The Ageless Gergel

219 Pages·2012·3.93 MB·English

TO THE UNCAGED GERGEL:
LONG MAY HE SING!
If you already know Max Gergel, skip this preface. You'll want to
get directly to the interesting part of this book. For that matter, if you
don't know Max Gergel, you can also skip this preface with very little
loss. It's a rather fulsome declaration of affection for one of the world's
truly unique, truly unforgettable characters. Life with — or even near
— Max is never boring. The man's vitality is downright awesome, as is
his cheerful zest for living and his enormous affection for his fellow
man (and woman!) If Max is somewhat slowed up (as he cheerfully
complains) in his present "youthful old age," it's not readily apparent
to most of his colleagues. He continues to maintain a level of
personal and professional activity that would wear out most of us just
contemplating his current international jet-hopping.
I don't really think of Max as "growing" on someone — more
accurately, he "explodes" on you and you are immediately a full-
fledged family member for ever thereafter.
In a way, it's rather too bad that Max chose Chemistry as a
profession. From Max's many lectures, the world is only beginning to
realize that it lost a world-class comic in the process. No matter how
many times I hear the story of Preacher's unpublished synthesis
recipes, I laugh anew. To hear Max tell of his adventures and
misadventures with his family, his employees, the government, his
neighbors, his competitors — anyone with whom Max has had an
interface — is to be reminded of the human condition and (tragedies
notwithstanding) how, in Max's hands, never-endingly interesting it
continues to be.
It's rather instructive to consider for a moment why Max is so
good at entertaining us. It's not just the material—though Max clearly
does have a thousand stories to tell us — but rather due to two
special qualities that characterize his conversation: his impecable
sense of timing (worthy of that of the master, Jack Benny) and the
fact that the best of his stories are about people. I sometimes have
my doubts as to whether they really are as interesting as Max makes
them seem, but never-mind, just tell me more. Both of these features
are clearly recognizable in this, the second of Max's books. The book
is filled with fascinating anecdotes about interesting characters and
Max's colorful style of writing — his choice of language, word order,
sentence, sentence length, etc. — all add up to a kind of analogue of
his style of speaking.
Perhaps it's worth underscoring that the book was not written as
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a sociological treatise, not as a literary exercise, nor for the analytical
of mind, it was written as an act of sharing, to be enjoyed by his
friends. Only Max could have written this book and I am grateful that
he has done so. Live long and Prosper, Max — and, please, tell us all
about it!
JACK STOCKER
Professor of Chemistry
Louisiana State University - New Orleans
This book is dedicated to some great men,
gone forever and sorely missed:
Dr. Charles Grogan
General Mordechai Makleff
Dr. Earl McBee
Mr. Max Revelise
Dr. Leonard Rice
Mr. Jules Seideman
Dr. Philip Zeltner
R. LP.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
I started this book in 1979 as a sequel to my first book, Excuse
Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of lsopropyl
Bromide which was printed by Pierce Chemical Co. and edited by
my dear friend Roy Oliver, more because they liked me than with any
thought of profit. I had written it within a year but spent four years
correcting it and writing my third book, The Early Gergel. A group
of my friends encouraged me to print the book myself and I aw
indebted to Mr. Hiram Allen, President, Fairfield Chemical Co., Inc.,
Dr. Alfred Bader, Chairman, Aldrich Sigma, Dr. Roden Bridgwater,
Maybridge Chemical Co., Pat Foster, PM Publishing Co., Jim
Hardwicke, Hardwicke Chemical Co., Dr. James King, Army Chemical
Center, Mr. Kermrt King, attorney at law, Dr. Ed Trueger, Trueger
Chemical Co., Dr. Ed Tyczkowski, Armageddon Chemical Co., Mr.
Joel Udell, Pyramid Chemical Co., Mr. George Yassmine, Marco
Chemical Co., and Fred Zucker, Fluka U.S.A., for financially helping
underwrite the book and giving me their encouragement.
Giving unselfishly of their time have been my friends, excellent
writers themselves, Kenneth Greenlee, Robert Murray, Steve
Stinson and the late Philip Zeltner. These stories have benefited
from their editing.
I would like to thank my dear friend Elmer Fike of Fike Chemicals
for helping me find Ron Gregory, who could translate the Iliad; John
Auge, who did my illustrations; and Bookmasters of Ashland, Ohio
and BookCrafters of Chelsea, Michigan, who actually put our work
into a finished book. Elmer has always been prepared to take time
from sailing his own ship to help me sail my own.
