Well, one New Year's Eve while waiting for midnight to roll around...so that tell's you something right there...my brother-in-law and father-in-law and I were discussing the virtues of a good gin & tonic while on the beach at City Island, just outside of NYC. The beach on City Island is a huge party spot on any holiday, night or day, warm or cold. We started discussing how rappers got their handles. I don't really remember how I got mine, but my 'bro-in-law" Gerry had gone to the AirStream factory in Ohio while visiting "Grandpa Bob" the previous summer. We were thinking about trademarking them, just to see if we could get some royalties in the future; he's in the advertising business and does trademarks all the time. We even had hats with our handles on them made up. So we ended up:
Kew-el-S
A-stream-G
gee-paw-B
Bob passed away 5 years ago last month. He was quite a guy. Very unassuming, but he was a bombadier in the Asian theater during WW2 and worked for the DoD for 42 years afterwards at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton. Ran procurement for the midwest out there. Had 750 people working for him when he retired. Went in one day, and figured out that the difference between staying and taking his pension was $0.25 per hour; full benefits either way. Gave his notice that day. They retired him as a 2-star general for all he did. He also was a scout-master for 25 years. At his funeral not only did a bunch of former scouts show up, but the Airforce did full colors and a fly-over with 4 F-16's. I use some variation of Kew-el in my passwords, usernames, handles, etc. to remember that time and him.
