Larry's Sorta Fun Stories

LOST PHONE

Thursday morning and it’s 8:30 and I am ready to head out the door to my Writer’s Group at the Event Center at Trilogy of Orlando.  

I’m going to take the car today because it looks like rain, and it is supposed to rain off-and-on all day. I have the car key flub, my clipboard with today’s writing and … all I need now is my phone.  But I can’t find my phone.  

I knew I had my phone earlier in the morning.  I do my daily meditations on the phone.  I know I did that at 5 AM because I woke up early, but then went back to sleep and I got up at 7 AM. 

Now, I am pacing between the kitchen, the studio, the kitchen and the studio and my bedroom.  I know the phone wasn’t in my easy chair because I had it earlier this morning.  

I was concerned that the phone was on silent.  The night before I had attended one of those meetings where they request that you silent your phone at the beginning of the meeting. I couldn’t remember if I had switched it back ringer mode.  

Now I am going around the house asking Siri to help me find my phone … “Hey Siri, Hey Sir, Hey Siri, what was the cost of a barrel of oil today?”  I thought I heard her answer once. And then silence.  The internet went down again.  Siri won’t answer.  I keep marching around the house retracing my steps.  It’s 8:45 and I needed to get going, I hate to be late for the Group.  

What a feeling, I didn’t have the communicator with me, I asked myself will I make it through the next two hours?

After getting to the event center and got my usual cup of coffee, I walked into the Artisan room.  The first thing I did was to ask Jim if he would help me find my phone after the group meeting.  He said he would be glad to help, and I was relieved.  I knew the phone wasn’t in the car or lost somewhere I knew it was in the house; but where?

Pacing myself through the lecture and readings, I didn’t have the phone or internet to distract me from what was happening in the class. 

Finally, the class was over, and I followed after Jim as I was racing home to find my phone.  My communicator.  My personal computer.  It’s funny how your whole life is now connected to your phone.

As we got in the house Jim started calling my number.  That was a great idea.  If my phone rang, we would hear it and could identify its location.

It was going to be easy; Jim pressed the send button on his phone.  We could hear the phone ringing on Jim’s phone, but we could not hear my phone ringing.  When my phone rings, it sounds like an old phone chime.  It should have been easy to identify.  So, I guess I had left the phone on silent from last night.  We started pacing from room to room but heard nothing. 

Jim said, “Even if it was on-silent, we should hear or feel the vibration.”  This gave me great comfort.  

I went back to the bedroom and started patting the head of the bed when I slept. Assuming I had left it in bed. Nothing!

Jim started calling again.  We were looking in drawers in the kitchen. I pulled the trash container out from under the sink looking through it.  It wasn’t there, but when I had worked at Chick-fil-A there were times when a guest would accidently drop their phone in a large trash bin. I had combed through the trash bins and found a couple of phones, so I thought maybe I had accidently dropped my phone in the trash.

From the studio to the bedroom, but no sound.  

At last, there was a sound.  The internet had come back on.  The sound was emulating from the bedroom.   But where?  Our ears were pointed to the bed.  The bed, I had frisked it and didn’t feel anything.  Yes, the bed.  What was it hiding?

Finally, I ripped the covers back and at the very foot of the bed under

Support the show

Copy to follow
Rollins College Crummer School of Business
Memo to Dr Johnson

This week's story is a story from a memo written to Dr. Mark W Johnson who's a Professor of Marketing and Ethics at the Crummer School of Business at Rollins College in Winter Park Florida.  

Go back to 2001, my wife at the time thought I needed further college education well I had never graduated from any college at all, and I had used my experiences in the television production business. But 2001 she thought I should be accepted for my Life Credits in business in the Executive MBA program for The Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College.

So, part of the two-year program was a Doctor Johnson would lead students internationally to tour different countries and after that we're supposed to write a paper and turn it in the problem is it's a late paper, I never turned it in so here goes.  

Here's the story, after completely being drummed out of Rollins College Crummer School of Business in the fall of 2002 from the Finance501 Financial Management Class because I could not figure out stock valuations.   

I can't understand this now I don't think there are many stockbrokers who can understand it as well but since the Dow Jones have been doing good and we'll never know where it goes as of today's recording. 