The number of individuals and companies encouraging the
effort are too numerous to list, Armageddon Chemical Co., Ben
Gurion University of the Negev, Divex, Calabrian Corporation,
Fairfield Chemical Co., Fertilizers and Chemicals Division of Israel
Chemicals, Gaash/Sefayim Kibbutz, Holland Israel Chemicals Ltd.,
Giulini Chemicals, Mitsui, Moran Chemicals, Nir ltzhak Chemada, Wiley
Organics who have employed me as consultant and encouraged my
writing.
Jack Stacker of LSU and his wife Katy have helped with the
Introduction. Pat Foster has joined me on the many information
gathering trips. My mother, Mrs. C. Jules Seideman, has liked
everything I have ever written and Clive Gergel has done yeoman
secretarial work. I also want to thank three typewriters which gave
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their lives in this cause. It has been a lot of fun gathering stories and
telling them and I hope those who read this book will enjoy and share
my memories.
»»
S
PROLOGUE
The world of the child, of the young man, of the middle-aged,
and of the old timer (lamentably I am a member of this last category is
ever changing. I have visited Atlantic City where I lived when I was six
years old, and found the streets closer together, the houses tightly
packed, and distances much shorter than 50 years ago when I lived
there.
In 1927, my father had died, and my mother, only 26 years old,
was dating a Mr. John D. McCauley, sales manager of the Norwich
Pharmaceutical Company. He was a large man, well dressed and very
old. I disapproved of my lovely young mother dating this white haired
man, although he was good to me, brought presents, and slipped
spending money into my hands. A conversation with my mother on
the eve of my departure for Norwich Pharmaceutical Company 50
years later revealed that Mr. McCauley was about 40 when I knew him;
18 years younger than I am now. I was making a speech for the
American Chemical Society, and Norwich was the host. I checked
with them, but no one remembered John McCauley. A diligent
search of old records indicated that he was in charge or Unguentine
sales in 1928. "Sic transit...."
In 1967,1 was 46 years ok), older than John McCauley when
he courted my mama. I was president of one of the smaller chemical
companies in Columbia, S. C, driven by fate to support three
children and a collection of dogs and cats spread over three
households. I also supported a number of charities that had my name
on their lists, two lawyers, and a tailor. Harassed by all this supporting,
I was losing weight. Israel, for whose Dead Sea Works Corporation I
consulted, was about to have its "Six-Day War." I was heavily
engaged in hostilities involving my second marriage. This in-between
period was the "slack," as we say in sailing, during which tides, and
often winds, shift. The chemical plant was doing neither better nor
worse than usual. These were the halcyon days before the
government commissioned an army of civil servants to regulate and
nearly destroy the chemical industry.
Because I did not make enough money at Columbia Organic
Chemicals to support myself, children, lawyers, dogs and cats, I took
other jobs to supplement my salary: consulting for Beaunit, Beau nit
El Paso, Dead Sea Works and Chemetron Corporation. I gave talks
for the American Chemical Society and rented what property I had left
for whatever it would bring. This consisted of a dilapidated house at
Lake Murray, still smelling doggy from its former tenants, a bungalow
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at Lake Murray, which I had built five years earlier, and finally a beach
house 185 miles from Columbia whose ownership I shared with Pat
Gergel, about to become my second ex-wife. I had an old car, old
clothes, an old sailboat and an old dog.
I lived with my aunt, Mary Revelise, in the same house in which
my grandmother and grandfather had lived before they died. My
bedroom faced the highway, which permitted me to hear all the traffic
of Rosewood Drive which rendered my sleepless and close to
insanity. Fortunately I had a job as president of a small chemical
company no one wished to buy, and my sardonic friend Alex
Edelsburg, a warrior reduced to selling Fuller brushes. We passed
the evenings with chess. I borrowed my philosophy from the Greeks.
"Even this shall pass." Passing was my old friend Charlie Grogan,
aged 47, his liver and kidneys, like those of most chemists, "et up." I
consoled myself with the knowledge that my time of suffering would
be short, and scanned the obituary columns to observe who had
preceded me. I dispensed with women, devoting my remaining time
to Science, good books and faithful friends. I purchased ear muffs
and dug in to savor the tranquil life of the resigned recluse.
Columbia Organic Chemicals in 1966 was run by good and
faithful employees with much help from God. My mother and aunt Ida
ran the "industrials" division which sold soap powder, insecticides
and toilet bowl cleaner. My chief chemist was Tommy Jacobs, who
supervised production of our organic chemicals. My office, directed
by Mrs. Jean Culley, ran about the same whether I came to work or
not. The buildings were separated from the rest of Cedar Terrace by a
large unclimbable fence (I climbed it on one occasion when I
forgotten my keys, and nearly lost my...well, everything). This
protected my mother's 50 or so cats from Cedar Terrace dogs and
children, and vice versa. During the preceding, troubled year I had
neglected the little company to mull over my personal woes. Now,
having reached personal peace, it was necessary to devote more
time to the company or I would be a starving recluse. One can
tolerate an empty heart, but it is difficult, especially for me, to tolerate
an empty stomach.
