The first thing I noticed about Atlanta today was that the weather was beautiful. I was expecting to see canoes in the streets and water half way up the streetlights. But that, according to the cab driver, was last week not this week. He showed me some pretty high-high water marks in downtown while mentioning that the rain was 150 year rain. The city did a good job of clean up because you can't even tell there was flooding. At behind all that bad weather came the beautiful day we had today.
Tomorrow starts the glass show. Some people think of New Year's day as the beginning of the year; for others, it's September when school starts. For me, for the last 28 years at least, this show has always represented a new beginning .... more tomorrow.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Our Condolences
Well, it wasn’t the flu, but I got hit with a pretty nasty cold earlier this week. So I found myself calling in sick for three days, something I have not done before. Problem was, it was such a wicked cold that it was hard to function even from home.
This is how I have come to find myself in the office on the most beautiful of Saturdays, catching up on what I should have been doing all week … so please forgive me for being a day or two late in talking about John De Gorter, who died on Wednesday in North Carolina at the age of 81.
John De Gorter’s roots were in the glass industry. His father, Daniel was one of the largest importers of glass and glass products in the United States. After his death, John expertly predicted that increased need for fabrication equipment in this country as a result of improved and float production in this country. John felt that glass fabricating equipment would be in greater demand in the future. So in 1969, De Gorter Inc. began devoting its efforts to the sale and service of glass processing equipment.
Long before it was commonplace for foreign machinery companies to have representation in the United States, John De Gorter saw the need and filled it. The list of machinery his company has sold into the United States is too long to include and he was known worldwide.
On my first trip to glasstec in 1984, I was excited to try and meet with as many equipment and machinery manufacturers as I could. In every single meeting, when it became apparent I was from the United States, the very next question, every time was either “Do you know De Gorter?” or “Can you introduce me to De Gorter?”
Condolences to his wife of 58 years, Denise, and their children Dan, Deborah and Peter.
More info is available here.
This is how I have come to find myself in the office on the most beautiful of Saturdays, catching up on what I should have been doing all week … so please forgive me for being a day or two late in talking about John De Gorter, who died on Wednesday in North Carolina at the age of 81.
John De Gorter’s roots were in the glass industry. His father, Daniel was one of the largest importers of glass and glass products in the United States. After his death, John expertly predicted that increased need for fabrication equipment in this country as a result of improved and float production in this country. John felt that glass fabricating equipment would be in greater demand in the future. So in 1969, De Gorter Inc. began devoting its efforts to the sale and service of glass processing equipment.
Long before it was commonplace for foreign machinery companies to have representation in the United States, John De Gorter saw the need and filled it. The list of machinery his company has sold into the United States is too long to include and he was known worldwide.
On my first trip to glasstec in 1984, I was excited to try and meet with as many equipment and machinery manufacturers as I could. In every single meeting, when it became apparent I was from the United States, the very next question, every time was either “Do you know De Gorter?” or “Can you introduce me to De Gorter?”
Condolences to his wife of 58 years, Denise, and their children Dan, Deborah and Peter.
More info is available here.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Taking Up the Pen Again
When I was an eight-year-old second-grader at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary elementary school on Long Island, N.Y., I decided our school needed what I called a newspaper, but what was really a monthly magazine. I thought we needed it because we didn’t have it. Oh sure, we got tons of great-smelling blue mimeographed sheets to read and bring home at night, but we didn’t have anyplace where we students could express ourselves. I had this vision that kids from each grade would submit stories and artwork and we’d give the “newspaper” out once a month to all the students in every class once a month.
So I went to my teacher, Sister Rosario, who patiently listened to my request and then sent it to the principal, Sister Sheila. A few days later they said, “Okay, you put it together and we will copy and distribute it.” They even told every teacher to allow me to come to their class and talk about the newspaper and how kids could send materials and pictures in. I thought the students should name it too, so I came up with this contest idea for the name. Anyone who wanted to could submit a name for our newspaper and the students would vote on it. They’d see the winning name when the first issue came out.
The response surprised me—the first issue was about 40 pages long (there’s still a copy somewhere up in my parent’s attic) and it was filled with stories, poems and pictures from every grade. The winning name, The Monthly Blab, was my least favorite of the choices but it had won fair and square. I felt a real sense of accomplishment when I gave the final pages to Sister Sheila with a big drawing of the school penned by a fourth-grade artist, and right below it in big block letters the winning title, The Monthly Blab.
