Happy Holidays....2014

Wishing all of you that have taken the time to read some of my writings a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Frank “KiKi” Baltazar

Automotive Paints

By KiKi

I worked as an automotive painter for 40 years, give or take a few, owned my own body & paint shop for some years. I started as a painter’s helper in 1955 and I saw lots of changes in the types of paints used in those 50 years.

When I started in ‘55 there were two types of base paints used, lacquer and enamel. General Motors and Chrysler cars came from the factory with lacquer paint, which if you didn’t polish it at least once a month would start getting dull. In ’57 I believe it was; GM started using acrylic lacquer and that made it easier on the elbows because you didn’t need to polish it as often. Chrysler switched to enamel (vitreous) around the same time. At the time, Ford Co. cars were painted in enamel (vitreous).

In my early years as a painter’s help, the paint bases that were used for repair work was lacquer for spot repair and enamel (synthetic) for complete paint jobs…The lacquer had to be color sanded and rubbed with rubbing compound and polished once it dried. The synthetic enamel gave you a beautiful finish, but it didn’t last if you left your car out in the elements you were lucky if the paint job lasted three years. Good enamel painters were hard to come by. You could get a hand-rubbed lacquer paint job, but it was very pricey. Lacquer clear was not much used as it would in time crack.

In the mid-‘60’s paint manufacturers came out with an acrylic enamel base paint for spot repairs. In the early years after its debut, the acrylic enamel base paints created many headaches for the painters; as it had many kinks that took till the mid-‘70’s to be worked. By the late ’70s, the acrylic enamel was great for spot repair and complete paint jobs, it could also be rubbed like the old lacquer.

Just as the painters had the acrylic enamel down pat a new base paint was introduced by the car manufacturers in the late ’70s. The urethane, or polyurethane, was a two-stage finish (late a three-stage came out) a base color coat with a clear coat. Again, in the beginning, it was nothing but headaches for the painters. By the early ’80s, the problems with this base were worked out and the painters that mastered the system were making big bucks as they were in high demand.

As I was getting ready to retire in the early ’90s a new base paint, waterborne, came out, I never had a chance to use it. My understanding is that it is still used at the present time. I retired in ’93 and I never looked back.

Our Sixty-Second Wedding Anniversary

                 Connie at 15 years old, and I, at about 20 years old.

By kiki

I added some pictures to this piece that I picked at random of Connie and me at different times of our marriage, times that saw us grow old together.

Connie and I were kids when we were married on my 18th birthday, December 13, 1954, and here sixty-two years later, we still sometimes act like kids. But, of course, Connie will tell you that only I act like a kid, and she might be right. Although Connie also likes to say that I am in my second childhood, I tell her that I haven't gotten out of my first childhood yet!.

Connie at 15 years old and pregnant with our first progeny, daughter, Linda - 1956.

                           Us celebrating a mid-1960 New Year's Eve.

 Sixty-two years ago, Connie and I started a journey without knowing where we were headed. All we knew was that there was a life out there for us as a couple; where that life would take us, we didn't know, but we forged forward anyway, sometimes not too steadily because of my immaturity. And like most marriages, ours had its up and downs, but in the end, thanks to Connie's strength, it all worked out blissfully for us, and I thank her for that. Of course, we're not in sync all the time, and of course, we lose our temple and patience sometimes, but we are more forgiving because we've built a foundation of talking and listening that continues to anchor everything we do. I don't always agree with her, and she doesn't always agree with me, but that's okay. Because we respect each other and we've grown, we listen, and more importantly, we learn from each other. And through it all, she still laughs her beautiful laughter at some of my corny jokes.

                                 Us at the 1984 Los Angeles Toy Run.

 

In the sixty-two years we've been together, we've experienced happy and sad times. We enjoyed happy times when the kids were born and suffered sad times at the loss of a newborn child, a grandchild, and a great-grandchild. But we take solace in that those little Angels are looking over us. Losing our parents was also hard on both of us.…. We were like new parents when the grandchildren and now great-grandchildren started arriving. We now have so many of both that I've lost count. But I will say I love them all, whatever that count might be!!

