Toward an End of Something

Leonard Quill, who had replaced Barney Taylor  when he retired in 1992, announced he would be retiring in 1995. Leonard died in 2002 of pneumonia. Sadly, his son, the actor Timothy Quill, died in Sepatember 2017 of Cancer. Tim is pictured on the left in a scene from Hamburger Hill.

His direct replacement wasn't named.  Quill remained as CEO and Chairman of the Board for another year while Ted Cecala and Robert Harra were named co_Presidents.

The Major (actor Peter Cellier - right) in "Keeping Up Appearances" had a striking resemblence to Leonard Quill (left).

Just for the record, I felt The Major bore a resemblence both in looks and behavior to Quagmire on "Family Guy". (Just below left) "Giggity, giggly, giggly!)





I knew both Ted and Bob. (In fact, I knew Leonard Quill as well. I had even been to a party at his home.)  Ted Cecala had started in the Finance Division about the same time I came to the bank in Deposit Services. He was a short man, who during the years I knew him, sported a mustache that gave him a sort of Mafia Don look. He eventually worked his way up to Sr, Vice-President of Finance.  Dave Gibson would replace him in that position. I also knew Dave, had worked with him for a while when he was still there in a lesser roll.  I always felt Ted had a certain sinister look, but in the years after I left WTC he shaved off the mustache and without it he had a ceratin comic appearance (right).

Bob Harra had been with the bank for decades. He had started, I believe, as a teller, but by the time I knew him he was a Vice-President and then became a Senior Vice-President of Retail. His was a kind of inspirational story about a local kid making good.

I always thought of Bob as the "good guy". He spoke to people and it didn't spook you out. He came to company social events and mingled right in so you felt comfortable with him. He never did the power plays other higher managers pulled. What would happen in the future was a bitter disappointment to me, but it isn't time for that yet.

When Quill eventually did step down the next year, Ted Cecala was named the Chairman of the Board and CEO, while Robert Harra became the Bank President and Chief Operations Officer (COO). They were a Mutt & Jeff pair, Bob being fairly tall while Ted was rather short. I chuckle when I think of a special presentation where they came out together to speak. Bob stood at the microphone just fine, but Ted had been provided with a box to stand upon so their heights matched. (On the left are Bob and Carol and Ted and...oh wait, that isn't Carol, maybe its Alice. No, actually it is a woman named Erika Bush. I don't really know who she is.)

In 1995 I was a star. My name was well known throughout the Bank and I got involved in a lot of things, including being borrowed in other divisions when they had a problem they couldn't fix. I was also the go-to guy on PCs, the local guru. Once upon a time I was cutting edge computer savvy; not now-a-days. I'm like brain death when it comes to technology anymore. People around me these days probably can't believe I could have ever accomplished what I write of in these autobiographical posts. I come across, I think, as rather dumb anymore.

Anyway, in 1995, I was a member of the Bank Pricing Committee and Chairman of the New Product Committee. I acted as an advisor to the Accounting Division on Cost and they borrowed my costing reports for our divisions. I was an Officer of the Bank. I was also in my 15th year as Operations, Methods and Project Manager for Deposit Services and Data Preparation. On the right I am about to receive my 15 year pin from Walt Whittiker. My and his secretaries are looking at the cake I got. These were Diane Warwick and Francine D'Ambrosio.

Most of the systems operating in our divisions had been brought in by me: the Digital Sperry UDS-2000 Data Entry System that replaced the keypunches; Automatic Lockbox, that had replaced a heavily intense manual labor division, Bulk Filing of Statements, Statement Insertion Machines, Upgraded Encoders, Personal Computer Support, Self-Service Checking, Action Concept Teams, Intern Training, MAC-ATM Deposit Sharing,  Costing System, Check Retention Safekeeping, and many other smaller projects, as well as Overseening the move of our divisions to the Plaza Operations Center. I had written several of the United Way Presentations, the Deposit Services Guidebook, and a Presentation given publically at the then Radisson Hotel in downtown Wilmington called, "This is Deposit Services". I was co-founder and editor of the divisional newspaper, as well as facilitator for much of the employee training for ACT. I had written several books on Quality, Productivity and Managements for the bank.

