The picture you see above was taken in New York in July of 2003. It was really my first impression of the 'Big Apple', which quickly changed, as my cohorts Dave, Tom and I would soon find out as we embarked on a four day trip of the city and Long Island.
That night we stayed near Times Square, trying to soak up as much of the city in a night as we possibly could. I told the boys that a sure sign of a tourist was when you had your head staring up all the time, so to keep them down a bit to blend in. Of course Tom questioned my suggestion with a ,"..what the f&*% does that mean?? Why do i have to keep my head down? You're GOIN' DOWN!!.." and then he grabbed me around the neck and squeezed with one of his patented 'hand to tendon' grips. I quickly told him that it was sign of a tourist because they were awestruck by the tall buildings and kept looking up. I think he understood, but it was a sign of things to come.
Jumping back a bit, when we first arrived it was actually in Newark and we had to rent a car to travel around in. Tom jumped in the back seat and Dave decided he would do a fine job of navigating, right along with the girl from 'NeverLost'. The first left we had to take, she was yapping something and Dave yelled, "hang a left here!!" and i proceeded to cut across two lanes of traffic through a red light! Of course the car that i directly cut off was a New Jersey Po Po. I went up the ramp, parked and waited for him (the usual for a proper Canadian). He whipped around and caught us quickly, sauntered out of his car just far enough so that i had to wrench my neck around, and asked for my license. Me of course, smiling and thinking that i could use a joke to break the ice, was cut off before i could speak as he blurted out, "I DON"T FEEL LIKE DYIN' ON A SATURDAY MORNING!", and threw my license on the floor of the car by my feet, "Have fun in NY boys.", and left us stunned and later laughing. I didn't feel like dying on a Saturday morning either or any morning for that matter.
Some might wonder about the title of this post, 'Goodwin Brothers' was a name given to Tom and I from one our customers. Tom's last name is Goodwin (of the Cape Island variety) and this guy just decided to lump us together as we sometimes would share sales responsibilities. He was somewhat of a hotheaded customer that would go off if his order wasn't just right and then come a calling for the 'Goodwin Brothers'. So, I became an honorary brother of Tom's whether I liked it or not and it has stuck to this day.
Back in our hotel room that night (which all three of us shared to save $) after spending the evening with some lesbians at a bar who Tom thought he could pick up while sucking back quite a few wobbly pops, we laughed about that and the fact that at one of the cross walks in the Square we bumped into a guy that I knew that had happened to work for a summer at the plant in Bedford. He was now a model if you could believe it and had a posse of women in tow. A guy who slung lobster crates around a dirty cold plant was now a New York fashion model and in a city of millions, and we bump into him!! Both, I guess, equally surprising. We passed out and were later awoken by a banging on our hotel room door. Of course being small town guys, Tom gets up and stammers, "i'll get the door..", just as I kind of come to and realize what he's about to do, i yell, "DON'T OPEN THE DOOR!!". We peer through the peep hole and see this huge man looking like he wants to tear us a new one. Tom's like, "What, i can take him...come on he aint nuffin", as i steered him back into his cot he takes a small swipe at me showing me what he'll do and I lay back down wondering what might have been......to be continued...
...Part 2; The Beach, Breasts and Montauk
