Who Moved My Cheese…Again
It was September 11, 1970.
As Bruce Springsteen described in his autobiography Born to Run, the Steel Mill concert at the Clearwater Swim Club located in the Atlantic Highlands section of Middletown Township New Jersey was billed as a “Free Mad Dog” concert. Vinnie “Mad Dog” Lopez was the band’s drummer who had been arrested in Richmond shortly before and they needed money to bail him out of jail.
I met up with some friends at the beach in North Long Branch and we hitchhiked our way up the coast to Atlantic Highlands. Hitchhiking was a fairly common mode of transportation back then.
My brother had gotten a ride with one of his friends. We were sitting near the right side of the pool.
I had a tendency back then to like to wander through the crowds socializing.
At some point, a plainclothes police officer who was also moving through the crowd attempted to arrest someone for something and got thrown in the pool.
As a result of that and the 10 p.m. noise curfew, the uniformed Middletown Police arrived with literally a busload of police officers intent on enforcing the noise curfew.
So around 10 p.m. they shut off the power and pandemonium ensued. There was a lot of scuffling around the stage, and amplifiers were coming down.
As the chaos broke out the crowd began to flee the venue and the police.
At some point in the confusion, an arm reached out and grabbed my shirt.
It was my brother. “Stay right next to me,” he said as we worked our way out, holding on to my shirt the whole way out. My memory is a little fuzzy on what happened after but no doubt we all ended up back in North Long Branch in Johnny’s Luncheonette parking lot trading stories about our crazy evening.
There would be others.
Though we were two years apart we had a lot of the same friends, we hung out in the same places, liked the same music, and as in the story above he took good care of me. The downside of that being that when we were younger my mother would sometimes buy us the same clothing so there are school pictures where we were dressed alike. And since Carl was bigger than me, once he grew out of his, I had to wear it another year or two.
I remember one Christmas I had bought him four or five forty-five records as a present, wrapped them up and hid them under my bed. But since I liked the forty-fives so much one day before Christmas when no one was around I unwrapped them, listened to them a couple of times, re-wrapped them, and put them back under the bed.
My mother bought us our first record albums at the Superama in Shrewsbury, or maybe it was at Two Guys From Harrison, no I think it was the Superama. If you are from Jersey you may remember those stores. Carl got The 4 Seasons Gold Vault of Hits and I got the Beach Boys’ Surfin’ U.S.A.
Carl growing up was “Chris” or “Chrissie”. We didn’t start calling him Carl until we were adults so that was fairly recently, and still, then it was just every now and then.
He could torment the heck out of you with his teasing and pranks.
Once when we were younger he stood at the top of the steps of the split level house my dad had built where we grew up, in Oceanport, New Jersey, holding a deck of cards and asked me if I wanted to play Fifty Two Pick Up. Since I liked to play cards and liked playing with my brother I enthusiastically said yes.
Then he threw the deck of cards down the stairs and they landed scattered all over our hallway at the bottom of the steps and said:
“Okay, then pick them up.”
Then he laughed real hard.
I should have seen that one coming.
Gary who was seven years younger than Carl took the brunt of his pranks though.
We all three boys shared the same bedroom. My dad had built this elaborate headboard system with bookshelves for each one of us in between the beds. Gary had the bed closest to the door and Chrissie was in the middle. One day Carl was kneeling in between his bed and Gary’s pretending to be taking big whiffs of something he was holding cupped in his hands. Every time he took a big whiff he would comment on how great it smelled. Gary was watching and so he asked Gary if he would like to smell it too and Gary said yes. So he snapped the ammonia inhaler he had cupped in his hands just before Gary took a big snort. Gary freaked and ran out of the room screaming and crying. It was hysterical.
Another time we were camping and the campground was near a farm that had an electrical fence. Patty was a baton twirler at the time. Chrissie was holding Patty’s baton by the rubber end and touching the fence and saying how cool it was. He asked Gary if he wanted to touch the fence with the baton too and of course Gary yes. So he handed Gary the baton which Gary grabbed by the metal part. Then Gary touched the fence. That was pretty funny too.