There were several projects I championed where I had to fight to get Senior Management to acknowledge, let alone approve; however, once approved I often found myself battling to keep Senior Management from ruining them. I had fought about the need for PCs in the beginning of the '80s, about doing a bulk filing conversion over a weekend instead of a month, having employee participation teams and Check Safekeeping. An example of the type of thing which happened is with Signature Verification.

Banks were required to do signature verification on checks, whether they still are I do not know. So much is don't electronically now and paper checks are less prevalent. In the eighties and nineties, however, there were a lot of checks. When a customer opened an account he or she would sign a signature card and this would be filed. As you know, you sign your check and you sign the back of any checks you want to deposit or cash. These checks went to the Signature Verification Unit where they were stored in files by account number. Theoretically, clerks would check the signature against the signature cards. This was pretty difficult, really, given the volume. Therefore, signatures were often verified randomly. Large items would be reviewed and then a certain number might be selected, something like catching a terrorist by pulling people randomly out of line at the airport. Verification was also done by eyeballing the signatures. It is pretty hard to say if a signature is not forged, especially since people's signatures tend to change over time due to age or diseases like arthritis. Go ahead, sign your own name over and over several times and see if it doesn't change.

I came across a company that did digitized signature verification. It wasn't a large company, because most places were not doing this kind of thing yet. It was new technology. The company was doing this for the Casinos and decided to try and expand into other areas, banks seeming like a logical choice. I put them on the Project List and it got approved. I brought them in for a demonstration and they had a very good stand-along workstation. Signature Cards would be scanned in and when sigatures needed to be compared the checks were fed across a screen and the account number entered. The software compared the signures on something like a hundred points and if a high percentage matched, then you could have some confidence it was legitimate.

We decided to go with this product and vendor and all was going fine until Senior Management stuck its thumb in the pie. It crossed their minds how great this would be if it could be networked across the branches so Tellers could check signatures on the fly, so to speak. Yes, probably would have been nice, but here is the rub. In those days this was fairly new technology, this whole imaging thing. The vendor had been very successful in the Casino businesses, but had no experience with networking a system to support multiple workstations. Our IT programmers didn't have a handle on imaging software, but it was decided to go for this marriage anyway. They were never able to pull it off and the ventor got sick of us and our people were frustrated and things just got lost when we could have had a nice start with the stand alone workstation.

I was still trying to push ahead with some kind of imaging, but no one saw the practicality, until the big equipment vendors came knocking on the door about imaging sorters and data capture. We had, as a matter of pride, contuned along with 1419 sorters, while most other bank had gone to the 3890s. We bragged about our ability to go on running this outdated equipment, but now IBM came with these new imaging beasts. I didn't know this would become my last large project.

IBM flew us by private jet down to a bank in Charlotte, SC for a demostraion of their latest sorters and data capture. Chris Honorowski was also on the team that flew down. Man, I wish I could travel this way all the time. A van picked us up at the WTC Plaza and took us basically across the street where the private aviation company was. (The blimps, such as the Goodyear, used to birth here and Air Force One would land at the airport just on practice runs.)

Thee van pulled right up to the waiting jet. There was even a red carpet rolled out for us. It was so

comfortable in the cabin. Our seats were plush and swiveled, plenty of leg room. (Left, I settle in for the flight.) We were served by young ladies on the trip. A stretch limo met us on the tarmac in Charlotte and drove us to the Bank. Ah, the life of luxury! On the right is our group about to fly down to Charlotte, along with two IBM Representatives. I am standing on the far left. The lady in the red outfit is Chris Honorowski, a software coder of great talent and one of my favorite people to work with.

Then came the changes. George Craig had already retired, some say he got out while the getting was good. Cecala was installed as the CEO and Bob Harra as the Bank President. I had noticed that Walt Whittaker was not his usual self. He seemed more disinterested in new idea or activities. It wasn't too long before he announced his retirement. This is the advice I pass along. If you have a boss you want to work for your career, make certain he isn't 11 years older than yourself.  Walt was turning 65 that year and decided to give up all the stresses of corporate life. I was 54 and had some time left to go.

I had opportunities over those 15 years. Other areas would have taken me, but I didn't want to work with anyone except Walt. I got along so well with him and I loved my job, probably too much.

