Glen did you buy...

 





Glen did you buy...


    Greg always enjoyed this story involving my short stint as heir apparent to my father's ticket brokerage. BC as he was known had successfully operated a small business selling sporting event and theater tickets for seventeen years out of his offices at 3809 Vermont and 538 and 518 Santa Barbara. I had been rightfully fired from my job at UCLA and he was rescuing me from unemployment. I never had the balls or thick skin to be a ticket broker but I gave it a try. It was the weekend of a big Monday night football game between the Rams and the legendary 1975 Pitttsburgh Steelers of the Terry Bradshaw- Jack Lambert era. December 20 was last regular season game at the Coliseum across the street from the office. The same double yoy Steelers went on to win Super Bowl X with the heroics provided by USC great Lynn Swann. Since it was a meaningless game to the Pittsburgh brutes BC did not stock a huge amount of tickets but it was a big big game for LA. When he left for lunch he told me not to buy any tickets under any circumstances. Ten minutes later a clueless season ticket holder walked in and said he had four 50 year line seats he wanted to sell for face value. I knew I could sell that good of seats for $50 over and quickly paid the man out of my own pocket. Fearing BC and wanting to keep the profit for myself I used the old fashioned cash register like it was an office proceedure. Later I took out the tape and re-entered the few transactions on a fresh tape and tossed the incriminating evidence in the trash can. Big mistake. When BC returned with lunch for me he manged to spot the wadded up tape in the trash and when I came back into the office he asked me the chilling question "Glen...did you buy some tickets from someone when I was out." Knowing how much he valued the truth I swore that I did not and claimed a snafu on the register. The next morning I met a customer in Westwood and handed over the four seats and collected my $200 profit. To stand up to the old man's steely gaze I deserved the money that was spent on drinking and smoking with Greg who imitated the line many times over the ensuing 47 years. My career as a ticket broker ended the following February when I was held up at gunpoint in that same office at 538 which moved me to seek other kinds of employment.

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