Augustin Torres The Jersey Journal

February 8, 2010

Augustin Torres
The Jersey Journal
30 Journal Square
Jersey City, New Jersey 07306-4101

RE: Follow up on “Nothing lost save honor” letter

Mr. Torres,

A classmate from Marist High School e-mailed me about my letter being published in today’s Jersey Journal.

#1 – As to your note about wagers and saloon etiquette I must tell you that I had my first charge account and my first lesson on the above mentioned items in the Speedway Tavern, Avenue B in Bayonne, between 48th and 49th Streets. Moose, Big Red, Geno, Foul Mouth, Dirty Willie, Froggie, Cas, Shadow, Shadow’s brother Spook…where have the snows of yesteryear gone?

I was standing at the bar in the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco some years later when the stick man asked me if I were from New York. “Across the river,” I said. “Bayonne.” He said he could always tell a guy from Jersey. “They know how to stand at a bar.”

If you bet and you lost you paid. End of story.

#2 – The mutual acquaintance was Jerry Murphy, a man for whom the word picaresque was invented.

#3 – The subject was the R.M.S. Titanic. Since he was drinking whisky not his own, that is to say he was drinking like he was going to the gallows at dawn, I kept the bet at a minimum. I asked him if he knew the name of the Captain of the Titanic. He said he didn’t. I told him. He said that I was “full of shit”. I asked him if he could stand a wager of $100 on it. He accepted. My father’s law school yearbook picture said he would “hark to a wager”. He also said that “the acorn never falls far from the tree”. I looked at him across the table the way a wolf looks at a lamb chop.

I sent him a copy of a picture of the Captain of the Titanic the next day. His name was Smith. Along with Granny’s apples and the Mrs.’ Pies it would be something of which I would be aware. I have long since charged capital and marked the receivable to zero. Loans are always paid. Most of the time the borrower pays them; sometimes the lender pays them

#4 – The other people at the table were Dave Plotkin, CPA, a partner of Wiss&Company, Al Nechemie, CPA, also a partner of Wiss and now of late and happy memory. Also present were Tom Olivieri, Esq. and Pat Costello, Esq.

#5 – Speaking of open wagers, that is to say unsettled ones, I have another one that was entered into at Gerrino’s. This one was with Judge Geoffrey Gaulkin. I met him when he married the two lawyers at the table.

But that’s a different story.

I enclose the link to my blog. Sometimes amusing, sometimes not. Always entertaining. Always educational. Since “modesty is an overrated virtue” I can tell you that it is required reading in English immersion classes at 2 Russian universities. It is correctly labeled terra incognita.

Kevin Smith


PS – Dr. Johnson’s caveat about second marriages being “the triumph of hope over experience” would apply should I ever find myself in any Italian restaurant in Hudson County with a group of lawyers who know nothing about acceptable behavior in saloons.