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The White Pages


xxmikexx

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Earlier today I asserted that anybody can write well enough to make any subject interesting simply by coming at it from an angle that would interest the author himself, his enthusiasm in turn affecting the rest of us. Here’s the promised example, me rising to the challenge of making the Telephone Book interesting …

 

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The telephone book known as the “White Pages” has many uses. For example, if I wanted to generate a name for a character in a novel I might open the phone book at random, poke my finger at an entry and come up with a first name, in this case “Chet” (truth). By the same procedure I might come up with a last name of “Webster” and, finally, a middle initial of “O.”

 

And there we have him, folks - - Chester O. Webster, a/k/a “Chet”.

 

What do we know about the mythical Chet? Well, for one thing we know he lives in Wheat Ridge, a suburb of Denver. How do we know this? Because the cover of the (local) book says Lakewood, Golden, Wheat Ridge, but he doesn’t strike me as a resident of Lakewood (where my wife and I live) or Golden (where my daughter and her family live).

 

No, Chet Webster lives in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, a pleasant looking community that has some unpleasant surprises in store for non-residents, see later in this post.

 

But for the moment let’s look at something other than using the White Pages as a name generator for Great American Novels ...

 

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Believe it or not the White Pages, or indeed any thick edition of any phone book, is often used by people who want to investigate or demonstrate the stopping power of a handgun or rifle.

 

As when Bill Whoever fired a Winchester 30-30 into the Manhattan phone book in the confines of his bedroom in his parents’ apartment in the same Queens apartment building where I and my parents lived. (Truth. And I say “Whoever” because that’s the way I like to represent a name that my failing memory refuses to retrieve.)

 

My ears were in agony even though I had pressed the flaps closed with my index fingertips. Bill and I were 15 at the time and he had -- are you ready for this? -- a carry permit for firearms and ammunition valid anywhere within the five boroughs of NYC. (Truth.)

 

You see, Bill shot competitively, or at least that’s what the carry permit said. So it would make perfect sense for him to be walking around one of the most crime-ridden cities in the USA, carrying a Winchester Model 95 in a case.

 

Aw c’mon, Bill. How does a 15 year old kid living in Forest Hills get to be a championship shooter? I mean, I can see a kid from 110-45 Queens Boulevard maybe being a tennis star, but a crack pistol shot? And anyway, who ever heard of competition shooting matches on Staten Island using deer rifles? It simply doesn’t happen, right? So how’d you get the permit, Bill?

 

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(I mentioned the possibility of Bill's being a tennis star because he and I, along with several other friends, used to play stickball in a vacant lot right next to the world famous Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. We never had to buy any balls, they were hit out of the stadium to us with sufficient frequency that all of us had large supplies of them. We would defuzz them on the cooking rings of gas stoves, which most apartments had back then.

 

I was a pitcher, and while hardball did and does terrify me, I was a very good and very aggressive stickball player. I had a sidearm slider/sinker pitch that was difficult to hit, and a knuckler that would travel to up close to the batter and then drop like the Space Shuttle on final.

 

You see, defuzzed tennis balls offer a pitcher incredible control. But I digress, so let’s ask him again ...)

 

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Bill, is that permit real?

Yes.

 

Not forged?

No.

 

Will it stand inspection by members of New York’s Finest?

Yes, it has done so a dozen times.

 

Where’d you get it, Bill?

From the office of the Chief of Police. They handle this stuff.

 

Well, Bill, who do you know? I mean you must have some kind of pull, right?

I only know my mother.

 

Okay, Bill, I’ll come out and play. Who does your MOTHER know?

Well, she knows Judge FamousName. She knows him because she’s his mistress, and he comes to visit a couple of times a week. One day I asked him if he could get me a carry permit and he said “Yes, of course. Have your mom call this guy <gave the name> and tell him I said to issue the permit, and to call me if he has any questions.”

 

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And so it came to pass that Bill and I were sitting around in his bedroom that very interesting day. The conversation had somehow turned to guns, whereupon Bill said

 

I have an idea. Would you like to see my 30-30?

Well, sure. You mean you have an actual deer rifle right here in this room?

 

Yes, it’s in the closet ... <Rummages around.> ... Here. Want to hold it?

Well, yes. <Handles the rifle expertly.> It’s not loaded is it?

 

No, but we’ll fix that. Give it over. <Feeds a single round in the chamber.>

What are you going to do, Bill? You’re not going to shoot me are you?

