Hillary… I’m moving fast here… please excuse stoopid typos / poor grammar / etc.
Though it’s been literally decades since I last saw Dan, I knew you two were true soulmates – and I’m really sorry for your loss. I hope you’re okay. I know it can’t be easy. Coincidentally, I’ve been thinking about Dan a lot over the last few months…. and, on occasion, I still tell Levitz stories, many of which Dan was a part of. And right now, for some reason (I’m feeling nostalgic?) I feel compelled to share two of my favorites. (Knowing full well they may only be funny to me, or they won’t translate because “you had to be there.” Or you had to know the insanity that was Levitz in the late 70s / early 80s. But you do.)
Story #1:
The first happened on a hot summer afternoon in ’80 or ‘81 I think. There was a piece-of-shit, tiny little furniture store in the strip shopping center next to Levitz that only lasted about a year before going out of business. One afternoon I was driving back to work after my 3PM to 4:30 dinner time, and I saw that they had put a big sandwich sign right outside their front door. I remember it was hand-made out of plywood, and it was taller than me, and it had stick-on letters that said “WE UNDER-SELL LEVITZ EVERY DAY.” So I get to work and I’m sitting by the GE credit office, and Dan wanders over, and I tell him about it. (This was on a really slow day – no traffic, no customers, and we were doing our long day, from 10AM til 9PM.) So Dan says “let’s take it.” And I remember saying words to the effect: "dude, it’s heavy, it’s right outside their front door, it’s very sunny out, how do we do that???” 10 minutes later, we had a plan. I had a big old station wagon… and the plan was we’d leave the tailgate open, drive right up to the front door, grab the sign, fold it (it was a sandwich sign with hinges on the top) and throw it in the back of the station wagon as fast as we could. We’d be gone before they knew what hit them. Step #2: we would take it back to Levitz and we’ll set it up in Dave Byington’s office. (Dave was our boss that day, and we thought he would love it – two of his guys taking out the competition and presenting him with a trophy of sorts.) We head out.
The plan actually goes pretty good. I drive up, fast, hit the brakes, we both jump out and grab the sign. We struggle a bit, but we get it in the back of the car fairly quickly. We left the tailgate open and I drive in the opposite direction (so they didn’t see us park at Levitz which was almost literally next door.) As we pull away, we both see guys in suits running out the front door to, I don’t know, give chase? Yell? Who cares. We drive through that neighborhood behind Levitz to get back to the store with our “prize.” We’re laughing hysterically. We park at a loading dock, take the sign out, and while Dave is back in traffic, we set it up in his office… totally expecting him to LOVE it. We go back to point. Within minutes, seriously… MINUTES, we see cops walking up to the front desk. They ask for the manager. (We're still laughing.) The cops are now waiting for Dave to come out. Dave pages me and I pick up the phone near point. He’s PISSED. He says “I know you guys did this, and I want it out of here RFN… I’ll keep the 2 cops busy while you two take that damn thing to the warehouse. Then we need to talk.” At this point, John Geyer knows the story and decides to help. I don’t know if you remember, but John was farmer strong… so he carries the sign to the warehouse by himself and throws it up into the second rack high. (It stayed there forever btw.) Turns out, the cops think the whole thing is hysterical too, and they tell Dave “not to let it happen again.” Later, when Dave talked to us, he said “guys – what if the press found out??? We’d look like bullies… stealing a sign from such a tiny store blah blah blah…" I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t funny, maybe it’s not even interesting… but we did laugh our asses off and I’ll never forget it.
Story #2 is a short one.
It’s literally my first or second month as a Levitz salesman. (This would be Dec 1977 or Jan 1978.) I’m the youngest guy on the floor. I’m barely even shaving yet. (Mike Chester was the 2nd youngest.) The other salesmen do not like me and f*ck with me every chance they get. I have an older married couple as a customer and they’re shopping for a living room. I feel like I’m with them for HOURS. Finally, they pick out a sofa and loveseat. I’m writing it up, and trying to sell the tables we had in the same setting. (I remember this was only a few feet away from point... and 5 or 6 the salesmen were standing nearby, listening in. The customer appears to like me… they see I’m a kid, married, baby #1 at home, they know I‘m struggling… and I can tell they’re rooting for me, they want to help me out. What happened next is 100% true. Dan, who I barely even knew at this point, wanders over to me and my customers, leans in, says “excuse me folks,” then looks at me and says, just loud enough for all to hear – “Glenn, your dealer called. Your Porsche is ready, you can pick it up tonight.” Then he walks away. Yeah, I still got the sale, but the “magic” was gone and the customer looked at me like I was a creep. But I was impressed… it was a smooth, well-executed move. But I got him back.
Wait, one more...
There’s the time we were both driving home from a party in Levittown (I forget who’s house) and Dan and I got stinking drunk. But Dan was way worse. And it’s late, very late. So we decide that he should follow me back to his house, me in my car and Dan in his car. I tell him “just focus on my tail lights and we’ll get there." At a major intersection, Dan blows it and make a ridiculous too-wide turn… and he runs up, over and then off a big curb. There’s a cop right there. The cop waves Dan down. Up ahead, I pull over and turn off my lights to watch. (Later, Dan tells me that he told the cop he only had 2 or 3 beers. He had way more than 2 or 3 beers.) The cop goes through all the drunk-driving stuff, touch your nose, hop on one foot, etc. Dan does it all without missing a beat. Then the cop throws a handful of change on the ground. (I couldn’t really see what was going on, but Dan filled in the blanks later.) The cop says “pick up every coin.” Dan does exactly that like he’s Fred Astaire… no wobbling, no getting dizzy. The cop lets him go. Later, I ask: “how did you do the coin thing so well – given how plastered you were?” Dan said “I knew what was coming, so I reached into my own pocket, grabbed my own change, and pretended to pick his change up. (Smooth? Hell yes. When it came to smooth… your husband was the shit.)
Everything above may not be all that remarkable, but it is all 100% true. We had a blast together, and I regret not seeing Dan over the years. Great guy, good man… and he’d probably smack me for saying this, but he was a sweetheart, too. I’m glad you two had so many years together, and I’m really sorry there weren’t more.
GG
P.S. I think he got the “your Porsche is ready” idea from a movie. Sound familiar to you?
P.P.S. Kim Palucis and her husband Paul. Did you ever hear from them, or do you know anything about them these days?
P.P.P.S. Please drop me a line at glenn@gury.com if you ever get time.