The Suva Bay Fiji Story

                                                                        The Suva Bay Fiji Story

                                                                                         1993

                                                                             Written 01/04/2017

                                                                                 Howard Yasgar

                                    A true story that happened in Fiji, it was a one in a million chance

In Dec of 1993, I was talking to my good friend Neil Metcalf  who was living in Brisbane Australia.

Neil suggested that after my yearly business was done in Taiwan, my wife Katherine and I should come and visit him in Brisbane.

Neil said that if we could come to see him and his wife Roselyn , he would then like us to join hem a trip to Fiji,

It was where he and Roselyn had spent their honeymoon.

Neil said that he wanted to take us to the very same resort where he was married. It all sounded pretty exciting so we told Neil that we would do it.

Now, here comes the interesting part of the story.

At my business in Miami we have a room where we kept our fax and copy machine.

Over one of the desks, someone had put up a beautiful 8-1/2 x 11 picture of swaying palm trees with water in the background, I assumed it was a Florida picture someone had  cut out of a magazine.

Every time I went into the room, I looked at the picture, thinking it was taken somewhere in Florida, and finally one day, I went over and looked closely at it to see where the picture had be taken. In fine print it said  “Suva Bay Fiji”.

Wow, what a coincidence, here I was, planning a trip to Fiji, and here was a picture that must have been taken somewhere in Fiji.

So I gently removed the picture off of the wall.

I showed my wife the picture and we decided to take the picture with us to Fiji, who knows, there was possibly one chance in a million we would recognize the place where the picture was taken.

We were on a mission.                    

Well once we were in Fiji, Our friend Neil was a perfect tour guide, and he took us sightseeing everywhere.

Eventually we ended up heading for a hotel in the capital city of Suva.

On the way to the hotel we passed Suva bay.

I took out the picture, but nothing around Suva Bay looked even close.

After checking into the hotel in Suva, I decided to give finding the picture one last shot.

When we went downstairs for supper my wife and I walked over to the front desk clerk and I took out the picture and showed it to him.

He studied it for about a minute and said, sure, he said, I know this picture, it was published in a magazine years ago. It was taken from the balcony of room 235 upstairs on the second floor.

He said the room is presently unoccupied, would you like to see it? Sure, we said, so he took us upstairs.

At room 235 we walked out on the balcony with the picture in hand, and sure enough there it was, the swaying palm trees with Suva Bay in the background. We had actually found the exact spot the picture was taken from, our mission in was accomplished.

      

  

The Smart Consultant Story

                                                                       The Smart Consultant Story

                                                                                          1967

                                                                              Written 09/2016

                                                                                Howard Yasgar

This story was told to me by an associate named Abe Zion.

Abe was one of the smartest people that I ever had the privilege of meeting.  

He told me that this is true story, and actually had happened.

I think he told me the story to teach me something and I am glad he did.

Abe was involved in many things,  one of them was business consulting.

Ace was a freelance consultant, he was available for a fee to come into a business and advise the owner how to improve it.

Usually Abe was called upon when a business was already failing. But that was not the case in this story.

One day Abe was in New York City having lunch with a friend.

As they sat there,  Abe’s friend recognized a fellow that had a highly successful candy manufacturing company.

He called the fellow over to introduce him to Abe.

The candy manufacturer winced when he heard Abe was a consultant.

He said his operation had already been studied by all kinds of consultants and engineers and it was the most modern candy manufacturing plant in New York.

Abe asked the fellow if he could see his operation as possibly he could learn something.

The candy manufacturer was hesitant  but eventually said yes, Abe could come over and see his operation.

Abe said the factory was huge and employed over 400 people.

The owner took Abe on a walking tour of the company, he was very proud of it.

They started walking  where the raw materials like sugar, chocolate and the  different flavors, were mixed.

Then Abe saw all the latest and most modern candy making machinery.

There were several automatic tunnels where the candies were covered in chocolate and came out on conveyor belts.

There were rows of women sitting there making pretty swirls on top of each candy to identify what flavors were inside.

