Crystal Took the Sparkle From His Life

My welder told me this story today.

Jimmy's brother Ted was 45 years old, happily married, two teenage kids, lovely home.  He had a nice little hardware business that every year provided a six figure income which, in rural southern George, enabled him to make the mortgage, meet all expenses, and build up sizeable savings and stock accounts.  Ted had worked seventy-hour weeks for as long as he could remember, and had figured he always would.  But now he was slowing down, no longer eagerly jumped out of bed in the morning to meet the challenges of the day.  He found he was looking for excuses to close the shop early.  The change gnawed at him.

One day Ted was having a drink with a good friend he hadn't seen for a couple of years.  His friend asked how life was treating him, and Ted surprised himself by confessing life actually didn't feel all that great these days.  His friend commiserated with him, then said he ought to try something he'd recently found helpful, stuff called crystal meth.  The friend said he'd been using it for a few weeks, said Ted should give it a shot.

Ted bought some, took one hit, and wanted another.  And that was it:  The End.  It was the end of his stock and bank accounts, his business, his home, and his marriage.  He now lived in his mother's house. 

Oh, Ted knew he should kick the habit, get a job, get a life.  But he didn't care...didn't care.

St. Marys Loses Its Mill

  



Companies, People, Ideas
The Fall of The House of Gilman
Robert Lenzner Tomas Kellner, 08.11.03

 How family feuds, business neglect and extravagant spending destroyed a billion-dollar fortune

Howard Gilman led a double life. He ran a group of companies that churned out the most mundane products you could imagine: paper bags, bleached cardboard and two-by-fours. Yet he could be found hosting glitzy functions where he would sip champagne with the likes of actress Isabella Rossellini, or entertaining dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov at his elegant plantation near Jacksonville, Fla., which Gilman transformed into a dance center and wildlife preserve.

It was at the 7,500-acre White Oak Plantation that Gilman was felled by a heart attack at age 73, in January 1998. By this time the Gilman family fortune, with $1.1 billion in assets, carried $550 million in debt. Now, just over five years later, much of the remaining money is gone. Gilman, who was childless, bequeathed the vast majority of his assets to the Howard Gilman Foundation. Yet at the close of 2001 the fair market value of the charity's assets was only $227 million. The foundation's 2002 IRS filing won't be available until this fall. But the circumstantial evidence is that it is in a downward spiral. One of the assets it held was a $47 million IOU from the parent of the buyer of the Gilman paper mill. With the buyer in bankruptcy--and the parent suing the Gilman estate for fraud--that asset may be worth nothing. The foundation, which typically gave to arts groups, is so broke that it stopped handing out new grants in 2003. (It is honoring existing grants.)

Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations, says the adage about family fortunes. The rise and fall of the Gilmans fits that pattern. Like many American success stories, this one begins on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the first stop for Jews fleeing eastern Europe. Isaac Gilman arrived in the 1880s and peddled trinkets on the crowded streets. By 1907 he had enough money to take over a distressed New England paper company in the village of Fitzdale, Vt., making newsprint and wrapping paper. The locals were so grateful they changed Fitzdale's name to Gilman in 1921.

Isaac passed the business to his son Charles, who in 1939 moved the business south to the Georgia-Florida border, not far from Jacksonville. There he built a large mill with three paper machines. He added a short-line railroad to haul trees, pulp and paper. The Gilman Paper Co. prospered and grew into the largest privately held paper company in the U.S.

When Charles died in 1967 the problems for the third generation of Gilmans began. Charles Jr., known as Chris, was president; Howard, the older brother, was a senior officer. Their relationship became strained, riven by jealousy and bitterness over control of the company, according to friends and family. In 1979 their mother, Sylvia, sided with Chris, disinheriting Howard and leaving Chris with control of the business.

Enter Bernard D. Bergreen, a New York City attorney who says he met Howard at a New York party in 1979 and became his personal counsel and, later, financial adviser and general counsel to the business. "Howard's financial future in 1979 was clouded at best," says Bergreen, 80. He also states Gilman had no equity in the company and limited business or investing experience.

Bergreen spoke only briefly with FORBES. His account, which largely blames Howard and Chris for the demise of the fortune--and of course can't be disputed since the two men are now dead--is contained in an 81-page petition filed with the Surrogate's Court in Manhattan. Bergreen says he managed to reinstate Howard's stake in the paper company by arranging for the two brothers to each obtain 50% of Gilman basically for free from the trust that controlled their father's estate.