Growing up he fought most of the battles with my parents first so when I wanted to do something like grow my hair long, wear hippie-like clothes, listen to loud rock music, and have the freedom to roam, my parents had already given up on the fight.
As soon as he could get his working papers at the age of thirteen he started working. First at Frank Callahan’s market in old Oceanport. Then he parlayed jobs and learned printing skills that eventually got him to Lucent Technologies and a very early retirement offer.
Somewhere along the way, he was exposed to asbestos. He also always thought the chemicals in the print shop were the cause of his colon-rectal cancer since he knew other printers who had also developed the same cancer.
In those early years too he flipped cars like he flipped jobs, buying selling, even trading with his friends. He always had cool cars. In fact, I bought my first car from him, my first motorcycle, and my first pick-up truck.
One time I had a date with this new girl. She was a big Billy Joel fan and I was taking her to the Billy Joel concert at the Monmouth College (it wasn’t a University then) on his Piano Man tour.
Carl knew this was an important date for me so he asked if I wanted to borrow his car that night. At the time he had a 1971 white Corvette. She was very impressed. I remember I tried to kiss her once though and she pulled back because she said that I would mess up her lipstick.
Needless to say, that one didn’t work out (thankfully).
Never the less I still made a big impression thanks to Billy Joel and my brother.
I recall one day, we were probably in our early twenties, and we were driving somewhere. As he drove I sat in the passenger seat doing my best Richard Lewis shtick, complaining about whatever it was I was hating life about at the time.
He listened quietly as I ranted and finally he stopped me and said something like:
“Listen to yourself!”
“All you have been doing since we have been driving is complaining.”
“What the hell do you have to complain about?”
“Why don’t you quit bitching and complaining and just be happy?”
I shut up and sat quietly after that thinking about how I was acting and feeling a little silly.
He was right.
I think since he knew my propensity back then for being miserable and complaining, not too long after he had lost his job at Lucent, I left the company I had worked at for fifteen years and had trouble finding a new job.
He sent me a book called “Who Moved My Cheese” and he said it had helped him to view his situation more positively. He thought it might do the same for me.
If you are not familiar, “Who Moved My Cheese” is the story of four mice named Sniff and Scurry and Hem and Haw The book is about the different ways we respond to change. In the book, Cheese is the metaphor for what we want in life. I think Carl knew he was more Sniff and Scurry and that I was more Hem and Haw.
The book explains that no source of cheese lasts forever. Life changes whether we like it or not because change is inevitable and we need to learn to anticipate it, adapt to it, embrace and enjoy it. Do this and you will enjoy more success and fulfillment in every part of your life and work.
It worked for him.
He went on to work for himself and build a great business as his family grew and made many very loyal friends. He encountered many challenges along the way but always remained positive.
The morning of Tuesday, June 30, I was the only one at my sister Patty’s house when my sister in law Teesha called my cell phone and told me Carl had just died.
I freaked.
I got angry at God and Carl that he couldn’t have waited another freaking hour so that I could talk to him, and with no one in the house I was expressing that disappointment quite vocally and loudly.
Afterward, I felt a little silly once again.
Because I know if he could have, he would have said “what the hell are you angry, and complaining about? I’m not angry and complaining and I’m the one who died! Just quit complaining and be happy!”
And he would have been right again.
For my family, once again our cheese got moved and in an instant, our lives changed.
And though we anticipated it, I have to say it’s been really hard to embrace it.
But Carl did.
And now he is at peace, he is not in any more pain, and he doesn’t have to worry about overcoming any more challenges.
He can just be happy.
He found his cheese…again.
(North Long Branch photo courtesy of MonmouthBeachLife.com, the Superama photo courtesy of TroyMartin.com)
