Last month Mel told you about one of his experiences with an employee at one of his businesses. Mel owned and operated several different businesses over a long period of time. He was serially monogamous in his marriages to various business endeavors.

Unlike Mel, I was polygamous in my pursuit of business. That is to say that I never had less than two different things on the fire simultaneously.

I was in the family business at nineteen but I was involved with music for quite a few years before that. I played professionally at thirteen with a local band called The Blue Jays. In 1957, we cut our first record and after that I always had one foot in the musical world of bands, recording, publishing and teaching.

After joining my father in Century Lumber Corporation, I began to realize that if I was to continue with my musical pursuits, I would have to do it concurrently with running a lumber yard. I formed a publishing company and named it Wood ’n Music, (as in Wood and Music). Looking back on it now, I don’t know how I survived all those years of working eighteen to twenty hours a day, six days a week.

Anyway, I’d like tell you a tale of an experience I had in 1986 while on tour in Europe.

By 1986 my part time music business involved a publishing company, two record labels, a state of the art recording studio and a music management division.

In 1985, I signed Nick Seeger to my label as a writer and artist. I recorded an album of Nick’s original material and came up with a marketing scheme to sell it here and abroad. Nick was the son of Dr. Charles Seeger and the nephew of Pete Seeger, the famous folksong artist.

Nick’s father moved the family to Holland in the early 1950’s to avoid having his personal world turned upside down and inside out by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his band of communist witch hunters. Nick was brought up in Holland. Since he spoke the language and already had contacts there, I picked Holland as the base for the 1986 Nick Seeger Band tour of Holland, Belgium and Germany.

As the eight week tour was coming to an end, Nick and the guys in the band called me and asked if I would like to join them for the final few concerts. I had played banjo and guitar on the album and there was no banjo in the tour band, so I decided to take a few weeks off and go there with my wife and banjo.

The banjo is a very heavy instrument while at the same time extremely fragile. Having traveled with expensive musical instruments in the past, I was fully aware of the way things which are marked fragile are handled by the checked luggage crew, so I bought three tickets to Amsterdam. Two for Mr. and Mrs. Rothpearl, and one for Banjo Rothpearl. During the flight, a stewardess came around to put the window shades down for night flying. When she looked over my shoulder to the seat behind me, she left and returned with a blanket. Since the flight wasn’t at all full, she laid Banjo Rothpearl down across three seats and covered him with a blanket. Almost twenty years later now and I still can’t figure that one out.

So, we’re playing the next to the last concert on a Saturday night in Hannau, Germany. It was a good size audience and very receptive and appreciative of the music, so we all went out for a few beers afterwards.

We continued to drink beer and wine most of the night in one of the motel rooms. Morning came and I decided that I really didn’t feel like driving back to Amsterdam that morning. However, the final show of the tour was that Sunday night in Leiden, Holland. The equipment truck was driven by our roadie and carried the bass player and the lead guitar player. I was driving a Hertz rental car. It was a silver Mercedes Benz 300SE. Before my arrival, the band had a van which carried all of them except the sound man and roadie.

Now I had Nick, John, (the drummer) and Jimmy, (the sound man).

I climbed into back seat with my wife and Nick. Jimmy drove and John sat up front in the other contoured leather bucket seat. I fell asleep as soon as we hit the highway.

I was jolted awake about two hours later by John, Nick and Jimmy yelling, “My God, we’re gonna’ hit ‘em”, and a loud crashing sound of metal hitting metal. I sat up quickly and looked over the situation. I don’t know how fast Jimmy was going but he hit one of three cars, inexplicitly parked in the left hand passing lane. That car was pushed forward into the second car, which in turn hit the first car in line.

I knew that nobody was authorized to drive the rental car except my wife and me. So, Jimmy and I traded places, climbing over seats and people and exchanging coats in case anyone had seen the driver. I now was the driver of the large silver Mercedes. I opened the door and stood there looking over the situation.

Five adults were standing alongside the middle car with a map spread out on the roof. Then a boy about ten years old emerged from the rear left door of the car we had smashed into. He was covered with what appeared to be blood from his head to his waist. His chest had pieces of what looked like his innards hanging down and dripping onto the highway. I thought to myself; “I’ve just killed a young boy with my car that I wasn’t even driving”.

As I approached him to see if there was anything I could do, he took his blood covered hand from his chest, licked it off and first smiled, then started to laugh. I was puzzled to say the least. I had to get as close as two feet away to realize that what I thought was blood and guts was actually cherry pie!

It seems that the three cars had been a caravan heading towards a family reunion in Holland. They were quite lost and had stopped to read a map. The boy had been holding a large, home made cherry pie that his mother had baked for the occasion. Why they chose to stop in the passing lane is a question I left for the police to figure out.

As luck would have it, the manager of Hertz Amsterdam was three cars behind us. He dealt with the police, then drove us back to Amsterdam and gave me the keys to a replacement car, another silver Mercedes Benz 300SE.

We got to the concert on time and when the final song was over, Nick and Jimmy announced publicly that they had a special award for me, their banjo player and manager. The award – the three-pointed Mercedes Benz silver star from the hood of the wrecked 300SE.

So Mel, top that one.

Elliot, I feel as if you just hit me in the face with a cherry pie. What a wonderful story. You have enlightened me and given me greater understanding of your character. I didn’t want to tell you that someone sold you a Mercedes emblem in lieu of a Jewish Star, now I know. that you know, I feel much better. Seriously this is a truly delightful story that I will try to top next month.

We’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year and may you all be inscribed in His book of life.

Lashana Tova Tikatevnu.
El and Mel