Wednesday, September 14, 2016

The Restaurant Scam Story


                                                               The Restaurant Scam Story
                                                                                  1963
                                                                     Written 09/210/2016
                                                                          Howard Yasgar

      Back in 1963, I had dealt in Stamford Connecticut with a fellow named Lou. Lou was a really interesting character, his main business, at the time was selling used cars, but he never passed up a deal if he could make a few bucks on it.
      I was absolutely amazed at how Lou operated. When I first met him, he had a pay telephone on the wall in his office in Stamford, and when I went to use the telephone, I noticed a string hanging out of it. Lou said, “Make your call and put in the correct amount of change. When you hear the ding a ling of the coins being accepted, pull the string and all your money will come back. I tried it and it worked. Lou said a friend of his had the telephone key, and had showed him where to attach the string.
      The more I got to know Lou, the more I observed all the crazy things he was involved in. I always wondered how he ever learned to do all these slightly illegal things that he did. I knew he couldn’t have been born with that kind of innate knowledge, but I was embarrassed to come right out and ask him who had taught him all this stuff.
       One day we were driving from Tampa to Miami Florida, and Lou started reminiscing about his youth. He said that when he was 17 years old, he had a friend who was a photographer living in Miami. Lou said he would drive from Connecticut to Miami twice a year to visit his friend, but after a couple of years, he had to stop doing it. I asked Lou why, and he said that every time he visited his friend in Miami, his friend would take him to a different and very expensive restaurant. After they had eaten their fill, his friend would double over on the floor with pain, he loudly exclaimed that there was glass or something in the food. In just a moment the manager or the owners of the restaurant would help him into the inner office and lay him on a sofa. They were all very concerned about not calling an ambulance, after all what would all the customers think with this guy screaming about having glass in the food.
     After about 30 minutes, Lou’s friend would recover, to the relief of the restaurant staff, and Lou would help him walk out to their car, during all the commotion the bill for the meal was forgotten.
     That’s how I learned about one of Lou’s teachers.

The Bahamian Slot Machine Story


                                                                       The Bahamian Slot Machine Story
                                                                                            1993
                                                               Written 08/26/2016 Re-written 2/ 2019
                                                                                     Howard Yasgar