It seemed like it took forever to get the newspaper printed because, at that age, I was unfamiliar in some of the ways Catholic schools work. I did not realize that the ever-resourceful sisters had talked a local printer into printing the Blab at no charge—but the agreement was that he would “fit it in whenever he had time.” Finally, after March had turned into April, one day, I heard the shrill sound of the intercom intrude into our classroom and a booming voice called me to the office. Now, at my school, being called to the office usually meant either you were in big trouble or someone in your family had died, so I actually found myself hoping I was in trouble.
Sister Sheila was waiting for me with Pete, the janitor, who had a pretty good-sized dolly upon which were piled three big cardboard boxes. “Here’s your newspaper,” she said with a slight smile. “You can hand it out in all the classrooms tomorrow. Make sure you give Sister Rosario one, too,” was all she added.
I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. As soon as we got in the hall, I asked Pete to open the box and hand me one. And there it was, all 40 pages, printed in front of me with the great illustration of the school and below it the words The Monthly … no, wait, where were the words? The spot where the words The Monthly Blab had sat was now blank. Instead, on top, in the finest cursive penmanship you could imagine (that I recognized as Sr. Rosario’s) it said Our School Newspaper. Our School Newspaper? Our School Newspaper? A very cool name had been replaced without my knowledge—and with a very lame one at that.I thought there was a mistake, so when I got back to my classroom, I told Sister Rosario. Now here you should know that most of us in the class figured that, conservatively, Sister Rosario was about 117 years old. She was also about 3-foot 11, but she had the aim of Tom Seaver with an eraser, so I mean it when I say we were looking eye-to-eye and I was trying not to be intimidated.
“Sister, there’s a mistake,” I said holding it up and pointing at the blank space. “It was supposed to say The Monthly Blab right here and it doesn’t.”
“Oh, that’s not a mistake,” she shot back pleasantly. “I changed it. That wasn’t a good name for a newspaper.”
“But Sister, all the kids voted …” I protested.
“Oh well, too late now,” she said with a unique combination of authority and finality.
I was eight years old and I’d learned an important lesson. I’d just been edited.
I should probably be too embarrassed to tell you what I did, but I will anyway. Working out of Pete’s broom closet, I was able to spend the whole next day delivering the newspapers to all the classes. But before I would visit each class, I would make a stop in the girl’s bathroom and, in my best penmanship, write the words The Monthly Blab in magic marker on each one. I did this for all copies—all 841 copies—except, I’d somehow forget to do it on the copies I gave to the teachers. An ingenious plan, I was sure.
The first Blab got a number of great compliments and I started to plan the next edition. It wasn’t too long after that that the good sisters told me there was not enough time or money to do another issue of the Blab, so I shouldn’t even bother to work on it. This was how I came to understand the phrase “winning the battle but losing the war” at a young age.
To my knowledge, there never was another school newspaper at QMHR, which, sadly, is no longer a school but a community center.
So why am I telling you this? Because I tried an experiment this summer. It’s been 40 years since I first started writing for The Monthly Blab. I decided this year to take the summer off from writing. That’s why I haven’t in ink since May. Oh, I was still editing, researching, etc., but I just took a break from writing. I had this crazy idea to stop for a summer and see how it felt. Instead of feeling a sense of freedom, I felt loss. I missed writing terribly, and I’m back. I will keep a tender hope that you are glad; I know I am.
So I went to my teacher, Sister Rosario, who patiently listened to my request and then sent it to the principal, Sister Sheila. A few days later they said, “Okay, you put it together and we will copy and distribute it.” They even told every teacher to allow me to come to their class and talk about the newspaper and how kids could send materials and pictures in. I thought the students should name it too, so I came up with this contest idea for the name. Anyone who wanted to could submit a name for our newspaper and the students would vote on it. They’d see the winning name when the first issue came out.
The response surprised me—the first issue was about 40 pages long (there’s still a copy somewhere up in my parent’s attic) and it was filled with stories, poems and pictures from every grade. The winning name, The Monthly Blab, was my least favorite of the choices but it had won fair and square. I felt a real sense of accomplishment when I gave the final pages to Sister Sheila with a big drawing of the school penned by a fourth-grade artist, and right below it in big block letters the winning title, The Monthly Blab.
