography in blog form – like this one - is that the writer can gauge reader sentiment as he goes along.  This has definitely been an interesting learning experience for me.  I know I have hit a few raw nerves after writing about some very personal experiences – particular those having to do with intimate relationships that did not turn out so well; leaving some open wounds from decades ago.

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There have been those, who would have wished for me to “revise” my own personal recollections and settled personal history by denying the details of certain situations and the emotions associated with them. I can not change what was any more than I can change what will be.  Tis is all unique to me as an individual. For better or worse, my past shaped my present being. My past provides me with the experiences I draw from to understand the actions of others, today. The self-knowledge gained from living my life is what I depend on to react to those actions, appropriately.

A few others may criticize the way in which the on-again-off-again relationship between Betsy and me, developed. They forget that we were still just teenagers dealing with adult emotions and situations. Things would become much clearer
as we moved into our twenties.  Obviously, there are those who have never seen the film “When Harry Met Sally,” with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. The movie has a happy ending, similar to Betsy’s and mine.

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The route to Betsy’s heart may not have been straight and static, but it remains true and committed all these years later.  Meanwhile, the marriages of more than half of our friends and close relatives have ended in divorce.  Marriage is tough and the recipe for success is devotion to one another and lots and lots of humor – the missing ingredient in too many failed relationships that were too serious and heavy-handed.  When you can laugh with each other over situations and even over individual personality quirks, nothing that may go wrong ever seems to be that bad.

That being said, the story continues with Betsy and me commuting to and from New York City, together, every weekday.  It was a difficult schedule made pleasurable by each other’s company.  And so the early months of marriage went by rapidly with few noteworthy events.  Unfortunately, the noteworthy events were among the afore-mentioned complex and painful.

In July of 1979, I developed viral pneumonia, which my mother also caught from me.  I had already developed some symptoms of the lung infection during the work week and pushed the envelope by getting soaked during a chilly, wet Saturday afternoon at Six Flag Great Adventure. In bed for two weeks, I was unable to close business at Forrest Personnel and soon learned that two weeks out of the office in the staffing business is like an eternity.  There were repercussions from my extended absence that lead to a job change I soon needed to make.

In late October of the same year, Grandma Pearl (mom’s mother) was found dead in her room at my parent’s home. We left her early that weekend morning to run the family business at Englishtown Auction and could not reach her by telephone throughout the day.  By then, her Alzheimer’s had grown progressively worse and she had limited cognitive abilities, remaining.  In fact, I still try to reconcile how mom and dad left her at home alone that fateful day and at other time. Grandma had no clue what year it was or that her parents had long since passed away. She no longer knew who my father was or that “Little Wolf,” our male Siberian husky, was not imbued with the soul of the Devil.  Yes, that is what she actually thought.

When my parents arrived home from Englishtown Action that evening, Grandma had already been dead for several hours.  Jewish people do not allow autopsies, so our best guess is that she had a massive heart attack or cerebral hemorrhage, while applying her daily makeup in front of the dresser in her room.  We’d like to believe that she didn’t know what hit her and that she died, suddenly.  When she died she was 82 and in reasonably good health, though her Alzheimer’s had totally ravaged her mind and likely hardened her coronary arteries. This must have contributing to her abrupt death. 

We buried Grandma Pearl next to Grandpa Ben and among her brothers and only sister (who died years later) at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, Long Island.  My last grandparent – the only one to have attended my wedding – was now gone.  On Betsy’s side, her step-grandmother (mother’s side) was to live for a few more years.

At the time of my grandmother’s passing I was in the process of changing jobs. Though I loved my job at Forrest Personnel, a combination of the two weeks work that I missed due to pneumonia, coupled with the realization that it was very difficult to build enough business based on the tiny fees earned per placement (the small annualized salaries of secretaries and clerical staff back in the late 70’s earned the agency about $200 per placement, which yielded
me about $40 - $50 after splits and agency take).  I was successful getting a fair amount of job orders, but coming from New Jersey it was difficult to get many New York City-based personal referrals (applicants) to fill my orders.  I had to find a job that paid better and offered a regular weekly paycheck.

Coincidentally, Sue Jacobs in the office got a call from one of her clients – National Utility Services (NUS) on 59th and 2nd Avenue – seeking a director of sales research.  Sue tipped me off that it was a good opportunity and she could get me in.  The job was paying $10,000 per year and I would have a staff of nine clericals under me.  The job entailed developing and qualifying sales leads for their national sales force, who was selling energy rate analysis contracts for NUS.  Our company would look for cost savings for major power users and share in those savings.  It was an interesting business.

In short order, I received the job offer and started work the following Monday.  I was sad to leave Forrest Personnel.  I liked it there and loved what I had been doing, but I needed a solid paycheck and it might take years to build up a sufficient commission stream to validate my staying there.

I immediately, hit it off with my staff of almost all young women.  We worked well together and I got the company to install greater incentives for my team to earn more money, while producing better qualified sales leads.  These were the early days of computers and we all had dummy terminals tied into to a very primitive database into which sales leads extracted from directories such as Standard and Poors, Moody’s, Thomas’ Registry, Chamber of Commerce Directories and other research materials were entered, stores and assigned (to salespeople) from.

My boss was Doug H., a great guy who had moved to New York from South Dakota.  His boss was Boyce T., an already elderly former salesman with a horrible drinking problem.  Boyce T was a successful Vice President of
Sales when he was sober, which was rare.  More often, he was a nasty drunk with a very telling bulbous red nose and a mean attitude to go along with it.  He
would keep alcohol in the credenza of his office and it was Doug’s job to keep
him sober and protect the rest of the staff from his irrational and often
violent outbursts.  The man was a product of the old days, when salespeople lived out of a suitcase and their only friends were a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of scotch in a motel room or at a bar filled with strangers.  He was tolerated by the ownership for having been a loyal and dedicated “good old boy” for so many years. In actuality, he was a detriment to their office environment and an embarrassment to their business.

Mr. T. and I got along famously when I wasn’t trying to explain to him that Indiana was actually Ohio on the map.  Between Doug and me, we had our hands full keeping him away from the bottle during work hours and not making a scene in the office.  He was a sad commentary of what happens to a human being, when he or she lets the schmoozing aspect of their business life take toll on their body, mind and family-life.

My job at NUS was enjoyable and interesting.  I would have stayed there awhile, if I had not been recruited again by Forrest Personnel to fill another of their job
orders for more pay.  This time, a client of theirs in the garment industry needed to break in a credit and collections supervisor for $12,000 per year. I should have listened to myself and accepted the fact that I was always very poor at math and not very interested in hounding people for money.  As a young married man, I only saw the chance to make a little more money and readily accepted a job offer
from that company, Manes Textiles on 33rd street, between sixth and seventh. 


Career floundering continued for me with our first child on the way. Finally, it caught up with me and I experienced my first period of unemployment, which was lonely and plain awful.  Betsy changed jobs, too, before eventually going out on maternity leave.  On the social front, we made a few new friends – couples and enjoyed whatever free time we had on the weekends leading up to the arrival of Steven Perry LeVine in October of 1981. To be continued….

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