I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Picture this Sicily, 1923. 

Actually, picture this.  New York City.  1983.  

My first trip to NYC. 

It was speech and drama students from Scott County Senior High School, seniors, who’d participated along the way.  Some of the specifics are a little fuzzy, but the stories are 100% true.  

My mother was pissed that I was going.  I’d never asked for permission.  I forged the permission slip.  When I told her, she asked who was paying for it, and I said I was.  By that time in my senior year things had gotten very contentious. 

We left on a Thursday.  We all piled in to Jason’s dad’s tricked out van. Our teacher Ms. Moore was driving.  The drive up was not memorable.  In fact, I remember nothing about it.  The trip back was much better with the story of all stories to share.  

We got to NYC and checked into the Howard Johnson, in Times Square.  I still have the ashtray from our room.  It’s on a shelf in my office.  

I don’t remember the order of the stories, but these are things that happened.  

One morning around 11:00 we all walked into a bar, sat at a table and ordered drinks. It was my first drink in a bar. I ordered a whiskey sour.  We were served, with no question.  

One of my classmates spent the night throwing up, and was HUNGOVER the next day.  VERY hung over.  

We went to Macy’s.  I remember the wooden escalators.  

We went to Tiffany’s.  There were four of us I believe.  We got our own personal security guard who followed us from floor to floor.  42 years later I’d get an engagement ring from that store.  

At one point we got on the subway, we had no idea where we are going.  We get on.  The doors start to close as a family is entering.  The mother and father get on, but the doors close in front of the daughter.  The subway starts to move and one of us says pull the cord, so the only time in all my time of riding the subway, someone pulled the emergency stop cord.

We WERE YELLED AT by a million people, but the little girl was reunited with her parents.  

The subway starts again, and we are immediately plunged into darkness.  We ride several stops with absolutely no lighting.  

We were on our way to the Bronx Zoo.  We ride and ride and finally get off.  We go up to the street.  And we are the only white people as far as the eye can see.  We weren’t scared, really, but a kind cop, suggested that we go back down and go back in the direction in which we came.  

One day, late afternoon, we are walking in Time Square, and a man approaches us about buying a camera. I had been wanting a camera and said, sure I’d buy a camera from him.  He tells me to follow him, and I very smartly gave my wallet to someone I was with.  I followed him with my 40 bucks and when I got there, he asked me for my wallet.  I said, I didn’t have a wallet but I had 40 dollars.  He took the money and left.  I looked around and there were people doing drugs in the entry way I was in.  Shooting up you might say.   Whoops.  Better luck next time.  

If any of you are wondering where our teacher was during all of this, she had sequestered herself in HER hotel room and was grading term papers.  We only saw her when it was time for dinner and a show.  

Speaking of shows.  

On the first night we saw CATS.  I remember I fell asleep during Act 2.  

However.  The show started late, because they were holding the curtain.  Around 8:15, there is a murmuring through the crowd and Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter enter and sit a few rows in front of us.  Along with Amy.  They both sign autographs during intermission, which I also have somewhere.  

During intermission, Ken Page, who was playing Old Deuteronomy, sat on stage and signed autographs.  I have that as well.  

The next night we saw 42^nd Street.  I did not sleep through that.  To this day it’s one of my favorite shows.  I’ve designed it twice and seen it at least four or five times.  So fun, but no autographs.  

Of course, with our teacher grading term papers, there was much wandering the streets at night.  

One night we were out and about and met Edward Herrman.  I had no idea who he was.  

But.  

The biggest highlight of the trip was meeting Bob Hope.   It was at least 3:00 a.m and we were just walking around.  He just appeared.  We stopped him and talked to him for about 90 seconds.  He was wearing orange tennis shoes and was with a “bodyguard”?  I asked him for his autograph but all I had was a check and he wouldn’t sign it.  Which I find funny now.  

On one of the nights, we went to Sardi’s.  I remember very little about the dinner and I’ve never been back.  

Then it was time to head home.  

We are driving overnight.  And at some point, early in the morning, one of my classmates, who had really never participated in speech and only had done one show, starts having a vivid sex dream.  We all sat breathlessly, as she moaned and groaned her way down intestate 64.  We never knew if it was real, or if she was just doing a performance.  Finally, she climaxed and all was calm.  We all looked at each other and never spoke of it again. 

I’ll end by saying this.  I love seeing film and photos of NYC in the 70’s and 80’s.  I can’t explain it but that’s how I remember the city.  The smells, the chill in the air, the look and feel.  Those grainy pictures are exactly how it was.  The porn advertisement all over Times Square.  The prostitutes.  The edginess.  The questionable danger.  Scary and fun all at the same time.  

Today the city is in full cinemascope, with color and grandeur.  

But the 70’s and 80’s were a different story.  

PS.  It would be several years later that our drama teacher went back to NYC with students.   We had kind of ruined it for her.