I thought it would be a good time to once again turn my paper in to Rollins College Executive MBA program because of the trip May 11, 2002, trip we toured Hewitt Packard Office in Broad in the Czech Republic.  We Tour the castle in Heidelberg Germany, and we toured the Headquarters of Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart Germany. 

Now that that's a good excuse but part of my back ground consisted of being the vice president of operations for CSTV, television production company located in Chicago Illinois. The company had produced 750 episodes of a program called the American Spotlight. which aired on TLC The Learning Channel and CNBC. The program ended in 1989. 

This program looked a lot like the program's you see on cable TV today that was made program. The process of producing a program was the producers and remote TV Crews would go to a company and capture their entire manufacturing process as a raw material would come in the back door of a factory and then be turned out into a finished product.  American Spotlight as well focused its cameras on the HR departments to see who and what made American manufacturing work to examine the marketing of some companies it was needed to go to a Third-Party to discuss how the products or Services were to be sold.  

The program consisted of what were classified as small businesses to some of the major names in American Business they included American Steel and Wire in Cuyahoga Heights, Ohio, the Brunswick Corporation Skokie, Illinois, the Dial Corporation Phoenix, Arizona. 

American Spotlight also did a program on Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee, Wisconsin learning how they once Famous Brand in America had declined, but they were retooling to back to the prominence of the American manufacturing processes. 

At one of the studio taping sessions to the program Nathan S Ansel co-founder of Ethan Allen Incorporated explained the concept of selling rooms-style settings in the showroom

The one that always makes me smile was the Von Duprin company in Indianapolis, Indiana. They are the manufacturers of push bar on doors. The company produced the first panic bar style door mechanism that allows a door to a public building to be locked from the outside but still easy to exit from the inside so when I'm exiting a building. I always check to see if I'm using a Von Duprin product when leaving a building. 

With all that said back to Rollins College the Executive MBA program in May of 2002 I didn't

Support the show

The class I should not have taken in high school. All my life I have been in business, and I never took any classes that was related to business. Still a product of that of the education system of today, but that is a different story.

 In my freshman year in dear old Chillicothe Township High School, my father thought it would be a good idea for me to learn something about building things.

 My father was a product of the other great depression. He had helped his father out on the farm, and he was handy with tools when he wanted to be.

 So, here I am in Mr. Smith’s Industrial Arts Class my freshman year. I learned how to sit back and not be very motivated. There were four basic elements to the class. There was mechanical drawing learning to read blueprints, electrical wiring, gas and arc welding, but I only remember Woodworking. It took me all the allotted time of the class to complete my Box.

Yes, the Box. The Box is only 61/2 x 51/2 x 5 inches. It was supposed to be a box you could opened, but it took me so long to just get the sides glued. The sanding to make it smooth must have take a week and finally staining it with a nice finish.

I have kept it all these years to remind me of all the time it took me to make that box. 

I am still proud of the great creation. It has moved all over the country and stays with me. The Box remains one of the great talking points when you walk-in to my home wherever I am 

Support the show

Western Union Clock

“Well, the massive Western Union Clock on the bunker wall says that time’s up for this week but remember you can check me out at Jay Lawrence Radio Host on Facebook, drop me a line or make a request.

So, join us again next time. I’ll still be here in the bunker getting some more shows together FROM STATESIDE here on the UK 1940s Radio Station. Until Next Time, I’m Jay Lawrence … thanks for listening.”

I had just completed the 241st episode of FROM STATESIDE. On each program I refer to the Western Union Clock on the bunker wall of my Underground Broadcast Studio Bunker and it finally came to me that I need to clarify the reason I used that reference. 

It all started when I was given a tour of the WMBD radio studios in Peoria, Illinois when I was incredibly young. In each studio there was a Western Union Clock on the wall. 

Listening to the radio had always been a staple in my home growing up. There was the afternoon children’s programs like The Green Hornet and Spiderman to listen to when I got home from school, but the serious listening started at the supper table on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This was the time for the LONE RANGER. It was a half hour program that came on right at supper time and my sister and I would argue over who would sit closest to the radio to hear all the action. 