 

No, I’m going to shoot the Manhattan telephone book. Only the rifle is so powerful that the shot is probably going to go right through it. So let’s put the Manhattan Yellow Pages behind it. And some pillows behind that.

 

And that’s what we did, folks. We got a bunch of pillows and lined them up at the head of his bed. Then we leaned the Yellow Pages against the frontmost pillow. Then the White Pages against that one.

 

Now ... These are not your ordinary phone books. They are each six inches thick even though they cover only Manhattan. (Yes, everybody got the books for their own borough. I can’t recall whether people had to buy the Manhattan books as opposed to getting them for free, but everybody had them.) So between them the books provided a foot of heavy-duty stopping power, more impenetrable than an equivalent thickness of wood because of the many layers.

 

I sat alongside the bed and held my fingers to my ears. Bill went to the foot of the bed, levered the action to cock the rifle, took aim, and fired ...

 

... And the round went all the way through the White Pages. And all the way through the Yellow Pages. And all the way through something like two pillows before stopping in a third, ruining all three of them.

 

Isn’t your mom going to mind?

No.

 

And she didn’t.

 

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But let’s get back to Chet Arnold or whatever his name is. I promised to tell you about his hometown of Wheat Ridge, and so I shall.

 

Two years ago I got my first traffic ticket in fifteen years, and I got it at the intersection of Something and 44 th by virtue of a badly planned hasty left turn out of a T, resulting in my tapping the side a truck that had been speeding through the top of the T from left to right.

 

I had to wait around for the police to arrive, my bladder rapidly filling. It took them an hour. At one point the admittedly lovely Officer Ramirez said “Let me see your proof of insurance.” I couldn’t find the paperwork. “Look” I said to her. “Please just call the Bill Alexander agency. They’ll confirm that I have coverage.”

 

She did but there was no answer. She then wrote me two citations, for Vehicle Turning Left and for Uninsured Motorist, promised to call the agency again later and then let me go, whereupon I ducked into the adjacent ... ... beauty salon, the only building immediately at hand, and asked to use the men’s room. (Just kidding, folks. There was no men’s room, only the one used by the women. They agreed simply because I told them what was inevitably going to happen to the salon floor if they didn’t agree.)

Edited by xxmikexx

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Now you probably think I’m digressing again but really, folks, I’m not.

 

The court date was set for six weeks later. “Can’t I pay by mail?" No, because it’s Wheat Ridge. "I understand that, but WHY won’t Wheat Ridge let people pay by mail?” Because.

 

So I went to court on the appointed day, arriving an hour early because ... well … when faced with the majesty of the law, one should arrive early just in case. For that same reason I wore a jacket and tie.

 

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Another aside: I was probably the only person in the entire municipal bulding with a tie. This is suburban Denver, folks. I know a billionaire (truth) (well, maybe he's just your garden variety gazillionaire) who, when he comes to town, wears a T shirt and a fanny pack. You would never guess that he's richer than ... well ... Let's just say that this guy likes to offer million dollar no-strings-attached grants to people and projects that he has stumbled across and likes. (Truth.) But then he's from <city in Canada>, and a software development nerd to boot. What else would you expect from a beany-wearing propellerhead from north of the border?

 

(But he approaches his beneficiaries and not the other way 'round. Nobody comes to him first because a) he maintains a low profile so that b) hardly anybody knows he exists, and anyway c) he doesn't take requests.)

 

... Ahem ...

 

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A bailiff approached me after I had sat down in the waiting room. “Are you Mister McCarthy?” he asked. Yes. “Officer Ramirez couldn’t reach your agent. So you’re going to have to produce the proof of insurance in Judge Cochran’s courtroom.”

 

This was a real problem because, folks, I had well and truly lost the paperwork, and Bill Alexander wasn’t returning my calls either, much less those of the winsome Officer Ramirez. And as if that wasn’t enough ...

 

“Judge Cocharan won’t even call your case without the paperwork. Instead you’ll be cited for contempt of court.”

 

“Really.” I said. “If that happens I’ll appeal, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. There’s nothing in the law that says I have to provide proof of insurance in order to be tried for failing to have proof of insurance, or for any other traffic offense.”

 

“Fine” said the bailiff. “That’s your right as a citizen. But it will save you a lot of trouble if you can get those papers right now. The judge will allow them to be faxed in but they’ll have to come from your agent or your insurance company.”

