When I was 17 years old a Junior at the Newtown High School, in Elmont, Queens, I worked part time for the Daily News, from Monday to Friday from four to nine PM. The others in our group of workers there were mostly all Irishmen who also had full time jobs as "Motormen" for the New York City Subway lines. Our job was to go to an assigned advertising company with a final adds that were scheduled to be in the Newspaper the following day and they had to check the copy for a final approval. All the agences were located in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. One Company was located in Eastern Queens for the Lerners Clothing Stores, which was my assigment most of the time.
I happend to be heading East Jamica Avenue on my Cushman Motor Scooter, at a top speed of about 30 miles per hour, when suddenly, a Cadillac that was heading west made a left onto Sutphin Blvd. right in front of me when it hit me and the motor scooter I was riding. that's when Bang! my body started flying over the hood of the Cadillac and my scooter was under the Cadillac somewhere. I then found myself sprawled out on the blacktop. My clothes were torn off and the copy I was carrying were sprawled out all over the street.
My scooter was still crushed underneat the Cadillac beyond repear. Thats when I picked myselfe up and started collecting all my paperwork I was assigned to to deliver for approvel. So, I got on a Bus and continued to make my way to deliver the copy to the agency. Yes, I got the final okay for the Ad I was assigned to deliver. Now that I'm much older. I look back at the incident and think about the work ethnic I had at that time. Even though I was only a child. I was driven like "Superman" by my responcablity and nothing was going to stop me from completing my assignment that day.
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