At a 1990 company Christmas party

 The day in 2004 of my sister Mary Ellen's funeral

A mid-1990 Christmas

Connie and I may not agree on everything, but we've become two souls with a single thought. Two hearts that beat as one…Now, we laugh, weep and mourn the loss of loved ones as one being….And now that we have reached the twilight of our journey, we can look back at some very cherished, along with some bittersweet moments, and say, hell yes, we made it!.... Love you, Babe, and thank you for your devotion to our marriage…Happy Sixty-Second Anniversary, Babe, and I look forward to spending the next sixty-two years with you!! She'll probably say with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "hell no, 62 years is enough!" She loves to pull my chain that way, and I love it.

We got old

December 13 is now a bittersweet day for us. Yes, we celebrate our anniversary and my birthday on that date, but December 13 is when my older sister Rachel Baltazar-Egan, passed. So we will have a moment of silence on this, the 4th anniversary of her passing, to honor her.

"That's If You Make It"

                                                      By kiki

I reminded Connie that Christmas was just around the corner. Then I mention that our 60^th anniversary and my 78^th birthday are also coming up next month “it’s really going to be 60 years?” she asked me, I said “yes, babe, it will be 60 years that we married” “60 years, no wonder I look old and wrinkled” she told me “you old and wrinkle, what about me?, I’m going to be 78 years old”  “that's if you make it” my beautiful and funny wife told me…

Memories of the El Monte Legion Stadium

This story is fiction, but just because it never happened doesn't mean it isn't true.

By kiki                                                                                                                      

In 1955, you and your buddies arrived at the El Monte Legion Stadium dressed in your best threads. After parking your 1938 Chevy, you made your way to the cashier window and paid your 6 bits; you entered the stadium and looked for that girl who would be the best-looking there. You spotted her just as The Penguins, life, on stage, started singing Earth Angel. You asked her to dance, and she said yes; you took her by the hand and led her to the dance floor. You put your hand around her waist and drew her closer to you; you whispered sweet things in her ear as your hand started sliding down her backside "bam!" she slaps your hand and tells you, "stop it, I'm not that kind of girl" you asked her "what kind of girl are you?" "I'm a good girl," she replied "well, be good to me," you counter. She pushed you away and walked off the dance floor, leaving you looking like a fool. After a couple of more songs, you approached her and apologized to her, she accepted your apology, and you two danced the night away, and within two years, you were a man and wife.

“You’re a Curmudgeon”

By kiki

Last night as Connie and I were sitting up in bed we started going back and forth over nothing important. But at some point our give and take started to get heated and she started getting annoyed, I could see it on her face, and her eyes told me that I was not doing right by her, I do have to admit I can be annoying at times, like when I talk too much without making any sense.

“You’re a curmudgeon” Connie yelled at me

“A what?”

“A curmudgeon” she replied

“What the heck is a curmudgeon, and how the heck do you pronounce and spell it? Spell it out for me so I can look it up in my pocket dictionary” I asked her

“c-u-r-m-u-d-g-e-o-n” she very scholarly spelled it out for me

I took out my pocket dictionary and punched in the word, and the tiny dictionary told me that I am a “bad-tempered old man” really? And all the time I thought I was a cool dude!

“Hey, where did you get that word, you been reading behind my back or have you been talking to my friend Phil Rice? Now Phil would know that word” I was now mumbling

“Y' know how you always like to say ‘I ain’t squawking’? Well, I ain’t squawking!”

“That doesn't sound too scholarly, dear” that was the only thing that popped in my mind to say to her as a fast comeback

“Curmudgeon,” she said as she popped her head on her pillow, and with that, she was in dreamland.

1973: Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico

                                     Frankie (Fernie) Baltazar

By kiki

In the late spring of 1973, I received a phone call from a representative of the I.Y.B.C. The International Youth Boxing Club, located in Montebello, CA., was a youth organization headed by Southern California boxing figures such as Rudy Jordan and Mando Muniz.

The caller explained that the I.Y.B.C. would host a boxing meet between an Ensenada, Baja California, Mex.-based team and local amateur boxers. The caller asked if I would allow Fernie to fight in the 125-pound class. Fernie, at age 15, had just come back from a two-year layoff to fight in the Junior Golden Gloves, which he won against Francisco Flores. After being told that the event would occur in ten days at the I.Y.B.C. gym, I okayed Fernie's partaking.

I only remember a little about the other fights because I was focused on Fernie's fight. Fernie's opponent was a dead-ringer of a young Mando Ramos in facial looks and boxing style. Frankie won an exciting, hard-fought three-round fight by U.D…After the bouts were all fought, and as we enjoyed a beer or two with our Baja California counterparts, they invited us to Ensenada to do it all over again. They made a point about Fernie fighting the Mando Ramos lookalike again, and we accepted the challenge.