In the middle of this turmoil Chris died from a heart attack in 1982, at 51. A new round of litigation ensued between Chris' widow, Sondra, and Howard over whether she was required to sell her share of the company to Howard. Sondra told FORBES she decided finally to sell her shares to Howard because, she says, she didn't want to leave her future "in irresponsible hands." That left Howard as the sole owner of the Gilman empire.

But after two decades of legal wars, the business was ailing and, as Bergreen tells it, Gilman wasn't the right person to turn it around. He says he could not convince Gilman to invest the capital necessary to keep the paper business competitive. A papermaking machine today costs $100 million or more; Bergreen claims Gilman had other uses for the money. Between 1988 and 1997 he lavished $300 million on his philanthropy and what Bergreen calls "pet projects." Back at the mill, a big source of this largesse, the business faltered and profits turned into losses--$55 million over the last two years of Howard's life.

The biggest pet project: $154 million spent transforming the White Oak Plantation in Yulee, Fla., which was acquired by the Gilman family in 1938, into a dance center for Baryshnikov and other noted artists, a conference center and a home for 60 species of endangered and threatened animals, including reticulated giraffes, okapis, black and white rhinoceros, and cheetahs. Howard played host at White Oak to U.S. presidents and celebrities and their families, often using the company's plane to ferry them to White Oak. The guests were fed meals prepared by top-notch chefs. Bill Clinton played golf on Gilman's private nine-hole course.

The Gilman fortune also was devastated by huge losses in the bond market during the years 1992-94 and by a bad investment in the entertainment business, $63 million spent on a forgettable television series called Space Precinct.

But Howard Gilman never neglected his philanthropy, making big gifts to the Howard Gilman Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Howard Gilman Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Gilman also backed many dance and theater companies and was Baryshnikov's patron from the moment the Russian dancer landed in the U.S.

Bergreen, coexecutor of Gilman's will, sold off some assets, including timber holdings and the plane. A division that sold lumber declined in value from $230 million after Gilman's death to around $67 million today, according to Dun & Bradstreet. Bergreen blames a glut of Canadian lumber. Other foundation assets at year-end 2001: $38 million in securities (not counting the dubious loan on the mill), White Oak and a highly regarded collection of photos.

If the Gilman Foundation is ailing, Bergreen is not. Between 1985 and 1997 he earned $40 million from Gilman, according to a court filing, and in 2001 Bergreen wanted another $40.5 million for services from 1998 to 2000. The foundation's board sliced that to $17 million, and the New York attorney general's office is trying to force a further reduction.

Why didn't Gilman sell the holdings if, as suggested, he had little interest in running the business? The former corporate controller of Gilman Paper, Michael Pallen, offers this: "He felt tremendous loyalty to his family and employees." Sentiment, in this case, seems highly overrated.

The Baby Suffered a Rek-O-Kut

It was the fall of 1958.  Jeff, our first child, was ten months old.  His mother and I were visiting her parents.  Her father and I had been messing around with his Hi-Fi installation all morning (High Fidelity Magazine featured it on a cover, labeling it "The Clancy System").  There were pieces of equipment lying about when we sat down at a card table in the living room for a sandwich and coke.   Toddler Jeff was sitting at the table on a chair-back kitchen stool.  We adults were talking and happily munching away, when young Jeff reached for his Micky Mouse mug and fell off the chair.  The floor was carpeted, so his landing should have been relatively soft, but a Rek-O-Kut turntable was lying there, tilted at a 45 degree angle.  Jeff landed head first, his jaw striking the sharp metal edge.  We jumped to pick him up and were horrified to see that his lower lip was deeply split, forcing his mouth into a hyper-wide, grotesque grin. 

We held a clean towel to his chin to staunch the blood flow and quickly carried him to a doctor's office which we knew was located in the next building.  We burst into the reception room.  In a few moments the doctor appeared.  He was clearly taken aback by the scene of the baby screaming at the top of his lungs, his bloody gag, and two panicky parents.  We forced ourselves upon him, demanding his assistance.  Reluctantly, he backed into a treatment room where, with shaking hands, he attempted to thread a needle.  He approached the baby who howled even louder, wanting nothing to do with this stranger.  G' WAY! G' WAY! he screamed.

The doctor threw up his hands, shaking his head, and said to us, "Sorry, I'm not up to this".