It seemed like it took forever to get the newspaper printed because, at that age, I was unfamiliar in some of the ways Catholic schools work. I did not realize that the ever-resourceful sisters had talked a local printer into printing the Blab at no charge—but the agreement was that he would “fit it in whenever he had time.” Finally, after March had turned into April, one day, I heard the shrill sound of the intercom intrude into our classroom and a booming voice called me to the office. Now, at my school, being called to the office usually meant either you were in big trouble or someone in your family had died, so I actually found myself hoping I was in trouble.
Sister Sheila was waiting for me with Pete, the janitor, who had a pretty good-sized dolly upon which were piled three big cardboard boxes. “Here’s your newspaper,” she said with a slight smile. “You can hand it out in all the classrooms tomorrow. Make sure you give Sister Rosario one, too,” was all she added.
I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. As soon as we got in the hall, I asked Pete to open the box and hand me one. And there it was, all 40 pages, printed in front of me with the great illustration of the school and below it the words The Monthly … no, wait, where were the words? The spot where the words The Monthly Blab had sat was now blank. Instead, on top, in the finest cursive penmanship you could imagine (that I recognized as Sr. Rosario’s) it said Our School Newspaper. Our School Newspaper? Our School Newspaper? A very cool name had been replaced without my knowledge—and with a very lame one at that.I thought there was a mistake, so when I got back to my classroom, I told Sister Rosario. Now here you should know that most of us in the class figured that, conservatively, Sister Rosario was about 117 years old. She was also about 3-foot 11, but she had the aim of Tom Seaver with an eraser, so I mean it when I say we were looking eye-to-eye and I was trying not to be intimidated.
“Sister, there’s a mistake,” I said holding it up and pointing at the blank space. “It was supposed to say The Monthly Blab right here and it doesn’t.”
“Oh, that’s not a mistake,” she shot back pleasantly. “I changed it. That wasn’t a good name for a newspaper.”
“But Sister, all the kids voted …” I protested.
“Oh well, too late now,” she said with a unique combination of authority and finality.
I was eight years old and I’d learned an important lesson. I’d just been edited.
I should probably be too embarrassed to tell you what I did, but I will anyway. Working out of Pete’s broom closet, I was able to spend the whole next day delivering the newspapers to all the classes. But before I would visit each class, I would make a stop in the girl’s bathroom and, in my best penmanship, write the words The Monthly Blab in magic marker on each one. I did this for all copies—all 841 copies—except, I’d somehow forget to do it on the copies I gave to the teachers. An ingenious plan, I was sure.
The first Blab got a number of great compliments and I started to plan the next edition. It wasn’t too long after that that the good sisters told me there was not enough time or money to do another issue of the Blab, so I shouldn’t even bother to work on it. This was how I came to understand the phrase “winning the battle but losing the war” at a young age.
To my knowledge, there never was another school newspaper at QMHR, which, sadly, is no longer a school but a community center.
So why am I telling you this? Because I tried an experiment this summer. It’s been 40 years since I first started writing for The Monthly Blab. I decided this year to take the summer off from writing. That’s why I haven’t in ink since May. Oh, I was still editing, researching, etc., but I just took a break from writing. I had this crazy idea to stop for a summer and see how it felt. Instead of feeling a sense of freedom, I felt loss. I missed writing terribly, and I’m back. I will keep a tender hope that you are glad; I know I am.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Icy Tears
The closing of the Pittsburgh Glass Works plant in Hawkesbury, Ontario, brought to mind a special memory. See the links below for more information.
Father-Daughter Dance
Any Dream Will Do
Father-Daughter Dance
Any Dream Will Do
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Spring Ahead
“The harshest winter finds in us an invincible Spring.” -Albert Camus
When I began to write this article on Monday, the outer suburbs of the Washington, D.C., area had just been hit with its first major snow in more than three years. We got ten inches at our offices here in Stafford, Va. Now, as I put the finishing touches on it on Saturday morning, I am being enticed outside by the promise of a 72-degree temperature, bright sun and absolutely no snow left on the ground—it’s all melted. In its place are tons of industrious birds, including at least two robins with bright red chests thumping, all digging into the waterlogged earth in search of breakfast. Might it really be Spring?
