Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot com.
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Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, it's Frank being Frank, right where the
Speaker 3: only way to be is Frank. Hello everyone, and welcome
Speaker 3: to being Frank. We're the only way to be is Frank.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, FRANKL. Born and I'd like to thank
Speaker 3: you for joining us on what we like to call
Speaker 3: the Intelligent Conversation podcast, where no conversation is out of
Speaker 3: bounds and all points of view are welcome. Our listeners
Speaker 3: are familiar that we go live to tape, and I
Speaker 3: give you the date so you have some context and relevance.
Speaker 3: It is the second of September in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: As we've been on the air for well more than
Speaker 3: a year now in over one hundred and eighty programs.
Speaker 3: As another anniversary of the tragedy that is nine to
Speaker 3: eleven approach of us, most of us take at least
Speaker 3: a few moments to reflect on that fateful day, on
Speaker 3: those lost, and how it affected each and every one
Speaker 3: of us in a unique but also in shared ways.
Speaker 3: For those of us who had some role in the
Speaker 3: relief efforts at Ground Zero, this is especially true. We
Speaker 3: all shared a sense of purpose and grief, but each
Speaker 3: traveled their own personal paths to be there too. This
Speaker 3: is particularly true of our guest in this edition of
Speaker 3: Being Frank. He's a survivor of that day and so
Speaker 3: much more. He turned his life around after surviving an
Speaker 3: emotionally and physically traumatic upbringing in Queen's and Brooklyn. He
Speaker 3: overcame it all to become a poort authority polief's officer
Speaker 3: who served for twenty six years, who was a first
Speaker 3: responder on nine to eleven, and he wrote a book,
Speaker 3: Columbus Day, about overcoming challenges and finding a way to
Speaker 3: help others. It's my pleasure to welcome to Being Frank
Speaker 3: for some intelligent conversation, mister Mitch rosen Rich, Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for joining us here.
Speaker 4: Hi, Frank, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Now, Mitch, you have a long and complex story, a
Speaker 3: lot to unpack, so let's get to it little by
Speaker 3: little and we'll kind of work up the timeline, if
Speaker 3: you will, to get you where you are today. The
Speaker 3: book and your experiences at nine to eleven something that
Speaker 3: we both share. But before that, tell us a bit
Speaker 3: about your early life, like where were you from? Where
Speaker 3: did you grow up things of kind of nuts and bolts,
Speaker 3: things like that.
Speaker 4: Sure, well, my mother and father they ended up moving
Speaker 4: to a new house in Howard Beach, Queens in somewhere
Speaker 4: in nineteen sixty five. So I lived in Howard Beach, Queens,
Speaker 4: and ultimately, as I approached the teenager years, I ended
Speaker 4: up moving up to Rockland County, and ultimately I moved
Speaker 4: back to the city, and then I returned to Rockland County.
Speaker 4: So I've been Brooklyn, Queens, Rockland and sort of back
Speaker 4: and forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can tell you, Mitch, both you and I it's
Speaker 3: were difficult to hide our accents of where we come from.
Speaker 3: I'm sure we have. We do have listeners from all over.
Speaker 3: I'm sure they could. They can hear where we're from.
Speaker 4: My wife, I'm sorry, my wife gets a kick out
Speaker 4: of it when I tell her to close the window,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: So I just I just came back from from Italy
Speaker 3: Sicily as a matter of fact. At one point, and
Speaker 3: I speak passable Italian, and I was asking where's the bathroom,
Speaker 3: Dove Olbano, But with my New York accent, they looked
Speaker 3: at me like I was from Bars and I know
Speaker 3: what had the right words, just to sound quite right.
Speaker 3: Let's get back to our conversation. Now, let's talk a
Speaker 3: little bit about your family dynamic. Obviously, that's kind of
Speaker 3: where you grew up, but how you grew up obviously
Speaker 3: is a huge part of the story. So talk a
Speaker 3: little bit about your parents their dynamic and how it
Speaker 3: affected you as a young man.
Speaker 4: Sure, boy, So I will tell you. In nineteen sixty
Speaker 4: five when we did relocate the Howard Beach, Queens, this
Speaker 4: was a new construction home and a beautiful new community.
Speaker 4: And at the time, my father was working in a restaurant.
Speaker 4: He was a counterman who subsequently started managing a restaurant
Speaker 4: or a coffee shop, if you will. My mother was
Speaker 4: a stay at home mom. She didn't drive, and she
Speaker 4: had some issues. She had some issues pretending to things,
Speaker 4: psychiatric issues that it was causing her difficulty to deal
Speaker 4: deal with me as a young child. She had depression.
Speaker 4: She would spend the majority of the day in bed,
Speaker 4: not to leave the bed until noon, and I was
Speaker 4: left to pretty much fend myself.
Speaker 3: Did you have any siblings, Mitch, brothers or sisters. You're
Speaker 3: an old child, so tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Well, So this was when I was seven when I
Speaker 4: started to experience a difficulty with my mom. And at
Speaker 4: the time, which I'm sure made it a little harder
Speaker 4: for her was she had a two year old at
Speaker 4: the time as well, So my brother is five years
Speaker 4: younger than me, and it was hard enough for her
Speaker 4: to deal with me, but now when my brother came along,
Speaker 4: it took her over the top.
Speaker 3: There's too much now, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 3: your father's role then too. In our pre conversations and
Speaker 3: your writings, you mentioned mostly your mother, So tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about the dynamic between your mother and father,
Speaker 3: because they think that's important in the overall development where
Speaker 3: you actually wound up both literally and emotionally.
Speaker 4: Right right, Well, my father was the type of guy
Speaker 4: you being. He operated one of these coffee shops in Manhattan.
Speaker 4: He was up and out of the house at six
Speaker 4: in the morning. He didn't get home till late in
Speaker 4: the afternoon. But it was all about him. He really
Speaker 4: didn't do many family functions with me and my mother,
Speaker 4: And I think it could also be because he was
Speaker 4: very clear and he understood perfectly about how his wife
Speaker 4: was having issues, and I think he felt it was
Speaker 4: better off not to go anywhere, not to leave the house.
Speaker 4: Maybe it was a sense of embarrassment. She did dress
Speaker 4: very strangely, her makeup application was very unusual, and even
Speaker 4: when he drove her to the market weekly to get food,
Speaker 4: he remained in the car. It was very uncomfortable for
Speaker 4: him to interact with her, but this is what he chose,
Speaker 4: and ultimately he was going to remain with her even
Speaker 4: under these circumstances.
Speaker 3: But Mitch, then this behavior manifested itself on you in very,
Speaker 3: very difficult ways. Explain a little bit about that. And
Speaker 3: you know, you mentioned that you're seven years old and
Speaker 3: you seem to be at this point pretty much alone
Speaker 3: in your life. But talk a little bit about how
Speaker 3: some of your mom's behavior manifested and affected you well.
