Funny how the mind works.

[MickinMD ★]

I was in that twilight zone between awake and asleep yesterday and I heard in my mind, clear as a bell, a guy's voice calling, "Henry? Henry?" in a teasing tone.

I immediately became alert and recognized the memory - something I hadn't thought of in many years.

I was in the graduate dorm at IIT in 1974, in my room doing my homework with my door open to the hallway. An Iranian guy who lived on the same floor named Mustafa Rassaian walked into my room and said, "That damn Henry [who also lived on our floor in the room next to me] played a trick on me and I don't know how to get him back. You're clever, so think of something I can do!"

I said, "Didn't I just see Henry head down the hall to the shower room?  What do you think a big bucket of ice-cold water would feel like if he got hit with it while he's used to that nice, warm shower water?"

A gleeful Mustafa's eyes lit up and he begged, "You will help me!"

So we went to the custodial closet, got a bucket and filled it with Chicago Winter-temperature cold tap water and headed for the shower room.

I told Mustafa we had to sneak up on Henry and I'd hold the curtain back while he charged in with the water.  But Mustafa couldn't keep his mouth shut and began calling out, "Henry? Henry?" - which, for some strange reason had popped into my head yesterday, 46 years later!

Mustafa was calling in such a sneaky voice that I thought, "Henry, if you're stupid enough to answer, you deserve the freezing water!"

Henry replied, "What?"

Now we knew for sure which shower stall to target.  I held the outer curtain back while Mustafa charged in, then I slipped out of the room with Henry's screams in the background.

I went back to doing my homework and heard a bunch of chasing, door slamming, etc. going on in the hallway.  Suddenly, Henry walked into my room and asked, "Do you know what that son of a bitch Mustafa did to me?"

I expressed complete ignorance and Henry explained and said, "He's locked himself in his room. You have to help me trick him into coming out - then I'll have a bucket of cold water ready for him!"

"Sure, I replied!"

Eventually, Henry and Mustafa realized I was playing both of them against each other and got me with a bucket of cold water!

No one took the dorm antics seriously and we all got along very well and did looks of things together like walking the 4 blocks to Comiskey Park where our student ID's got us 75 cent bleacher seats to the White Sox games so everyone could root against everyone else's home teams when the Orioles, Yankees, Red Sox, etc. came to town.

But that's not the end of the story.

As yesterday went on, it was driving me crazy that I couldn't remember Henry's last name!  I remembered it was Italian, he was from New York City, and he was studying to be a lawyer.

So I looked on the Internet for a list of New York City lawyers and found one!  Henry is 70, give or take a year, and I hoped that either he hadn't retired or had a child who was now a NYC lawyer.

The list had a name search but there were still hundreds and hundreds of NYC lawyers with Henry as their first, middle, or last names.

I decided to go through the Henrys, looking for Italian last names, thinking I'd probably recognize the right one if I saw it and I also thought the exercise might trigger my memory neurons to somehow retrieve the information even if I didn't see the name.

Suddenly, around the time I got close to the middle of the list, the word "Springtime" popped into my head.

For a long moment I wondered why I thought of Springtime when it suddenly dawned on me that Henry had told me his last name means "Springtime" in Italian!

I immediately did a search on the list for Henry Primavera and it says he's still a registered attorney in NYC!

I hope Henry does a search of his name and comes across this post!  I'm sure he'll get a kick out of the memory as I did.

Funny how the mind works. 

 

[Further]

After all that, you didn't call ? at least a text.

[Further]

With my mind

Funny how the mind doesn't work... 

[Longjohn ★]

We had an ice machine at work for filling the igloo coolers with Gatorade or ice water so when somebody wanted to get somebody with a bucket if ice water it had lots of ice in it. One guy was always talking in the shower. There were ten showers in one big room with a block wall six feet high separating the showers from the locker room. For some reason some guys were bothered by this guy always talking so they got a five gallon bucket of ice water to cool him off.  They walked into the shower room and doused him good.

Now our locker room was built in the middle of a construction project. They built the first half of our new building while we were still working in the old building. They closed off the new building with giant blue tarps and we moved into the new half to work while they demolished the old building and locker room. They brought in portable locker rooms and restrooms in trailers for us to use while they built the new locker room. They built the new locker room first so they could get rid of the portable ones. They built it sturdy enough that they could use the roof for storage.

After the locker room was completed they went on to build the other half of the new building right over top of the locker room.

I told you all that so I could tell you the revenge story of the talking guy that got iced in the shower. He came into work a little bit early and carried a five gallon bucket of ice water up on the roof of the locker room. When the guy that iced him came into work he waited until he had changed into his work uniform, work boots, and hard hat. He had someone who worked in the die shop straight across from the door to the locker room signal him when the guy was coming out. Direct hit, soaked him from top to bottom and he had no clue what happened.

[JerrySTL ★]

My little story is somewhat the opposite. Had a guy go out on the flight line to work on an aircraft but he didn't take a rain jacket. He got soaked in a downpour. He came into the office and changed into coveralls (AKA bunny suit as they were white). Anyway he just left his clothes near the heater hoping they would dry out. I put them into the fridge freezer. By the end of the shift, they were a solid block of ice. He wasn't too happy with me.

