Roy's True Stories

           I once went to the Shop & Stop to do a little grocery shopping.  While walking through the aisles I all of a sudden felt this rumbling in my stomach.  I thought that maybe I should head to the men's room.  The men's room turned out to be a one urinal and one stall bathroom.  I was grateful that no one was in the stall.     So I go into the stall to make a pie.  The pie has been a long standing euphemism in my family to describe a bowel movement.  As far as we know we think it originated with my father-in-law who grew up on a farm and saw many a cow pie.  Either that or it sounds more masculine to ask a kid if she has to make a pie instead of using the term poo poo.      So I go into the stall and I have an experience that I don't want to get too graphic about.  I reach for the toilet paper and there is none.  Let's just say that I really really needed toilet paper.  Fo...

      In 1996 I left the General Motors Assembly plant in North Tarrytown, New York and became the Director of Facilities in the East Ramapo School District located in Rockland County, New York.  My first large project became the replacement of a flat roof on the Summit Park Elementary school.  At the time it was about a $300,000 job.     It was my first introduction to school construction versus industrial construction by the way.  On the first day that contractors started working on the roof I received a phone call from the head custodian telling me that the window shades were falling down all around the building.  Turned out that all the shades were only attached to sheet rock soffits with maybe 1" sheet rock screws.  None were attached to wood or steel and the vibration from above was knocking them out.     I digress.  After the roof was replaced all was fine except for this one little leak that would show up in a clas...