                                      Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico

We were told we would be at a private Ensenada Beach campground during the event. Owning a motorhome at the time was something we were looking forward to.

With my boxing partner John Martinez, his wife Bea, Fernie, our daughter, Linda, and Connie, and me behind the wheel of our motorhome, we left La Puente on Thursday afternoon (fights were scheduled for Saturday night). We arrived in Tijuana two and a half hours later. After doing a little shopping and having dinner, we left Tijuana on the Tijuana/Ensenada toll road, and a toll road it was; it seemed like every five miles, we had to pay a toll. We arrived at the gated beach campground around midnight. Standing in front of the gate was an armed sentry. With a rifle across his chest, he stopped us at the gate; I rolled my window down to tell him we were with the boxing club, and to my surprise, I found the young sentry mentally challenged. Why is this fella allowed to walk around with a loaded rifle? Well, we later found out that he was the owner's son. While parking the motorhome on the beach, I told everyone to stay out of the sentry's way and not forget that we were in Mexico and had to obey their laws. We spent Friday taking in the sights, eating and drinking a Mexican beer (Bohemia) here and there. By Friday afternoon, the rest of the team had arrived; I am trying to remember who else was on our team; the Montes were there, unsure if both Herman and John fought. I remember that Eddie "Animal" Lopez was there; not sure if he fought, though; he might have been a pro by then and was just along for the ride. We had a big beach fire; we sat around the fire, telling fishing lies and drinking a beer or two.

Weigh-ins for the fights were early Saturday morning. Fernie and the Mando Ramos look-a-like weighted in the low 120s. After the weigh-ins, we had a Mexican breakfast at a local restaurant. Fernie had a mid-afternoon dinner of seafood. It was soon time for us to make our way to the arena. Fights were fought before a packed auditorium, but I was focused on Fernie's fight; I can't tell you who fought them. Fight time! We entered the ring first; Fernie's opponent entered it a few minutes later, but it was not the Mando Ramos lookalike! I looked at the guy and told the referee that that was not our opponent, and the guy had to have been in his mid-20s. I looked around the arena and spotted Mando Ramos's twin with gloves on and leaning against a back wall. I told the referee as I pointed to the guy, "that's the guy we are fighting, or we won't fight. The "old" guy, probably a pro, walked out of the ring as the twin walked in. They were trying to put a ringer in with Fernie!... The fight was give-and-take for the first two rounds, but Fernie pulled it out by scoring a knockdown in the third and final round of a great amateur fight. After the fights, it was party time at the beach fire. As we were bullshitting around the fire, we spotted two horses with riders making their way in the dark toward the fire. The horsemen were Fernie and Eddie "Animal" Lopez. I asked them, "what the hell are you two doing? Don't you know that they still hang horse thieves in Mexico?" They jumped off the horses faster than you can say "horse thieves" and gave the horses a slap on the ass. It's a good thing the "Rife man" wasn't around to see our horse "thieves"; otherwise, we would have had to attend a hanging…Sunday, as we drove back home, I noticed Fernie rubbing his neck; he said to no one in particular, "we don't need to stop in Tijuana" We arrived home alive and well.

Wicked Sense of Humor

By kiki

Wicked Sense of Humor

Back in the ’90s, the company Connie worked for relocated to Tijuana, and she was offered a job transfer; I had just retired, so she accepted the transfer, so we moved to San Diego to start a new chapter in our life story. One early morning after Connie had left for work, I rode my Harley to a nearby gas station convenience store to buy the Los Angeles Times. Working the counter was a young girl, in her early 20’s I would say. Behind her on a counter were the condoms. I asked her for a pack of Trojan Condoms, and as she turned around to get them, I said, “extra-large, please” she made a fast turn-around and looked like she was going to faint, so I right away said, “I am just kidding, I don’t want condoms, especially extra-large.”

Lena - Joe and Johnnie

By kiki

The late Los Angeles boxing trainer, Johnnie “Mr. Golden Gloves” Flores, once told me a story about how he met the beautiful actress/singer Lena Horn. 