Speaker 4: As I was saying, with all the additional stress from
Speaker 4: my younger brother, now she was deciding or she ultimately
Speaker 4: realized she could not handle the two of us, And
Speaker 4: she did ultimately come up with a plan to get
Speaker 4: rid of me, to have me removed from the house.
Speaker 4: And what the way she was going to do that was.
Speaker 4: She mentioned to my father that I was misbehaving in school.
Speaker 4: I was hard to deal with and I did have
Speaker 4: attention deficit disorder, like one out of every three kids have.
Speaker 4: I couldn't sit still in school, but still there was
Speaker 4: nothing wrong other than the fact that I was hyperactive.
Speaker 4: And ultimately she would create stories to tell my father
Speaker 4: to make it seem as if there was more going
Speaker 4: on that meets the eye, and she ultimately suggested to
Speaker 4: him that they take me for a psychiatric evaluation, and
Speaker 4: this was the beginning of her plan to get rid
Speaker 4: of me. Her plan was to discuss with the doctor
Speaker 4: that they were taking me to that I had a
Speaker 4: multitude of issues, have him write up a report that
Speaker 4: would make her seem correct, and he would agree with her,
Speaker 4: and then they would send me off to some institution
Speaker 4: for children. But she was hit between the eyes with
Speaker 4: surprise from this doctor because he did not do what
Speaker 4: she planned on having him do, and that was another
Speaker 4: story altogether. Ultimately, they brought me to this guy for
Speaker 4: a psychiatric evaluation, and they both accompanied me to the office,
Speaker 4: and you know, everything went very well, and ultimately they
Speaker 4: brought he brought my mother and father into the examining
Speaker 4: room and said, well, let me explain to you what
Speaker 4: I found. So he told my parents that not only
Speaker 4: did I have an above average IQ, but there was
Speaker 4: no problems and my mother literally hit not literally, she
Speaker 4: hit the ceiling in She was screaming and yelling, and
Speaker 4: she was a little surprised that this doctor didn't agree
Speaker 4: with her, and ultimately the doctor suggested to my father,
Speaker 4: maybe your wife should be seeking some mental health and medication.
Speaker 4: So this was the beginning of her plan to get
Speaker 4: me institutionalized and out of the house.
Speaker 3: Mitch, how did that make you feel? I mean, this
Speaker 3: is your mother, You're seven years old, and I mean
Speaker 3: not only rejection, but in the cruelest way. I mean literally,
Speaker 3: once you gone and institutionalized, I can't imagine how a
Speaker 3: young person processes that. If you can, and it's so
Speaker 3: important in your story of recovery, and we are going
Speaker 3: to get to that, but first, the pain that you
Speaker 3: must have felt. Is there any way you can describe
Speaker 3: that to us?
Speaker 4: Well, I guess the good thing is when you're seven,
Speaker 4: you don't really understand exactly what's going on. You're just
Speaker 4: rolling with the punches. You're a child, and the mother
Speaker 4: tells you to do that, You do that. Your father
Speaker 4: tells you to go there, You go there, and it's
Speaker 4: you don't really think at that point that your parents
Speaker 4: mean you any ill will, And it's impossible as a
Speaker 4: child to think that unless you're obviously hitting you. And
Speaker 4: then you can turn around and say, wow, why are
Speaker 4: they doing that? But this was all psychological damage at
Speaker 4: the age of seven. You don't realize what's going on
Speaker 4: until you mature, and you relived that.
Speaker 3: So now you've come back from the doctor, but your
Speaker 3: mom is relentless with this plan. She's going to find
Speaker 3: a way continue. How did she do that? What came next? Well,
Speaker 3: extraordinary story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the strange thing is she wasn't done with that,
Speaker 4: and now what she did was she started making phone
Speaker 4: calls and she had me evaluated by another facility. And
Speaker 4: this time it was a type of place where they
Speaker 4: kept you overnight and you stayed there for you know,
Speaker 4: for this evaluation. But they were linked to a child institution.
Speaker 4: And I think my mother and father must have I
Speaker 4: don't want to say, paid my way in, but they
Speaker 4: did what they had to do to get this guy
Speaker 4: that was doing the evaluation to agree with them. And
Speaker 4: you know, it was just income for his facility, So
Speaker 4: why would he turn me away? It's like somebody going
Speaker 4: to buy a car and you say, ayah, you want
Speaker 4: it in red, I only have blues. I'm not going
Speaker 4: to sell it to you. So they gave my parents
Speaker 4: exactly what they wanted, and I don't know what they
Speaker 4: paid to have him write up the report the way
Speaker 4: it had to be written up. But from that point
Speaker 4: on I was directed from this facility for an evaluation
Speaker 4: right to the institution where my father drove me up
Speaker 4: to the front doors. The place was in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,
Speaker 4: in a slum community where there was alcoholics sleeping on
Speaker 4: the on the floor and criminal activity on every corner.
Speaker 4: And he pulled up, dumped me off, and handed me
Speaker 4: over to somebody, and off he went. And this was
Speaker 4: the place that I was abandoned to miss.
Speaker 3: It's inconceivable, did you have? You had no advocate, not
Speaker 3: a grandparent, not a teacher, No one would speak up
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a very good point, and I will tell
Speaker 4: you that. Well, my grandmother, my mother's mother, was definitely
Speaker 4: an advocate, and she did not agree with what my
Speaker 4: mother was doing. But my mother didn't tell her her
Speaker 4: whole plan. And after she told my grandmother what she
Speaker 4: had done, it was too late. And my grandmother was
Speaker 4: a little bit surprised and disappointed. And my grandmother knows
Speaker 4: that her daughter was suffering with these issues, but she
Speaker 4: didn't think it was going to result in me being
Speaker 4: thrown out of the house, you know, So whatever she
Speaker 4: found out was certainly a little bit too late, you know,
Speaker 4: to help me. And as far as teachers go, they're
Speaker 4: the ones that recorded the fact that I was hyperactive.
Speaker 4: But back then hyperactivity, nobody even understood what it meant,
Speaker 4: you know, and attention deficit disorder. I mean, all of
Speaker 4: these things are very common, but back then, in the
Speaker 4: early sixties, nobody knew what this was and what it
Speaker 4: would lead to. And if anything, if you remember back
Speaker 4: in the sixties, if you had a family member that
Speaker 4: had any type of saf chiatric issues or problems, you
Speaker 4: kept them hidden behind closed doors. You would not go
Speaker 4: out and say, oh, I'm gonna go see a therapist.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, this afternoon. You know. Everybody was embarrassed to
Speaker 4: even state that they were going to see a therapist.
Speaker 4: This was an embarrassment to the family, so they kept
Speaker 4: you locked behind closed doors. Back there.
Speaker 3: If you can, again, these are difficult questions to ask,
Speaker 3: so I'm sure They're very difficult to answer, and I
Speaker 3: can tell there is emotion in your responses. Again, the
Speaker 3: big question had you're seven years old, if your father
Speaker 3: drives off, can you remember that initial feeling of what
Speaker 3: was that like?