There were other programs listened to during the week in what we call prime time hours now, but the most important and most listened to program happened on Sunday evening. It was the Jack Benny Program. Jack Benny always had a cast of characters like Mel Banc (famous for Bugs Bunny voice), vocalist Dennis Day, Bandleader Phil Harris the announcer was Don Wilson but one of the funniest characters was Eddie ROCHESTER Anderson. Jack Benny allowed his cast to have some of the funniest lines and biggest laughs. And it seemed like they were always going to practice the radio show for the next program … it was great theater of the mind. 

And several times you would hear Jack Benny say, “The clock on the wall says we’re a little late so goon night.”  The show was running long. They were doing the broadcast live. And the clock on the wall was a Western Union Clock. 

So, it was only right for me to think about being on the radio. I wanted to be in one of those studios. I wanted to be on the air. But an amazing thing is that you must be able to read. And I find it hard to read sometimes and I even have a habit of putting words into scripts that aren’t even there. 

Consequently, I found a way to get into the broadcast business by understudying a TV Director at the radio and TV station that I had toured twelve years earlier. When I say I understudied, I skipped my English102 Class at Bradley University and studied and absorbed all I could in television production at the TV Station. 

I studied and I learned, and I was promoted to a TV Director directing live news casts. My eye was always on the Western Union Clock on the wall as we had to join CBS for THE EVENING NEWS with Walter Cronkite on time.

Jump ahead to 2013, I am semi-retired and wanting to do more production. The internet was giving us a great outlet for creativity, and I heard this station from England called the UK 1940s radio station and I wanted to do a program for that station. I threw together a fifteen-minute pilot demo and shipped it off. They liked it and here I have just completed 241 hours of programming. As I complete each program, I have my eye on the massive Western Union Clock on the bunker wall to be sure I am on time. 

Support the show

Day Two: Birmingham to Tulsa

We are on a pilgrimage to move my youngest son from Eustis, Florida to Golden Colorado.  We spent all day on Saturday packing the twenty-foot U-Haul truck and we hit the road on Sunday.  My son and I would be driving the truck and his wife, and her father would be following us in another car.

The U-Haul truck was also pulling one of my son’s cars and we were dragging along at a pace of 8.5 miles per gallon of gas.  And as we were the Alabama boarder, we detected that we needed gas and we spotted a LOVES gas station and pulled of the interstate and proceed to find that all the gas pumps nasals were covered, and they didn’t have any gas at that station.  So, we had to get back on the road and luckily the next exit had a gas station and gas. 

Since my son and I had decided that we would switch drivers where we got gas, it was my turn at piloting the U-Haul heading towards Birmingham.  I got the truck up to a good cruising speed of seventy miles an hour and turned to my son and asked him where the cruise control switch was on the steering wheel.  He commonly said, “it’s under your right foot.”

We completed our first day’s journey to Birmingham, Alabama and called it a night.

Day two started off okay.  We knew that was going to be the longest leg of the trip and we had to go north to get to Interstate 40 by going to Memphis, Tennessee.  We were on Interstate 22 and US 78 heading north and as we got closer to Memphis, we started seeing big warning signs that said the Interstate 40 Bridge was out of service and we would have to find an alternative route.

As we got into the southeastern side of Memphis Interstate 22 suddenly just became US 78.  The road became very rough and riding in the U-Haul was like riding on a wooden roller coaster.  On our right side was one of the largest train/truck loading depots I had ever seen.  It was the Intermodal Cartage Depot of Memphis with very large cranes unloading shipping containers from railroad cars onto hundreds of semitrailers waiting to hauled out onto the rough highway.  

Being the first time I had ever been in Memphis, Tennessee I had to Google our location and to see where Elvis’s Graceland was.  I was evenly miles out of our way and the way road and traffic was, there was now way this 20’ U-Haul and car pulling trailer were going eleven miles out of way.  Sorry Elvis, next time.

The road that was supposed to be an interstate road kept getting rougher and rougher.  We kept moving north looking for the alternative route to cross the Mississippi River.  At last, we understood that we were going to have to get on Interstate 55 to cross the river and then go north to intersect with Interstate 40 West.

Understandably old Interstate 55 was very congested with all kinds of trucks and cars that were wanting to be on Interstate 40 as well as just heading west on Interstate 55.  The traffic was congested that we were moving at a snail’s pace. So, my son Josh hopped onto a Google map and found back roads to get us up to and onto the old Interstate 55 bridge.