From that point the candies cooled and went to the packaging department.

As the candy reached the end of the production line it was a thing of beauty to watch as several women put 30 assorted chocolates, all with different flavors into special boxes that had room for exactly 30 pieces.

As they placed the cover on the box it went on to be plastic wrapped.
Other than the women putting the candy in the boxes everything was pretty much automated.  

The factory owner proudly told Abe, “You can see why I don’t need advice from any consultants”.

When they were back in the office, Abe thanked the owner for allowing them to see his operation. Then he said, would you give me $3000.00 if I could increase your production by 10%, and it wouldn’t cost you a cent to do it.

The factory owner gave Abe a dirty look and said, “No”, so Abe gave him his business card and told him if he changed his mind to call him.

About a week later, Abe got a call, the factory owner said he had looked his operation over several times since Abe was there and he spoke to his son and his plant manager as well as their staff engineer and they all said no one could increase their production by 10%.

They said that the owner should challenge Abe.  If Abe increased production by 10%, he got $3000.00.

If there was no 10%  increase, Abe should pay them the $3000.00.

Abe came by the next day, and with everyone following behind him they walked to the packaging line, where the candy boxes with the 30 little compartments were stacked by the hundreds.

Abe walked to the next stack of candy boxes, he removed the cover from the top candy box and threw it into the trash.

Everyone in the room  watching him were flabbergasted.

The women packers no longer had to remove the candy box cover before filling it. The next uncovered box was waiting for them. As they filled each candy box they now removed the cover from the next box and used it. leaving the next box uncovered and ready to be filled, Abe got his $3000.00

This story true or not, was a good lesson which I have never forgotten.    

 

 

The Barney Kaplan and his Dog Story

                                                             The Barney Kaplan and his Dog Story

                                                                                      1979

                                                               Written 08/2016 Re-written 2/2019

                                                                               Howard Yasgar

       In the Mid 1970’s I was doing business with a company in Detroit called Barney Kaplan Surplus.

       I had started making monthly trips to Detroit to see them.   

       When I first started going there the warehouse workers said I needed to stay clear of “Red” he was the watch dog there.

       I saw red, he usually was laying down in Barney’s office, but every so often he would walk around the warehouse and I saw him looking at me.

       Red was a good sized dog, he about two feet tall and he appeared to weigh in t about 75 to 100 pounds, and he had a reddish color.

       I asked one of the workers there what kind of dog he was and he said Red was an Australian sheep dog.

       I have to admit, I was a little concerned that Red might bite me.

       Eventually I realized that all the employees were all having a good time at my expense making me think that Red might rip my arm off.

       One day as I walked around the warehouse, out of the corner of my eye, I caught Red watching me and his tail was wagging, and I knew a wagging tail was the sign of a friendly pooch.

       I called his name and he came right over to me so petted him, and he didn’t want me to stop.

       I have to admit the guys weren’t lying when they said Red was a good watch dog, he was, because from that time on he never stopped watching me.                                 

      Every day when the lunch truck arrived, one of Barneys employees would buy Red a meal, not only that but he also got every ones leftovers.

       I soon found out that Red lived at home with Barney and his wife Sara Lee, Red went home with them in the evening and came to work with them every morning.

      Both Barney and Sara Lee talked to Red as if he was a member of the family. I watched as they had lengthy conversations with him. Red never replied but you could see in his eyes and when he cocked his head, he understood what they were talking about.

      As I was returning every month to Detroit my relationship with Barney and Sara Lee became  very friendly and they suggested that I stay with them at their house in Bloomfield, rather than my staying at a hotel.

      So the next time I came to Detroit I brought my luggage to their warehouse and in the evening I went home with them.

      They had a lovely home, and the guest room even had a plaque on the door with my name on it. I learned later that they did it for all their good customers that stayed with them.

      In the morning when we all had breakfast including Red, we all clambered into Barney’s  new Chrysler.

      Barney drove, and I was in the passenger seat, Sara Lee sat behind Barney and Red sat behind me.  