Johnnie’s story: soon after WWII ended, Johnnie was in a fancy restaurant in New York City with WWII buddy, longtime heavyweight champ Joe Louis. And according to Johnnie, both he and Louis were broke. So they were sitting there trying to figure out how to pay for dinner when Lena Horn and a friend walked in. Louis stood up and invited Horn and her friend to his and Johnnie’s table, and as he was doing so, he told Johnnie to order anything he wanted.

They all had a fancy dinner with fancy umbrella drinks. After dinner, Louis asked the waiter for the check, which he got; he then proceeded to check it out real good, making sure they were not over-charge; after making sure they were not, he handed the check over to Lena Horn, telling her “take care of this and don’t forget to tip well.”

Simons, California

Simons: to the outsider, was no more than a shantytown slum. But to the inhabitants, especially us kids when we lived there, it was heaven. - kiki                 

                                            My home town

        An excerpt from ‘The Brick People’ by Alejandro Morales

“Mr. Simons made it happen. Everything is his. The store, pool hall, post office, movie show, bachelor’s cabins, Vail School, the library, the church, the water tower, the electricity, the clinic, the trains, the machines, the lots. The houses, unpainted and battered by the weather, the walls of scrap lumber, barely standing together, all the same; two, maybe three bedrooms, a kitchen and small living room, no bath, no toilet. Some had been there for thirty, forty years, but they’re clean on the inside and the outside, pretty garden, lots of plants. It’s not too bad, it’s not too good. It was planned by Mr. Simons and the City.

Simons was built at just the correct distance from Montebello to discourage the Mexicans from going into town. It was logical to have a separate school, church, and other conveniences. The Simons Mexicans were to live, work, play, worship, and trade apart, at a safe distance from Montebello. When Simons was established it was never proposed that the company town be a part of Montebello, or for that matter any city. It was understood that the Mexicans were to remind apart in every way”

A Slice of History--Montebello Life Magazine

A Slice of History--Montebello Life Magazine

By Alejandro Morales 

From his birth until 15 years of age, Frank Baltazar lived in a company town, where a corporation provided its employees onsite housing, an elementary school, grocery store, church, post office, baseball team, movie-theater, private sheriff and even an orchestra.

The sprawling town—whose peak population has been estimated at 3,000 in the late 1920s—didn’t produce steel in Pennsylvania, coal in West Virginia or cars in Michigan.

It manufactured bricks in an area that now encompasses south Montebello and parts of the City of Commerce.

For the first half of the 20th century, Simons Brickyard produced up to 600,000 clay bricks daily, making the claim to be the world’s most productive brickyard.

“I didn’t have any worries,” said Baltazar, now 75 and living in La Puente. “Was I happy living there? Was it fun living there? Yes, it was. I never heard anyone complain about the company.”

In 1905, Walter Simons bought clay-rich property near what is now South Vail Avenue and the Santa Ana Freeway for his expanding brickyard empire. Business skyrocketed after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, as the crippled city needed millions of bricks for rebuilding. Simons shipped 3,800 tons of product to San Francisco that year.

To meet the demand for labor, the company recruited Mexican immigrants, advertising that life at the brickyard was more stable than what was happening during their homeland’s revolution.

Simons eventually employed about 600 workers, most of them Latinos. The company set up housing for their workers, with single men living communally and families in two- or four-bedroom homes. Rents started at $1 per month.

Baltazar remembers that in the 1940s he paid his family’s month rent of $4 at the company office at the corner of Sycamore Street and South Vail Avenue.

He describes life in the company town as protected from the outside world, including the kind of bigotry that afflicted the nation at the time.

“There was a lot of racism back then, but we didn’t feel it as kids,” said Baltazar, who writes online about his childhood at Simons (simonsbrickyard.blogspot.com). “From kindergarten to my 6th grade graduation, the student body [at the company school] was 100% Latino. I didn’t see another skin color until I went to junior high.”

Baltazar also has fond memories of the summers at Simons, when he helped his father transport the bricks by mule-pulled carts and also delivered home-cooked breakfasts to the factory in a wagon he made. (The workday started at 4 a.m., with a “lunch” break at 7 a.m.)

The company reported an employee turnover rate of just 2 percent a month, leading some to marvel: If there ever was an industrial Utopia it is Simons.

But the Depression and World War II slowed the brickyard’s production, and in 1952, the widespread use of concrete in new construction led to the closing of Simons.

Simons family gave $6,000 to each of the 19 remaining families to help them move out of the company town.

