Lady I Think You May Be The One With Issues

It's 1974 and  my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Bood( tremendous name for a tremendously odd woman) had asked my class to write a paper on something personal about ourselves. My paper was on how I got my middle name. Well, after I wrote my paper, Mrs. Bood called my mother to tell her that she was a bit concerned with my paper and was wondering if there was anything going on with me or at my home that she should know about. She told my mother that she thought that I may have some issues that needed to be addressed. My mother asked why and Mrs. Bood said that when asked to write a paper about something personal about ourselves, that my story seemed to be not only massively exaggerated but an out an out fabrication. My mother being someone that wasn't going to let someone tell her that her son was a liar said right back at her "Lady, I think you may be the one with the issues, that story was 100% true!"
So, here is the story of how I got my middle name. Back in 1964, my mother (who was a really good athlete in her day) was on a bowling team in a league on the northside of Chicago. Her bowling team won the league title and my mother was a big part of it. Not only that but she also happened to be 8 months pregnant with me at the time! I'm sure in today's world, doctors probably would recommend that bowling at 8 months pregnant wouldn't be the best thing in the world to do. Also smoking cigarettes and having the occasional drink would probably be frowned upon which I also know my mother did while she was pregnant with me. (Guess what? anyone reading this over the age of 45, your moms probably did the same thing). So, anyhow, the bowling alley that she bowled at and won the league title was named the Howard Bowl. ( on Howard street by the Howard L for all you folks that grew up on the Northside of Chicago or Skokie). Yes, my mother had such a fond experience there that she named me after a bowling alley. So this is how I got my middle name.

Hey, Mom you couldn't have been in a league at ALL-STAR LANES in Skokie on Dempster?

Danny All-Star Friedman

That would have been sweet!

Captain Impulse

I like to think that I'm that I'm a decisive person but others may call it being impulsive. This next story will confirm the latter.  It was 2008 and I was looking to get a new car. Let me preface this by saying I've never been a car guy. What I mean is I don't need the fanciest or most expensive new car out there. I want a solid dependable car that gets me from A to B. I've never owned a BMW, Mercedes or the like.  Well, about 10 years ago I had such bad back problems ( Actually my piriformis muscle was really messed up-The piriformis muscle is a huge muscle that goes from you ankle to your butt) that I actually had to get rid of my Toyota Camry because if I drove it for more than 20 minutes, I'd be in pain for 3 days. So I had to find a car that my back could take. It ended up being a Ford Escape. Great little SUV that worked perfectly on my back. So now about 4 years go by and I'm thinking I might want a new car. Probably should just get the newer version of the Ford Escape, knowing that it works with my back issue but that would be too easy. In my infinite wisdom, I decide that if I can find a high end (BMW, Mercedes, Volvo or the like) truck in a price range I could live with, I would go that route. Looking on a bunch of car websites, something catches my eye( this was about 2 days after I decided to look for a new car). CARMAX had a Cadillac SRX ( a station wagon on steroids) that was only a year old, had about 15,000 miles on it and was right in my price range.  It's at a CARMAX about 45 minutes away from me and of course, I drive out there that afternoon.  The car salesman at CARMAX takes me out to see the car. It's a beauty. Fully Loaded. Great looking car. I take it for a test drive and decide I love it( test drive was about 2 blocks in the car lot). I call my wife and tell her about it. My wife knowing me and my impulsive nature says "You sure you want that car? Don't you have to be 70 to own a Cadillac?"  I tell her it's really nice. She says, "I know you're going to get it so just do it"  CARMAX has a policy that if you change your mind within 5 days, you can return the car you bought( REMEMBER THIS STATEMENT). I sell them my Ford Escape and then buy the Cadillac. I'm feeling great. I drive it home and it just so happens that my Father-in-Law is there standing with my wife on my driveway. As I get out, my Father-in- Law (who is 70 at the time) says "NICE CAR!" My wife just shrugged. The next day I drive to play golf in the morning and I feel a little twinge in my back. Uh oh. No way. This great new car cannot be hurting my back. I play golf and drive back. The Twinge in my back is getting worse. This is not good. Also, not good is that I'm about to get pulled over by an Illinois State Trooper for speeding. I pull to the shoulder and State Trooper (who looked pretty angry-maybe I interrupted his donut break) is eye balling my new car as he's writing me a speeding ticket. He says "The Caddies go mighty fast, don't they?"  Oh brother.  After I was handed the ticket by Officer Friendly I decided right there, the car is going back. This was bad Karma. The back pain, the ticket and all in just 2 days of owning the car. So I called CARMAX and said I changed my mind so I want to return the car. I could bring it back tomorrow and they could give me back Ford Escape I sold them. GUESS AGAIN. CARMAX's 5 day return policy only pertains to cars you buy not cars you sell them. So I was informed I can't get my Ford Escape back. I was steaming. All I wanted to do was get my old car back and forget about this. Nope. I spoke to everyone at CARMAX except the guy who washes the cars and was told the same thing. We own your old car. I still wanted to get rid of the Bad Karma Cadillac. So my plan was to take the car back the next morning when they open, get my money back and then go buy the newest version of the Ford Escape. Not happy but no problem. CARMAX did tell me that the car had to come back with no damage to it or they would not refund my money. I thought no problem but GUESS AGAIN. My wife was not around and I had to take my youngest to a birthday party at the municipal pool in my town. Now the pool was built in 1961 so the parking lot was built then too and the biggest cars they had to worry about were station wagons and not today's SUV monstrosities that every suburban mom seems to be driving. I drive my daughter to the pool and park so far away in the parking lot that we almost had to take a taxi to get her to the actual pool.  Survived that. Now it's the next morning and I have to get the Cadillac back to CARMAX in one piece. I'm driving on the highway about 35 miles per hour with my hazard lights on in the middle lane. I must have looked like a total mental patient but I didn't care. My wife is following me because I need a ride home and she's laughing the entire time. We get to the CARMAX return the car and get my money back. My wife drops me off at the Ford dealership and I buy a new Ford Escape like you might buy a candy bar.  No haggling, negotiating.  I like that color, let's go with it. 4 years later I still have that car and have been banned by my wife and financial planner from looking at car websites.