      I didn’t realize it, but Barney, Sara Lee and Red had a morning routine.

      Barney would drive to a street corner where there was a dog waiting, Then he would roll down his window and Red and the dog would have a barking conversation for about five minutes.

      At first I thought it was pretty cute, but Red’s barking was loud and it was right in my ear.

      If that wasn’t bad enough I felt something wet on my neck and back, Red was slobbering and drooling on me as he barked to his buddy.

      Barney made two more stops, where Reds friends were already sitting there waiting to talk to him.

      I heard they continued doing this as long a Red lived.

The Haitian Bombing Story

                                                                 The Haitian Bombing Story

                                                                               June 1968

                                           The attempted coup and the bombing of the Haitian Palace.

                                                         Written 08/08/2016 and Re-written 2019

                                                                           Howard Yasgar

   

                             

      It was in June of 1969 when I was in Port Au Prince Haiti helping my friend Lou Gladstein remove the Haitian

Railroad.

      The railroad had been bankrupted by the Haitian Government  years before and my friend Lou had offered  $2.00 a ton to purchase all the railroad track that was remaining.

      Taking apart a railroad and digging out the old track was quite an undertaking.

      Because I had experience with using oxygen acetylene cutting torches, I wanted Lou to use cutting torches to take the rail apart, but Lou didn’t agree with me.

      Lou felt that using a cutting torch was too expensive, and he could do the job by using by using Haitian laborers

to cut the nuts and bolts by hand using sledge hammers and chisels.

      At the time, Lou said that he could hire all the laborers he wanted for about $1.25 a day, and 10 cents for their lunch.

      I wanted to prove to Lou, that using a cutting torch would be a much faster method, and not as expensive as he thought. So on a beautiful sunny morning we loaded up Lou’s Toyota Carolla station wagon with Lou’s cutting torch, its  gauges, its  hoses, and two empty oxygen and acetylene  cylinders to be refilled at the welding supply store in Port au prince.

      We drove down the mountain to Port Au Prince and we exchanged the oxygen acetylene cylinders for full ones. Lou had a few errands to attend to, and we were driving down an avenue that would take us past the Haitian palace. That was where the Dictator Papa doc Duvalier lived.

      Lou’s Toyota station wagon was not air conditioned so I had my passenger side window down, and I could see the white Haitian palace coming up on my right about a quarter of a mile ahead.

       I looked ahead to my left,  I saw 2 or 3 plumes of dark smoke rising, they appeared to be pretty far off behind some buildings, I thought someone was burning trash.   

      All of a sudden I heard what sounded like a huge aircraft over our heads. It was loud like a distressed plane sounds when it is struggling for altitude.

      Then it turned completely dark outside, as the giant plane cast its shadow over us.

      I could hear lots of popping noises just like 4th of July firecrackers going off.

      As the shadow disappeared, I heard a loud noise and an incendiary bomb went off about 300 yards in front of us, I thought it was Napalm.

      It was amazing, as Lou made that Toyota wagon do a complete 360 degree maneuver and we were

Now racing away in the opposite direction as fast as the Toyota would go.

      I looked out the back of the station wagon and I could see the wall of flame coming after us. The two full oxygen and acetylene cylinders were banging together on the floor of the wagon, they looked like two torpedo’s waiting to go off. I knew that in a matter of seconds, the wall of fire would engulf us.  But, somehow it didn’t, and Lou with his hands shaking and sweating drove us back up the mountain to his house.

      We assumed there was some type of a coup going on, so I suggested to Lou that he take me to the airport first

Thing in the morning. If it was a coup, I wanted to fly back to Miami quickly, so as not to get stuck in Haiti.

      At the airport, everything was very normal and I caught the first flight out.

      Once back in Miami, I was still shaken up, but I listened to the news hoping to hear what had happened in Haiti.

       The next day I read the papers but not a word appeared. Finally after 2 days a small article appeared in the Miami Herald newspaper.

       It said there was an attempted coup in Haiti, one  fire bomb had been dropped but it missed the palace and blew up behind some stores killing a civilian.

