I just read about Wayne Newton’s financial difficulties and how a process server tricked his security detail and managed to serve him.

Some years ago I had managed to get a seat on a crowded subway car, and a big woman wedged herself next to me in a space so small that I had to get up. The guy next to me smiled. Later I was able to sit down again and he and I started talking. He told me his name was Bill … and was a process server. The story he told me may or may not be true but it’s a great story.

Bill was trying to serve a guy who worked at the World Trade Center and who had been avoiding him. The guy had been cheating on his wife and wanted to take off with his girlfriend. Bill was talking to the lobby security guard, it was late in the day, the guard didn’t want to go up and get the guy but Bill insisted. Finally, the guard did his job and the forms were served. The fellow was livid. He had to be in court the morning of September 11 and was so stunned by the events that it changed his life. He dumped his girlfriend, went back with his wife, and called Bill to thank him.

Don’t you love a happy ending?

Meanwhile, Bill, a former merchant mariner, told me (we had a really long conversation on our way back to Queens from Manhattan on the F… F train) that I was entitled to benefits that had finally been granted to Merchant Mariners in wartime, a piece of legislation that took years to enact. Jay, my late husband, had been on active
duty in the Merchant Marine during WWII.

So I went home and looked up the paperwork. What is interesting is that Ed and I had just moved whatever I was keeping from my lower East Side Loft into the apartment. I had been paid to give up the loft space and Ed didn’t want to live there anyway (go figure – lower Manhattan – what's not to like?) I went to a stack of transfiles in a corner of the kitchen, opened the first box, and there were the files. Serendipity. I pored over manifests Jay had kept – ports of call, receipts from harbor masters, dates that established without a doubt that he was on the high seas during the most dangerous attacks from German submarines. I made calls and learned how to file a claim. It was labor intensive but I did it and not just because I might have benefits, but in order that Jay's service be recognized.

The bottom line is that I would have been entitled to benefits if I had not married again. So I tucked everything away, but it was gratifying to have Jay’s service acknowledged and honored.

Xx, Teal