“We were one of the last families to leave the brickyard,” Baltazar said.

To find out more about Simons Brickyard and the company town, check out the Montebello Historical Society’s recently published “Return to Simons,” a 52-page commemorative book available for $34.95. For more information visit www.montebellohistoricalsociety.org.

Carmen Basilio vs Tony DeMarco

                               Tony DeMarco vs. Carmen Basilio 

By kiki

On a Friday night during the summer of 1955, Connie and I dropped payments at Kurley's and Birks, ate a burger at Pop's 'Monke-Uddle' on Kern Ave in East Lost Angeles, and then took a stroll down Whittier Blvd. to do some window shopping. 

We came upon a small crowd of people that were screaming and hollering in front of an appliance store; we walked up to the crowd to see what it was all about, well, the crowd was screaming and hollering because they were witnessing on a black and white TV through the window of the appliance store one of the greatest action fights of the 20th Century. Basilio won by a 12^th round KO.

                                Tony DeMarco vs. Carmen Basilio 

Jo Jo Torres vs Stan Ward

By kiki

In spring of 1973, the Southern California Coaches and Managers Association and I took a Los Angeles amateur boxing team to the state Capital, Sacramento, for a box-off against their local champs. Our heavyweight was a part-time amateur boxer, Jo Jo Torres, whom's life ambition was to be a playboy. But for the Torres vs. Ward fight, it was, for the most part, a forgettable trip in which we lost 7 out of 10 fights. When JoJo found out he was fighting Ward, who was known to be the best amateur heavyweight in California, if not the best in the country, I could see it in his eyes that he would've rather be dancing some salsa at the Zenda Ballroom in L.A. then in a boxing ring in Sacramento. 

                                                   The fight

In the first round, Jo Jo went down from what seemed like a grazing right hand. Down on one knee, he kept looking at the canvas as the referee counted. I could see that he wasn’t going to get up, even though he could have. As the ref was about to count nine, I jumped in the ring and stopped the fight to help him save face. As soon as I jumped in the ring, Jo Jo jumped up and asked me: “why did you stop the fight? I was going to get up”  “of course you were,” I said. As we were flying back home, he kept telling anyone on the plane that would listen, “I was going to get up” Of course he was! 

Memorial Day and Labor Day Weekends of Past years

By kiki

                       

                                

                                               Our motorhome

This coming Labor Day weekend brings back memories of those fishing and camping trips we used to take on the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends to the Eastern Sierras in our pickup camper and later in our motorhomes.

                      

                              James with his catch: a brown trout

It all started in the late ’60s when we made our first trip to the Sierras in a 1958 Chevy pickup. After that first trip, we bought a 1966 ¾ ton Chevy pickup with an eight-foot cab-over camper.  After about three years of driving the ’66 pickup, we bought our first motorhome in the early ’70s. Drove that motorhome for some four years. In 1976, we bought our last motorhome, a twenty-four-foot 1975 Four Star Dodge motorhome. At that point, we started planning our getaways for the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. We would save vacation days to use on those weekends. We would leave for the Sierras on the Thursday before the holiday and return home on the Wednesday after the holiday….Now those holiday weekends are just a distant memory...Connie hasn’t been camping since 2005; I go once a year; on the opening day of the trout fishing season.

           Connie kicking it in one of the campgrounds we would visit.

                        Connie and I camping in the Eastern Sierras

Just The Facts Ma’am, Just The Facts

By kiki

Back in the early '50s in Los Angeles County, not sure if it was the same in all of California; when a teenager under 18 years old received a traffic ticket, he/she didn't have to go to traffic court and pay a fine. Instead, they had to go to a California Highway Patrol office with a parent and have the riot act read to both. Before I turned 18 in 1954, I was a frequent visitor to the California Highway Patrol office on Vermont St. off the 101 (Hollywood Freeway).

When the TV cop show 'Dragnet' was popular, I had to make a guest appearance at the CHP office. I was a minor, so I had my pissed-off mom with me; yes, she wasn't too happy with me "you get too many tickets," she would say to me as we drove the Los Angeles freeways in my 1938 Chevy…We were called into an office where a young cop was sitting behind a desk; no sooner had we sat down in front of his desk when he went into his Joe Friday impersonation "just the facts, ma'am, just the facts," my mom looked at me, I looked at my mom. We both had to bite our tongues to keep from laughing. After reading us the riot act, the wannabe Joe Friday suspended my driver's license for 30 days; he did give me a permit to drive back home…Sweet memories of innocence are hard to beat!!