Speaker 4: Well, I knew at that point that this was abandonment,
Speaker 4: and as a child, I cried, you know, uncontrollably, because
Speaker 4: when he had picked me up from this facility that
Speaker 4: did the study on me, I thought I was going
Speaker 4: home and ultimately never made it. And the guy he
Speaker 4: dropped me off at at the front door of this institution.
Speaker 4: This was the mid sixties. The guy had shoulder length
Speaker 4: brown hair, with a flowered shirt and sandals, and this
Speaker 4: was the beginning of the era of the hippies. And
Speaker 4: this was now my new guardian. And the woman that
Speaker 4: worked there with him was a hippie as well. And
Speaker 4: I remember, you know, when I walked into this building
Speaker 4: with him, and you know, he had his hand around
Speaker 4: my shoulder trying to welcome me. I just remember looking
Speaker 4: at him and seeing that everything was very strange and
Speaker 4: unusual about the way he dressed and about the way
Speaker 4: he looked. And I wasn't when I grew up in
Speaker 4: when I was in Queen's. I didn't come in contact
Speaker 4: with these young guys that were like dressed like this,
Speaker 4: so it was just a little bit different for me.
Speaker 4: But that sort of distracted me from what I was
Speaker 4: actually going through because this institution was three floors high.
Speaker 4: The main floor was the dining area and other facilities,
Speaker 4: the laundry facilities, and on the second floor was the
Speaker 4: girl's wing, and on the third floor was the boys wing.
Speaker 4: And they had about fifty to sixty children on each floor,
Speaker 4: so I was one of fifty sixty, and we lived
Speaker 4: in these little rooms where they had three cots in
Speaker 4: each room, and the mattress was three inches thick and
Speaker 4: the springs would pop and make noise as soon as
Speaker 4: he got into the bed. But I just remember my
Speaker 4: first day when they showed me to my room. I
Speaker 4: remember seeing the mattress was covered in urine stains, and
Speaker 4: this was from the previous child that was there. And
Speaker 4: I'm saying to myself, I just left the beautiful house
Speaker 4: and now I'm sleeping in another child's urine, and I
Speaker 4: don't know what's going to happen, you know.
Speaker 3: I can't. I can't imagine processing all of that. I
Speaker 3: can tell even you know, even today, it's difficult for
Speaker 3: you to process it. Now, what was in it? You know,
Speaker 3: that's obviously the urine stains on your mattress is an
Speaker 3: incredibly indelible mark. What else? What else sticks in your
Speaker 3: mind of some of the impressions of that place that
Speaker 3: really stay with you today.
Speaker 4: Well, I will tell you that food was always an issue.
Speaker 4: They had a big kitchen, they had a gentleman that
Speaker 4: worked in the kitchen. But the food they served was very,
Speaker 4: very mediocre, very minimal as far as quality. I remembered
Speaker 4: them serving scrambled eggs in the morning and it was
Speaker 4: served in a big bucket with a ladle, which ladled
Speaker 4: out the water because they weren't real eggs. They were
Speaker 4: it was they were mixed. It was powdered eggs, and yeah,
Speaker 4: so it was water draining from this and the bread
Speaker 4: was old and you know, moldy, and so after experiencing
Speaker 4: that type of food issues on a regular basis, you know,
Speaker 4: you become accustomed to it. But after I was there
Speaker 4: for about six months, I was dropping weight drastically. I
Speaker 4: looked like a Holocaust victim after my first year there.
Speaker 4: And not only was the food there questionable, but there
Speaker 4: was absolutely zero education provided the kids there. They were
Speaker 4: supervised by counselors and they were just hoping that you
Speaker 4: wouldn't beat each other up to the point where you
Speaker 4: would end up in the hospital. But they really didn't
Speaker 4: care about educating you. It wasn't in the grand scheme
Speaker 4: of things. It was just what's happening on that day.
Speaker 4: He didn't hurt himself by the end of the day,
Speaker 4: and he's okay. And so there was a lot of bullying.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of beating, a lot of punishments.
Speaker 4: You know, if you said it did anything that would
Speaker 4: not be acceptable, you know, you will punish. And this
Speaker 4: is the way it went for three and a half years.
Speaker 4: And the people that you befriended there you had to
Speaker 4: be very careful. You had to be very careful. Although
Speaker 4: they were your age, there were eight, nine and ten
Speaker 4: years old. They all came from different backgrounds, and they
Speaker 4: all had their own little devious plans to try to survive.
Speaker 3: And I mean, this sounds like it's right out of
Speaker 3: Charles Dickenson. Really we're talking about, you know, nineteenth early
Speaker 3: nineteenth century England. The way you're describing the place, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's extraordinary. And how long were you there?
Speaker 4: I was there from nineteen sixty six to sixteen, about
Speaker 4: three and a half years, sixty nine close to seventy.
Speaker 4: And it was just just the interactions with the people there,
Speaker 4: and as I said, the daily activities, and I remember
Speaker 4: there was just one thing, and again you would never
Speaker 4: anticipate this being a problem, but everybody had their own
Speaker 4: draw in a cabinet where they would keep their socks
Speaker 4: and their underwear guneral clothing. And I remember that after
Speaker 4: I moved in there, I had a dozen pair of
Speaker 4: underwear and everything was fine, and then as the days
Speaker 4: went by, they disappeared. Eventually, after the first month or so,
Speaker 4: I had one pair of underwear left, and it was
Speaker 4: like somebody was stealing my underwear. And I had my
Speaker 4: initials carved into the back of the underwear. And I
Speaker 4: remember when my father took me on my first visit,
Speaker 4: which was probably three or four months after being admitted there,
Speaker 4: he ultimately says to me, is there anything you need?
Speaker 4: And I underwear, you know, And he would take me
Speaker 4: to this five and dime and we bought underwear and
Speaker 4: I put my initials on it, and I couldn't understand
Speaker 4: what was happening to it, and it got to the
Speaker 4: point where everything was stolen and I was wearing bathing
Speaker 4: suits under my pants because my underwear was stolen. Until
Speaker 4: one day I see this kid bend over and in
Speaker 4: the back of his underwear was my initials and I
Speaker 4: beat him to a pulp, you know, and I was
Speaker 4: able to get my other way back, you know. And
Speaker 4: so it's like, this was, uh, this was something you
Speaker 4: know at the time.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about coping, and again, Mitch, take take some time.
Speaker 3: I know it's very emotional, and we really appreciate you sharing,
Speaker 3: and I want people to know we're going to get
Speaker 3: to the point of recovery. This is not all about pain.
Speaker 3: This is about recovery. But we need to get to
Speaker 3: that point first, and part of that is coping. We
Speaker 3: all have coping message methods. Excuse me, especially in difficult situations.
