The Wishing Well Caper—or What Happens When You Forget the Devil in the Details!

CHRISTMAS 2022

Resuscitation, the focus has shifted from two days ago when we lost power with the temperature plummeting down to 5 degrees. With the house getting colder by the second and nightfall fast approaching, Dorothy and I scrambled to find shelter. My cousin and his wonderful wife arranged for us to spend the night in a guest apartment at Essex Meadows, an elegant retirement complex a 10-minute drive from us. A good night’s sleep in a toasty warm setting and a hearty breakfast the next morning, and we returned home. The power had returned late the previous night.

Christmas day was all ahead flank at son Graham and Paulette’s house. Her parents came up from Long Island. All four grandkids were in high gear. Talk a mile a minute, a brunch that defied adjectives, and then “hell for leather” oohs! and ahhs as the presents were distributed by Graham.

After the meal, the males migrated to the den. At half time in the Green Bay-Miami football game, son Graham snapped pictures, the two grandfathers and three grandsons in time-out mode.

As I awoke from my long winter’s nap and stared out at the frozen landscape outside the den window, my mind wandered back to topic du jour — “EXTREME COLD” — and memories etched a long time ago. One conjured the image of a hapless young entrepreneur, caught soaking wet in his skivvies on an icy night outside a drinking hole in North Hadley, MA, and the bemused state trooper who decided my fate.

Here’s The Wishing Well Caper from my book, The Rogue’s Road to Retirement. Enjoy and stay warm!

The Wishing Well Caper

The older I get, the more Dorothy and I count our pennies. We were diligent about saving over the years, but we continue to be confounded daily by how expensive everything seems to have gotten. A newspaper costs more than a dollar? A burger and fries will set you back fifteen bucks? What’s wrong with this world?!

When nothing seems to make sense and the earth seems to have spun off its axis, I often take a few moments to sit back and ponder simpler times. Remember the days when every penny counted? I do.

My parents sacrificed a great deal to educate me and my younger brother Ken. Both of us knew it. We took any opportunity that came our way to make extra money. During my junior year in college, my lacrosse teammate Jim Ostheimer (“Osty”) had signed a contract to sell a line of high-end cutlery and household knick-knack items for Hoffritz, a leading retailer in the field. He hired me to help him.

Rejection and how you deal with it is a large part of any undertaking, and life in general. Our first efforts at selling to roommates, teammates, and friends proved both fruitless and profitless. Most of them had no money either.

We decided to expand our territory and chose three destinations out of town to ply our wares. South Hadley, North Hampton, and New London were the locations of choice.  It was no coincidence that they were home to Mt. Holyoke, Smith, and Connecticut College.

Between classes, homework, and lacrosse practice, there was little time left for capitalistic pursuits. Our selling trips had to be well-coordinated. Evenings were the preferred times. Research was also a part of our sales strategy. We plotted our northern forays during several meetings at our fraternity house, DKE, in hopes of gathering the names of girls at the various colleges who might want to purchase some of our wares (or alternatively accept our pleas for a date).

We loaded Osty’s car with a full complement of top of the line knives, can openers, leather manicure sets, picture frames, combs, and other accessories. For our first out-of-town venture, we chose Smith. We headed north directly from the field house after practice. We went from dorm lobby to dorm lobby, packing and unpacking the car. Nothing clicked.

Discouraged, we packed it in after canvassing four buildings. We decided to rethink our approach and stopped at a bar in North Hampton to debrief. The Marciano-Lewis fight was on the black-and-white TV. The bar was crowded with locals. Time sped by. Between the fight and our futile attempts to charm some of the comely ladies in attendance, we squandered most of the cash in our pockets.

It was time to head back to New Haven. Our spirits had improved. Osty turned the key in the ignition. “My God, there’s no gas in this thing.”

Between us we had less than three dollars. I remembered another bar near South Hadley a short distance away. We took off with our fingers crossed. A few minutes later we pulled into the parking lot of the Wishing Well, but it was closed. The well outside, however, was not!

We stripped down to our skivvies and waded in, breaking the ice as we bent down or dove to retrieve pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Our total take was around fourteen dollars. There was an all-night gas station/convenience store located on the way to the highway, a short distance down the road.

All of a sudden, headlights appeared at the far end of the parking lot. What a sight! There we were, barefoot, bare-chested, teeth chattering, trying to put our pants on, and turning blue. We hardly posed a threat to society. Thank the Lord that the young trooper had a sense of humor. He could barely suppress his laughter. We received the obligatory tongue-lashing and the dire warning should we ever repeat the pilfering. “You guys take it easy on the way home. Don’t catch pneumonia!’’ he warned us.

We finally made it back to New Haven vowing to plan our next sales outing in greater detail and escrow a reserve for gas.

We all flunked Preparation 101. Had we had any success in getting dates, would the girls have watched from Osty’s car as we bobbed for quarters?           

Fast forward seventy plus years. Dorothy and I are still very careful when it comes to spending money. And I still watch every penny—though now that I’m older and wiser, I make sure to do it with appropriate clothing and an extra fiver in the glovebox!