 

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I’ll spare you the details of my agony. No I won’t. Thanks to my cell phone I was finally able to establish that Bill Alexander not only didn’t have any suitable paperwork regarding my auto insurance, he had exited the automobile insurance business altogether to concentrate on commercial fire/theft. Still, after much begging and pleading, he got on the horn with Hartford, who faxed the papers to Bill, who faxed them to Cochran’s clerk.

 

So I was allowed to face the judge after all. Having been admitted to the courtroom, I joined about twenty other people, all waiting to be tried by Cochran, a magistrate, Wheat Ridge having passed a municipal ordinance like the one in Denver depriving citizens of their right to a jury trial in traffic court. (Truth.)

 

Cochran swept in and got right to work.

 

“Everybody here is going to pay a fine” he said. “I mean only if you’re convicted, of course. The minimum fine is ninety dollars. There is no maximum fine. Everything depends on the severity of the accident, and on your driving record.”

 

Eventually my case was called. I told the judge that I wanted to accept whatever plea bargain the city attorney was offering, since everybody else had been offered deals. “Not so fast” he said. “I haven’t seen your driving record because my clerk couldn’t find it. Now, where is it? Oh yes, here it is.”

 

He read the record. “I don’t believe this” he said. “Except for the Vehicle Turning Left you don’t have anything on your record. It’s completely clean. You must be a really good driver.”

 

“Thank you, Your Honor, I am a good driver. In fact, this particular intersection is an accident waiting to happen, and it happened. I was actually the victim of the guy who was speeding.”

 

“Tough” the judge said. “There’s no excuse for a Vehicle Turning Left. Now ... Given everything I've just said, and knowing what might happen, do you want the deal or not?”

 

“May I learn the fine before pleading?”

 

“No, you may not.”

 

So I pled guilty without really even understanding what the charge had been reduced to, and without knowing what the fine would be. Whereupon the judge informed me that it would be a one-point violation, that mine would be the minimum fine, and that had the city counsel not tied his hands he wouldn’t have fined me even that much.

 

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And that’s how you write about the White Pages, my fellow authors. I didn't make this stuff up. If I had you would have sensed it. Only real life can result in stories like these.

 

And so, Dear Readers, you might be bored to tears right now but trust me, Tom Clancy could not have done as well as I just did here. He is paid to lie and he knows no other way. I don't invent things unless its parody song lyrics -- I don't know how.

 

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P.S. ...

 

After sentencing I told the judge in no uncertain terms that I thought the intersection in question needed a traffic light, because there was a primary school on the corner, and my grandson's junior high was further up the street. (I had come to take him home.)

 

In fact, I told the judge that if the city didn't do anything about that intersection it was only a matter of time till somebody got killed, quite possibly a little kid.

 

"Look" he said. "If you really feel that way you should get in touch with the office of the Traffic Engineer. They will definitely take your call."

 

And they did. "Thanks for calling" they said. "We've been watching this intersection for years, pleading with the city council for a light. They keep saying no and we keep coming back with current traffic surveys showing that they need to say yes. So now we can add your call to the pile of complaints that we'll submit next time."

 

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And that's Wheat Ridge, folks. A nice place to work but I wouldn't want to live there. In fact, from an earlier computer software consulting job I got to know their taxation manager, a woman named Jacque Wedding. (Pronounced like "Jackie".)

 

In typical Wheat Ridge fashion she enforced the collection of Girl Scout cookie sales taxes.

Edited by xxmikexx
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I completely forgot ...

 

While I was in high school in Manhattan, the first entry in the White Pages was "A Answering Service" , and the last one was "Zzyzzy Zdamp Zdudios". :D (Truth.)

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Your traffic ticket incident brought back a memory of a traffic stop I once had. My first vehicle was actually a pickup truck. But, it wasn't too long before I graduated to a car.

 

Now, way back then seat belts were only installed in airplanes and race cars. You had to go to an auto store to buy seat belts. Then you had to install them yourself. Auto manufacturers didn't even offer them as optional equipment. Well, I wanted seat belts. I knew the value in them and knew that I'd feel safer with them. They actually made you feel like "part of the car" while driving. Still do to me.

