Wednesday, January 31, 2024
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During my high school days Chuck and I were very close friends. It was at his parent’s summer camp on the St. Lawrence I learned to water ski. He was a great team member on our cross country and track team. I have included a yearbook photo of Chuck and me together with the x-country team. He always gave it his all when he ran, and he was a valuable member of our team winning 4 straight section 10 cross country championships. I fondly remember the time I was double dating with Chuck and Joyce, and they took me to a roller-skating rink. They were great at it and really hit off. I could tell at once that they were a great match. While Chuck was a great pal, he was hot tempered and a stubborn cuss at times. I remember he taught me the game of chess like in the 8th grade. I had never played so he beat me like 8 straight games. The next day I went to the library and got a book on chess and studied for a week all kinds of moves and defenses. When we played again the tables were turned and I beat him 3 or 4 straight times. The last time he cleared the board with one fell swoop of his hand and said, " what the hell, how did you do that". I told him I had gotten a book on chess, and he said that was unfair and we never played again. Fortunately, we were still very very good friends, and we kept in contact for years as I would get a call from him from some strange places around the country. He would say AT&T sent him to the tunnels in lower Manhattan to reconnect 10,000 phone lines from a trunk line the size of a basketball that had been cut. I was amazed he could put back together thousands of phone lines and properly connect them. He laughed and said I know I am not very smart in books, but I always had the ability to understand complex wiring and how to fix things. I learned it from working with my dad at Mix Electric. ATT had picked him out from some of his earlier success, sent him to a special school and he became one of their main troubleshooters. I asked how you knew you had connected the right lines and he said he would randomly call folks to make sure things were correct. He said he always had fun selecting people like Johnny Carson and talking to them to make sure they had service. Through the years I would get calls from Phoenix, Iowa, New Orleans, LA and on and on. I will miss those calls.