Fortunately, there was a doctor who had treated my wife located only a few blocks away.  We hurried there.  He was everything the first doctor wasn't, and somehow, despite a screaming, squirming patient,  he managed to stitch the lip back together so well that Jeff hasn't a trace of a scar today.

I am happy to report Jeff never developed a dislike for high fidelity classical music.  In fact, I am sure he doesn't even recall the event.  But I certainly do, for while not scarred either, my memory surely bears the mark of that day.

Desert Storm in St. Marys

I am in my own Desert Storm here.  The mighty air hose nozzle screams and roars as it shoots those glass particles against the hull.  Inside it sounds as if a brigade of middle eastern terrorists is mounting an assault and will break through walls any minute.

Until two days ago, Craig and Harold were attacking  below the waterline but now they are up to the engine room and living quarters level so it's getting nasty.  The "sand" is coming through the portlites.  These apertures are recessed ten inches inside the hull so Craig, the "gunner", has to direct the jet stream at sharp angles of contact to blast off the old paint.  He must direct stream around the windows with great care to avoid breaking the glass.  With one hand he places a rubber shield in front to the glass to try to protect it.  Initially, Harold, inside, opened the portlites to swing the glass window up and away from danger.  He covered the opening with plastic and cardboard but the powerful jet spewed granules inside.  I was absent when they first attacked through a portlite, but I was here today and helped Harold defend the castle.  We learned as we went, and by the time Craig got to the third portlite, we had almost completely turned back the enemy. 
I spent an hour yesterday sweeping and vacuuming in the engine room and today more of that there and then into my stateroom.  Yikes!   And even after vacuuming in those areas, I am losing the battle in other rooms. The granules get tracked around and there is serious "dust" everywhere.  Were I anything close to a fastidious housekeeper I would be insane.  (My sister Carol would be the first to laugh were the words "housekeeping" and "Lynn" used in the same sentence.)
The siege will become more intense when the men start blasting  up on the next level near the doors, two of which are sliders so don't seal tightly.  But Desert Storm did end finally, so there's hope for me.

Intimidation Not Permitted Here (or Wedding Rings Can be Hazardous to Your Health)

Well, Simba and I have climbed out of the deep hole we were in two months ago.  Back then we discovered Simba's hull was pockmarked with corrosion pits and even had some holes.  Holes!  Unbelievable, but true.  The boatyard owner thought it was beyond repair.  As I studied the problem and he saw I was not going to kiss my boat goodbye, he switched to telling  me about lobster boats he'd seen with bad hulls that had been encapsulated in fiberglass.  I dismissed that idea out of hand and hired a welder to close any holes and deep pits, while filling lesser pits myself with an epoxy compound used to repair steel tanks in manufacturing plants.

As a reward for making such a strong recovery, I bought Simba a used bow thruster.  Naturally I was going to install it myself.  I studied the owner's manual, compared the itemized part list to what I had received from the seller, and ordered any missing parts.  That was easy.  But the electrical aspects of the installation were formidable.  I have never learned much about electricity.  Oh, I forced myself to comprehend the wiring diagram of my diesel generator enough to spot a faulty element, but it didn't come easy.
 

Fortunately, my friend Phillip Landmeier, now down in Guatemala, is a whiz at things electric.  He not only reads schematic diagrams, he creates the darn things on a computer!  He reworked the original idiotic shore power setup on my boat so that it is now easy to use and never fails.  He even designed the electric installation for a large marina (and these are only the things I know about).  I asked Phil if he could help me figure out the electric installation for my thruster and he stepped right up to the plate.  He created one of those schematics, even specifying what size wire I needed for various segments.  He also told me I needed a special relay called a contactor.  The area electrical supply house people had heard of them but could not even locate one for me.  Phil found it himself, through the internet, down in Texas. 

 

Phil also told me that installing the wiring for this complicated project could be dangerous.  He told me of a man he knew who was working with powerful batteries like those I had purchased for the thruster.  The man lost a finger when he shorted wires with his wedding ring.  Yikes!
 

So here I am faced with schematics that look like hieroglyphics, gizmos the electrical supply house can't locate, and now physical danger as well!  I thought maybe this project was too much for me – that maybe I should bring in a professional electrician to do the actual installation.  Then I scolded myself.  I forced myself to remember that I didn't know a Bull from a Bear when I decided I would become a stock broker and investment advisor--and that worked out pretty well.   I decided I would at least initiate the project, take it on piece by piece.  If I hit a wall, I could always stop  and call in a pro. 