Speaker 3: What were some of your coping mechanisms to deal with
Speaker 3: life in this insane place?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I'm glad you mentioned that, because I sort
Speaker 4: of skipped that along the way. I will tell you
Speaker 4: before I ended up going to this institution, I found
Speaker 4: on one Sunday, my father, who didn't work on Saturday,
Speaker 4: and Sunday he was in the basement and he was
Speaker 4: painting oil paints on canvas, and I went down there
Speaker 4: because I heard the noise and I was watching him,
Speaker 4: and ultimately I was very impressed with what he was creating.
Speaker 4: And he asked me if I was interested, if I
Speaker 4: wanted to do it, try it, and I said sure.
Speaker 4: So he brought me some paints and brushes and the
Speaker 4: next few days I sat there and I tried to
Speaker 4: paint and create things, and it really just wasn't working
Speaker 4: for me. I didn't feel comfortable with it. And then
Speaker 4: one day, it was probably the following weekend, after I
Speaker 4: gave up on the acrylic on the oil paints, he
Speaker 4: brought home the Sunday New York Times and back then
Speaker 4: in the Sunday New York Times for one year in
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty five or in nineteen sixty six, I had
Speaker 4: a color by number on the inside cover of the
Speaker 4: New York Times, and he gave that to me along
Speaker 4: with some pencils, and he said, try to see if
Speaker 4: you like this. And I ended up working with that
Speaker 4: and I loved it, and he bought me more pencils
Speaker 4: and books to write in and lo and Behold. As
Speaker 4: time went by, I became more obsessed with these drawings,
Speaker 4: and they were very therapeutic for me. I would sit
Speaker 4: for hours and forget about everything that was happening and
Speaker 4: just sit down and draw. And I continued to do
Speaker 4: this even three and a half years after I got
Speaker 4: out of that institution. I just keep doing it, and
Speaker 4: it was very therapeutic and I enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: And we're going to talk about it. You still do it.
Speaker 3: It has some relevance to our nine to eleven conversation.
Speaker 3: We'll get to that, but let's talk about your progression.
Speaker 3: So now you've been released, what's next in your life?
Speaker 3: You're out of that horrible place. What's next in your life?
Speaker 3: Because obviously you don't go from a so called juvenile delinquency,
Speaker 3: at least in their eyes.
Speaker 4: To right.
Speaker 3: Eventually what you became right? Fill in some of those
Speaker 3: missing blanks. So now you're out of school, you're back
Speaker 3: with your family. Where do you go from there?
Speaker 4: Okay, So here I am. I'm approaching twelve and I'm
Speaker 4: o at the institution. And I learned very quickly that
Speaker 4: my mother and father were getting divorced, and that was
Speaker 4: probably one of the reasons why I was released from there.
Speaker 4: It's because it was understood that my father was going
Speaker 4: to take me and my mother was going to take
Speaker 4: my younger brother and we would be split up. But
Speaker 4: we were never a family anyway. I never really even
Speaker 4: knew got a chance to know my younger brother. But anyway,
Speaker 4: so after I left the institution, I moved back into
Speaker 4: the house. My mother was very standoffish, very cold, because
Speaker 4: it was her plan and the first place to send
Speaker 4: me there, and I think she realistically wanted me to
Speaker 4: stay there. She was not happy to see me at all.
Speaker 4: But ultimately my father told me after they were getting
Speaker 4: this divorce, he says, I will tell you that I
Speaker 4: have a girlfriend in the Bronx. We're going to be
Speaker 4: moving with her temporarily, and you're going to be coming
Speaker 4: with me every morning to work to the coffee shop.
Speaker 4: And I said to him, Dad, I said, I'm eleven
Speaker 4: years old. I said, I haven't been to school since
Speaker 4: I was in second grade. I haven't had schooling in
Speaker 4: almost four years.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: So I said, I have to go to school. He says,
Speaker 4: I understand that, but being that this is temporary living
Speaker 4: with my girlfriend, I can't register you in a public
Speaker 4: school and pull you out two months later. He says,
Speaker 4: you're going to have to just hold on a little bit.
Speaker 4: So he would take me to work with him every
Speaker 4: day in the coffee shop, and what he had me
Speaker 4: do was deliver lunch orders in the diamond district, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: in the not the the garment district, I'm sorry. Seventh fifteen.
Speaker 4: So I was a delivery boy, one of three that
Speaker 4: were working in his restaurant. And I remember before I
Speaker 4: started with him, he came home one day with a
Speaker 4: bag filled with change, maybe about five dollars in change
Speaker 4: and about twenty and thirty dollars in bills, and he says, okay,
Speaker 4: this is going to be your first lesson, and he
Speaker 4: would write up fictitious lunch checks and hand it to
Speaker 4: me along with money, because now I had to learn
Speaker 4: how to make change. I was delivering waters and there
Speaker 4: was no credit card to piselle that they're gonna do.
Speaker 3: This is all cash, so.
Speaker 4: None of that existed. It was not even cell phones.
Speaker 4: So anyway, somebody would hand me a large bill but
Speaker 4: they had six dollars and nineteen cents order and I
Speaker 4: would have to make change. So I would sit there
Speaker 4: with him at the kitchen table and learn how to
Speaker 4: make change. And this went on for hours and hours
Speaker 4: and hours, and then he tried to trick me because
Speaker 4: if he had a bill, there was like nineteen fifty
Speaker 4: four and he gave me a twenty. So instead of
Speaker 4: giving him the fifty six cents change, he'd give me
Speaker 4: fifty four cents and then I'd have to give him
Speaker 4: a dollar. So, because you know, he you know, he'd
Speaker 4: try to trick me. So even today, if you go
Speaker 4: to McDonald's and God forbid, they should ring you up
Speaker 4: and it's change if you offer them to change. The
Speaker 4: guy behind Canada does and how to make change. Now
Speaker 4: he says, it shows him on the register what to do.
Speaker 4: Once you've give him the change, that whole thing's blown
Speaker 4: out of the water. He can't make change anymore. But anyways, that.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, in hindsight, was it a valuable lesson?
Speaker 4: I mean it was. That was the first time I.
Speaker 5: Looked that was.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yes, in addition to the practicality of it, the thought
Speaker 3: process of it.
Speaker 4: It was. And it was good because even to this day,
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot of people my age they
Speaker 4: still don't understand basic interactions with money and change and
Speaker 4: how to count, and this is all basic stuff. And
Speaker 4: I learned that when I was twelve, and it helped
Speaker 4: me because I was delivering lunch and I was making money.
Speaker 4: I was actually making twenty dollars a day in tips,
Speaker 4: so it was actually a good thing. So ultimately, you know,
Speaker 4: he told me, you know, after this short bout of time,
Speaker 4: they're going to leave and he's going to buy a house,
Speaker 4: him and his girlfriend, and I was going to move
Speaker 4: in with them, and then I'd go to school. So
Speaker 4: he told me it wouldn't be long. And what he
Speaker 4: told me ultimately turned into two and a half years.
