Corner 5

To get a feel for the Corner, read my profile.

We moved to Madison and Central area when I was in 6th grade, and I became part of the scene until about when I got married.
One of our friends was The Nose. Why he was called the Nose, I do not know. His nose was not large, a normal looking nose, nevertheless he was dubbed the Nose. Some of the guys had legends about them . We would say did you hear what so and so did or said etc. The story about Nose was that he was not smart. The story went, he once spelled sewer , sur. Another thing about him was he was always laughing and not really serious. As it turns out Nose was smart, he went to a major university and received a professional degree. Nose moved out of town and we lost touch, but we reconnected a number of years ago and he told me he had been divorced, I believe, 4 times and after all his divorces he came out financially ahead. I seem to remember he might write a how to book.
Two things out of many I remember was , one summer Nose got a job as a relief janitor. The janitor was taking a vacation and Nose got the relief job. How he got it is anybodies guess. I do not believe Nose knew anything about janitoring nor was he from a family of janitors. One day he said he had to go get instructions from the janitor. So I told him I would take a ride with him. I waited in the car as I figured it would take awhile. Pretty soon he came back and told me the janitor had to show him something very importantand he should not forget. The building was huge and in the basement was this huge boiler with a big round gage and numbers. One of the numbers had a red line next to it. The janitor told the Nose that if the needle ever came to that red line, RUN LIKE HELL. That would not have been hard for him because Nose was one of the fastest guys in the neighborhood. Evidently the building was ok because if not there would have been all kinds of stories about Nose and the building. Another one was when we were about 19 years old, one of the guys had my bathing suit and would not give it back. Don't ask about this cause I do not remember the circumstances. Anyway I mentioned it to the Nose and he said lets go over to this guys house and he would get my bathing suit back. I drove and parked in the alley while Nose went up the back steps, 2nd or 3rd floor. He went in and all of a sudden he comes flying out holding something in his hands and something dangling behind him. Also the guys sister came out chasing the Nose. When Nose got close to the car I saw he was holding a wall electric clock and the cord flying behind him. He jumped into the car and told me to take off. It seems the guy was not home, his sister did not know anything about this nonsense, bathing suit. So Nose grabbed the kitchen clock off the wall. We bartered the clock for my bathing suit.