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My friend Ron started his career as a Minor League pitcher in the Dodgers organization, but arm troubles sent him to the sidelines.
Next, he did a 20-year stint as a hairdresser in North Jersey in his own shop. His next incarnation was as a motel owner in Wildwood, where the endless travails of vacationers finally were too much for even this most stoic and patient of men, and he opened a retail business on Route 9. It also dwindled into oblivion, as retail can.
I know Ron from the Wildwood Boxing Club. He was one of its founders more than 10 years ago, and we’ve spent many evenings watching young fighters workout while we talked about everything under the sun.
Ron recently took a job with a security outfit he found on the Internet. After some training, his first assignment was to guard a vacant factory on the mainland. With the economy like it is, thieves lust after the metals in a place like that, thus Ron’s security detail.
The first day on the job, he worked the 8-to-4 day shift. He clocked out and headed to his car. As he approached, he saw something on the roof. When he got closer, he saw a big black snake — six feet, at least, he said — coiled there. As he watched, the serpent reared its head at the overhanging tree, where there was a nest of young birds. Ron figured the snake had slithered up on his car to get a meal, but it wasn’t high enough.
So there they were, Ron and the snake. What to do? Ron called a co-worker over, who got a broom and began whacking the snake. Quick as a flash, it uncoiled and slid down the car’s body and whisked under the undercarriage.
Now what? Like good citizens, they called the cops. The police showed up, looked under the car, and, in turn, called Animal Control, who lassoed the snake. The Animal Control guy said it was non-poisonous. For some reason, he asked Ron what to do with it. Fearful they might kill it, he told them to let it go in some woods behind the place, which they did.
When he told the Animal Control worker he had considered grabbing the snake behind the head and tossing it in the woods himself, the guy said that would have been a bad idea because the snake would have wrapped itself around his arm and let go a smelly excretion. Yuck. He said that when Ron released the head to wipe off the foul stuff, the snake would have bitten him or escaped.
Case closed? Not quite.
The co-worker said he’d had snake problems there, too. Seems like he’d seen snakes crawling up under his car and so, on the way home every day on a deserted strip of highway, he guns it up to a high enough speed to blow the snakes off. One day he said he’d seen three fly off.
So now Ron, too, gives a protracted burst of speed on the same deserted stretch and, so far he says, there’s been no snake action.
He never had that problem with the Dodgers.
Donna (Meryl Streep, center) is a carefree and, as her daughter finds out, somewhat careless hotel owner who enjoys the Grecian life with friends, Rosie (Julie Walters, left) and Tanya (Christine Baranski).