Speaker 4: So we went from I was eleven and a half
Speaker 4: and they said, he told me a month or two
Speaker 4: I'd be moving and going to school. Now I was
Speaker 4: there until I was about thirteen, thirteen or fourteen, delivering lunch.
Speaker 4: And I remember my father telling me when I was fourteen,
Speaker 4: he says, why don't you join the army. They'll give
Speaker 4: you a place to live, they'll give you food. He
Speaker 4: was trying to get rid of me. He didn't even
Speaker 4: want to deal with me at the age of fourteen,
Speaker 4: and here I am, you know, a kid, and I
Speaker 4: have zero education except for learning how to make change,
Speaker 4: and I don't know anything about what the world has
Speaker 4: in store for me. But here I am. I'm fourteen
Speaker 4: years old, and everybody my age is now attending high school,
Speaker 4: and I have no clue what the hell is going
Speaker 4: on in this lifetime. You know, I have no knowledge,
Speaker 4: but I will tell you that after the two and
Speaker 4: a half years went by, he did end up getting
Speaker 4: a house in Rockland County and I moved in with
Speaker 4: him along with his girlfriend, and he ultimately signed me
Speaker 4: up in school. I went to Nanuet High School, and
Speaker 4: I was a terrified, terrified fifteen year old kid going
Speaker 4: into high school because I haven't been to school since
Speaker 4: second grade.
Speaker 3: Amazing. How did you cope? How did you deal with
Speaker 3: that far behind?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Very stressful. The only I think the only way
Speaker 4: that I was able to deal with this is the
Speaker 4: fact that everybody else there was now a freshman for
Speaker 4: the first year. They were also nervous because they were
Speaker 4: in middle school before. Now they're moving into high school.
Speaker 4: It's a big jump. Yet you're now approaching adulthood. So
Speaker 4: everybody had their own nerves that they were dealing with.
Speaker 4: It's just they were all educated, so I could care
Speaker 4: less what school it was. It's just I had no
Speaker 4: education know what was in store for me. I didn't
Speaker 4: know reading. I didn't have any knowledge of anything that
Speaker 4: was going to happen. And every day was very stressful
Speaker 4: for me because I didn't know if they were going
Speaker 4: to ask me to do something and I'd turn around
Speaker 4: and say, what, I don't know. I don't know how
Speaker 4: to do that because I was never taught anything, you know,
Speaker 4: But just to go through this period, I was very athletic.
Speaker 4: I played football in school, I played basketball. I made
Speaker 4: a lot of friends through my sports connections, and ultimately,
Speaker 4: over the years, I did pass everything with c's and d's,
Speaker 4: and that was fine with me. You know, I didn't
Speaker 4: care if I didn't get a B or an A.
Speaker 4: I was happy to pass.
Speaker 3: You know that.
Speaker 4: I was able to pull my own weight, and ultimately
Speaker 4: things were starting to look up for me as I
Speaker 4: was approaching sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. But then the second
Speaker 4: nightmare occurred. When I turned eighteen years old, I graduated
Speaker 4: high school. I was very proud of myself for graduating
Speaker 4: high school.
Speaker 3: Incredibly even considering what you where you came from. It's extraordinary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I didn't even think that that was going
Speaker 4: to occur, to be honest with you. Yeah, But through
Speaker 4: working with my father in the restaurant for three and
Speaker 4: a half years, I was able to save a lot
Speaker 4: of money. I mean back then it was like fifteen
Speaker 4: hundred dollars I think I put away and I was
Speaker 4: able to buy my first car, and I think I
Speaker 4: paid about five hundred for it. This was in nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy five, seventy six, my first car. And so I
Speaker 4: was again going through high school and I was approaching
Speaker 4: graduation high school graduation. I was eighteen, and I had
Speaker 4: my own car, and things were looking pretty good, you know,
Speaker 4: and I didn't know what I was going to do
Speaker 4: with my life, but I knew that I had food,
Speaker 4: I had shelter, and had a car, and it was
Speaker 4: a good thing. And then all of a sudden, the second,
Speaker 4: the second night there occurred. And it was shortly after
Speaker 4: I graduated high school. My father came to me one
Speaker 4: morning in the driveway. He saw I was leaving. I
Speaker 4: was going somewhere Saturday morning, and he approached me in
Speaker 4: the driveway and he says, oh, I heard he graduated
Speaker 4: high school last week. He didn't even attend. He didn't
Speaker 4: even have a clue destroyed there. No, he didn't even know.
Speaker 4: He says, I heard you graduate high school last week.
Speaker 4: He says you're eighteen. He says, you're a man. Now,
Speaker 4: time for you to leave. So he threw me out
Speaker 4: of the house. So here I am an eighteen year
Speaker 4: old kid with a high school diploma, with maybe about
Speaker 4: five or six hundred dollars left in my savings account,
Speaker 4: because you know, I spent five hundred on the car,
Speaker 4: and I had to put gas in the car, and
Speaker 4: you know, and I was working, but still it wasn't enough.
Speaker 4: But he says to me, it's time for you to go.
Speaker 4: And I remembered saying, what am I? Where am I
Speaker 4: going to go? What am I gonna do? So I
Speaker 4: ended up getting in my car driving through Rockland County.
Speaker 4: And if I don't know if you know Rockland County
Speaker 4: at all, but back then, not far from where I lived,
Speaker 4: there's an area called Spring Valley, Barry is a very
Speaker 4: low income community for people that are struggling. And I
Speaker 4: ended up in my car driving through Spring Valley and
Speaker 4: I saw this guy talking to a policeman on the
Speaker 4: corner of his building and there was a big sign
Speaker 4: for rent. So it's like okay. So I parked the car,
Speaker 4: I walk up the walkway, and the policeman left, and
Speaker 4: I was there talking with this guy and I said,
Speaker 4: I need a place to live. And he's looking at
Speaker 4: me because I was the only white kid in the
Speaker 4: community because everybody there was either black or Spanish. There
Speaker 4: was all minorities here. I am an eighteen year old kid.
Speaker 4: I need a place to live. And he says, do
Speaker 4: you have money? So I said, yeah, I got enough
Speaker 4: money to give you. I said, how much is the rent?
Speaker 4: He says, thirty five dollars a month? Thirty five dollars
Speaker 4: a month. I said, I don't know, that's a little tight.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I can handle that, but ultimately
Speaker 4: I get the apartment thirty five dollars a month. The
Speaker 4: apartment was about ten feet by ten feet, just big
Speaker 4: enough to put a bed in there with a dresser.
Speaker 4: That was it. There was no sink, no kitchen, no bathroom.