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The Delgado Cow vs The Train

By kiki

In the Simons Brickyard, most people had chickens, roosters, pigs, rabbits, goats, and cows. Some of the animals were slaughtered for food. Pigs who were killed were soon made into tamales and chicharróns. A stolen goat made great birria on a Saturday afternoon when the men were drinking, and it didn't matter which goat was stolen. Some chickens were saved from having their neck twisted because they could lay eggs. Others were not so lucky as they were made into chicken soup or chicken mole. Finally, the cows were saved from being slaughtered because people needed milk to drink.

The people who lived in El Hoyo (the hole) would take their cows, goats, and other animals to a meadow on a hill by the railroad tracks. You could often see ten or more cows and goats grazing in the tall grass in that beautiful meadow. In late spring-early summer, the grass would rise about 3 feet tall, tall enough for some serious action by the teenagers (know what I mean?) who were supposed to be watching the livestock.

One late 1940s summer day, one of the Delgado girls, I don't remember which one of the girls it was, but it might have been Esther, who had walked the Delgado family's only cow up the hill to pasture. Soon after reaching the meadow, the Delgado girl met her boyfriend Chuy, and within minutes they were romping in the tall grass. 

With nobody to keep an eye on her, the cow made her way to the railroad tracks. I guess she wanted to see how the cows on the other side of the tracks lived, or maybe it was looking for a bull, who knows, but, as the cow was standing on the railroad tracks, a Santa Fe Streamliner passenger train came roaring down the tracks, I still remember that it was heading east. The cow didn't move, and the train didn't stop. A stampede of people was on soon as word got down to the inhabitants of El Hoyo that the Delgado cow had been killed by a train. People by the dozen were running toward the dead cow; some had knives in both hands, sharpening them against each other as they ran to get their steak for that night's dinner…We missed out!

Too Fatigued to Dance

By kiki

I have been feeling really fatigued for the last couple of weeks, completely drained of energy to do anything. My doctors and I know the cause of it, and it’s one of those “damn if you do, and damn if you don’t” things. The doctors can give me something to pick me up, but in doing so, they would be feeding my cancer, so it looks like this will be my life till the end….I write this not to make you feel sorry or worry about me, but as a quick preamble to another Connie story.

Last night, our son James and his wife Veronika invited us out to dinner to celebrate our daughter Linda’s birthday. I told them that they could join Linda and her husband Ray for dinner but that I was just too darn tired to go out. So they did, and Connie told me that they had a great dinner this morning, and I am glad they did!

 This morning Connie asked me about tonight. We have a wedding reception/dance to attend tonight, and Connie was asking me if I was going to be able to go; I replied to her that it was too early to know, but if I couldn’t go that there was no reason why she couldn’t go herself. With a beautiful twinkle in her eyes, she asked me, “I want to go, I want to dance, can I dance?” “Yes, of course, you can dance, but not too close,” I replied to her question “now, who would want to dance too close with this old lady?” she asked “babe, there are lots of blind guys out there” as those words came out my mouth I knew I had said the wrong thing. With the beautiful twinkle in her eyes gone, she said, “you think only blind men would want to dance close to me?! You’ll see tonight!” Go to the dance or not. I know where I’ll be sleeping tonight!!

Pencils for the Blind

 Another sweet memory from Los Angeles's Golden Age of boxing.

                                              

By kiki

Back in the 1950s and well into the '60s, a middle-aged black man used to sit cross-legged, Indian style, outside the main entrance of the Olympic Auditorium on fite nites. He would sit there wearing dark glasses with a white cane with a red tip nearby. His hat turned upside down would sit on the sidewalk full of pencils. As they walked into the arena, the fans would drop coins and paper money into his hat. But, of course, very few would take a pencil. Anything to help the blind, right?.... One fite night, while milling among the crowd in front of the arena, I spotted local boxing manager Ralph Gambina walking across the street, so did our blind friend, because he jumped up and yelled, "hey Ralph Gambina" He caught himself, but it was too late; because many of the fans had seen what he had done. Soon he was gone, only to be back sitting in the same spot with his white cane,  hat, and pencils a few weeks later.

What's that old adage? "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."