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As DAS grew, new associates were needed. An advertisement was placed for a warehouse person; a young man answered the call and came for an interview. At the time, all interviews were done by me. After the interview, I told the young man that he did not get the job and the man went on his way. After thinking a bit, I ran down the hall after the young man to give him some advice about why he did not get the job and what to do in his next interview. Three to four months later another ad was run for a warehouse person. Guess what, the same young man came in for the interview. This time he followed some good advice and did exactly what I had suggested him to do. He was hired and he still works with us today after over 30 plus years. That young man is Mr. Steve Birli, now Vice President of the Travel Center Division.
As DAS grew, I started driving my truck to New York City once and sometimes twice a week for orders as numerous trips to the city was necessary to replenish stock. On these trips, I would leave in my truck around 3 or 4 in the morning, driving the three and a half hours to New York City where we did business with our wholesalers. A friend of mine, Richie Gohn, would be asleep in his car at my house awaiting to ride along to provide company on the trip.
Here is just one of the adventure stories with Richie riding along with me again into New York to the store called “Macgrudies,” where we both purchased merchandise and sold some of our products.
We pulled up to the side curb at 23rd and Broadway, both exiting the truck. Richie would normally have watched the truck, but this time, he had to use the restroom so he followed me into the store. About a minute and a half later, a man walked in the store asking who owned the white truck outside. I responded, “I do. Why did you ask?” He responded, “You were just robbed.” “NO WAY,” I said, I just got here!” Quickly I went to my truck and tried the truck handle. When the handle turned and opened the back of the truck my heart sank as I knew the words the man had spoken were true. Up went the door and almost all the goods on my truck were gone. I called the police to report the crime and upon arrival they gave me a case number to collect my insurance with – No investigation.
After being robbed in about three minutes on the last trip, Richie and I decided that this time, before we’d get to the same store, we would hide in the back of the truck with a baseball bat and a chainsaw (Richie’s idea) to stop the would be robbers. Richie hid in the back while I went into the store. About an hour later, I went out to the truck to see if everything was alright. Upon trying the locked handle at the back of the truck, I found that is was unlocked. Rolling up the door, I was greeted by a wide-eyed, bat in hand Richie! He was scared out of his wits! He told me that less than a minute after I went into the store, he heard the door handle turn and the door started to roll up. Thinking it was me, he started towards the door. He was greeted by eight men with hand trucks ready to heist my load again! A shout went out from one of the men when he saw Richie, and slammed the door shut. If Richie wouldn’t have been hiding in the back of the truck, we would have lost our merchandise again.
We had another very close call when we were leaving Pyramid Sound in Brooklyn, NY. Richie and I had just finished loading our truck full of merchandise and were proceeding down 60th street following a tractor trailer. All of a sudden, three boys jumped up on the back of the truck and cut the lock with a pair of bolt cutters. They rolled up the door to reveal stack after stack of crates. The crates where filled with frozen chickens! The next thing we knew, people came out of their houses, the alleys and what seemed like everywhere else! There had to be over fifty people! The boys started pushing stacks of crates out onto the street, where the hoards of people collected them. It was like watching a movie only we were in it!
Cheers rang out from the people, numbering almost a hundred now, as they sat on cars and stood watching the show. Next, someone pulled a car out in front of the truck to stop him. In an attempt to get away, the truck driver shifted gears, went up over the curb, down the sidewalk and made a right-hand turn increasing speed as he went. The boys jumped off the back of the speeding trailer.
All eyes were on us now. They knew where we had pulled out of and knew what we had in the back. At the time, we were in a Ford cargo van with a 460hp engine. I stomped down on the gas, passing what looked like people sitting in bleachers, cheering as a car pulled out in front of me. Following the truckers lead, I never took my foot off the gas and made a hard right over the curb, up the sidewalk and down the same road as he had. We could see in the mirrors, the boys running after us, but there is no way they were going to catch us. We got onto the ramp for the BQE, where we pulled up behind the truck that was just robbed. We talked to the driver about what just happened and checked over the cargo. Another hair raising trip to the city but this time, our cargo intact. These are just a few of the amazing stories of the beginnings of DAS.
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