Speaker 4: So in his building, which was a three floor brownstone,
Speaker 4: there was about three or four apartments on each floor
Speaker 4: and they shared a bathroom and that was for each floor,
Speaker 4: and it was no kitchen. No, you couldn't eat, you know,
Speaker 4: there was no food. So I remember the first day
Speaker 4: I gave him the thirty five dollars and I ended
Speaker 4: up going back home and I got a cardboard box
Speaker 4: out of the garage and I filled it up with
Speaker 4: all my belongings and I took my black and white
Speaker 4: TV with the rabbit ears and I brought it over
Speaker 4: to the apartment in Spring Valley, and I remember putting
Speaker 4: the TV up on top of the dresser, throwing my
Speaker 4: clothes in there, and laying on the bed watching TV, saying, Wow,
Speaker 4: I can't believe it. I now I am, now have
Speaker 4: completed everything. I'm free, I'm on my own, I'm an adult,
Speaker 4: and I have a beautiful place to live, and everything
Speaker 4: is wonderful. You know, you're trying to convince yourself at
Speaker 4: that point that things are good, and lo and behold.
Speaker 4: I walked from the apartment and I just started walking
Speaker 4: around the community and it started to get dark. So
Speaker 4: I came back and I remember, no sooner than I
Speaker 4: come back and I closed the door, did I hear
Speaker 4: like a bus pull up in the front, And no, kidding,
Speaker 4: may it had to be forty or fifty people came
Speaker 4: out of that bus, and they were all intoxicated or
Speaker 4: they were under the influence of narcotics, and they were
Speaker 4: yelling and screaming and they were fighting, and they were
Speaker 4: coming up the stairs in the building. Those were my neighbors,
Speaker 4: Those were the people that lived in that building. And
Speaker 4: I remember there was broken glass and they were screaming,
Speaker 4: and there were people were getting beaten up. And I
Speaker 4: remember just sitting in my room on the floor with
Speaker 4: my back to the door, praying that nobody would try
Speaker 4: to get in because I wouldn't be able to defend myself,
Speaker 4: you know. But and I do remember that night. The
Speaker 4: fighting went on for hours and hours and hours, and
Speaker 4: I had to go to sleep and I couldn't go
Speaker 4: to the bathroom. I remember urinating in a paper cup,
Speaker 4: leaving it on the window sill, and I had to
Speaker 4: wait till the next morning. The next morning, I opened
Speaker 4: up the door very quietly and look, and thank god,
Speaker 4: there was nobody in the hallways. But I was walking
Speaker 4: through broken glass and vomit on my way to the bathroom.
Speaker 4: And this is what I what I dealt with in
Speaker 4: the bathroom, broken blast and vomit, and this is where
Speaker 4: I was now living, and it was just a nightmare.
Speaker 4: It was an absolutely it's this.
Speaker 3: Might be a kind of a rhetorical statement question. And
Speaker 3: you know, and you lately with some of the violence
Speaker 3: that we've experienced in this country, particularly gun violence, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And often you look and you see the background that
Speaker 3: many of the shooters and extremely troubled. Often and it's
Speaker 3: often used as an excuse, if you will, sometimes for
Speaker 3: terrible behavior. I want your thoughts. I mean, who could
Speaker 3: have had it much worse than what you did? And
Speaker 3: yet you and I want to I have to be
Speaker 3: concerned with the time. I still want to talk about again,
Speaker 3: instead of choosing a negative path. While I could steal
Speaker 3: the money, I could raw, I could do things that
Speaker 3: are around me, but you choose a different path. You
Speaker 3: took one that was much more positive. I want to
Speaker 3: talk about your mindset. Yeah, like I said, people now
Speaker 3: use excube. Well, look at that awful background. I wonder
Speaker 3: why he's bitter. I understand, but that's not the case.
Speaker 3: You could have turned that way, but you did. What
Speaker 3: was the difference for you, bitch?
Speaker 4: So I can only guess at that point. So not
Speaker 4: only did I go through a problem in this institution,
Speaker 4: and then ultimately I worked for my father and I
Speaker 4: worked and I made money and I understood right from wrong,
Speaker 4: and ultimately I went to this high school with a
Speaker 4: lot of middle class kids from middle class families who
Speaker 4: there was no criminality discussed. I mean, if I was
Speaker 4: in a different school with other kids, maybe other kids
Speaker 4: would be fighting to survive, maybe they would have to
Speaker 4: steal for money, but the kids I was with didn't
Speaker 4: have to do that. So I wasn't listening and I
Speaker 4: wasn't privy to that type of lifestyle. So as I
Speaker 4: grew up, I wasn't subjected to that. And even when
Speaker 4: I was in this housing project and these people were
Speaker 4: losing their minds, you know, I looked at them, ash, Okay,
Speaker 4: they have problems, but you know what I don't. I
Speaker 4: don't and I'm going to do the right thing. And
Speaker 4: ultimately I said, you know what, I think, I want
Speaker 4: to be a policeman. I didn't like bullying because when
Speaker 4: I was in the institution, there was bullies that would
Speaker 4: take over and beat kids to a pulp, and I
Speaker 4: really didn't like that. So I felt if I was
Speaker 4: a policeman I can actually level the playing field with
Speaker 4: people who are being taken advantage of. And for me,
Speaker 4: that was a good thing. You know, I wanted to
Speaker 4: be you know, I don't know if you call like
Speaker 4: a referee a referee, and so I fig that that
Speaker 4: would be that's not a bad thing. So I said,
Speaker 4: how am I going to do this now? So here
Speaker 4: I am in Rockland County where when they hire somebody
Speaker 4: from the police department, they hire two or three people. Okay,
Speaker 4: and that's even back then. So I'm trying to think
Speaker 4: now how to get this accomplished. And I said, Okay,
Speaker 4: what I have to do is I have to go
Speaker 4: into Manhattan. I have to take the New York City
Speaker 4: Police test. It was when they hire, they hire thirty
Speaker 4: forty fifty people. So I said, that's my best odds.
Speaker 4: So I said, but I'm living in Spring Valley. How
Speaker 4: am I going to do this? So I ultimately called
Speaker 4: my mother on the phone after so many years, and
Speaker 4: I begged her to move in with her in her
Speaker 4: apartment where she was living with my brother. I said,
Speaker 4: I'm only doing it because I'm going to be going
Speaker 4: to college here. I signed up with John Jay College
Speaker 4: or Criminal Justice because they had a special program to
Speaker 4: help you study for the New York City Police test.
Speaker 4: So I said, okay, so that's perfect to me. And
Speaker 4: I was able to get it for free because I
Speaker 4: had zero income, so I qualified for that. So I
Speaker 4: move in with my mother, I go to John Jay College.
Speaker 4: I'm starting to study for the police test. And sure enough,
Speaker 4: next month, here comes the police test and there's an
Speaker 4: auditorium that is being filled up with hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 4: thousands of people that are taking this test. And I said,
Speaker 4: how am I going to outscore these people? I have
Speaker 4: no education. I just barely made it through high school.
