One final tale from these heady days when I-95 was snaking slowly across the state... Right next door to the publishing house was a three-story home that had been condemned. (Cleworth's buildings, be it noted, were spared the knocker's hammer...). One day, Chuck and I scouted this building - and the inhabitants had left behind almost everything - including their old upright piano. We thought it would be great if we could get that piano out of there (it was on the second floor) and back to the office lunchroom downstairs, where we could have music at lunchtime. (Chuck, of course, played quite well....). And if you have been taking notes as you read, dear reader, you already know he was a longtime expert in ....uprights.!      

   So we pushed this piano out onto the second floor landing where there was a little space, but more we could not do. We decided to wait till the crane and wrecking ball crew which was working its way southward here, arrived - then we would slip the operator a little "vigorish" and have him "make a pick" as they say after he had removed the roof but before he removed the floor (!) and set our piano down in the street for us. A couple days later and the crane was at the doorstep. To bide our time till the upper stories were sliced away, we repaired - like idiots - to those same upper stories! Here we found an attic that was chock full of treasures.

   There were old pictures, and trunks and trunks full of clothes and all the usual stuff. Time flies when you are having fun in the attic! Joining us for this day's depredations, I remember, was Sally - an old rough and ready secretary and general factotum around the office. Sally had heard about all she could stand of all the stuff the "old man" and "the boys" were getting day after day - and so this afternoon she announced she was going with us. No problem as far as we were concerned. So the three of us were disporting ourselves in the attic... Sally had found a bunch of really very nice old women's clothes and was going through them like crazy, picking out items that fit her and all. She had on two or three blouses probably, a couple of skirts and some sweaters maybe. She looked as pudgy as a Chinese infantryman.

   Suddenly there was a long, low whistling noise, followed by a horrendous crash! - and a giant ball - like a pendulum - passed right through the far end of the attic - taking the whole end with it - and letting in a blinding flash of sunlight! The wreckers were starting on the house! With one shout the three of us made for the small trap door. Sally hit on a slide - like going into second base - and as she disappeared down the steep stairs, her numerous skirts and flounces caught on a bunch of nails... Nothing deterred I stomped right on over and through her. (I had heard the ball's whistle once before while scouting on my own one day...). Chuck followed closely. Poor Sally! She began to scream at the top of her lungs - in her mind's eye the ball was already in its return swing, like Poe's pendulum in the story - and her life flashed before her.

   We lay on strong hands as the saying has it, and ripped Sally and her skirts free at the last moment as we headed on down to the second floor. We all emerged into the street in time, Thank Goodness! - but there were raised eyebrows ever after over the disheveled appearance of that hussy, Sally, up there with those two boys - and her with her skirts all torn and everything... Tsk! Tsk! Had they only known...

   Human nature being what it is (of course!), the crane operator accepted a fiver from each of us, and Chuck and I later that afternoon pushed the upright down the street and into the company lunchroom. Behind us its former quarters now looked like a direct hit in the London Blitz. I wonder if they still gather around the piano at lunchtime at Cleworth's, and if they do, I wonder if they know the tale of that particular upright - or of any other uprights, for that matter.... I'm sure not.

   One more item from those times - and I promise to be off. I had long wanted a telephone pole. Despite what Dr. Freud might make of this repressed desire, at least to me my reason seemed simple: I wanted to carve a totem pole. ("Sometimes a good cigar is just... a good cigar"). But I never was able to get a pole. One night, cold and bitter, Chuck showed up at the house - shivering and blue (he never had coats to wear).

   "Bernie - I found your telephone pole. Give me a hand."

   Since lending a hand in the "liberation" of my own pole seemed a charitable thing to do, I went along. Somewhere up in the wrack and ruin of the highway swath as it approached Cos Cob from the west - we found this pole that the 'dozers had knocked over that very afternoon. With much effort, the two of us got it up onto the truck and took it up to my father's house - where I was still living.

   Later, I carved it into a very nice pole - if I do say so. (Anthropology has ever been an interest of mine). So I duplicated an actual pole as preserved by the Indians up in Saxman Park in Alaska. For years it stood in my father's yard, then it followed me around like a totemic spirit, so you might say, and has stood in many a lawn and garden as my life has unfolded. Once, would you believe? - I even sat down next to its prototype at the bus-stop in Saxman - being jolted out of my reverie by the appearance of "my" pole right across the street...

   Currently, it lies somewhere in the bowels of Amodio's Storage Warehouse in Bristol, CT - awaiting - as does its maker, Life's next vicissitude.