      The article said the failed coup was financed by two Haitian groups, one in New York and one in Montreal. The whole story sounded pretty phony to me, but that was all that I could ever find regarding the attack.

      Now, from 1968 fast forward to 1991.

      My fiancé Katherine was managing the Miami office of a large international freight forwarding company called MSAS.

      She had in her office a customer that wanted her to ship F14 fighter planes from Singapore to Amman Jordan.  Katherine knew I was in the military supply business so she introduced me to Ralph Edens.

      We all met at Rousseau’s nightclub at the Doral golf course.

      Ralph was about 40 years old, 5 foot 6 inches tall, with a medium build and slightly graying hair, he was a pretty normal looking guy.

      Ralph said that he was a photographer and had worked as a photographer and editor for Soldier of Fortune magazine. He also said he served in the military in Cambodia.

      Ralph said he was in Cambodia when we weren’t supposed to be in Cambodia, and he had served as a mercenary in South Africa.

      Ralph said most recently he had served in Central America fighting in Nicaragua.  Apparently Ralph was a Soldier of Fortune.

      I wanted to engage Ralph in conversation but we had very little in common to talk about as I had only served in the Army Reserves during peace time.

      So I ended up telling Ralph about my close call with death in Port Au Prince Haiti, in 1969 when the palace was bombed, and Ralph said he had heard about the attempted coup.

      After a few drinks, Ralph suggested that I meet with him one evening for a beer.

      He suggested we meet the next evening at Tom’s NFL club which was located on NW 36^th street in Miami across from the airport and right near my office.

      It didn’t occur to me at the time but Tom’s NFL Club, was the watering hole for all the CIA guys that worked with Southern Air Transport Company, the CIA owned airlines that was right across the street.

      Ralph was waiting for me, and had ordered me a beer, he said that he didn’t want to talk to me in front of Katherine, but he was the guy pushing the fire bombs out of the airplane over Port Au Prince in 1969, the fire bomb that almost killed me.

      Ralph went on to tell me the whole story.

      He was recruited by the C. I. A. with several others, they were to transport a group of armed Haitian soldiers

To Haiti, They had a rented Constellation aircraft and they filled up 6 55 gallon drums with aviation fuel and taped flares to the barrels, they also had 1 phosphorous bomb, a big water bottle with phosphorus in a plastic bag inside.

     The Haitian soldiers failed to show up, so they decided to bomb the palace anyway. The bottom of the plane was loaded with web gear and guns to arm a rebel force that was supposed to be waiting for them once the palace was bombed.

      When they flew over the palace Ralph said they lit 3 flares and pushed 3 barrels out the planes door.

      The trajectory was wrong, so they made another attempt, and pushed out more fire  bombs, that was one that

almost killed me. 

      By time they made a third pass the military and palace guard were shooting at the plane.

      That was the popping noises we heard, and the plane got all shot up.

      They attempted to land on the Cap Haitian airport but it was blocked with trucks, so they landed on a U.S. radar landing strip in Freeport Bahamas. The plane was all shot up, when they were asked what the hell was going on the C.I.A. agent Casey said they were just out for a spin.

      They were all arrested, and charged with breaking the neutrality las and all sentenced to 18 months prison, however it appears they were all out after a few months.

      That’s what happened.       

The Grandfather and the Miracle Story

                                                         The Grandfather and the Miracle Story 

                                                                                     1959

                                                       This is a  true and a very real Miracle Story

                                                            Written 2006 and Re-written 2/2019

                                                                             Howard Yasgar

         

      In 1959 I was twenty one years old and living with my mom and dad in Westville Connecticut.

      Westville is a suburb of New Haven.

      My grandfather, Eddie, was seventy one years old at the time, of this story.

      Grandad Eddie had retired in New Haven and retired to Miami Florida in 1952.

      As I was growing up, I always remember everyone in our family saying Grandpa was crazy, because Florida only had swamps, mosquitoes and giant cockroaches.