Boot Camp: How Hard Could It Be?

So I just made a major life change in that I quit Karate after 7 years of training. As you move up in belt rankings, your commitment level(more weekly classes and training) also goes up and with a full time job, part time speaking/sales training/blog writing job and oh yeah, a family(which includes 2 teenage daughters who I love to death but are sucking the life and $$$$ out of me) I didn't have it in me. Loved it, appreciated it and can do damage(hopefully never have to) to anyone if I truly need to. So now I was looking for a new type of workout. I already do weight lifting 3 days a week in the gym in my basement but was looking for a bit more. Well, I joined a health club in my town for cardio classes. I've never taken cardio classes but decided it was time. Started out with spin classes (basically intense road cycling classes done on a special stationary bike to great music). Love spin classes. Then I took a kick/boxing class. Again, intense work out but done to music(I love music, especially working out to it).  Great class. The next class I was going to try was something called "Boot Camp"  When I joined the health club the club manager said to me that "Boot Camp" was a 45 minute circuit training that was very intense but not for everyone. I told him that I was in pretty good shape and was looking for something replace my Karate training. He took one look at me and said "I think this class might be right up your alley"  It's a Thursday night and I go upstairs where the "Boot Camp" is being held. There's about 40 people and no one that physically impressive looking. Being new, I follow this woman in front of me as they send our group of 8 to the 1st circuit training. This was for abdominal work and the guy doing the 3 minute circuit training is a hulk of a man who proceeds to have us do fairly easy abdominal exercises. A loud whistle blows and we go to the next circuit station. The guy running this circuit station is bigger than the first guy and has an Eastern European accent. He looks like he was just let out of the Gulag and all he did while he was doing time for god's know what, was lifting weights. He's yelling at us to run up and down a flight of stairs. Being my first time and not knowing the drill after 3 times of doing this, I say "Should we keep going?" He looks at me and tells me( actually yelling) "Yes, move it!" Geez, relax roid boy, I can hear you. Whistle blows. Next Station. This circuit station is what they call the "Jumping Station". We are playing follow the leader and the leader is a 25 year old guy who is like a jack rabbit on speed. He's making us jump on steps, left leg only, right leg only. Jump, Jump, Jump.  At one point, I felt like saying "Hey buddy, how about slowing down a bit. Not all of us have been drinking Red Bull for 10 hours straight. Whistle Blows. We go on to do 2 more stations(one was doing squats with weights for 3 straight minutes and the other one was doing push ups with weights that the Nazis wish they could have used in WWII).  Finally, the last whistle blew and just sit there in massive pain and dripping wet. The jack rabbit and the roid boys all scurry downstairs to no doubt eat protein shakes or rip phone books in half. As I'm walking out to my car feeling a lot pain in muscles I didn't even know I had, I'm thinking "That really wasn't pleasant and I actually paid for this physical abuse".

