Breakfast with Herb & Mike

Even the most public people have a few private stories they haven’t shared. Some are insightful, some are funny. In this issue of Breakfast with Herb and Mike, father and son share stories about successes and failures, dreams and disappointments, hidden talents and hobbies.

Mike: A friend asked me recently how we came up with the idea of Breakfast with Herb and Mike. That got me to thinking and I realized it started one summer when we would plan to go fishing together. Often it rained, was windy or just too cold, so we would sit in the boat, drink coffee — I would smoke a cigar — and we would talk. Then fall and winter came. We didn’t want to give up those conversations, so we shifted our get-togethers to a restaurant. Adding our discussions to SB just seemed natural and we’ve had great feedback.

For as long as I can remember you’ve been a public figure in the community. In the last few years, I have stepped into that role as well, but there is more to both of us than people know. For this month’s column (our 25th) let’s talk about some of those things, starting with tattoos.

Herb: Wow!! I came close. When I was an airman studying at the Nuclear Weapons School in Denver, I went into town one evening with a group of my buddies. Someone came up with the idea we should all get a tattoo of our girlfriends’ names.

(I confess there was little drinking involved.) We found a shop and got in line. Just as my turn came, they closed and I was shut out. I was disappointed, but three months later, I was glad I didn’t do it. That’s when I received a “Dear John” letter from Sylvia.

Mike: Anything interesting about your first jobs.

Herb: My first paying job was as a waiter in the bar at the Officer’s Club in Goose Bay. The first night on the job I was delivering a Grasshopper (a green drink) to a “Full Bird” Colonel when I tripped and spilled the entire drink down the front of his dress uniform. That was the end of my career in food service.

Mike: They didn’t trust you to serve drinks, but they trusted you with access to nuclear weapons?

Herb: I never thought about it in those terms, but you’re right. It’s kind of funny to think about it now. Any first job stories for you?

Mike: Mine wasn’t really a first job. I guess you’d call it a first dream. When I was in my 20’s I wanted to work in radio. I envisioned myself as the next Howard Stern. I went to the New England School of Broadcasting, spent a day touring the facility and learning what it would take to develop that kind of career.

Herb: I don’t remember that. You didn’t pursue it? Why?

Mike: I got about eight miles from the school and spotted a bar. I went in and never looked back. You have to remember that was a time when I was drinking heavily. My ideas were big, but I had no follow-through.

Herb: Let’s go back a bit to the time you were in high school. It was then you started to read signs backwards. How did you get started with that?

Mike: Some of the kids had started changing the first letter of each name — like cike marpenter. That was interesting, but I knew I could do better. That’s when I started to reverse all the letters — ekim retneprac. It was easy for me and I could do it quickly when I was in my teens and 20s, but now my 62-year-old brain doesn’t work that fast.

Herb: I remember a time when you played a musical instrument.

Mike: I did. It was a violin. But when I hit seventh grade, I didn’t want the kids to make fun of me, so I quit. My music teacher urged me to continue. He said I was good and he thought I would regret it if I didn’t continue. He was right. I do.

Looking back, did you have a hobby that took you away from work?

Herb: I loved to fish. One particularly memorable trip was with a fellow police officer who was also a pilot. We flew into Governor Rockefeller’s Adirondack estate on a sea plane with a canoe attached to the bottom and landed in his stocked pond. The fishing was great that day, but when we heard trucks coming, we knew we had been spotted. We jumped back in the plane and took off, leaving the canoe behind. We learned our lesson that day and never went back.

Mike: It’s funny to think about the twists and turns in our lives. These experiences have made us who and what we are and we’re both okay with the way our lives have turned out.