[Ralphie ★]

I have been lucky enough to avoid any such ambushes!

My only similar story was for some reason my freshman dorm at college had a water pipe with valve that pointed outside from the second floor, right at a heavily traveled walkway. That was a bad idea for a freshman dorm.  

 

[Longjohn ★]

Some people don’t know the difference between a harmless prank and destruction of personal property. Our gloves wore out very quickly in the forge shop and they were provided as needed. Somebody used a grease gun and filled the fingers of someone’s gloves with grease while he was on break.

The guy that got greased thought he knew who did it. The next day when that guy went to put on his work boots he found them full of go jo hand cleaner. He had a meltdown and ran to HR and complained before he went home because he didn’t have boots to wear.

HR posted a notice above the time clock stating that this will not be tolerated and unless the perpetrator buys him a new pair of boots if they find out who did it he will be immediately fired.
The guy got a new pair of boots out of it. Nobody confessed to doing either prank but they settled up in private. 

[MoseySusan]

11 hours ago, MickinMD said:

I hope Henry does a search of his name and comes across this post!  I'm sure he'll get a kick out of the memory as I did.

Funny how the mind works.

Or, you could just send him an email and let him know you thought about him. 
In a spiritual sense, there’s a reason he’s on your mind.

[Airehead]

Send him an email. It will make both of you smile in an ugly world. 

[MickinMD ★]

11 hours ago, Further said:

After all that, you didn't call ? at least a text.

I'm trying to track him down - the list strangely just gave his official lawyer license no. - nothing else of use.

[Longjohn ★]

22 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

I'm trying to track him down - the list strangely just gave his official lawyer license no. - nothing else of use.

[MickinMD ★]

53 minutes ago, roadsue said:

Or, you could just send him an email and let him know you thought about him. 
In a spiritual sense, there’s a reason he’s on your mind.

I'd love to send him an email, but it turns out he's retired and so there's no email listing at the law firms he's been associated with.

If I can find the time, I'll ask the firms if they can forward an email. I looked in Linked-in, Whitepages, Spokeo, and some others and they want money to show details. I've got a phone no. and hopefully will soon get an email address.

The pic below is definitely Henry - with much less hair than when we lived in the IIT Grad Dorm and shows IIT in this Linked-in listing.  I joined Linked-in and "Sent an Invite" to connect but, if Henry has the same attitude he did in grad school, he's retired and doesn't bother looking at linked-in anymore.

[MickinMD ★]

13 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

Wow!  Where's this from and can you or I get "Henry's About Info" without spending money?  Apparently he moved to, or has a 2nd address in Kissimmee, Florida.

[Ralphie ★]

8 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

Wow!  Where's this from and can you or I get "Henry's About Info" without spending money?  Apparently he moved to, or has a 2nd address in Kissimmee, Florida.

I'm no expert but isn't that Facebook?

[donkpow]

15 minutes ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

I'm no expert but isn't that Facebook?

Yep, confirmed as a Facebook page. He updated his picture in February.

[Longjohn ★]

39 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

Wow!  Where's this from and can you or I get "Henry's About Info" without spending money?  Apparently he moved to, or has a 2nd address in Kissimmee, Florida.

He’s on Facebook, he doesn’t give a lot of about information but it’s free. Your best bet is to send a friend request, when he sees your name he will accept it and you two can catch up on how your lives have gone.

[MickinMD ★]

14 hours ago, Longjohn said:

He’s on Facebook, he doesn’t give a lot of about information but it’s free. Your best bet is to send a friend request, when he sees your name he will accept it and you two can catch up on how your lives have gone.

Excellent!  For some reason I didn't think about Facebook!

[MickinMD ★]

7 hours ago, MickinMD said:

Excellent!  For some reason I didn't think about Facebook!

P.S.  He's got his Facebook settings to allow no friends.  He lists no information - apparently lawyers make enough enemies he doesn't want invite trouble.

That also meshes with Henry's personality in college.

There's also the problem that I went by "Mike" in high school and college and hope Henry will recognize my last name, city, IIT, etc. whenever I'm able to contact him - I'm "Mickey" on Facebook.

I have to do some work on my lawn today. I'll get back to Henry at some point in the future.  I may be able to track him down through his two children.

Thanks all for the help and suggestions!

 

 

[donkpow]

4 hours ago, MickinMD said:

I have to do some work on my lawn today.

You may be able to "message" him even though he doesn't accept friend requests. If you are ambitious, run down some of his friends and go at him that way.

Of course, I know a guy who knows a guy ....

[Longjohn ★]

On 6/1/2020 at 10:04 AM, MickinMD said:

P.S.  He's got his Facebook settings to allow no friends.  He lists no information - apparently lawyers make enough enemies he doesn't want invite trouble.

That also meshes with Henry's personality in college.

There's also the problem that I went by "Mike" in high school and college and hope Henry will recognize my last name, city, IIT, etc. whenever I'm able to contact him - I'm "Mickey" on Facebook.

I have to do some work on my lawn today. I'll get back to Henry at some point in the future.  I may be able to track him down through his two children.

Thanks all for the help and suggestions!

 

 

Whelp? Were you ever able to contact Henry? 

[Airehead]

Good question, did you?