Re: The Other Side of the Track (395 Views)

I wasn’t that interesting back when he knew me…. late bloomer. He would tell you we had a bunch of fierce disagreements (ahem). He couldn’t figure out whether to view me as a protege or a threat, and at the end when I started to do a lot better with his data than he did, it definitely became the latter.

What stories there were involved the whole group, Schwartz, Friedman, Jeff Langbert, Bernie Wishengrad, Julian, etc., sharing one set of sheets at a table in the dining room. I was a decade younger than the other guys. Ragozin didn’t even have a copying machine in those days, and he never went to the track, all that self aggrandizing garbage in his book notwithstanding. I said this here years ago, but Connie told me after he read that book he was so mad he couldn’t sleep for two days.

Friedman and Connie had a lot more and more interesting stories than me, back then. My girlfriend recorded an oral history with Connie some years before he died, he was a character and a half. His story about a hooker calling the cops on him in New Orleans because he smoked pot in front of her was pretty much a movie.

Pretty sure Friedman won’t sit down for an oral history, but he should. I have plenty of beefs with that guy, but unlike Ragozin, he’s not full of crap. He put his ass on the line in the South during the civil rights movement in the 60’s.