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By Stanley P. Gershbein
Brooklyn Daily
The late, great Ed Koch is gone. Only the memories remain. After reading many stories about him, I hope you won’t mind one more.
I met the mayor a number of times and I’ve quoted him several times in this column, but my favorite story about him was when I was honored to be the master of ceremonies at several of the annual fund-raising breakfasts of the Canarsie Volunteer Ambulance Corps. The mayor was campaigning for reelection and was the guest speaker at one of these breakfasts. I was thrilled to be sitting next to him at the center of the dais. We had a marvelous conversation and every time he tried to refer to me by name he said, “Mr. Uh … uh … .Mr. Uh … uh.”
He said “uh” a lot. He stopped saying it when I pointed to the name plate in front of me. He glanced at it several times as we spoke and had a good laugh when I turned it around and placed it facing him right near his coffee.
When the festivities came to a close, the mayor and I continued chatting and walked out together. At that point, Councilman Herb Berman, who had a great sense of humor, took a cue from a joke that was making the rounds at that time. He shouted for the entire world to hear, “Hey! Who is that tall guy walking out with Stanley Gershbein?”
Thanks Herb. Here’s wishing you our very best.
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Just one more thought to those people in America who want to do away with all guns. The Second Amendment is an amendment, not a commandment. If you don’t want a handgun in your home, you don’t have to have one, but please stop insisting that I shouldn’t have one in mine.
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A study by the RetailMeNot.com website tells us that 69 percent of us do not bother to return unwanted holiday gifts. I try to find the place of purchase only to exchange the item for the proper size. Most of my friends and relatives still think of me as that underweight, skinny kid who used to have sand kicked in his face. I am now a bit bulkier and, like most of us, an unneeded gift will sit in my closet until I find a use for it. Does the term “re-gift” have any meaning here?
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“Hi Sexy. How u doing?” was the opening line of an e-mail sent by 26 year old John Michael Mendoza to who he thought was a 15-year-old girl. Loads of very steamy internet chats lead to the forwarding of photos of Mendoza’s private parts and several telephone conversations. They made plans to meet, and when Mr. Mendoza showed up at the meeting place, there was no 15-year-old girl waiting for him. There were, however, several police officers who read him his rights as he was arrested.
He pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced by Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks to 10 years in the can.
What the heck is wrong with these sick pedophiles? Didn’t they ever watch any of the hundreds of reruns of “To Catch a Predator?”
I am StanGershbein@Bellsouth.net asking, when are these sickos ever going to learn that the sexy teenager they are talking to is really a 40-year-old cop?
Read Stan Gershbein's column every Monday on BrooklynDaily.com.