It was 1993 and my wife and I decided it was time to take a vacation.
Because we lived in Miami, we knew that it was just a hop skip and a jump to fly to Paradise Island, Nassau, in the Bahamas, we had done it several times before.
For us to get to Nassau was only a three quarters of an hour flight out of Miami.
You took off from Miami International Airport, and the next thing you knew, you were landing in Nassau.
Once we were in Nassau we would take a taxi and go over a toll bridge to Paradise Island.
On Paradise Island, there were several good hotels.
There was the Paradise Island Hotel and Casino, there was the Britannia Hotel, and the brand new Grand Hotel.
We liked staying on paradise island because of the casino there, and Katherine and I are 21 players.
But we also liked it because there was a toll bridge to get to Paradise Island, and underneath the bridge was where the  conch fishermen set up shop.
We always made sure that at some time during our stay we would go under the toll bridge and have a conch salad.
The fishermen would take a live conch they had hanging over the side of their boat, remove the conch from  his shell, and then chop up the edible meat into quarter inch pieces Then they cut up onion, green peppers and whatever other vegetable they had including a couple of hot scotch bonnet pepper, all of it would go in a plastic bread bag, and shook up with lots of lime juice, boy was that salad good as we sat on the concrete sea wall and  ate it out of the plastic bag.
For quite a few years we always stayed at the Paradise Island Hotel and Casino, that was until they built the new Grand hotel and then we started staying there.
The routine with the Grand Hotel was always the same, they used local people to administrate the front counter.
My wife Katherine would call them from Miami and make reservations and get a confirmation number.
Then when we arrived at the hotel, the Bahamian desk clerk would say they had no record of our reservation, and they had no rooms available.
They did this every single time, so when we arrived at the hotel, I would sit an a lobby chair and relax as my wife would do battle with the desk clerk.
Once it got very serious and the hotel manager ended giving us a free supper on the house.
This year, when we decided to go to Nassau, I looked over my wardrobe only to find that I had outgrown my dress pants and my sport jacket.
So my wife Katherine dragged me to the mall to get some new clothes.
As I looked for a sport jacket, I saw that one store had had a large stock of beige ultra suede jackets.
I had never owned a Ultra Suede jacket before, so I had to try one on.
The jacket was nice and, and it fit me perfectly, but the price of the jacket was much higher than I had expected to spend. The jacket was $285.00 and that was a pricy sum in 1993.  
I don’t think I ever spent more than $100.00 for a jacket in my life.
As I started to take the Suede jacket off, my wife gave me that look, and I knew what that meant, so I bought the Ultra Suede jacket.
By the time we left the shopping mall, I had an entirely new wardrobe including the jacket.  
Now once my wife and I had our room at the grand hotel, we would just walk next door to the Casino,
We are both low stakes 21 card players and we can spend hours sitting at a card table.
When we get tired of playing, we usually walk around the casino, and sometimes we play a few of the slot machines.
On this particular day, it was about 10 in the evening and the casino was loaded with people, there were no seats available, so  Katherine and I, were casually walking around the casino waiting for a couple of seats to become available.
As we walked around, we both started playing the 25 cent slot machines.
While playing the slot machines, I always try to keep my eye on Katherine so I can find her.
That evening, I saw she was playing a slot machine and the red and white lights on the top of the machine were blinking, and a bell was ringing.
I walked over, and saw that the tray in the slot machine was absolutely filled with quarters.
Katherine said, “This is a really good slot machine, I can’t lose”.
It appeared that every time Katherine put in 3 quarters, and she pulled the handle, more quarters poured into the tray.
I think that was why the slot machines bells were ringing, and it’s lights were flashing.
We wondered, could just be good luck or was the machine broken.
As she kept playing, soon the quarters were just about overflow the machines tray.
I looked around for cups to put the quarters in but there weren’t any near us, so I started scooping up quarters out and putting them in my jacket pockets.
As fast as I scooped the quarters out, Katherine kept playing, and every time she  pulled the lever, more quarters came out.
It wasn’t long before I had no more room to put any more quarters in my pockets.
Just then, the Bahamian slot machine floor boss must have see the slot machines lights blinking, and he walked over to us.
He looked at the tray, it was again  full of quarters.
Then he looked at Katherine’s innocent face.
He politely said, “Madam, I believe this machine is out of order”.
The fellow put his key in the machine to shut off the blinking  lights, and then he reached into the coin tray,
pushing a small handful of the quarters towards Katherine, but then he then pushed 80% of the quarters away from her, obviously intending to keep them for the casino.
I watched as Katherine, who had now found several big paper cups, bent over and scooped his big pile of coins into the cups, leaving him with only a hand full of quarters.
I could see he was kind of shocked, but he never said a word, as we walked to the cashier cage to turn in our quarters.
I emptied out all the quarters that were in the pockets of my new ultra suede jacket, I had close to $300.00.
It was then that we noticed that the pockets in the ultra suede jacket were stretched about one inch lower than they should have been.
The weight of the quarters had stretched out the suede jacket pockets, and completely ruined my jacket.
Once we were back in Miami, I went to a tailor, and he tried every trick to fix the pockets, and that cost me another $100.00, and now the jacket was not only had stretched pockets but it was crooked as well.
That new $285.00 ultra suede jacket went right into the trash.     
   

The Dr. Gruber Shark Repellent Story


          The Dr. Gruber Shark Repellent Story
                                                                                          1993
                                                                                     A true story