  

I had read, (probably in one of Phillips informative lengthy emails), that to get maximum power from the batteries, they had to be located close to the thruster and their connecting cables had to be short.  So I built a large shelf of strong 2x4's for them, close to the thruster tunnel, which is located deep in the bow.  Common sense told me to then box the batteries in so they wouldn't become dangerous missiles when the bow tossed about in heavy seas.

Then I mounted the contactor gizmo on a steel beam right between the batteries and the thruster.  I mounted the electronic control box on a piece of plywood at the side of the compartment.  I knew I needed to connect the batteries to a charger and first thought I should purchase a charger dedicated to them and place it near the other components.  But I realized it would be difficult to monitor charging conditions up there in the bow, under the floor boards, so I ran wires from the batteries back to the engine room where I knew my central charger had an extra port which I could connect to.

Now running cables the length of my boat is an arduous task in itself, pushing and pulling them through holes in bulkheads, removing floor sections, taking beds apart, emptying storeage lockers, and more, in order to access the bilges.  So having completed that task, it was almost child's play to run a master control cable from the pilot house console down to the bilge and up to the bow. 

 

Up to now, I obviously did the right thing by winging it on my own.  I've found success taking just one step at a time.  But now I'm entering new and possibly hazardous territory.  I have to measure up, fabricate, and then connect the control wires and thick power cables. 

No problema.  In preparation, I'm studying the schematics again and even starting to make sense of them.  I'll study them some more and if I have doubts, I'll consult with Phil again.  I'll stay at this until I get the job done correctly.  And I'm confident I'll complete the job in one piece, for I won't be wearing any wedding ring.

The Alligator Had a Good Hold on Us Jan. 2006

We had sailed east uneventfully through beautiful Albemarle Sound, NC, and turned south into the mouth of the Alligator River.  Initially the river is a wide and deep body of water, but then a long point, composed of lowland and marshes, puts out from the western shore and squeezes the navigable area into a narrow channel.

It was now dark and the channel markers were difficult to find.  Marnie had to search for each one with the spotlight, so sometimes we proceeded blind for a period until the next mark was spotted.  I therefore also kept an eye on the computer screen to watch the GPS-driven icon representing our boat as it made its way down the channel displayed by chartplotter. There was a turn to the right, west, and I was careful to stay in the center of the channel on the screen, and of course stayed inside the actual channel markers when I saw them.  As we turned, the boat began to slow, then slowed some more, and finally came to a halt, although I had not touched the throttles.  I threw the boat into reverse but she didn't budge.  I tried to rock her forward, and then backwards, to no avail.  I had been aground a number of times before, so didn't panic, especially as the muddy bottom, unlike the rock ledges in Maine,  did not represent a threat to our steel bottom,  I decided to call it a day and take a fresh look at our situation in the morning.

 

However, in the middle of the night I felt the boat gently rocking, perhaps meaning we were coming free.  I started the engines and tried to back down -- or push forward -- no luck.  Back to bed.  A couple of hours later, the same scenario.  At daylight, I saw we were close to the mark on the west side of the channel, and watched a couple of other boats navigate the passage successfully by hugging the mark on the eastern side.  I decided we would just have to wait for a rising tide to get us off.  However after reading up on the area I learned there was virtually no tidal range here and that the water depth only increased when a strong north wind blew water from Albemarle Sound into the river.  So waiting for a high tide to lift us off was not in the cards. 

 

I can be a stubborn, cheap s.o.b., and in 30 years of groundings, power or sail, was always able to eventually free myself without assistance.  So whenever the boat was rocked a bit by small wave or boat's wake over the next 24 hours, hinting we might be able to break free, I rushed to the pilot house to start the engines to try to power us free.  Sometimes we would be able to move in one direction or another for as much as ten or twenty yards, but we never broke loose.  After 36 hours I finally threw in the towel and called Boat US towing service on the VHF.  It was going to be expensive, but I and poor crew had had it!  The nearest towboat was several hours away but it finally arrived.  At first glance, I was very disappointed.  The fiberglass boat was no more than 20 feet long with twin outboards and could not have weighed over 1500 pounds -- and here we were, all 55 feet and 90,000 pounds of dense steel! 

