Message In A Bloggle

Once when our family was vacationing in Cape Cod I put a message in a bottle and tossed it in the Atlantic. It was a lark. Just for fun. Not littering, just the pre-pre-precursor to spam (sending a note to no one in particular and hoping against all hope that someone would find it, open it, read it and choose to respond). I remember thinking it would be so cool if someone found my bottle someday and wrote back as requested in the note. I was probably seven or eight at the time. And in Massachusetts. That would have made it wicked cool.

A few months later I receive a letter in the mail. Someone had found my bottle, opened it up and read my note. As requested they sent a letter to me letting me know where and when the bottle had been found. I remember getting the letter but not where the bottle was found. I have a foggy recollection that it was in the Carolina's somewhere.

Last June I posted a copy of a letter that I had saved from my Wienermobile days. It was left under the wiper blade while Jeanne and I were out eating dinner. You can read the letter here. It was left by a young girl named Lindsey.

I didn't really expect to get a response to the question in the title of the post. But yesterday Lindsey Mulligan posted a reply on this blog. She's alive and well, and by the looks of traffic reports to the site, she has lots of friends around the country who have now read the original post with her letter.

Lindsey's mom and Aunt have even posted replies. Her Aunt thinks she should get a ride in the Wienermobile, since her mom made her go to bed early all those years ago. Unfortunately I am not sure I can help with that request. I do not work for Oscar Mayer any more and I couldn't even get it to make an appearance at our wedding ten years ago. I'll send a note to the folks in Madison anyway making a plea for you to get that ride.

That would be wicked cool.

Message In A Bloggle

They Can't Fire You If You Don't Work There Any More

Can they?

Okay, I just check traffic to the site after being away from the blog for a week or so (okay, longer, but I'll get back into it soon I promise) and apparently I've been getting tons of traffic to this post I wrote about Jon Stewart driving the Wienermobile through the Lincoln Tunnel. Seems Jon and Stephen Colbert made a vague reference to the original incident on the Daily Show show earlier in the week. Here's the clip with Stephen Colbert talking about his "dreams".

Silly. Just plain silly. And a bit funny too.

They Can't Fire You If You Don't Work There Any More

Arresting Politics?

A few posts back I took suggestions for titles that I would then write a story to fit. Jenne suggested "My First Arrest". Since I wrote that post I've recalled a few incidents with various police departments during my stint as a Hotdogger that, while not ending in actual arrests, came close a few times. One of those incidents took place in Boston, Massachusetts on Tuesday November 8, 1994. It was Election Day and we were out for media coverage.

We had not planned out how to get coverage for the Wienermobile prior to that day, but being the adventurous types we decided to skip putting a real plan in place and instead headed into the heart of Beantown to see what we could do to get some good press. We almost got a doozy of a story. Almost.

Now, for those who have been to Boston on Election Day and have driven a commercial vehicle shaped like a hot dog there are a few things you surely know:

1. If you drive on Storrow Drive be sure to let some air out of the tires, and
2. Police who work the streets near Faneuil Hall on election day don't have a sense of humor, nor do they care to debate what actually constitutes a commercial vs. non commercial vehicle.

Right. So, what happened was this... Jeanne and I had a few hours to kill before we needed to hit the road and head to an event in Detroit. We decided to take a quick jaunt into downtown Boston to see if we could get interviewed or at least get a photo of the big dog in the paper. Boston media outlets have large circulations, so we'd rack up the impressions if we got a mention somewhere.

We drove around town for a while looking for crowds gathering or camera crews out on the street filming. We finally found some near Faneuil Hall. As we got close we scouted for a location to pull over and park, a nearly impossible task for a hot dog car in Boston. We saw a street right next to Faneuil Hall that looked perfect.

It was a two block stretch of road on the South side of Faneuil Hall. It was a one way street which happened to have a sign that said "Commercial Vehicles Only". We didn't have commercial tags and we really wanted to go down this street since there were tons of folks marching around, holding signs and shouting out for their candidate. Surely there would be some cameras around. And since we lived by the creed "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" we decided commercial tags or not that we'd take a quick spin down the street. It was only two blocks long after all.

As soon as we pulled on to the street, we ran into an issue. Ahead of us was an ambulance stopped in the middle of the street. We hadn't seen that. With nowhere to go I put the car in park until we had space to move. Taking advantage of our lack of movement, Jeanne grabbed a bunch of wiener whistles and hopped out of the dog to hand them out.