 

So, I had this beautiful 1953 Chrysler 2-door hardtop. I had the hood shaved and got some oversized fender skirts out of Detroit that made it look like it was lowered a couple of inches. I had dual exhausts installed with a pair of beautiful sounding glass pack mufflers that made a nice low rummble sound. Not loud by any means.

 

But.....one night while out "cruising", I was pulled over by the police. The officer came up to the driver's side and said, "Those mufflers are kinda loud, aren't they, son?" Before I could answer, he kinda leaned into the window and saw that I was wearing seat belts. I always wore them. He then said, "Oh, you're one of them hot rodders, aren't you?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, you're wearing seat belts." I politely said, "Sir, the day will come when YOU will be REQUIRED to wear seat belts before I am."

 

And so it came to pass that the law first required police officers to wear seat belts at all times long before it was required of people to wear them. It was a few years before they were even offered as an option.

 

So.....buckle up!

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As I recall, Volvo was the first seller of cars in America to offer seat belts as a factory option. We bought a 63-and-a-half Mustang when it came out. I think that Corvettes came with seat belts by then but I think the Mustang came next. You will know better than I.

 

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I used to get stopped all the time because I'd had the car painted bright yellow with wide black racing stripes, mine being the first car I'd ever seen painted like that. So the cops used to pull me over all the time and look for equipment violations. (Or warrants? Did they do warrants checks back then? I don't recall.)

 

Anyway, I felt I had earned the stripes out at Vineland Raceway (South Jersey, oval track racing on a closed sub-course marked by cones, against other sedans, some of them full race) and at the brand new Englishtown Speedway (Central Jersey Pine Barrens), of which I was a "plank owner" so to speak. (J-Stock, and I pulled consistent seconds and thirds with zero modifications versus cars that had a lot of expensive stuff hung on them, because I knew how to pull hole shots.)

 

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I only ran three times at Vineland but I spent almost the whole of Englishtown's first season out at the track. My race preparations consisted of tightening the hydraulic lifters about a half turn to stave off floating, and of wrapping the fuel line in aluminum foil, and of removing my air filter. That was about it. I never expected to win, I just wanted third place for sure, second place hopefully, and to keep gradually bettering my times on average.

 

Oh yes, the car wasn't completely stock. I had a Hurst racing shifter, a tach, and glass packs. But everybody had that stuff.

 

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So the driver is just as important as the equipment, and I said so through my yellowjacket paint scheme, which I believe was the inspiration for many others. :D

 

At Vineland, I showed 'em that even an understeering Mustang could beat an oversteering Corvair (remember those?), if you know how to break the back end loose, after which you can steer with throttle just like the actual racing machines.

 

So the Vineland races usually consisted of several Corvairs, a Jag or two, sometimes a Corvette. On days when the Corvette wasn't running I cleaned everybody's clocks because I was much more willing to take the car to the edge than anybody else was -- and I learned where the edge was by exceeding it in practice. (So what if the car spins out? You just regain steering control wait for the car to complete a 360, steer out of the spin, and off you go again with minimal loss of time.)

 

P.S. ...

 

Can you say "car crazy"? I had never owned a car till I was 20 -- never needed one. But I researched affordable cars, we bought the Mustang, and I was hooked. I did all my own lightweight maintenance, and I installed a set of custom gauges all by myself, and I installed the shifter all by myself.

 

In fact, I got so interested that I bought the Mustang service manual, and while mine was stick shift, I was fascinated to learn how automatic transmissions worked. (Manual transmissions are interesting tool)

Edited by xxmikexx
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I couldn't tell you who was the first with seat belts either optional or standard. I had a '55 T-Bird and I had to buy belts for that. Can't remember for sure but I think I even had to buy belts for my '63 Avanti, but that doesn't seem right. I do remember that my '64 T-Bird DID have belts as standard.

 

Other than as a spectator (of which there were many, many, many times), the only race track experience I have driving is in Go-Carts. I pushed Midgets with that truck I had. That's how the clutch got burned out! I think I'd make a good race car driver though as I do pretty well in some of the race sims, and we got a couple of trophys with the Go-Cart. But that was back before all the factory teams started showing up. Been thinking about getting a car for the Bump and Run here at the local fair, but I'm having just a little trouble convincing you know who!

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Somehow I never got into go-carts, and today the expense to be competetive would be horrendous, as you pointed out.

 

But I would say that if you were able to win go-cart races in the old days then yes indeedly-doo you are a race car driver.

