NO TIE

My father, Toby, admired Bill Veeck, who owned the Cleveland Indians when the Tribe last won the World Series — 1948.  Veeck didn’t wear a tie.

My dad didn’t like to wear a tie.  Toby was his own boss — even when he wasn’t his own boss.

When Greyhound instructed Toby to take down his wall-mounted postage-stamp machines, I schlepped the machines to our treelawn. The scrap metal scavengers took the machines right away.

As for Toby’s cosmetics company, Ovation of California, he was lucky to pawn the remaining inventory off on a sucker from Indiana.  So my dad only went three-quarters broke on that one.

He put together a board game called Stock Market, like Monopoly.  He sent his Stock Market prototype to Parker Brothers, which returned it, but kept Toby’s play money, which was Monopoly money.  Parker Brothers was monopolistic about its play money.

My dad worked as a real stock broker for approximately six months. Didn’t go so well.  He was not the most personable fellow.

He wound up as an office worker at a key company, Curtis Industries.  And eventually — two years into the job — the key company gave Toby an evaluation.  Turns out my dad “would do well on a desert island,” “[may] be difficult to get along with,” and “much prefers to do things in his own way.”  Nevertheless, he lasted 17 years at that job.  That was the job where he worked on his other jobs.

Theodore "Toby" Stratton in 1967. Age 50.

Toby invented another game, Win-Sockey.  He sent it to Wham-O along with a 45 rpm recording of the song “Buckle Down Win Sockey.”  Cross marketing.

Toby’s Win-Sockey was a paddle game, modeled after Caddy, a 1920s street game.  The player used a wooden peg and paddle.  You placed the peg on the ground and karate-chopped it into the air with the paddle. When the peg sprang up, you swatted it.  Outfielders tried to catch it.

It was pretty popular in my driveway for a summer.

Wham-O said no thanks.

Toby considered buying a Burger Chef.  They had the open-flame, charbroiled, conveyor-belt cooking method — different than McDonald’s cook ‘em by the pan.  Back then, McDonald’s slogan should have been “Have It Your Way?  Wait 20 Minutes.”  Burger Chef was a lot quicker.

Toby didn’t do Burger Chef because the franchise fee was too high.

Toby put in an offer on a building in East Cleveland.  That was his first stab at real estate. The deal fell through.  East Cleveland became a slum — on the order of East St. Louis, Ill. — right after that.

Toby bought a building on the West Side.  That worked. 1965.  He bought more buildings and eventually quit the key company.  From then on, Toby only wore a tie at simchas (celebrations) and High Holiday services.

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See the “Driving Mr. Klezmer” DUO show, Wed. March 24, 7 p.m, at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, Beachwood, Ohio.  Bert Stratton on clarinet and spoken word.  Alan Douglass on mood-enhancing keyboards and vocals.  Premiere of the tune “Berkowitz-Kumin (Funeral Home).”
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See Yiddishe Cup at COW, College of Wooster (Ohio), Sat. March 27, 9 p.m.