Write a commentThis will be the last of the Harborfest related columns, at least until Harborfest. I've been regaling the readers with stories about how it all began, and there are some pretty funny/interesting little known anecdotes about what happened in those first few years.
Mary Avrakatos became the First Director and brought to the table an artsy flair. She made the event feel , entertainment wise, like a Toronto music festival. She was that good.
In the third year of the fest, she told me she had a chance to bring Don McLean, of "Bye Bye Miss American pie" fame to the fest, but she needed an additional $5000. I liked Don McLean, so I said "Let me see what I can do." I thought long and hard about it, and decided to call on my "old friend" Henry Panasci, Chairman of the Board of Fay's Drugs. They had two stores in Oswego at the time. One in the Midtown Plaza and the other on Rt.104 E. in a strip mall. I had met Henry when I cut the ribbon for that store, and casually mentioned to him that I wanted to tear down the Midtown Plaza parking garage instead of replacing it. He became apoplectic and pleaded with me not to do that. It was their best selling store he told me. I eventually relented, and we rebuilt the Midtown Center garage, much against my better judgment. I always blamed my Executive Assistant Eli Rapaport for talking me into that one. I thought and still think the whole set up of Midtown Plaza was backwards, and I am not unhappy to finally see the parking structure go.
But in my call to Mr. Panasci, I reminded him of our conversation, and how we had ultimately opted to rebuild the parking garage. He told me he had no idea who Don McLean was but that mattered not. He asked simply if I wanted a personal or corporate check!
Yesssss! Bye Bye Miss American Pie became a reality. That was the one and only time in my life that I put even a subtle squeeze on anyone for a donation, and it worked! Hearing "Starry starry night" was worth it.
Another story involves the Harborfest "Hurricane" of 1990. I went to Sackets Harbor with my City Clerk Tom Lonnquist to help sail my friend Jim DeGolyer's 32' Hunter sailboat to Oswego for Harborfest. It was an 8 hour sail, in good weather. We had quite an evening of sailing preparation as I recall, and many refreshments were consumed. By the time we set out for Oswego the next morning, I was already one queasy sailor. As we neared 9 mile point, a front approached from the west. It was a microburst front, and created 10 foot seas with sideways rain. My friend Jim, the Captain, told me to go down below and radio our position to the Coast Guard. I knew then that we were in deep doo doo. He was never one to panic.
I reached the Oswego Coast guard on the radio, as we rolled up and down in ten foot swells, and they asked me if I could identify our position. "Somewhere between Canada and 9 Mile Point", I answered. "Are you declaring a Mayday?" the Coast Guard guy asked me. "No, but it's April 15th" I responded. They were probably not amused, but came to our rescue in any event, and by then the fronts had passed, and they guided us into the harbor.
We later learned that the tents in Breitbeck had been uplifted, and that some tent poles had crashed into the windshields of several parked cars.
My wife had called my secretary at the time and asked one simple question: "Do you know if John's life insurance premiums are paid up?" Leave it to Charlotte to find humor in a storm. We later had T-shirts printed up saying "I Survived The Harborfest Hurricane Of 1990". I still have mine. The Palladium Times ran a small story on the front page that "Three sailors had become disoriented in the storm on the lake, and were rescued by the Coast Guard." We laughed about that, since we were disoriented before we ever left Sackets Harbor that morning.
One last tidbit... Because of our focus on Harborfest, the kids used to call it the H word. Charlotte was so enveloped by it that as the event approached, there was room for precious little else at the family table. We all reached the H saturation point by the time of the event.
Case in point: Year 4, I was walking across the Bridge with my portable phone pack over my shoulder on Harborfest Saturday when I came upon a rather large pile of dog doo on the sidewalk, in the middle of the bridge. Concerned that it would be mushed up and spread, I called the DPW on my new-fangled cell phone from the middle of the bridge, and demanded they send a truck over to clean up the mess.
I was met with incredulity by the DPW dispatcher. "Who is this? " he demanded. "This is the Mayor", I replied. "I am standing in the middle of the bridge and I want you to send a truck over to clean up this poop", I said.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah", said the dispatcher ... "And I am the King of Siam! " to which I emphatically retorted, " My name is John T. Sullivan and I am the #%#^%### Mayor of the City of Oswego, and I want a crew over here stat! "
"Is that really you, Mayor?" came a weak reply. "Yes, and what is your name?", I asked. I never did get an answer to that question.
I am sure that dispatcher tells that story to his grandchildren, as I have told it many times over myself as an example of a quintessential, indeed, defining moment in my Mayoral term. You can't always get what you want...no matter how powerful your title may be.
More stories to come...stay tuned...