I expected, we all expected, that John Behringer would be our new Vice-President. It was always that he was being groomed for the job. He had worked for Walt even longer than I, although he was younger. It was a shock when Walt's boss, the man who replaced George Craig, came down and introduced Walt's replacement. It was not John.  It was Fit Sherry, (right) who at that time was around 33 years old with no experience in Deposit Services.


Maybe I shouldn't say anything, but remember a few years earlier the Bank had started an intern program. I was put in charge of developing the training in our devisions. Fil had been in the first group of interns. He was the one who often showed up late, didn't show as much interest as the others, made phone calls during class and who got the lowest score on the final test I gave them. He was now our new boss. I think John was devastated by the turn of events. It had been considered by everyone that the job would be him, now he didn't get it and this effectively closed the door on any further advancement for him.

Sadly John passed away from Lung Cancer a few years later. He had been a heavy smoker, who tried, but couldn't quit. He had even tried hypnotism, but that failed as well. For years he was in a small group that took a lot of smoking brakes. One of those was Phyllis, who died of lung cancer while I still worked in that division. I do not know the fate of Teena, the third member of their little group. After John died it came out that he was a homosexual. He had definitely kept that in the closet, but it kind of explained a couple thing.

John came to most all the social events, which often included dancing and he would dance some with the other women in our party, but never his wife. He had been married, had a daughter in her 20s, but he never brought his wife to anything at the bank, even though spouses were generally invited.One day, through happenstance, I met his wife. I was taken back on meeting her, because I didn't expect her to look as she did. She had some form of Drawfism and was quite small, with disproportionate limbs and a hump on her back.

Fil was decent enough to me and I felt safe, but after Walt packed up his things and left I saw I wasn't as involved with projects as before. I was still Chairman of the New Product Committee and I was then named to the Security Committee as well, but most of the time I was working on my cost program. I wasn't even much involved with the new sorter project despite having kind of initiated it.

Then one day Fil called me into his office. There was another man sitting it there, who rose to shake my hand. Fil introduced him as Dave Ernst, Vice-President of Sales Support. (I will explain the picture of Dave in another chapter.) We all took a seat. This Dave didn't really say anything, Fil did all the talking.

"Dave has a problem," said Fil. "He is trying to institute a new program, one that has top priority. It is called Strong Points. He hopes to build it using Access (A MicroSoft Database application), but it has to be tried to an existing sales program on dBase. So far he hasn't been able to get the data out of dBase.

"Now we met with Ted and Bob Harra, and they felt you were the right fit to work on this new program. Therefore, you are being transferred to Sales Support. We think it may take a year and then you will be transferred to the Finance Division."

My opinion wasn't called for. This was a done deal. I went home that evening beleaving this was a case of "greasing the skids". If you are unfamiliar with that term, it is this. You have an employee you want to get rid of, but have no grounds to do so. You then give that employee a job where it is certain the employee will fail giving you a reason to say bye-bye. They felt I was a perfect fit, come on. I knew nothing about dBase, except the name, and I had never even heard of M/S Access. I had no experience in sales support. It sure sounded like a set up to me.

A Peaceful Year, except perhaps, the Murder Next Door

Wilmington Trust would regularly do health screenings as a free service to we employees. I don't know if it was because they really cared about our health or to see if we were still alive. Usually these were conducted by the Visiting Nurses Association of Delaware. It was probably through them because John Behringer, a Section Manager and Assistant Vice-President, the man everyone suspected would eventually replace Walt Whittaker as the head o Deposit Services, was on the organization's board. On September 22 they were giving blood pressure screenings

I routinely went to these. It was cheaper than a doctor appointment and in my position I was expected to set an example for the troops. It was no biggie. I knew I had hypertension and was on a medication for it. And the test was simple, no needles involved. The nurse just slapped a cuff about the arm and listened to your pulse while the thing grew tighter around you.

Thus I sat there as the cuff squeezed. I looked at the nurse and her face had turned ashen. She appeared actually about to faint. She told me my blood pressure was somewhere over 200 and my pulse was a mere 20 beats a minute. She also commented my skin was clammy. To see the fright in her eyes I thought maybe I should lie down on the floor; I must be dead.