Spring was on my mind early last October when I read part one of Brigid O’Leary’s excellent article about the glass in the new sports stadiums opening this year. “Why don’t we save it for Spring?” suggested editor Megan Headley. “We can use it in March and it will come out right before the start of the baseball season. It would be a great cover story.”Now there’s a saying among editors (sort of akin to the “sometimes-you’re-the-windshield-sometimes-you’re-the-bug” one) that says “great pictures or great photos, you never get both.” In this case, we had a great article, but we had no photos. So any story, let alone a cover story, was going to be a challenge.
With that in mind, Megan went to work on the both the Yankees and the Mets to let us get some great glass photos of their new digs. Now let me say that getting permission to photograph an as-yet unopened major league baseball stadium turned out to be the most difficult photo shoot we’ve ever attempted. Despite repeated tries, the Yankees just said flat out “no.” Thanks to the good graces and great shots by the glass teams working there, we were able to bring you the interiors any way. You'll see some exterior shots next month.
After many months of negotiations, the New York Mets came through and, once Megan got the word that we could do so, we knew just who we wanted to take the pictures.The photos of the new Citi Field in this issue were taken by award-winning New York photographer Fred Kopf. “I had an escort with me at all times but there were certain areas I was not allowed to visit like the players’ locker rooms,” he said, “but I got a good cross section of all the major glass work. They told me that the Mets were allowing only two photographers in to shoot prior to opening day—a Sports Illustrated photographer was permitted to take one picture and USGlass magazine, which did a full shoot.”
I knew Fred would come through for us. In addition to being a professional shutterbug, he is also my younger and only brother and is used to the danger that difficult situations bring. Most days, he serves as a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department. He is FDNY through and through. “It was a great kick to do the shoot and the Mets organization was first-class,” he said. The article also served as a point of discussion in my family. Growing up in New York, the boys (my father and Fred) were always more partial to the Yankees. But my mother grew up in Queens watching Shea Stadium being built and passed her admiration of the Mets on to her daughters, so the shoot also served to prove the ladies right: Mets rule.
I am headed home this week to New York, which is also the home Glass Expo Northeast '09. We will be out at the Hyatt Regency Long Island Wind Watch Hotel &; Golf Club. The event runs Wednesday and Thursday and I hope to see you there.
Here’s wishing you an invincible Spring. —Deb
P.S.: Take a look at this New Yorker article for another take on baseball's new abobe in the big apple.
Photos and text (c) 2009 Key Communications Inc.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
It's Always Something
It’s Always Something …It’s tough when you’ve been there at the beginning and now you are there at the end.
I’m spending most of this week at the National Auto Glass Conference in Orlando, Florida. A long time ago (20 years) in a different lifetime, I was involved in the creation of this event. I take a bit of pride in that. Twenty years ago, the auto glass industry was an active and vibrant one. Insurance company influence was limited to a phone call or two from the local agent. Networks were just beginning to pop up around the country. Groups such as AGRSS, IGA and NWRA had yet to form. No one knew what the Internet was.
This Conference has been held in many different cities and venues over the years, visiting Memphis, Tampa, Marco Island, Fl, Tuscon (four times), Phoenix and Minneapolis among others. It’s hosted a great variety of speakers from within and outside the industry. It didn’t have a trade show for the first decade, then it did, then it didn’t again for the last two years. At its height, the conference attracted more than 1,000 retailers.
But the best thing about the Auto Glass Conference has never been the seminars or the show; it’s always been the people you see there. Twenty years ago, it provided a way for the industry (which had always played second fiddle to the architectural glass industry) to converge around common issues at one location.
It’s always something.
Over the years, the conference has also been part of a number of watershed moments. The modern auto glass era was born at the 1991 Conference in Phoenix when network founder Joe Kellman admonished the group that they would have to “work a full day instead of half” to make a living. When he said that the industry had been ripping off insurance companies for years, you could hear an audible gasp and see a physical reaction in the room. I have always wondered if that speech was aimed more as an admonishment of the glass industry or a sales pitch to the insurance industry.
The event has also been square in the middle of tragedy as deaths by two attendees occurred—sadly, one of a heart attack and another a drowning. The conference has had to duck hurricane Isidore at Marco Island in 2002 and Ivan in Tampa in 2004. Two years ago, there was a bomb scare and, just today, a fire alarm emptied the hotel in the mid-afternoon.
It’s always something.