Speaker 4: How am I going to do this? But I sat
Speaker 4: and I took the test anyway, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 4: I didn't feel that I did poorly. And about a
Speaker 4: month later, I got a letter in the mail from
Speaker 4: the Port Authority Police Department. That was the company that
Speaker 4: I ultimately Oh, no, I'm sorry, I'm going ahead. It
Speaker 4: was the New York City Police Department. I get a
Speaker 4: letter in the mail from them and they said, congratulations,
Speaker 4: you scored a ninety on the written test. I just
Speaker 4: couldn't believe it, and they said, and then they start
Speaker 4: going off into this paragraph of an explanation, and they said, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: at this time, we are dealing with affirmative action. We
Speaker 4: have more than enough white policemen. They weren't hiring any
Speaker 4: more white policeman unless you scored a one hundred on
Speaker 4: the test. So I scored a ninety. I was out.
Speaker 4: They were hiring females, they were hiring his fanics, they
Speaker 4: were hiring blacks, Asians. If you were a white male,
Speaker 4: you were out. So I was discriminated against. So I
Speaker 4: was for another I was twenty years old. I was
Speaker 4: discriminated against, and I was out. And ultimately now it's like, now,
Speaker 4: what the hell am I going to do? I couldn't
Speaker 4: get the job with the New York City Police Department,
Speaker 4: but I was still at John Jay College. So I
Speaker 4: hear the New York State Troopers are giving a test
Speaker 4: as well, So I sign up for them. And then
Speaker 4: somebody says to me, would you be interested in doing
Speaker 4: an internship at the Taxi Limousine Commission at Kennedy Airport. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: how the hell am I going to get there? Well?
Speaker 4: You take the A train from the college and you
Speaker 4: ride all the way into Queens and you meet up
Speaker 4: at Kennedy Airport. I said, okay, i'll do it. You
Speaker 4: get three credits, I'll do it. So I remembered the
Speaker 4: first day I signed up for that. I took the
Speaker 4: A train to Kennedy Airport and I was sitting there
Speaker 4: with about twenty other kids from the college and this
Speaker 4: guy comes in with a police uniform and he introduces
Speaker 4: himself as Captain so and so, and he goes, I
Speaker 4: work for the Port Authority Police Department. And this is
Speaker 4: back in nineteen eighty. I had no clue what the
Speaker 4: hell the Port Authority Police Department was. I had no idea.
Speaker 4: So the guy does a whole orientation speech and he says,
Speaker 4: if anybody's interested in becoming a Port Authority policeman, today
Speaker 4: is the last day to pick up an application at
Speaker 4: the World Trade Center. So where am I going after
Speaker 4: the class? I'm taking the eight training back uptown to
Speaker 4: the John Jay College and then sure enough, next up
Speaker 4: World Trade Center. And I'm sitting there thinking do I
Speaker 4: get off or not? And I was so tired, But
Speaker 4: there's no Internet. It's not only that can email me
Speaker 4: the application. When I got off, I went up to
Speaker 4: the sixty ninth floor got the application, filled it out,
Speaker 4: took the test, and the same time I took the
Speaker 4: New York State Troopers test. And I remember several months
Speaker 4: went by and on a Monday, I got a letter
Speaker 4: in the mail from the New York State Troopers. Congratulations,
Speaker 4: You've made it into the academy. I couldn't believe it
Speaker 4: that now, finally I was going to get something. Two
Speaker 4: days later, on Wednesday, I got the letter from the
Speaker 4: Port Athority Police, congratulations.
Speaker 3: You may wow.
Speaker 4: So now here I am a kid with a twenty
Speaker 4: one year old brain trying to figure out which which
Speaker 4: job to take. And I took the Portathority Police for
Speaker 4: probably the dumbest of reasons, because at the time, the
Speaker 4: Troopers starting salary was twelve thousand and the Port Authority Police,
Speaker 4: who was fourteen thousand. He said, okay, I'll take the
Speaker 4: Port Authority because also the State Police can assign me
Speaker 4: as far as the Canadian border, and the Port Authority
Speaker 4: was the police around a statue of liberty. So I said,
Speaker 4: I'll take that, and then I started. I started in
Speaker 4: the academy, and my life started to change rapidly.
Speaker 3: Twenty six years later, Richard've got to take a break.
Speaker 3: I won't talk about the book. We've got about ten
Speaker 3: minutes or so left. I want to use all of
Speaker 3: that time we come back because all of this and this,
Speaker 3: this incredible story leading to where we are now accessible
Speaker 3: twenty six year career and then a book, so there's
Speaker 3: there's more. This has just been terrific, and I want
Speaker 3: to save that last ten minutes to talk about Columbus Staying. Okay,
Speaker 3: let's remind everybody this is Being Frank the Intelligent Conversation Podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Frank Labora'll be right back with more
Speaker 3: right after. These brief commercial messages don't go away.
Speaker 5: This is Hudson River Radio dot.
Speaker 6: Com, Hudson River Radio dot com. This is Hudson River
Speaker 6: Radio dot com.
Speaker 4: Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 6: This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Being Frank the Intelligent Conversation Podcast. Thanks
Speaker 3: for sticking with us. I'm your host, Franklebono, and as
Speaker 3: always our engineer as the mailman, mister Neil Richter. Our
Speaker 3: very special guest is author and retired port authority police
Speaker 3: mister Mitch Rosen. We'll be talking about his book, Columbus
Speaker 3: Day in just one minute. But I want to remind
Speaker 3: you that we bring our audience a fresh topic just
Speaker 3: about every week, and we stream from Hudson River Radio,
Speaker 3: which is located in beautiful and historic Stony Point, New York.
Speaker 3: But remember, you can catch Being Frank anywhere you get
Speaker 3: your favorite podcasts like Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio and all the others.
Speaker 3: And because every Being Frank is archived, you can listen
Speaker 3: to any of our programs anytime you like. Final link
Speaker 3: to Being Frank on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page
Speaker 3: or visit our website Hudson Riverradio dot com. Find my icon,
Speaker 3: click and you're there. Mitch Rosen, let's continue with the
Speaker 3: book said, We have about ten minutes left and still
Speaker 3: a lot to talk about the book. Columbus Day. All
Speaker 3: of the experiences we've spoken have led up to the book.
Speaker 3: What gave you the idea, though, to put your story
Speaker 3: in book form? What made you think that, yeah, I
Speaker 3: can do this.
Speaker 4: Well, I tell everybody it took me sixty years to
Speaker 4: write this book, not literally sixty years, but when I
Speaker 4: turned sixty, I decided to tell the story. At first,
Speaker 4: I was a little embarrassed, I mean, but then everybody
Speaker 4: said to me, my wife, particularly she said, I don't
Speaker 4: think at seven years old you hold a lot of
Speaker 4: responsibility as to what happened. So she says, why would
Speaker 4: you feel that this is your doing? And I agreed
Speaker 4: with her. So that's why I decided to write the book,
Speaker 4: you know, to educate people about what could possibly happen
Speaker 4: with the people that are in the household to the
Speaker 4: suffering from mental illness or depression.
Speaker 3: What would you say is the major theme that you
Speaker 3: want people to take from it? What once they read it,
Speaker 3: what would you like them to feel?
