Posted by Joe Ewing on 1/5/07 10:41am
Msg #169389
Boulevard of Broken Dreams (cool story)
I bumped into my Uncle Rodney over the weekend at Anthony’s Lounge on Baum Blvd. I hadn’t seen him in years, but seeing him reminds me of a story.
I idolized my Uncle Rodney. One summer day when I was about 10 years old, my mother dropped me off at Uncle Rodney’s office for him to watch after me for a few hours while she went to the “woman parts” doctor. I remember that day, the day I realized my calling in life, as if it were yesterday.
Uncle Rodney sat behind a gray metal desk under bright fluorescent lights in his storefront office. The office walls were clad in dark wooden paneling, the air was a mix of stale cigarette smoke and burnt coffee, and a portable black and white rabbit-eared television showed the Mike Douglas Show. We watched Charo “hootchie-coochie” on Mike Douglas, chatted about baseball cards, and Uncle Rodney gave me a few nickels for the gumball machine. I was having a grand time. Then someone walked in from off the street.
“May I help you?” asked Uncle Rodney.
“Yes, I need to have this notarized,” the stranger responded, holding out a piece of paper.
What I witnessed next would change my life forever. Uncle Rodney took the paper and examined it. He then asked the stranger for a form of identification. The stranger handed my uncle his driver’s license and a water bill showing his name and mailing address. My uncle produced a rubber stamp, ink pad and a small box from a desk drawer. He asked the stranger to raise his right hand, and Uncle Rodney proceeded to administer some sort of oath. He then stamped the piece of paper the stranger gave him with his rubber stamp. Uncle Rodney then opened the small box and removed a shiny instrument that he proceeded to insert the paper into. He gave the shiny instrument a squeeze, thereby affixing a raised seal upon the paper. Uncle Rodney then signed the paper and handed it back to the stranger. After paying a nominal fee, the stranger left.
“What was THAT?” I asked in my wonderment.
“Yeah, he did smell a little ripe, kind of like a can of Campbell’s soup when you first open it. He must have forgotten me, but I dated that guy’s sister in high school. I think her name was Joan or Joanne. She could suck the chrome off a Buick that girl, I’ll tell ya,” Uncle Rodney replied.
“No, I mean what was that whole procedure? What did you do?” I questioned.
“Oh, I notarized that document for that man,” Uncle Rodney explained, “I’m a notary public.” He then chuckled.
“Notary public,” I said to myself. It was music to my ears the way it rolled off my tongue. “What is a notary public, Uncle Rodney?”
“Well, Anthony, generally speaking, a notary public is a public official appointed by the government to serve the public as an impartial witness. Usually individuals need no special training to obtain a notary public license; they must only pass a simple test, have some form of background check, or obtain a bond or insurance to insure their integrity.”
Ever since that day, I wanted to be a notary public like my uncle. I set up a pretend office in my bedroom. I would pretend that my dog was transferring the title of his 1973 Ford Maverick to my stuffed Tigger doll and required my notarization. I would use my mother’s waffle iron as a pretend embosser.
When I grew older and began to consider which university to attend, I searched in vain for schools that offered degrees in being a notary public. To my dismay, I learned that no such programs or fields of study existed. Nonetheless, I was determined to become a notary public. I started a notary public club at the university I attended, calling it the “Notary Club.”
After graduating from college with a degree unrelated to the field of notarizing, I submitted the required paperwork to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and within months, I was a full-fledged notary public. I was so proud, as was mother and father. I rented out the basement room of Del’s Restaurant (which is usually reserved for post-funeral functions) and had a magnificent party to celebrate this monumental professional achievement. Rigatoni, chicken, wedding soup-it was first class.
Within a few weeks I found a vacant office to rent and went into business for myself as a notary public. After straightening out a signage snafu where the Chinese sign maker produced an outdoor sign for me that read “NOTE A REPUBLIC,” I was ready and raring to go with my new career as a notary public. What I failed to realize in my zeal to become a notary public was that the state sets the amount of the fees one can charge for providing notary public services. These fees are very minimal, almost to the point of hardly making it worthwhile to be a notary public.
“This can’t be,” I said to myself. After all, Uncle Rodney was in the notary public business for years and he lived a very comfortable life. He bought a new Cadillac every other year and always had a new dame on his arm. I decided to call Uncle Rodney to see how he was so successful in this business for so many years, otherwise I would have to close down my newly opened shop.
Uncle Rodney was up in his years at this time and living with his 30 year-old girlfriend Jelveeta, but he was always glad to hear from his nephew. I explained my plight to Uncle Rodney and asked him the secret to his notary public success.
“How did I do it?” he said, “I wrote numbers out of the back room. I was a bookmaker. For a while I had a massage parlor in the back of the store, too. That notarizing thing was a front. I stole that silver embossing thing off some guy who had too much to drink one night at the Continental.”
And so it was. My dream of being a successful notary public was shattered. For a brief moment, I considered undertaking an illegal activity to subsidize my notary public endeavor but realized that was not a good option, at least not at such a young age. I also considered opening a notary public / hoagie shop but realized that I didn’t want to handle peoples delicate legal documents after being elbow-deep in Virginia ham all day. As painful and as disappointing as it was, I abandoned my dream.
As it turned out, I rebounded well from my failed bid to be the greatest notary public in the world and became a successful businessman. The lesson I learned from that experience was priceless. Every time I drive buy a real estate or insurance agency office that has a “notary public” sign, I think of Uncle Rodney. Thank you, Uncle Rodney.
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Reply by Bobbi/CA on 5/23/08 2:45pm
Msg #248541
Re: Must be related..
Whoa!!!! My Grandfather sounded just like that!! teehee. He also gave me my first sip of alcohol. He was also showing me his nasty magazines! He should not have been doing that stuff to a little girl!! Pervert! He ran a Real Estate office, and he had a little back room. I was never allowed to go in there, but I could always hear funny noises in there. Grandfather told me I could go in there when I was older. He used to go in there for about an hour. When my Dad or my Uncles would visit, they would go in there too. Stay for about an hour. Then after a while, I would see another man from the street go in there. He would stay for about an hour. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more. Then a while later, I would see these wierd women come out. They wore almost no clothes! Grandfather would catch me looking out the window in that didrection. He would then give me a magazine to look at, to occupy my time there. You can imagine the magazine he gave me. Yuck. I now know what it is, and I think, oh my God! Why did he do that! Ewww. He could have been arrested for just showing me those magazines! They were worse than the magazines that my borthers used to hide! WEIRD!!! You know, I would never try to do that to a buick. Ewww. I now feel nauseous! Bleck!!! Ewwww!!!!!
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