      However I always remember my grandfather saying  Florida was the land of milk and honey, and he said all kinds of delicious fruit grew everywhere, and was free for the taking.

      To prove it, Grandpa return to New Haven with his suitcases full of all kinds of ripe fruit.

      He would lay them out on our kitchen table and cut them up for everyone to try.

      None of us had ever seen most of the fruit he brought, not only that but everything he put on the table was already over ripe and some were rotting from being in his hot suit case for so long.

      I didn’t like it, when they did it, but everyone laughed at my grandfather behind his back,  I felt real bad for him, as he just loved Florida, and he had no bad intentions.

      Even my mom said that Grandpa probably found the fruit in someone’s garbage.

      One day, while Grandpa  was staying with us, he  got real sick, and it looked very serious.

      My mom who was a registered nurse thought Grandpa might die.

      All my Grandpa would say when he was conscious was, “Please let me go home to Florida”. Once I am there I will be OK.

      However,  getting Grandpa home to Florida was no easy task.

      It was a  long 70 mile ride to the airport in New York, and then there was the night owl flight to Florida, and who would get Grandpa home from the airport once he was in Miami.

      Then there was the question, what if he died along the way.

      These subjects and others were discussed around the kitchen table, I wasn’t invited.

      Finally, after several hours, the family had made their decision, I was elected to take Grandpa home to Miami Florida.

      Oh, my goodness.

      Mom said, don’t be afraid, if  Grandpa passes away on the airplane, just tell the stewardess she will know what to do.

      I was really scared when I said I would do it.

      My Grandpa looked terrible, he was unconscious all the way to the airport in New York.

      Using  a wheelchair and a lot of assistance from airline employees we got on board a night owl flight to Miami.

      The plane had lots of open seats so I sat Grandpa next to a window. He looked very bad, he looked so bad I didn’t want to look at him. He just sat there with his eyes were closed.

      About  one and a half hours into the flight, Grandpa’s eyes opened, he looked at me and said “I smell Florida”.

       I thought he was becoming delusional and I got real frightened, is this how people act before they die.

      Grandpa started taking deep breaths, and his eyes stayed open.

      He said to me “ I know we are near Florida”. 

      By the time we landed it was close to four in the morning in Miami and my Grandpa was in perfect health.

      He walked off the airplane with no assistance, and he carried his suitcase.

      We stepped out of the Miami terminal onto 36^th street where all the car rental agencies were. 

     Grandpa rented a  blue 1959 Chevrolet and he let me drive him home.

     For me this was truly a miracle.

 

       

             

 

                           

The Counterfeit $20.00 Story

                                            The Counterfeit $20.00 Story

                                                                         2018

                                                                  A true story

                                                               Re-written 2019

                                                                 Howard Yasgar

In January 1990, I paid my grocery bill with a $100.00 dollar bill.

I received my change as usual, and tucked it into my wallet.

A few days later I decided to organize my wallet, and that’s when I noticed  something strange, one of the $20.00 bills was a lot lighter color of green than the others.

I couldn’t believe it, I had never seen a $20.00 bill with such a weird color before.

I took it out and really looked it over closely.

Sure enough, some of the printing on the bill was pretty good but several other things just didn’t look right to me.

The biggest problem  was the color, it was obviously a counterfeit bill.

I had a Auto parts business in Miami , so Getting counterfeit  money was nothing new to me, but usually I didn’t catch the counterfeit money, but the bank did, and they kept any counterfeit they found.

Sometimes when I made a deposit, the bank would inform me that there was a few fake $100.00 bills mixed in with the deposit. Then the bank  always confiscated them, so I never had the opportunity to look at them closely.

Once when the bank confiscated $300.00, it was a lot of money, so I asked them for the bills back, but they said by law they had to confiscate them. They said if I got them back, I would probably try and cash them somewhere and they were right about that, I would have.

They said that if I did try and pass them,  I would be arrested for passing counterfeit money.

So when I had the fake $20.00 I was excited to actually have a real counterfeit bill. I carried it in my wallet and I always showed it to everyone, it became quite a conversation piece for me.