Insert Foot in Mouth

The year is 1991 and I'm on my honeymoon with my new young bride (who is still putting up with me 20 years later).  We both had little money at the time so our travel agent said that we could stay in a nice resort for 7 days or 10 days at not so nice(some might describe it as a "Dump") resort. Of course, we chose the latter so we could have a longer honeymoon. Well. here are some of the lowlights of the resort:

1) The balcony of our room had a ginormous water boiler on it. Nice

2) The gift/sundry shop was open 1 day out of the 10 days we were there and the day it was open, it was open from 1:00 P.M. -1:15 P.M. Really nice

3) Our room overlooked where the employees showered, so we got a show everyday. Unfortunately for us, the employees looked more like Rosie O' Donnell and Chris Farley than Brad Pitt and Heidi Klum

So as in most all-inclusive resorts, you're seeing the same people day in, day out. At our resort, there where a lot of Europeans, especially Germans. There was one fellow from Germany that had the disease alopecia. Alopecia is where you have no hair on your body at all. This man had no hair on his head and no eyebrows. You get the picture. So as our trip is going on, we would always notice this man because unfortunately he did stick out in the crowd. It is the 2nd to last day of our trip and we're in the main restaurant having lunch. As we are eating, my wife says ( and kind of loudly) "I wonder where the bald guy is? I haven't seen him all day"  Well, This man is sitting directly behind my wife and a table about 2 feet away. I look down at my meal and said quietly "He's right behind you"  My wife turned white(which was tough to do because after 9 days in Jamaica, she had a great tan). Never missing an opportunity to humor myself (even at the expense of my new bride and future mother of my daughters) I say "You know, if there's one word in the English language this guy knows it's BALD"  To this day, my wife and I always have a good laugh on our anniversary thinking about that.

Good Thing Jews Don't Believe in Hell Part 2

January 14, 1978.  That was the date of my Bar Mitzvah. This is the ceremony where a Jewish boy who has turned 13 joins the Jewish Community as ""Man". Right. All 4' 10 and 85 lbs of me was becoming a "Man"! There is a long service at the synagogue that the young boy reads out of the Torah(Jewish Holy Scriptures) and then afterwards there is a party(only motivation for Jewish boys to go through 5 years of the torturous religious school). Well, my synagogue was really hardcore. Very religious(my family wasn't religious but the synagogue was close to my house and when it came to my family, convenience beats religious faith). Old school members who would sit at Saturday morning services for 5 hours. Hardcore. Well, back to my momentous day and the 2 things that stood out the most, First, if you know me(really if you know  either of my parents or siblings), you know that I have a genetic birth defect. Volumous Maximus. I'm loud. Really loud. Not only that but I had the same voice I have now as a 46 year old man as I did as a child. (yes,I could order over the phone a keg of beer for my kindergarten class!) So, I'm up on the synagogue stage reading the Torah with the Rabbi and the Cantor(Jewish Religious teacher and Synagogue Choir leader) in front of the entire congregation(about 500 people) and there is a microphone so people can hear the young boys speak.  I'm banging away chanting, singing and praying with my parents in the front row beaming with with pride. (the front row was saved for the parents of the Bar Mitzvah boy and the old hardcore synagogue members-usually Jewish men ranging in age from 78-106). All of a sudden I see the Rabbi lean over to the Cantor and say "Shut off his mike, he's killing the first two rows!"
The second thing that I will always remember is that after I was done reading out of the Torah, my parents come up on the stage with me and the Rabbi and present me with my Tallis(Jewish Prayer Shawl that men and now women wear to Jewish services). UH OH!  I had learned verbatum to near perfection all the prayers and my Torah reading portion but totally forgot that I had to do the prayer for receiving my Tallis. I knew that it began with the word "Baruch" and ended with the words "Ba Zti Zti"  So I winged it. After saying "Baruch", I rattled off any Jewish words i knew and ended with "Ba Zti Zti".  Who knows what I even said. Well, The Rabbi knew! As my parents were beaming and looking at me with so much pride, the Rabbi was looking at me with a big scowl on his face probably thinking "That little ....."

You Think They'll Go On A Trip With Us Again?

It's 1991, and my wife and I decided we'd like to go on a trip and also invited my best friend and his wife. Being newlyweds and young, we didn't have a lot of money so we were looking for something really economical. My sister was super nice and offered us a time share she had for a week for $150 for the week.  She's a saint and I love her dearly.  The time share was on the island of ABACO, about 40 miles away from Miami. Well, this trip could only be described as "The trip from Hell".  Due to all the bizarre and messed up things that happened on this trip(bad beach, no restaurants on the island, bad weather, horrible bug problems in the condo, the flight to the island, etc...), I'm only going to write about the 3 things that I think stand out.