Speaker 4: Well? You know, when in my case, I was seven
Speaker 4: years old, I struggled, I was I was dealt a
Speaker 4: very bad hand in life, and everything looked to be
Speaker 4: going downhill very rapidly, even through my teenage years. And
Speaker 4: ultimately I was able to turn this around because I
Speaker 4: did the right thing and I was looking and thinking positively.
Speaker 4: So I want people to understand that although things might
Speaker 4: not be going well in their life, it doesn't mean
Speaker 4: that they cannot change things. And it's all about you.
Speaker 4: It's about what you decide to do. And we are
Speaker 4: all responsible for our own, you know, future, our own everything, well,
Speaker 4: everything that we do in life. It's based on a
Speaker 4: decision you made.
Speaker 3: Now a little trick question here, Columbus Day. You want
Speaker 3: to give us a little hintest to the title. I
Speaker 3: know there's a little trick there. What can you tell
Speaker 3: us about? Well, the title?
Speaker 4: I will tell you that the book is a very
Speaker 4: long story, and there is a lot of twists and
Speaker 4: turns in this story, and everything there's a cause and effect.
Speaker 4: And when I talk about Columbus Day, that day turned
Speaker 4: out to be the worst day of my life and
Speaker 4: it had to do with the story. So I don't
Speaker 4: want to give away the end of the movie. So
Speaker 4: if you're going to go to the movie or read
Speaker 4: the book, you don't want me to ruin it for you.
Speaker 4: So I think it would be something good for you
Speaker 4: to read and then you'll be able to understand what
Speaker 4: Columbus Day is all about.
Speaker 3: Okay, And we're going to give people a website where
Speaker 3: they can get the book. In just a minute too,
Speaker 3: but I took a little bit. We have a few minutes,
Speaker 3: like about your artwork and nine to eleven. As you said,
Speaker 3: both you and I. I was there as a cameraman
Speaker 3: for CBS News and you obviously as a port authority
Speaker 3: police officer. But some of your artwork. Some of my
Speaker 3: photographs are included in the permanent collection at the museum,
Speaker 3: and I know some of your artwork is as well.
Speaker 3: Could you talk a little bit about it?
Speaker 4: Sure? So, the color pencil work that I was doing
Speaker 4: since childhood, I've been doing it my entire life. And
Speaker 4: when I was called to be a first responder, or
Speaker 4: when I ultimately ended up as a first responder, I
Speaker 4: had a small pocket camera in my shirt pocket and
Speaker 4: that wasn't because of any reason other than because it
Speaker 4: was part of my art. Daily art life. We used
Speaker 4: to take periodic pictures of things, things that I felt
Speaker 4: it would be interesting thing to do a piece of
Speaker 4: all long pong. So here I am at nine to
Speaker 4: eleven at the World Trade Center with the camera and
Speaker 4: I took about twenty to thirty pictures of what I
Speaker 4: was experiencing because I wanted to be able to preserve
Speaker 4: the history of what this country experienced. And one of
Speaker 4: the pictures I took was a picture of what was
Speaker 4: called the bucket Brigade, and there was a picture of
Speaker 4: first responders sifting through debris, passing it down the line
Speaker 4: from hand to hand to hand, and it was nothing
Speaker 4: more than a bucket of powder, and they would analyze
Speaker 4: this powder trying to see if there was any DNA
Speaker 4: or any sign of any victims in this powder.
Speaker 3: And just quickly you're with a in hindsight, Now, what
Speaker 3: sticks out in your mind about nine to eleven? Is
Speaker 3: there any one particular saying a memory that seared into
Speaker 3: your mind that will be with you forever?
Speaker 4: Well, actually there is. I mean, in addition to doing
Speaker 4: a piece of artwork for nine to eleven from that
Speaker 4: bucket Brigade picture, which is called the Search for Heroes.
Speaker 4: It's in the World Trade Center Memorial Museum. It's a
Speaker 4: part of their permanent collection. But I will tell you
Speaker 4: that the last person pulled out of that building alive
Speaker 4: was my co worker. His name was John McLaughlin. Him
Speaker 4: and I went to the police Academy together. We sat
Speaker 4: next to each other. We planned them buying houses in
Speaker 4: the future and growing and having families. And ultimately he
Speaker 4: was played by Nicholas Cage in this movie It's called
Speaker 4: the World Trade Center. So his experience there was very
Speaker 4: very close to me because he was a friend of mine.
Speaker 3: Right, Columbus Day is the book. People want to get
Speaker 3: it and read it. Where can they find in Mitch Rosen.
Speaker 4: They can go on Amazon and just type in Mitch
Speaker 4: Rosen Columbus Day or Mitch Rosenbook and I'm sure it'll
Speaker 4: pop up.
Speaker 3: Mitch Reals, I want to thank you so much for
Speaker 3: sharing your incredible story with us. Really, I mean, that's
Speaker 3: truly intelligent conversation. We appreciate it. Of course, we allfer
Speaker 3: special thanks to our listeners who take time in their
Speaker 3: lives to give us a voice. Remember, you offer fresh
Speaker 3: topic every week. Catch us wherever and whenever you get
Speaker 3: your favorite podcast. Check us out on the Hudson River
Speaker 3: Radio Facebook page or at our website Hudsonriverradio dot com.
Speaker 3: You know, I'll leave you with two last things. The
Speaker 3: slogan that I think is appropriate and some great original music.
Speaker 3: And our slogan comes from TS Eliott, the great author
Speaker 3: who said survival is your strength, not your shame. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's I think it says. It's simply and right there.
Speaker 3: We've got some great original closing closing music from our
Speaker 3: friend mister Steve Bagg for our engineer, the mailman, mister
Speaker 3: Neil Rictor. I'm your host, Frank Gubuona. We hope to
Speaker 3: have you join us on the next being Frank, We're
Speaker 3: the only way to be is Frank? Thanks everyone?
Speaker 7: Wasn't the door slamming behind me? Was the flowers?
Speaker 3: Smart town?
Speaker 8: Was in the bottles of em.
Speaker 1: All that said that you.
Speaker 9: Basing the shoes that I'm working?
Speaker 8: But was the keys to change so sweet?
Speaker 5: And it wasn't lead going would be a crack?
Speaker 8: See.
Speaker 5: Wasn't all those things that really hit me?
Speaker 8: I'm bad?
Speaker 5: I mean side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm bad, y side again? The world yeah, side again.
Speaker 9: It wasn't my dreams turned into my name message is
Speaker 9: on my phone, I follow you. I wasn't the talking
Speaker 9: turned to so.
Speaker 5: Orize, I found the thoughts or now.
Speaker 8: I'm bad.
Speaker 5: On the side again, get us on back on your
Speaker 5: side again? The world yellside?
Speaker 1: Maybe I was small step, but that shining as sir,
Speaker 1: I can't see clearly no.
Speaker 5: Man that on the aside, on the side, nor walk side,
Speaker 5: nor on the side world side.
Speaker 9: Hudson River Radio dot com