                                                              Written 08/24/2016 Re-written 2/2019
                                                                                   Howard Yasgar
In the 1990’s I had a company called API Marine, and I was involved in the marine industry.
I had a dear friend named Richard. Richard was an absolute expert in all phases of the marine industry.
At one time or another Richard had done just about everything in the industry. Richard was a fellow that just loved everything and anything that had to do with the marine industry.
Because of  Richard, I was introduced me Dr. Sonny Gruber.
Dr. Gruber is a professor with the University of Miami and he is the world’s foremost authority on Lemon sharks, and he is pretty much an expert on anything to do with sharks.
You can usually see Dr. Gruber when it’s “Shark Week” on television.
Dr. Gruber runs a shark institute on the island of Bimini in the Bahamas.
At Dr. Gruber’s institute on Bimini, scientists studying sharks come from all over the world just to study about sharks with him.
Running the shark institute is quite an undertaking, and it requires a lot of work, as everything they need there has to come over by boat from Miami.
So my friend Richard, always went out of his way to help Dr. Gruber. He did it by finding  boats that were needed to ferry supplies from Miami to Bimini.
Richard even  went along on many of the supply trips with Dr. Gruber.
So that’s how I met Dr. Sonny Gruber, it was when Richard brought him over to meet me.
One day my friend Richard tells me the following story.
He said that Dr. Gruber, early in his career, like most all professors do, he was always seeking government grants. Dr. Gruber had told Richard that the government had many subjects that they were interested in doing research on, and all professors have access to the list. Then If a professor see’s something he or she is interested in they can write up a proposal, and if it is accepted, the government will give them a financial grant to do the research.
So early in his career, Dr. Gruber saw that the government was looking to solve a problem, sharks were attacking the sonar array that is towed behind all military submarines.
Dr. Gruber had an idea, he knew that there was a fish living in the Red Sea, called the Moses Soul Fish, and sharks just won’t eat them.
Dr. Gruber felt that the Moses Soul fish must have some kind of natural anti-shark chemical in it.
So he suggested that he be given a grant to study what the chemical was.
The government must have liked his idea because  he received a grant to move to Israel with his family for two years and study the Moses Soul fish that was located in the Red Sea.
After the two years in Israel, Dr. Gruber had extracted and synthesized the anti shark chemical.
He gave all the information to the government and he never heard any more about it.
One evening many years later, Dr. Gruber and Richard were sitting on the beach in Bimini, and Sonny Gruber told Richard the story about the shark repellent.    
Richard became excited, he knew that everyone in the marine industry wanted a shark repellent.
So Richard  asked Dr. Gruber to please contact the Navy to find out what happened to the anti-shark chemical he had synthesized.
Eventually Dr. Gruber received a reply from the Navy, they felt that because the chemical had to pass through the sharks gills to be effective, they couldn’t use it and Dr. Gruber could do whatever he wanted with it.
Richard was ecstatic, he wanted to set up a company right away to market the shark repellent, and that’s when I came into the picture.
Richard came to me, and he was very excited, he said he thought everyone wanted a shark repellent and he Richard had the exclusive rights to market Dr. Gruber’s shark repelling chemical.
Richard said that with my distribution network we could market the shark repellent to every marine dealer and dive shop in the United States.
Richard was sure it was going to be a financial success, as everyone had been looking for a shark repellent ever since WWII, when pilots that crashed In the Pacific were attacked by sharks before they could be rescued.                  
I asked Richard how Dr. Gruber’s shark repellent worked, and Richard said the chemical needed to pass through the sharks gills, when it did, it irritated the sharks gills, and caused it to swim away.
I gave it some thought, it all sounded too impractical to me, how would someone ever squirt the chemical in a shark’s mouth so it would pass over its gills.
I was surprised when Richard said that was no problem, and he unfolded a set of detailed drawings of a compressed air gun that could shoot the repellent.
I could see Richard had put a lot of time and hard work into designing the shark repellent gun. The drawings were technically perfect  and all had been done in color.
In Richards invention, the repellent was in a cartridge and it was placed in the gun. Then a small compressed gas cylinder was also inserted. He said the gun could be used several times before the compressed air cartridge needed to be replaced.
I couldn’t believe that Richard actually thought someone could shoot this thing into a shark’s mouth.
Richard was very excited, he said we could sell the repellent and gun to the life raft manufacturers they could put one in with each raft they sold.
I said, how could people sitting in a life raft ever use it, as it needed to be shot into the shark’s mouth. Richard said we could put a set of underwater goggles in with each kit, and he was serious.
I tried to calm Richard down, I said, Richard, I think Dr. Gruber’s shark repellent is worthless, no one would have the nerve to get in the water with sharks to squirt it in their mouth.
I think Richard was starting to realize that what I was saying was true, so he then said, well, we can sell it to dive shops. Scuba divers are in the water anyway and they would have no problem squirting the chemical in a shark’s mouth.
Well I had to agree with Richard on that point, so I made a phone call to one of our sales representatives that also called on dive shops, and I introduced him to Richard. Richard asked if the salesman could sell the shark repellent to dive shops.
The salesman said, “NO Way”, He said scuba divers love sharks, that’s why they dive in the first place, they want to attract sharks, not scare them away.
It was several months later I read that someone had invented a shark repellent that you wore like a belt, and it slowly dissolved in the water and chased the sharks away.
That invention sounded a little more practical, Richard must have read about it also, as he never mentioned Dr. Gruber’s shark repellent to me again.

                                                 