She told me I needed to see my doctor at once, and Walt my boss, agreed. He told me to call my physician and to go home.

I did both. My doctor told me to come right in. He did a general examination and sent me off for blood work. Now there would be a needle involved. Apparently, I wasn’t going to drop dead right away. I reluctantly obeyed, for I have a phobic fear of needles.  I had studiously avoid as much as possible having any of those things stuck into me.

One night a few days later my doctor called me at home. He had just gotten the results of my blood tests and wanted me to come to his office right away. He sounded as shook up as that Visiting Nurse. Maybe I was getting to such a state myself. It's a scary thing to hear a doctor say drop everything and come see me. So I drove in to see him.

He slapped a copy of my test results in my hand as if those lines and ranges would mean something to me. He pointed to one result.

“See that?” he asked. “It shouldn’t be that high.” He looked at me briefly.” And look at this one.” He pointed down the page to another line with numbers on it. “If that first one is high, this one should be low. But it isn’t. It is too high as well. It doesn’t make sense”

He sat down in his chair behind his desk waving the test results in the air. “None of this make sense,” he said. “I have no idea what’s going on except I can’t make heads or tails of these results.” He calmed down and paused, taking out a card he wrote something down and handed it to me. “I want you to see a kidney specialist,” he said. “Call the number on the card to make an appointment.”
I called the nyber and the next available apointment was in October.

While waiting to see the kidney specialist in October, I went through a seminar at Online

Consulting in Wilmington. This course lasted three days and got me certified on Office Writer Inform. It really fascinates me how many word processing programs I went through until M/S Office’s Word sort of become the standard.

I finally saw the kidney specialist and he did nothing except send me to Christiana Care for further tests, such as un ultra-scan of my kidneys. Oh, and bill me for the visit, of course. The result of these tests was my kidneys were alledgedly loafing on the job; working only 50% of the time. This was scary stuff. I had nightmares I would end up on dialysis spending hours watching my blood going through tubes to be washed.  On October 20 I visited the Kidney Doctor, a Nephrologist, in his office. I went in with a little dread, but he quickly told me my kidneys weren’t the problem. They were fine, but my thyroid wasn’t working, at least, not working hard enough. I had hypothyroidism. The thyroid is like the body’s thermostat. It controls your metabolism among other things. My thyroid was not injecting enough hormone into my system when needed. It was no big deal, he assured me, unless I ignored it. He gave me a prescription. All I need do was take this one little pill every day for the rest of my life.

In the middle of November my dad came down to our house to rake the leaves. He said my mother was driving him crazy and he just had to get away. Both parents came down for Grandparent’s Day at my kids school. We went up to Bucktown for Thanksgiving and this year instead of cooking a big meal, my parents took us all out to the Dinner Bell Restaurant for supper.

On December 3 my mom went out to feed her cat, which lived in the garage/basement, but

she fell down the stone steps hurting her right foot and skinning her leg, arm and head. Dad took her to the Phoenixville Hospital. Her foot wasn’t broken, just badly sprained, but they put a cast on anyway. Of the 15, Misty the dog, fell over her water dish and spilled the water on the floor. My mom slipped on the spillage and fell on her bottom. She was more embarrassed than hurt. The doctor took her cast off on the 19^th.

We had Christmas at our place.

I went to my doctor in the middle of January 1989 and my blood pressure was good. The daily thyroid pill was doing the job. I was feeling well, except on February 18 when I came down with the flu. Everybody in our house was sick. I was still in bed on the 23^rd. Other than that hiccup both Lois and I were getting along without incident. So it went pacefully and normally through spring.

In June I went to Washington DC for a seminar at the AMA called, “Measuring and Managing Products Profitability. My mom came and stayed with the kids while Lois joined me in Washington.

On July 4 we went to the Fireworks Picnic in Rockford Park. Rockford, not to be confused with Rockwood, is located in Wilmington, not far from Immanuel Highlands where we were still attending church. It was quite an event, including food naturally, and a concert  before the fireworks display that featured the singer Mel Torme, (left) the Velvet Fog as he was called.