And, of course, the Auto Glass Conference had been scheduled for September 12-14, 2001 in Minneapolis—a conference that never happened in the wake of September 11 the day before. I’ll never forget that I was already in Minneapolis sitting in an AGRSS Council meeting when we got the first word of the plane crashes. I ended up driving all the way home to Virginia later than week.
Times change, industries change and economies tank. During last year’s conference, organizers announced that the 2009 Conference will be the last in its current form and so it will be. So I raise a glass to an end and a beginning.
It’s always something.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Punched Out
Well it’s been about 15 years since I made a mistake like the one I did in my story on Russ Ebeid’s great and prophetic speech at the BEC Conference. Thankfully, a number of our alert readers let me know about it. Not since I said Waiting for Godot was written by Eugene Ionesco (it wasn’t) have I been so embarrassed by a wrong word or two.
Let me start by saying that I don’t know much about prize-fighting. Never even saw a bout, and I wouldn’t know a heavyweight from waterweight, or is that welter weight? No weight--I mean wait--water weight I’m familiar with.
Anyway, the general rule in journalism is to write what you know and, if you don’t know it, look it up. So while I searched my brain for a phrase that would convey the depth of power that Mr. Ebeid’s words had delivered to the audience (because his speech had some knock-you-down stunning information in it) I came up with gut-punched, but somehow confused it with sucker-punched. And I didn’t look it up to check.
I feel especially bad because I admire Russ Ebeid as much as a person could, so to somehow suggest that he was involved in sucker-punching anything or anybody is horrifiying. The article has been corrected and the offending word striken.
The readers who contacted me were very kind, saying that they knew I meant gut-punch but had written the wrong thing. Even Earnest Thompson of Guardian itself was pleasant. “That’s okay,” he said, “maybe you had just been listening to too much Puscifer lately,”
I appreciate that, and I sure hope the big guy himself will forgive me. See, I already messed up this week. I knew he had just had a birthday and had promised him a cake. So I had brought some birthday candles with me and was going to run over when they served dessert at the Glass Week dinner and pop them in his cake. But, alas, they gave us a poached pear. I spent the better part of dessert wondering if one could put candles in the whipped cream and not ignite a fire. I erred on the side of caution. No candles.
So Mr. Ebeid, if perhaps you see you way clear to read this, I owe you more than a birthday cake now. You name it. Any punishment and I’ll take it. You want me to hit a punching bag (or myself) with Everready gloves for an hour? You got it. Want me to learn all the names of every prize-fighting champion in the world? I’m on it. I will even—gulp—watch all four Rocky movies (including even the third one) in a row. But I will never, ever again confuse a sucker-punch with a gut-punch again. My apologies.
Let me start by saying that I don’t know much about prize-fighting. Never even saw a bout, and I wouldn’t know a heavyweight from waterweight, or is that welter weight? No weight--I mean wait--water weight I’m familiar with.
Anyway, the general rule in journalism is to write what you know and, if you don’t know it, look it up. So while I searched my brain for a phrase that would convey the depth of power that Mr. Ebeid’s words had delivered to the audience (because his speech had some knock-you-down stunning information in it) I came up with gut-punched, but somehow confused it with sucker-punched. And I didn’t look it up to check.
I feel especially bad because I admire Russ Ebeid as much as a person could, so to somehow suggest that he was involved in sucker-punching anything or anybody is horrifiying. The article has been corrected and the offending word striken.
The readers who contacted me were very kind, saying that they knew I meant gut-punch but had written the wrong thing. Even Earnest Thompson of Guardian itself was pleasant. “That’s okay,” he said, “maybe you had just been listening to too much Puscifer lately,”
I appreciate that, and I sure hope the big guy himself will forgive me. See, I already messed up this week. I knew he had just had a birthday and had promised him a cake. So I had brought some birthday candles with me and was going to run over when they served dessert at the Glass Week dinner and pop them in his cake. But, alas, they gave us a poached pear. I spent the better part of dessert wondering if one could put candles in the whipped cream and not ignite a fire. I erred on the side of caution. No candles.
So Mr. Ebeid, if perhaps you see you way clear to read this, I owe you more than a birthday cake now. You name it. Any punishment and I’ll take it. You want me to hit a punching bag (or myself) with Everready gloves for an hour? You got it. Want me to learn all the names of every prize-fighting champion in the world? I’m on it. I will even—gulp—watch all four Rocky movies (including even the third one) in a row. But I will never, ever again confuse a sucker-punch with a gut-punch again. My apologies.
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