Eichel and the Missing Car Story


  Eichel and the Missing Car Story

 1963
 Written 09/10/2016
   Howard Yasgar
In early 1963, I was a partner in a used car lot on West Main Street in Stamford Connecticut.
One of my partners, was a fellow named Abe Zion, Abe was the smartest and best entrepreneur I had ever met.
The third partner in the car lot was an elderly gentleman named Eichel  Blumenstock, he was a fellow that was a long time friend of Abe’s.
Every month Abe and I would drive to White Plains New York, and we would look for any of the larger new car agencies, we looked for one  that had A lot of older cars sitting in their back row.
Abe would walk in and with an air of authority, ask for the used car manager, then he would then talk the manager into selling us their back row of  older care that had been traded in.
Abe would pay the agency manager $50.00 for each car, no matter what condition the car was in.
My job was to get the cars running, drive them all back to our used car lot  in Stamford Connecticut and get them into a presentable and drivable condition.
Once a car was ready we would then put an arbitrary price  on the front window with white window polish. We would sell the cars from $99.00 to as much as $299.00 each.
Back in 1963 there was no shortage of customers, eager to buy a cheap car for cash.
While Abe and I would be attending to his other businesses, we would leave Eichel Blumenstock in our small used car office, his job was selling the cars.
Eichel, despite his age, and despite the fact that he wore his pants up to his chest, was fully capable of talking to the customers, filling out the papers and taking their money.
Eichel, was a pretty smart fellow, in his younger days before Hitler, he was the Michelin tire distributors for all of Germany.
When the Nazi’s arrested him, Eichel fled to Palestine where he met Abe.
Now in 1963, Abe and Eichel were both in America and inseparable, and I was a junior partner with them the Stamford used car lot.
Eichel, I found, was a very honest as well as a highly religious person.   
However, after several months, of our doing business, I sat down to do the books.
I soon determined that 10 or 12 cars were missing, from our inventory, so I immediately told Abe that we were missing a lot of  cars.
Abe went over to Eichel who was sitting pensively in a chair with his hands folded in his lap, and he sternly said, “Eichel, where are the cars, I am told that 12 cars are missing”.
“Yes, Eichel said, they are all on the highway.”
Now, turns out that Eichel Blumenstock was a devout Jew, and he lived in an apartment in the Bronx in New York.
So every Friday evening, Eichel would pick one of our cars from our used car lot to drive home to New York,
He would put one of our temporary used car license plates on the vehicle, and he  would drive it to his home in the Bronx.
However as he was an extremely devoted Jew, Eichel, could not do anything mechanical on Friday evening after sundown, and that included driving.
So if Eichel got stuck in the bumper to bumper traffic in New York, and if it was after sundown, he would simply take  the temporary license plate off the car, put it in his jacket pocket and walk home to his apartment in the Bronx, he did it, even If it took him all night.
Eichel simply abandoned the cars, leaving them stuck in the New York traffic.   
                                        

Doctor Gruber and the Dockta Facockta Story

                                                   Doctor Gruber and the Dockta Facockta Story
                                                                                     1995
                                                                       Written 09/06/2016                                    
                                                                           Howard Yasgar



      Dr. Samuel Gruber is a South Florida shark Biologist, He is a professor at the University of Miami’s Rosentiel School for Marine and atmospheric science, and he holds a MS and PH D in marine science. Doctor Gruber is the founder of the Bimini Biologic Field Station Foundation. At the Bimini Field Station, Doctors, professors and shark biology students from all over the world come to study sharks with him. In 2008 Dr. Gruber appeared on the History Channels documentary series about sharks. When it comes to Lemon Sharks, Dr. Gruber is the world’s foremost authority.
      My Wife and I had the good fortune to meet and become friends with Dr. Sonny Gruber, it happened because we were friends with Richard Schneider.
      Richard Schneider was in the Marine and boating business, and whenever he had free time he would assist Dr. Gruber in provisioning the Bimini Shark Institute. All the provisions had to be transported 50 miles from Miami to Bimini by boat. So Richard, as a good friend, would always help Dr. Gruber whenever he could, by making the trip back and forth to Bimini. On many occasions they arrived late in the afternoon so Richard would stay overnight at the institute.
      Richard told me that he always enjoyed staying at the institute. He said there was only one thing he didn’t like. Every evening when they all sat down for supper, Dr. Gruber would make the introductions so everyone at the institute knew who was sitting at the table. Most all of the visitors were Professors or biologists that held Doctorate degrees.  So Dr. Gruber would introduce each as Doctor. As he went around the table, the visitors who were from all over the world, were each introduced as Doctor So and So, Gruber  did that because they all held doctorate degrees. That was until he got to Richard, who he would introduce only as “My friend Richard Schneider”.  Richard lamented that he felt insignificant in the presence of so many highly educated people with Doctorate degrees, and he had no degree.
      I had remembered watching the Sid Caesar show on television many years ago where Sid Caesar, had made believe he was speaking German and introduced himself in a skit  as “Dockta Facockta”, In Yiddish Facockta means something that is pretty crappy.           
      I suggested to Richard that he tell Dr. Gruber, that the next time he was making introductions at the shark institute, he should introduce Richard as Dockta Facockta, but I don’t think Richard liked my idea too much.
      Several months later, one summer evening Richard was delivering a racing boat from Miami to Fort Lauderdale. My wife Katherine and I and Doctor Gruber were waiting for Richard to arrive at the marina. We were all going to Tarks seafood restaurant once Richard arrived. It was pretty dark and we were afraid Richard had gotten lost, so Doctor Gruber called Richard on his cell phone. I took the phone and I said Dockta Facockta where are you?
      Doctor Gruber’s eyed got big, and he said, who is Dockta Facockta? I said that’s the name I gave to Richard
So you can introduce him at the Shark Institute. Doctor Gruber was silent for a moment, then he said. “No Way, I want to be Dockta Facockta.