When I showed it to someone it was easy to tell it was counterfeit because of the weird green color, you could spot it as a fake as soon as you saw it.

One day I was staying at the Sheraton hotel in Detroit Michigan, and I was waiting for my friend to come pick me up for supper.

I had time to kill so I told him, that I would be in the downstairs bar having a drink.

My friend showed up on time and I left with him to go for supper.

Once we were at the restaurant, I mentioned to him about my counterfeit $20.00 bill that I had.

Yes, you guessed it, it wasn’t in my wallet.

It was dark in that bar at the Sheraton, and I must have used the Counterfeit $20.00 to pay for my drink.

         

                                           

The Prosciutto Story

                                                        The Prosciutto Story

                                                                         A true story

                                                                        Written 2017

                                                                       Howard Yasgar

I have a very good friend and  who was a detective working for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department.

One evening he told us the following story, and we couldn’t stop laughing.

I still laugh when I think about it.

In his duty as a detective, he was working on murder case that took him to San Jose, in Costa Rica.

He was in Costa Rica to look over an airplane that might have been involved in the murders.

Now when a government employee travels they are allowed a “Per Diem”, that is a fixed allowance for their meals while traveling.

The amount allowed varies but it is usually Pretty conservative, perhaps $10.00 to $15.00 for breakfast, possibly a little more for lunch and a fixed amount for supper.

The actual Per Diem amount depends on where you work, it is usually sufficient but not excessive.

Now, there is no per diem for evening entertainment, so if you stop somewhere for a beer, it strictly an out of pocket expense.  

My friend had an entire evening to kill, so a couple of hours after supper he went into the Hotels bar and ordered a beer. His intentions was to nurse along a couple of beers until it was time to go to his room.

As he sat at the bar, a waiter was setting up a large prosciutto.  

The Prosciutto was mounted on a very fancy stand that holds it in place as a waiter cuts off very thin slices with a special knife.

My friend watched as several people got up, took as small plate and stood in line as the waiter sliced the prosciutto placing two or three thin slices on their plate.

It looked pretty good, and was a nice touch the hotel offered.

When there was no line he took a plate for himself and the waiter cut him a few thin slices.

During the course of the evening as he nursed his beer he went up three or four more times for prosciutto.

By 10:PM he had enough, and decided to call it an evening.

He looked at his beer bill which he said was $8.50  plus he needed to give the waiter a tip.

As he took out his credit card, a waiter tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a bill for the prosciutto.

It was $220.00.  

       

The Alaska Gold Story

                                                             The Alaska Gold Story

                                                          

                                                          A true story written 3/2017

                                                                     Howard Yasgar

My wife and I had gone on a cruise to Alaska.

When we reached Sitka, we signed up to go salmon fishing side trip.

There were only four of us fishing on the boat that day.

There was my wife and I and a couple of fellows from Michigan.

The captain, his name was Blackie was doing everything himself, he was steering the boat, baiting the hooks, absolutely running himself ragged.

We were so impressed with Blackie that when we returned to Miami, we invited him and his wife to come and visit us in Florida, and the following year they did.

When they came to Florida we couldn’t help but notice that Blackie’s wife had a beautiful gold necklace and Blackie had a gold ring, a gold necklace with a gold pendant and a gold watch.

Blackie noticed me looking at his necklace and said that there was an unusual story behind where all the gold came from.

Blackie said that years before he was working in Alaska as a mechanic, repairing  the trucks that traveled on the Ice road, and it was there where he met his future wife who was working as a waitress.

Once they got married, they needed to find a place to live. So they shopped around until someone told them about a  log cabin that was available.

They went to look at it, and found the cabin to be a bit remote, but the price was right and they  rented the cabin.

One day the toilet stopped working and Blackie went to fix it.

He removed the tank top and saw that the bottom of the tank had about a half inch of darkish mud with gold flecks.

He cleaned the toilet tank out  and brought it to town to the local gold assayer, who melted all down.

It ended up being several ounces.

Now that’s a story.