Since I was the driver on this day I stayed behind the wheel, ready to roll at a moments notice. People on the street began flocking to the driver's side window and asking me for whistles. After just a few minutes we had a huge crowd around us. I looked outside the passenger side window and saw Jeanne asking someone if she could carry their candidate sign for a photo op. Things were looking promising. But when I looked back to the driver's side window I saw a cop.

And he was angry.
He told me to move it.

The conversation went like this:

COP: "Move this vehicle now."

DD: "Okay, I'll just exit to the left down that side street then."

COP: "No. Pull over to the right."

Before I could do that the ambulance began to back up. I couldn't move while the ambulance was moving, there was a van behind me and no where to go. So I just sat there waiting for room to move. Apparently oblivious to the fact that I had zero options to move right then, the police officer got angry again. He must have thought I was not moving just to bug him. You could see the blood pressure building.

COP: "I said move."

DD" "Officer, I cannot move. There's no place..."

COP: "That's enough! Pull over!"

DD" "I understand, but the ambulance is right in front of me. I cannot move."

COP: "Drive around it and park on the left." he said through clenched teeth.

At that time Jeanne had seen what was happening and opened the Wienermobile's gull wing door to get in. (The gull wing door is one of the unique features of the big dog, much like the door on a Delorean, or even more so like the wing of a seagull, the door opens up and down vs. out and to the side like a normal car - a distinction which will be important to know in a bit).

COP: "I told you to move!"

DD: "I will, I will. My partner just opened the door and..." he didn't let me finish.

COP: "MOVE NOW!"

DD: "But I can't. The door is still open and she's not in yet!"

COP: "I've had it. MOVE NOW!"

Jeanne had just closed the door and quickly took a seat.

Jeanne: "Dude! What's going on?"

DD: "Hang on, gotta move. This guy is having a bad day and taking it out on me right now."

I should mention that all this time a crowd has been gathering and watching this go down. Some of the crowd ignored the cop and shouted at us through the passenger window to toss out some wiener whistles. Jeanne obliged as we slowly pulled around the ambulance and pulled over to where the police officer pointed.

COP: "Show me your license and registration!"

DD: "Am I getting a ticket?"

No answer.
I handed over the requested info.
People were still asking for whistles. Apparently the police officer did not want this so he slid my window shut. (The front windows on the '88's slid open to the side.)

I did not like him shutting the window on me so I slid it back open. Before he could turn back to his car to look up my info he came back to the driver's side window and told me I needed a permit. Jeanne piped up from the front passenger seat.

Jeanne: "Excuse me sir. What type of permit do we need, and for what? Who do we need to speak with to get one?" She said it very sweetly.

This time he did not respond. He simply shut my window again on both of us this time.

When he returned he had a citation for me.

COP: "I need your signature here."

DD: "Can you explain this to me before I sign it?"

He ignored my question which in turn caused me to start to get really irritated with him. I was slightly irritated before, but now I was really irritated.

DD: "Well then can I at least get your supervisor's name?"

No answer, just a glare.

DD: "Can I get your name and badge number please?"

COP: "It's on the citation!"

DD: "And your Supervisor name is?"

And that seemed to finally push him over the edge.

COP: "I'M GONNA ARREST YOU! GET OUT!"

DD to Jeanne: "Jeanne! Grab the Bacon's guide and start calling the media. I'm getting arrested!" This was going to be great. Who could arrest a Wienermobile driver? We'd get tons of sympathy coverage!

I hopped out of the front seat and made my way to the door. As I opened the door and looked around I saw the huge crowd gathered around. The cop was there. He stepped toward me. Steam was coming out of his ears.

So I extended my wrists to him for him to slap the cuffs on me. A few laughs came from the crowd. He was silent and then, through clenched teeth sputtered out "leave now". I wasn't going to be arrested after all. He was letting me go. "Oh well", I thought, "That probably wouldn't have gone over too well with Russ anyway".

So as the cop gave up on arresting me I too gave up on the idea that getting arrested in a Wienermobile would be a good media story. I turned away from the cop and the crowd and reached back with one hand to grab the handle of the door and pull it down shut. And then I heard two sounds:

"Thunk!" and "Ooooooh!"

