Category Archives: Bet On Crazy

SOME CHOWDAH, BOBBY by Peter Nolan Smith

April 23, 2025 – 4:42 am

Last holiday season Richie Boy had hired me to help with sales and schlepping merchandise between dealers and jewelers. Hlove and I worked together to make sales, but business on 47th Street was murder. There was no foot traffic and my old customers hated the street and all the hawkers shilling to buy gold. “Back […]

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THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL OF PASSAICH by Peter Nolan Smith

April 12, 2025 – 9:11 am

When Cecil B. DeMille released THE TEN COMMANDMENTS in 1956 and it was an immediate box office success, earning the cinematic retelling of Exodus over $180 million dollars. In 1962 Paramount Pictures re-released the film for screenings at drive-ins across the nation and my father loaded my five brothers and sisters into our Ford station […]

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Snow in Spring NYC 2010

March 22, 2025 – 10:58 am

JoJo, the security guard at the diamond exchange, was a betting man. He gambled the left-overs from his monthly NYPD pension on baseball, basketball, and football. His losses outweighed his wins. JoJo also wagered on odd parlays and on March 1st in 2010 I said that there wouldn’t be another snowstorm. Two days ago the […]

By Peter | Also posted in Drinking, NEW YORK, semi-fiction, weather | Tagged | Comments (0)

QUEEN OF THE PLAZA March 17 2009

March 17, 2025 – 7:46 am

St. Patrick’s Day promised to be another disaster for the Retail Collection of the Plaza Hotel. Hordes of green-clad spectators streamed down the escalator into the basement. Their eyes averted the luxury goods on offer, as their destination was the hotel’s public bathroom. Within the first hour I had given directions to the toilet over […]

By Peter | Also posted in 2000s, ireland, NEW YORK, semi-fiction | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Toujours Siam

February 16, 2025 – 2:45 am

From 2011 Thirty-five years ago I sold a 5-FSI1 Round Brilliant Diamond to a woman from Florida. She was purchasing the ring for her mother. When asked to ship the present to Miami Beach via Fedex, my boss refused to accommodate the woman’s request, fearing the diamond might get lost in transit. The customer was […]

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