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Chapter 1
Columbia Organic Chemicals in the early days had an unusual
working staff. Out of gratitude for past services, I maintained the lame
and the halt, almost all past their best performance. New employees
were the dropouts and those fired by larger, local chemical
companies, or those between jobs, or the very young, wishing to
gain industrial experience.
A young man from one of Columbia's "better families," who
toyed with the idea of adopting chemistry as a career, was in the latter
category. He was tall, athletic, handsome, clean-cut, wealthy,
polished and ambitious. For his first assignment he was to synthesize
n-butyl mercaptan, a severe test for the budding chemist. It has a very
bad odor, eau de Ia skunk. If he survived this, I would let him make an
explosive, and then, after a few weeks would put him on regular
production items most of which are toxic. My novice successfully
made n-butyl mercaptan. He visited me at lunch time, stinking to high
heaven, announced that he had changed his mind, and his
ambitions. His mother telephoned after he went home to tell me that
she had burned his clothes and consulted a local law firm. His uniform
was returned by taxicab-coJIect. The cab driver furtively smelled his
armpits while I borrowed enough money from the fellows to pay the
fare. The uniform fitted another employee. Yet another employee, of
about the same size, appropriated the departed's street clothes. He
emerged five minutes later from the bathroom, which was also our
dressing room, clad in shirt and sweater, blazoned with "Forest Lake
Country Club," tennis shoes, and an ascot. Nonchalantly, the two
men continued the synthesis abandoned by our former employee.
The lawyers decided not to sue. Our men in 1967 routinely made evil
smelling compounds and did not need uniforms. They could be
picked out in any gathering by smell and appearance.
We had some fascinating chaps. Preacher, who made our 2,3-
dichloropropene left us when his second wife found him living with
his future third. He declared, "It's cheaper to live in jail, Mr. Max." They
all called me "Mr. Max."
Bobby, who started with us when he was 16 years old and
lasted for 20 years, could make bird songs through his teeth,
attracting the plant felines, who followed him across the yard. They
assumed he had birds in his pockets. Bobby was from infancy a
devotee of John Barleycorn, and under his influence destroyed
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many automobiles. He would come to work on Friday, already "under
the weather," draw his pay (his creditors were in the car that brought
him to the plant), distribute the money, reel into my office, thank me
for my generosity and friendship, and beg for an advance on next
week's pay. With the passage of time, Bobby's visit moved up a day
and the amount of his paycheck diminished inversely in proportion to
the quantity he drank. His personal debt to the boss steadily
increased. When Steve Reichlyn took over as president of the
company in 1978, Bobby was "knocking off" by Wednesday. He was
at this time 40 years old and looked 60. His liver was amazing and
when he took early retirement to have more time for serious drinking,
he died not from drink but because a disagreement with one of his
friends culminated with weapons.
Then there was General Robert E. Lee Jones (sic), not only a
good bench chemist, but a latent thespian. One day he was assigned
to crank the soap machine (in the early days it was cheaper to pay a
worker than to buy equipment), and he emerged from the soap room
bellowing, "I injured my privates." He was already the admiration and
source of secret envy among his peer group for his use of them.
Aside from possible legal problems should he sue, there was the
possibility of bodily harm to Columbia Organic's president by some
irate, frustrated sweetheart thwarted by our soap machine. We
rushed him to Jack Alion's office and the next day Dr. Alion called to
allay my fears. General Robert E. Lee Jones had clap. Cur soap
machine was innocent.
A survivor from many years' employment, Leon Hines, is still
with Columbia. Fifteen years ago he was my height, heavy set and
strong. He has not changed. Leon has a wonderful smile. In addition
to being the plant's truckdriver for pickup and delivery, he works in
the laboratory and helps make chemicals. He is my mother's
amanuensis, i.e. he is cat feeder and cat cleaner-upper. The cats are
fond of Leon, my mother is fond of Leon. He has been my faithful
attendant during three marriages and as many divorces, keeping my
quarters clean, gathering things to be washed and pressed,
vacuuming bachelor quarters, and feeding dogs and cats left from
aborted marriages. Leon is a Moslem and does not eat pork. He
works hard for the plant, my mother and me, tireless and ever smiling.
Thomas Jacobs was recruited by Bobby. Tommy had just
completed service in Korea and he joined Bobby and me in our
jugwashing business. We drove the plant truck to various drug stores
and picked up crates of empty Coca-Cola syrup jugs, washed the
jugs, and sold them to Columbia Organic Chemicals to be used as
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