 

The towboat's skipper tossed us a line and we agreed that when (and if!) Simba started moving, I would throw her in gear but not rev the engines so high that, once we broke free, we might run over the little boat and turn her into a shattered white Christmas tree ornament.

The little boat moved ahead and took up the slack in the tow rope.  Its engines roared and the water frothed, but we didn't budge.   For five minutes the Little Engine that Could's motors roared continuously, with the props producing apparently nothing but a large amount of foamy, muddy water.  I knew that the little boat could not possibly drag us across the sand and gravel bank, so wondered what the skipper was up to.  It finally dawned on me that the little guy was not actually attempting to tow us.  With its propwash, it had to be trying to dig us free; trying to dig a channel to deeper water.

     
Finally, I felt Simba move a few inches forward.  I put her in gear with low engine power.  Now we moved a few feet and stopped.  I goosed her a bit.  We moved further, and faster.  Maybe we'll finally make it!  Suddenly we broke free. I quickly pulled the throttles back to neutral and we coasted after the towboat, the boat feeling light and free as a bird.  A wonderful feeling of relief surged through my body.

 

I can't imagine you'd be surprised to learn that within 24 hours, at our very next port of call,  I signed up for a year of towboat insurance. 

A Whomping Off Tangier Island Nov. 2005

It was late afternoon on November 29, 2005.  We were running south down the western shore of Tangier Island, near the foot of Chesapeake Bay.  As time was a bit short, and as I tend to take the most direct course between two points where I deem it possible, I eschewed sailing way out a mile or more in the main buoyed channel, meant chiefly for large ships, and chose to run about a half mile offshore where my chart and depth sounder indicated I had 10-15 feet of water (Simba II draws about six and a half when filled with 3000 plus gallons of diesel).  We were headed for a buoy lying to the southwest of the island; I figured the buoy was south of any shoals and decided we would turn east at that point to round the base of the island and then run up its eastern shore to the small fishing port of Onancock.

We had about a half mile to go to the buoy and the way seemed clear, although the previously calm water had turned into short choppy waves, when suddenly the boat slowed, the bow rose, and BOOM!, our foot-wide I-beam keel smacked down onto hard bottom.  The sound and vibration resonated the length of the ship.  The paper chart and the electronic chart plotter both indicated plenty of water here but the bow quickly rose and BOOM!, we crashed down again.  My crew turned an anguished face towards me and shouted "Shouldn't we call the coast guard?" I ignored her as I struggled to control the boat. "Call the coast guard!!" she wailed as she struggled to maintain her footing in the pilot house (both captains chairs had long since fallen over and were slamming into us as the ship's bow plunged then rose, turning from one direction to another, the short but strong waves tossing us like a cork.  "The coast guard's no use to us now!" I shouted as I struggled with the wheel, "We gotta get out of this on our own!"

My main concern was to avoid being pushed back high onto this sand bar where we then could be thrown on our side and the boat filled with water.  I fought the waves, trying to work the vessel to the southwest, out below the buoy where I knew deeper water lay.  I constantly rode the throttles to avoid racing the engines each time the stern rose out of the water as we hobby horsed.  (I thanked my lucky stars I had had strong four inch wide steel beams welded to the hull way back in Mobile, Alabama.  These skegs protected the props from hitting bottom.  I knew that one encounter with this hard bar would mangle those three foot brass blades, leaving us to the waves' mercy.) I monitored the engine instruments to watch that oil pressures stayed up and water temps down.  With the boat struggling like a wild beast, we inched our way southwest.  After what seemed like hours, but it was probably only the better part of one, we finally managed to escape our trap.

Despite the tremendous pounding the boat took, it appeared at first that no damage had been done.  However, when we left Tangier Island two days later, the starboard engine soon overheated and I had to shut it down.  I couldn't start it the next day in Norfolk, VA.  It turned out to have a cracked exhaust manifold pipe and I had to have it completely overhauled, an expensive job which kept us at a marina in nearby Portsmouth for a week.  Sadly, I had had the same engine overhauled not six months earlier.

I think you will understand why I now have a healthy skepticism for stated chart depths and a markedly increased vigilance for dangerous shoals.

The Kaaterskill Clove

I owned a vacation cottage in Twilight Park, in New York's Catskill Mountains, for 25 years.  The Victorian house, the Park, and the mountains will always be very special for my sons and me. This Thomas Cole painting is the view down the clove from the falls at the entrance to the park. 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cole_Thomas_The_Clove_Catskills_1827.jpg