As I was questioning what he was going to do, we exited at Exit Seven, meaning we were seven miles to the bridge. But we were on old side roads that paralleled the interstate.   This was an old industrial area. made a U-turn because that was the wrong road and then crossed some railroad tracks.  The last turn was up a road that had a sign that read NO TRUCKS.  That didn’t stop Josh.  As we climbed the hill, I noticed picnic tables and park benches.  I thought this was not going to be good.  As we turned a corner there was the National Metal Museum. We didn’t have time to explores the museum, but we did see it.

Two more turns and we were at the very old Exit Number One on Interstate 55 at the very foot of the bridge.  There wa

Support the show

This actually happened. 
Saturday night June 12th was the most anticipated event that happens here at Trilogy when the Cascades of Groveland Entertainment and Arts Group Presents the SUMMER SIZZLER in Cooperation with Trilogy Musicians Initiative Concert at the Trilogy Event Center.

I had heard that this was supposed to be an excited and ticketed event, I purchased two tickets.  Assuming as naive as I am that I would be able to convince that someone to at least share the concert with me.  Well, that didn’t happen as from an earlier story, there was no communication.  

Since I had two seats, I wanted to get to the Event Center early enough to get a parking space and to be able to find my seats.  I was escorted to my seats I-17 and I-18.  Finding my seats, I was able to get up and chat with Brenda Lee, Bunny, Jeff, Beverly, Tolman and Marcia.  After I got an adult beverage, I stopped by the tech booth, and I got a lesson in the lighting system since I had said I would love to learn it.  

I got back to my seat I-18 … and I-17 was not filled, it had been reserved for that someone.  Then I looked to my right and Linda and Frank were seated next to me.  And the amazing thing is that Linda and Frank sat next to me at the 50s Sox Hop a couple of weeks ago.  We got reacquainted chatting and three minutes before the concert was supposed to start there seemed to be a confused usher asking about our seat assignment because there were four ladies looking at our seats.  

The usher asked to see our tickets and she discovered that what we thought was row I was supposed to be in row L.   So, Linda, Frank and I were escorted three rows back as they were dimming the house lights to start the concert.   Linda and Frank were on the isle, and I moved into seat L-18 and L-17 was empty   Finally, being seated as Ken was introducing the program, I looked to my left and my jaw dropped wide open.  SHE was seated right next to me one seat over in Seat L-16.  

She blurted out in surprise, “Larry King?”

I think I said. “Hello.”

The concert started and I sat nervously thinking that perhaps God had arranged this. At intermission I slide over to the seat L-17 next to her and we both agreed that the music wasn’t exactly our cup of tea.  

Then I suggested that I would like to get together and talk, and she again said, “why, just seemed that we did that before, and it didn’t end well.”  (paraphrased)

I did say, I hope she was doing ok and quivered, “if you would talk sometime, I would like that.”

So, I got up and left the concert.  I had to get home to record this story for my Writers Group.   

I am hoping this is the end of the that story and beginning of a new Trilogy love story. 

Support the show

Creative Writing:
IT WAS THURSDAY. Thursday morning was the day I went to a writing class at the community center.  After class I walked a couple of blocks to the café on Main Street where everyone went for lunch.  Yes, I had my usual table with my back to the wall.  Heather was my server, and she knew what I was going to order. The chop salad was waiting for me. But this was not going to be just another Thursday.

As I was pondering what I had heard in class and trying to put some story ideas together, my eyes kept wandering halfway across the room.  Seated at the table was one of the more provocative women I had seen in a long time.  I of course could not take my eyes off this beauty.  This sweet rose of a woman.  

One, she was a blonde. Her hair was short but not too short.  Two, she wore her makeup in such a subtle manner you didn’t even notice. Her lips had a red glow.  But third as my eyes traced her long legs, it was the high heels.  You just don’t see those kinds of shoe around here.  What would a blonde with those legs be doing here in this mountain resort town?

Well, I did try to concentrate on class.  In the class the presenter had flashed a picture in front of us and said, ‘write about what you see in the picture.’  I had the picture in my head, but the blonde kept my interest.  

Suddenly my attention was jolted and what flashed in front of me were those legs and those high heels.  Standing before me was the blonde from across the room.  She asked me my name and I said it with such a shy voice I could hardly hear me.  So, she asked me again.  I could hardly get it out.  But I said my name.