We had spread a blanket on the ground like most around us. Pictured are Darryl, myself and Noelle before Hell broke loose. We got a good close up view of

the fireworks. Oh did we ever, too close a view. It was like finding yourself in the middle of an arial war raid. Little fires fell from the sky around us as the bombs burst in air. My kids were terrified, and I was, too. I was very relieved to escape the park in one piece, even though we had the fear of the car overheating as we poked through city street with the rest of the exiting crowd.

Wilmington Trust decided to photograph all their employees for the 1989 Annual Report. We were ordered to report to the Delaware Stadium for the picture taking. (Delaware Stadium did not become Tubby Raymond Field until 2002.) This was scheduled for late afternoon on a sun-blistering mid-July day. The temperature was blazing and they had to line up around 2,000 plus people with no shade or shelter from the sun, which was in our face. The photographer was in the press box on the opposite side of the football field and needed the sun at his back for the light. It took over an hour to get everyone situated. By some miracle no one passed out.

After several takes they got the picture they wanted and we were dismissed. Food had been catered and was being served beneath the stands. It was the usual picnic style dishes, hamburgers and hot dogs, but there was also potato and macaroni salad and other things. Some of these items were not the best to have standing about in 90 plus degree heat for a couple hours. A number of the partakers ended up with food poisoning.

The photograph wrapped around the cover of the annual report. Somehow I ended up on the front not too far left of the logo. I called this my “Where’s Waldo” moment. 
So, where is Larry? Can you find me?

Okay, if you look left of the bottom curve of the logo I am about four people over. I’m the one in gray hair.

My moment of fame!

On August 17, we went to my mom’s and then she drove us all up to the Land of Little

Horses Miniature Horse Farm in Gettysburg. It is an interesting attraction. They have a lot of miniature animals beside the horses. There is a tent show with a parade and different acts, kind of like a circus. There was a sulky race. We all took a carriage ride, then Laurel and Darryl took pony rides. Afterwards, we drove through some of the Battlefield. We had dinner at the Family Time Restaurant in York.

On the 27^th we went to the Wilson family Reunion, held now at my cousin Horace’s farm

near Phoenixville instead of Bob Wilson’s place. Bob and his family had moved to Maryland where he started a horse farm. There was no pool at Cousin Horace’s and it was still hot even late in August. Horace was one of my Grand Uncle Heber’s sons; the other was Everett. My cousin Bob had been Heber’s brother Evans' son. We explored the barn and a little museum Horace kept, played the games, but all of us were very wore out and I think we left early. Our weariness shows in the photo. We went home, but Laurel stayed behind and went to her grandparents for a couple days.

Darryl’s birthday was August 24, but like many of our family events, we didn’t celebrate it on the actual day. We were celebrating it on August 30. My mother came down and Lois had baked a cake that was waiting on the dining room table.  Mom and Laurel arrived around 3:30 and I got home from work at 4:30. Darryl searched for his presents, which were hidden about the house and then opened them. I then went back to the bedroom to change from my suit to something cooler. Lois went to the kitchen to prepare our dinner.

It was a little after 5:00 by then. There was a knock on the front door and Noelle answered it. Standing there was a policeman. He asked her if her mother was there, but didn’t wait for an answer. He simply walked in, up the steps to the living area and then down the hall toward the bedrooms. Just then I stepped out of the bedroom and here was this cop standing in my hallway where he had no business being. The only thing he said was, “Sir, I want you to take your family immediately, leave the house and go up to the top of the street.” We hurriedly filed out. My fear was a gas leak. Once outside I asked the officer what was wrong. He said, “We’re having a little trouble with a neighbor.” That was all he told us. We followed orders and went up the block to the next intersection at Wentworth, the street behind our home that intersected with our street where it curved higher up the hill.

There were a number of people milling about the intersection, rousted from their homes along both Olympia and Wentworth. There  were a group of cops huddled about halfway down Wentworth, about opposite where a home there bordered on my backyard. Suddenly a young black man came from where the crowd had gathered and began running down the middle of Wentworth. Police yelled at him to stop, but he ignored them until one cop grabbed him. It took three police to finally halt his progress and they slammed him down to the ground. They handcuffed him and took him away down the street.