Something had prevented the door from closing.

The "Thunk!" came from the door slamming down on the cop's head. For some reason he had not moved out of the way of the door as I pulled it shut. The "ooooh!" was from the crowd. Turning slowly I met the cop face to face and his was as red as a beet. Veins were bulging from his neck. He did not say a word. He merely pointed at me to get back into the vehicle and drive away.

And I did.

I did not get arrested. We did not get any media coverage. That was the good news. The bad news was that we were now behind schedule for leaving for Detroit, and that meant taking a shortcut through Canada. As it turns out that was another bad decision... one that Russ would hear about.

Arresting Politics?

Squidoo Lens Rising!

Good news! Lot's of folks are visiting my Squidoo Lens on the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, which means I'm getting closer to my goal of being in the top 100 lenses on Squidoo. Currently my Wienermobile Lens is ranked #847 out of 43,937 total lenses. Soon I'll be up there with Rachael Ray and Elmo TMX.

We'll have a cookout at our place when it gets into the top 100! All I can say is... franks a lot!

Actually you all know I can say a lot more hot dog puns, but frankly I think you'd find them hard to stomach. Find that hard to swallow? Chew on this for a bit... I haven't even told you my wurst puns yet. See how I link them together... that's a sign of a good punster. And you know what they say about great puns when they are told? It's a rare medium done well. Okay, well that's enough for now. Ketchup with ya later.

Squidoo Lens Rising!

Do You Squidoo?

Seth Godin is at it again. He's started something new. Something called Squidoo. Here's a brief description from the site itself:

"We have built a new online platform and community that makes it easy for anyone to build a single page--called a lens--on a topic, idea, product or cause he is passionate about. These lenses in turn help finders get unique, human perspectives instead of computer-selected and often irrelevant search results. Not only can Lensmasters spread their ideas, get recognized for their knowledge, and send more traffic to their Web sites and blogs—they could also earn royalties..."

Well, that was all I needed to read...spread my ideas, get recognized for my knowledge and send more traffic to my blog. Oh, and earn royalties?!?!? I'm in!

It took about an hour and a half to build my lens and get it up and running. All without a clue as to how to write HTML or anything like it. And just what lens did I create? What do I dare to think I'm an expert on? The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile of course. Okay, I may not have all the info on the big dog, but I did drive it for a year, visit well over a thousand grocery stores, hospitals and schools. Not to mention handing out all those wiener whistles, going to the SuperBowl, All-Star game, getting on the Today Show and getting quoted in every major newspaper in the country. There's also the time it was towed, driving without a heater in Buffalo in the dead of winter, hanging with Little Oscar and that little run in with the Canadian government we don't talk about... enough experience for me to feel comfy saying I have a bit more knowledge than the average bear on the subject.

So, check it out: www.squidoo.com/wienermobile.

There you can find links to all things Wienermobile related. Photo sets on Flickr, recent posts on blogs from technorati, auction items on ebay, books and movies about the dog at amazon.com as well as a whole list of links I've supplied to various sites on the web with info on the vehicle, it's history and how to become a Hotdogger.

Now that I've got an official site on the subject I think Mary just might let me take the boxes and boxes of Wienermobilia I've collected out of the office closet and put it up around the house. You'd think she'd be open to it. After all, if it wasn't for the Wienermobile and my Hotdogger-in-crime Jeanne, Mary and I would have never met.

Oh and while your there please leave a comment or ask a question. I'll be updating the lens all the time. And please share the link to my lens with everyone you know. My goal is to get in the top 100 of lenses. Right now I'm lens #4,765 out of 37,000+ lenses.

Thanks!

Do You Squidoo?

Lindsey Mulligan Where Are You Now?

Tonight I was looking through some of my old notes and letters I received back in my Wienermobile days and came across one of my favorites. I never met the person who wrote it, but I imagine now that she had a personality somewhat like my eldest daughter. Here is the note she left on the windshield of the Wienermobile while Jeanne and I were eating dinner at a nearby restaurant:


When we returned to the Wienermobile and read the note we immediately packed up two wiener whistles, a watch and a hot wheels Wienermobile and left them in the mailbox for Lindsey. It was the least we could do for a fan.

I remember people asking me why we smiled all the time when we drove the big dog around. Letters like this are the reason.

Lindsey Mulligan Where Are You Now?