With Music, Come Stories Part VIII

RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
edited March 2014 in Strut Central
.............When I was in High School I took trade classes to become a printer. My senior year my teacher got me a job after school with a printing company that printed dental forms, Histacount, in Melville N.Y.. I worked from 5 to midnight packing and shipping boxes. The Shipping Dept. was the only night shift and there were about 8 of us working that shift. One day one of my co-workers came in and asked ???Who???s driving that brand new Corvette that???s in the parking lot????. Well it didn???t belong to any of us and we assumed it had been stolen and left in our parking lot. When we knocked off work that night it was gone. About a week later the same guy asked ???Who???s driving that brand new Lincoln Continental that???s in the parking lot???? Again, it was none of us but the mystery was intriguing. Not long after that one of my co-workers proclaimed ???I know who???s driving those fancy cars, it???s the Janitor!??? We were all in disbelief, there was a janitor that came in for a couple of hours each night, a young, very quiet black man that never spoke to us, did his job and left. All kinds of nefarious speculation ensued.

One of my co-workers played the guitar and would bring in an acoustic to play during break time. One night the janitor approached him and asked in a very thick African accent if he could play his guitar. He proceeded to play the shit out of it and it was obvious that he was a very good guitarist. He very humbly stated that he had been a professional musician in his homeland of Nigeria and had released an album with his band. We all looked at each other with a ???Sure you did buddy??? look, doubting this seemingly outrageous claim. The next night he brought in an album and sure as shit, there was his name right on it. Even then, most of us were disbelievers thinking he just shared a name with the REAL musician, after all, he was a part time janitor. Then he told us, ???I used to host a TV show in London back when I was a teen???. WHAT!! This could not be true, we all thought. But sure as shit the next night he brought in some 8???x10??? photos of who was obviously him hosting a kids show.

At this point we all believed him but it sure did seem strange. We asked him what the hell was he doing working as a part time janitor and he said ???I was sent to the U.S. by my Father to learn how to fly jets, and I don???t know anybody here so I figured I???d get a job instead of sitting around at night getting fat!???. This was some real life ???Coming To America??? story years before that film ever came out. We became friendly after that and went to dinner a few times. The following year I went off to college and the first week in English class I wound up sitting next to a dude from Nigeria. Like an idiot I said, ???I have a friend from Nigeria and told him the dudes name???. He looked at me in disbelief and said ???You KNOW him????. I explained that I had worked with him at a printing company and he was the janitor???. He replied, ???Oh no, that is impossible, he is like Royalty in my country.??? I did my best to convince him but I don???t think he ever believed me. Truth is almost always stranger than fiction.

Postscript: Some of you are going to ask me what this gentlemen???s name is. This was exactly 40 years ago and all I remember is his name was John and his somewhat long last name started with an O. This was long before I was deeply into music and it bothers me greatly that I don???t even remember the name of the band he was in.

  Comments


  • billbradleybillbradley You want BBQ sauce? Get the fuck out of my house. 2,907 Posts
    John Okpor ?

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    billbradley said:
    John Okpor ?

    I don't think that's right but the age is right, this guy was in his mid 20's in '74 and John Okpor was born in '49...seems like his name was longer than that but it does say Cheif John Okpor so I guess that could be him.

  • toby.dtoby.d 254 Posts
    Another great story, I'm absolutely loving these threads so thank you and please do keep them coming! It reminded me of a similar but much less mysterious story of my own.

    When I was at secondary school (high school) there were two main caretakers who worked there, they added a third guy to their team in my last year I think. They seemed to get on pretty well but couldn't have been more different. One was your typical London school caretaker, pretty uptight guy with a self imposed uniform of straight jeans, Ellesse sweatshirt and white polo shirt. He was, I imagine, constantly visualising the various things he could do to the kids to get them back for all the hassle they caused him. The other was the archetype of an ageing hippy, long grey hair, potentially stoned, whistling to himself as he went about his work, cracking jokes which nobody heard and generally chilling out. Anyway, it was widely accepted that Terry, as he was known, was an alright guy but he was just a caretaker and I left school only knowing I'd had a cool looking caretaker.

    My mum had started working in the school office in my last year and stayed there for a few years after I'd left. She didn't seem to like most of the people she worked with but she did always tell me about the funny chats she had with Terry and they got pretty friendly with each other. She said he'd often come to her office to hide from the other caretaker who was in charge or chat up all the ladies who worked in the office and whip them into a frenzy by sidling up to them and asking them "when did you last smoke pot?" or "have you ever been skinny dipping" etc. She also mentioned he used to be a drummer back in the late-60s. When I heard that I was pretty interested, I'd just started actually getting into music and all I listened to was 60s stuff. My mum said she'd find out more when she next saw him but she did know that he had been famous for drumming naked on stage (I guess that was another one he'd told everyone in the office).

    It turned out Terry the caretaker was Terry Ollis the first drummer of Hawkwind, who played on the self-titled debut and X In Search Of Space. I'm sure this story is repeated across the country and, after all, Hawkwind were a London band and they have had about one million members but it still trips me out that the OG drummer of fucking Hawkwind had been sweeping up fag butts from behind the sheds the whole time I was at school.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    ^^^Two Thumbs Up^^^

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,955 Posts
    Pre-req for caretakers is to be creepy. I got into a fight with one when I was at Uni.

    Edit: Not proud.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    Excellent thread.

  • yuichiyuichi Urban sprawl 11,332 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    Excellent thread.

    That was a great read, indeed.

  • I just love reading these. Please keep em coming!
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