“That’s the son,” somebody said and we finally heard what had happened from some of the bystanders. The people who lived behind me were named Newell. They had moved in less than a year ago and had two small children who lived there. The children had sometimes played with my own. The youngBlack the cops had tackled was also a son, but he was in his late teens or early twenties and didn’t live in the same house. Mrs. Newell had a restraining order against her husband. He wasn’t supposed to come anywhere near her, but those restraining orders are only paper and little protection. Newell had showed up at the house and pushed his way in.

The cops weren’t certain of the situation. They knew he and his wife were in the house and they knew he had a gun. They were treating this as a hostage situation and trying to coax Newell out without any harm to anyone. At this point they didn’t realize his wife lay in the garage already dead.

It was getting late in the evening. This may have been a hot August day, but with darkness came a chill. Other people drifted off to stay with relatives or to book a motel room. We were stuck. When the cop told us to leave immediately I did just that. I didn’t grab my wallet, only my keys. My mother had left her pocketbook in the house. Neither of us was being allowed to go down the street and get our cars. We had no transportation nor any money. We were stuck.

It was getting later and colder. I was only dressed in a thin pair of shorts and a T-shirt. The kids were no better dressed. I looked down and saw Darryl had left without his shoes. Then a man I didn’t know came up to us. He identified himself as fire police and said he would take us to the firehouse to spend the night.

Several firemen greeted us when he dropped us at the firehouse in Claymont. They led us

upstairs to their lounge. Some of them went out and came back with pizza and sodas for us. They gave us blankets and we bunked down best we could right there. None of us slept very well. Police and fire calls kept coming in over the radio all night. The fire whistle blew at 3:00 AM.

In the morning the firemen brought us donuts and coffee, milk and juice for the kids. I called into work and told them I wouldn’t be in today. They had heard reports on the news. Afterward, I walked back to our street, going to the lower end. I had hoped I could go up and into my house, pick up my wallet and get Darryl’s shoes. When I got there I found a patrol car blocking the street. I asked the officer if I go to my house, but he said I couldn’t. “It’s right in the line of fire,” he said. Newell was still holed up. He had an automatic weapon and had threatened to blow the house up.

I walked down Glenrock between my street and Wentworth. I could see up to my back yard and there was a swat team on my back porch with rifles aimed toward Newell’s. Wentworth had a barrier across it, but you could see the action up the street. A crowd of people were already there watching. I counted 21 cop cars along the street. Police were up in the trees. A negotiator was on a bullhorn. They had fetched Newell’s mother to the scene and she was pleading with him to come out. He wouldn’t budge.

They whisked his mother away and I heard a couple pops from the backyard and glass breaking. They had begun lobbing teargas into the house. Suddenly there was a pop nearby followed by a loud explosion and I could see a large hole had been blasted through the garage door. Still he wouldn’t come out.

I walked back to the firehouse. The firemen brought us subs for lunch. Newell finally surrendered at 3:00 PM. They rushed in and found his wife’s body in the garage. Their two young children had been away with someone so no harm came to them.

The firemen drove us home at 4:45. There were paw prints from a cat across Darryl’s birthday cake. My mother finally left at 10:30 that night. She took Darryl and Noelle with her, even though Noelle protested about going with her.

Noelle protested all of September 1. On the second my parents took them to Rax for lunch. Darryl’s was free because it was his birthday. Then they took the kids to an antique car museum in Boyertown. My mom made supper, but both kids really wanted to come home by then. Lois, Laurel and I came to dinner and then took them home.

In October we attended the 30^th Reunion of Owen J. Roberts Class of 1959. It was here I learned my close high school friend, Richard Ray Miller was dead. He was only 47 when he passed, but when we try and drown our disappointments in alcohol, it sometimes removes us from the scene early.

Richard Ray Miller and Ray Ayres and I had written some little plays for our high school. We were constantly together in those days.

(Right, Richard Ray held over the edge by Ray Ayres. Miller and Ayres were my closest friends at Owen J. Both are deceased.)

We had Thanksgiving dinner at our place and also Christmas. The year sort of quietly ended with a visit to my parents and another dinner on New Year’s Eve. 1989 ended rather peacefully, perhaps a good sign as we entered the 1990s.

Or maybe not.