 

From my never-done-it viewpoint go-carts are very much like Forumula 1, just a lot slower, with sophisticated suspensions, and with way way way less torque. So it's really among the most challenging kind of driving because it's got all the elements of the McCoy, and the issues are the same as in Formula 1, to wit ...

 

... To wit, finding the line, driving the machine to the limit of traction, doing this the same way every lap, knowing how to get through traffic, and knowing how to steer through multi-car collisions.

 

I regret that I never tried it. If we ever get some free spending money I will because I'd really like to see what I can do, even at my age.

 

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That was Mario Andretti's strength. He rarely finished because he never met an engine he couldn't wreck on the track, but my goodness could he pick his way through multi-car wrecks.

 

Nice guy, too. Just as he was beginning to make a name for himself I started going to super modified races to see what all the noise (Andretti) was about. I was then privileged to watch his first championship car race, and after the race I held back till he had signed all the autographs, and I had a nice discussion with him about his brand new Lola.

 

I hadn't intended to keep him for more than a minute -- I just wanted to say hello, really -- but he was happy to talk and I think it was a good ten minutes before he needed to walk away to decompress, clean up and get some much needed rest. (It had been a hundred mile race on a 2.5 mile track, as I recall.)

Edited by xxmikexx
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Hi Mike...clearly you have a lot more free time than do I. I won't take you up on your challange to start my own blog, but I am glad to have my attention drawn to yours...

 

anyway, I was struck by your use of the phone book to create character names for novels. I don't know whether yoy know the dinner party game in which you determine your porn star name...it's easy, take the name of your first pet, and the name of the first street you remember where you grew up. I'm Jill Glendon...not a good porn star name, but it beats something like Tweetybird 1st Avenue...:-0. keep on bloggin, and I'll keep on reading when time permits.

 

Sherm

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Hi Sherm,

 

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, I have more free time than you do. In fact, I'm very fortunate that my life can be as it is -- completely lacking in structure and direction. Which reminds me of a saying from the 70s, parodying the Civil Defense warning system tests of the time ...

 

This life is a test. It is only a test. If this were an actual life you would have been given instructions on where to go and what to do. :)

 

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Writing is what I do for relaxation, Sherm, a break from heavy duty technical programming. Sometimes the breaks are only a couple of hours long. Sometimes they're a month long, as this one is turning out to be. (I'm working on AirBoss but only for a couple of hours each day.)

 

However, what starts out as a short piece often goes on autopilot, taking over my life for a while till it lets me go. (And as you have learned, brevity is not my strong suit. :D)

 

Writers of fiction and screenplays often report a similar phenomenon. They don't write the material, they transcribe it, and they're always wondering what new characters they're going to meet, what is going to happen to the characters, and what the characters are going to do as a result.

 

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It's interesting to have known readers. Now it's you as well as skylab.

Edited by xxmikexx
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>>>"...take the name of your first pet, and the name of the first street you remember where you grew up..."

 

Smokey Lakewood ??? Now there's a name for ya!

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I don't really have a need for a porn stage name -- a lot of people already refer to me as that f-word-ing Mike. :D

 

However, I'll play along ... I get "Kitten LeRoy", which has a nice ring to it. Trouble is, I'd have to become a trans ...

 

No, let's not go there. My article promised that my writings would be suitable for my nine year old granddaughter. So instead I'll simply cite a song title, Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like A Lady".

 

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(Can we say these things on TV? :))

Edited by xxmikexx
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in re your comments about brevity in writing, or lack thereof...professinaly I am a radio news anchor. When writing radio copy, the rule is to boil down the story to its essence. Charles Osgood of CBS fame reportedly has said that the trick is to read the raw story from which you are going to write, then rewrite only the most important facts that you remember. The problem, of course is that memory is not always true...anway, I've written way to much on this for a radio journalist...:-). See you guys in the air..

Kitten Leroy!!!! That's a hoot..., not to mention Smokey Lakewood...:-)

 

Sherm

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Sherm,

 

I know HOW to be brief. I just don't want to take the time. I'm fully aware of the Chicago Manual of Style prescription ...

 

"Write simply. Use short words and short sentences."

 

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That said, what's it like being a radio news anchor? (I appreciate that you don't have a lot of time for this.) Do you do your own story selection and editing? Do you rip and read? (I know just enough terminology to make me look foolish.)

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