She proceeded to hand me some folded papers and said, “Great. You’ve been served.”  And she walked out of my life.

Support the show

What is your happiest memory.  See if you can top this one. 

Support the show

Dress up and Go Dancing ... that was the tag line for the commercials.  It was 1963 and I was just out of high school.  Always the entrepreneur, I thought it would be a good idea to create a Teen-A-Go-Go for the youth in my home town.  Enjoy
 
Besides putting my record player out the window and blasting the neighbors I also got into trouble with some other neighbors a little later.  

 I had graduated from high school and was working as a paint shop helper at Caterpillar Tractor Company in East Peoria, Illinois.  I heard the cry that going around that there was no place for the “young people” of Chillicothe to go and have some good clean fun.

After traveling all the way to Peoria and seeing Chubby Checker at the Peppermint Lounge … a youth orientated dance club created by a member of the LaHood family.  And I saw such great acts as The Four Seasons and Jerry Lee Lewis.  I thought it was time that Chillicothe and the youth deserved a place like the one in Peoria.

After attending a Chillicothe City Council meeting and giving my big speech that Chillicothe needed a place for the youth.  Serendipity stepped in.  A man named Dean Riggins attended that meeting and afterward we talked on the sidewalk outside of City Hall.  I can remember that conversation like it was yesterday. He said, ‘he had a building that just might fit our purpose.’ 

Dean Riggins was a building contractor with unique visions.  He had constructed a motel and boat dock harbor on the shore of the Illinois River. His sales and repair building wasn’t being used and he thought it would really fit our purpose. The building had two sections.  The front room which was to be the show room for boats had a polished floor for dancing and the second room would be great for snack bar with tables that we purchased from the LaHood establishments in Peoria.

Dean helped us construct a stage that would fit into one corner.  In an old Country Club called Shore Acers, there was an old bar that really wasn’t being used and we transported it to the second room, and we were set.

The Sugar Shack in Chillicothe was born.  A place the youth of the area could go to and as our advertising phrase said, ‘Dress Up and Go Dancing.’  We booked bands on Friday and Saturday evening. The first band was a local group called the Rockin’ Ramrods.  Feature groups came from St Louis, The Jules Blattner Group, and the biggest night was when The Rivera's appeared when there one-hit-wonder California Sun was #4 in the nation.

The Sugar Shack was a hit.  Except for my neighbors.

It seemed Mr. Crossman and Dr. Green and three other neighbors didn’t like all the noise and traffic that we created each weekend.  So, after a year and half, they took us to court and had us closed down.  

Support the show

Of course, it was a cold Friday night; it was November in Chillicothe. The town where we knew almost everybody in town. 

I and a couple of friends were walking … heading north on Sixth Street. The street was silent. The town was silent. This was a night we were supposed to be dancing at the Sugar Shack. The music was supposed to be blaring … I was to be rejoicing and celebrating our youthful age.

 Since graduating from high school the past May, I had landed a great job at Caterpillar Tractor Company in Peoria, Illinois and I was working the third shift … the overnight shift. However, on this cold Friday night, Caterpillar had shut down for the weekend. That was really an anomaly. 

But earlier that day, I had been sleeping in my upstairs bedroom when I heard a strange voice call out to me. It was my eighty-seven-year-old Grandmother. She had lived with our family for several years as she and my grandfather had grown older and weren’t able to keep their house. She was always a great encouragement to me. Relaying those great stories how she had lived from the ‘horse and buggy’ to seeing rockets heading for the moon.

 “Lawrence,” she cried out. “I think you need to turn the TV on,’ she said. Now this was strange. Why would she be trying to wake me at 1:30 in the early afternoon? Didn’t she know I needed my sleep to work the overnight shift? 

 “Lawrence, the President has been shot!”  That got my attention. Even back then I was a News Junkie. I clamored out of bed and turned to my trusted news source CBS NEWS. It was 1:35 PM Central Time and Walter Cronkite took off his black horn-rimmed glasses and delivered that cold chilling News FLASH to the world. “From Dallas, Texas … the Flash … it’s apparently official President Kennedy died at One PM Standard Central Time.” 

 That Eerie and Bitter Cold November Friday night of 1963 still lingers with me as we walked north on Sixth Street in Chillicothe.

Support the show