#1 THE FLIGHT FROM MIAMI TO ABACO
   We land in Miami from Chicago and have to take another flight for about 35-40 minutes to get to ABACO. Well, the plane.which is an old propeller model, that takes us seats 8, including the pilot. Our luggage had to go on a separate plane. They're asking all of us how much we weigh and that's how we are seated on the plane. My luck, I get to sit right next pilot, who's a pretty angry looking fellow. I actually have controls including a steering wheel right in front of me. I'm thinking, "I've played Nintendo a lot, maybe he'll let me land this baby". Guess again. Before we take off, the pilot looks at me and says "I'm only saying this because you look like the type of guy, DON"T TOUCH A FUCKIN' THING!"


#2 WILL THAT BE THE SHOULDER OR CONCH, SIR?
    The first night we get there, we find a BBQ Place(actually looked like a tool shed with a grill in it) and decide to eat there.  Well, tonight's special is Shoulder( not the best cut of meat) or conch( the fish that lives inside those shells you put up to your ear to hear the ocean). We each pick our choices. The next day at lunch at our condo restaurant, the waiter says, you have a choice of Fried Conch or Shoulder for lunch. Huh? You got to be kidding me? Was this left over food from the Tool Shed BBQ? As it turned out, this was the only food they had on the island. I'm not kidding. Every meal consisted of some form of Conch(Conch Fritters, Grilled Conch, Conch Omelets, etc...sounds like Bubba from Forrest Gump) or Shoulder. My buddy that doesn't eat seafood had shoulder for 7 days straight.( I think his cholesterol went from 175 to 657 in one week!). We were able to go to the store and buy some spaghetti for a couple of meals. Fine dining

#3 THAT WAS AN INTERESTING BOAT RIDE
   The weather for most of the week was pretty bad.  Cloudy and not that warm. We had scheduled a boat ride that was going to take us to some remote beach( hope they have a restaurant on that beach!). It was the 4 of us and another 4 people on a motor boat that resembled a oversized canoe with a lawn mower engine on it. Bad start.  It's  only partly cloudy and we're actually thinking we might get a good weather day. We head off on the 35 minute boat ride. At about the 15 minute mark, it's getting cloudier, actually ominous. Black clouds, much colder and the wind is picking up big time.  The water is getting rough and the ride is getting rougher. The captain of the boat starts passing out black garbage bags for us to put over us as pseudo rain ponchos. Now the rain starts coming(of course!) and it coming hard. The captain is telling us to relax but no one on the boat is buying it. It's now a full out rain storm in the middle of the ocean. My buddy looks at me and says "I'm not sure if I've ever seen one but that sure looks like a funnel cloud" HOLY SHIT! We're all now looking at basically a tornado in the ocean. At that point the captain say "We probably should head back"
YA THINK?!?!?

So, fortunately, my vacations since that trip have been better but I will always remember my trip to ABACO


   

Good Thing Jews Don't Believe In Hell

The year is 2002 and my company has moved its offices from the city into the suburbs, which is great because now I'm about 12 minutes away from my home instead of 45 minutes. There's also a Jewish Center about a block away. This facility  is your standard Jewish Center with classrooms, meeting rooms, a fitness center and a gym. I decide to join so I can workout at lunch time. Well, every Friday, there is a basketball game that goes on at noon. I didn't have any desire to play in the game because most of the guys that played were really bad and uncoordinated(not that I'm getting calls from the NBA but I'm used to playing in better games than this). So one Friday around noon as I'm in the fitness center lifting weights, a guy comes in and says "We really need a player in our basketball game. Will you play?'  I say "No thank you. I'm just going to workout here"  He persists. "If you don't play, we don't have enough for a game. Can you play just one game?"  I said "Fine"  So the gym is constructed in that it has a regulation size basketball court but also 4 baskets on the sides meaning you can turn the big basketball court into 2 smaller basketball courts if there are a lot of people. So we begin to play on the big court. Well, all of a sudden some more people show up. Then a few more people show up. There's probably enough guys to play on 2 courts but we're still going to finish this first game on the big court. Well, there's a guy on the sidelines waiting that is yelling at all of us playing. He's yelling "Stop the game! We need to play on 2 courts! Stop the game!"  I mean this guy was a lunatic. We keep playing and he's still yelling to stop the game. I'm dribbling the ball up the court and this guy walks right into the middle of the court again yelling "Stop the game!!"  Well, I don't know about the other guys playing but I decided that I had listened to enough of this mental patient. I look right at him and yell "SIT YOUR ASS DOWN AND SHUT THE F*CK UP!"  He looks at me and turned around to walk back to the side of the gym. The game stops. People are looking at me amazed. I'm thinking "What's the big deal?". This isn't the first time (or probably the last) that I've yelled at someone that is out of hand. One of the guys walks up to me and says "Do you know who that is?" I said "No?"  He says "That's the new Rabbi at B'Nai Tikvah"  Without hesitation, I said "I don't care if he's the  Pope. He can wait his turn like everyone else" 

Alway making friends wherever I go!