Looks like we're here now....Welcome to the NWO.
Ira Lipshitz ?....
Are you THE 'Ira Lipshitz' from Canarsie Brooklyn, proud son of Gladys and Irving Lipshitz, and who always made his mother the proudest woman on the block by being the perennial winner of the annual Waldbaum's sponsored chop liver eating contest each year...?
THE Ira Lipshitz, grandson of Sussman 'Cecil' Volk, who owned a Manhattan restaurant that became a Garment District social center in Manhattan for decades and who invented questionable necessities that included the Cigarette Lighter That Lights From Either End ?
The very same Mr. Sussman Volk, who was known as Cecil, who was a true New York character. The same Sussman Volk who meticulously cataloged tens of thousands of jokes, some funny, all of which he yearned to crack at what he considered the perfect moment. THE Sussman Volk who tore around on a motorcycle, wearing lots of black leather, until shortly before his death ?
Of course Grandpa Sussman 'Cecil' wasn't perfect, along the way there might have been the occasional misstep. The pioneering Greenwich Village frozen-food store, Penguin Food, was founded on the fatally incorrect premise that people would go to a separate store to buy the new wonder of frozen goods. When Grandpa Volk thought he had invented the four-color retractable pen-and-pencil set, his partner and financial backer filed for the patent, somehow forgetting to include Mr. Volk's name !
Was it Grandpa Cecil's fault that nobody grasped the utter necessity of the Double-Sided Garbage Can Washing Machine? It could wash two cans at once!
Mr. Volk's supreme achievement was Morgen's Restaurant at 141 W. 38th St., which he ran from 1947 until 1985, when he sold it. It was a beehive of designers, fashion tycoons, models and hangers-on who waited with showy impatience behind a red velvet rope until a table was open. His wife, Audrey, attired in the latest Bill Blass -- never, but never, bought for list price -- acted as an elegant ringmaster.
The menu was immense and printed each day. Its audacity was apparent in its characterization of chicken soup: "essence of young fowl with matzo balls." Offerings ranged from duckling Montmorency, half a duck served with cherry sauce and sweet potato pudding, to Gedampfte rinderbrust, a staggering slab of boiled meat.
The same Sussman 'Cecil' Volk who was born in Bensonhurst on Sept. 5, 1919 ?... Sussman 'Cecil' Volk, whose father died when he was 9, and when he was 12, his vivid life blossomed magically when he was sent out West for a year to a ranch to learn cowboy skills, which he would never again use.
Hopefully it's the very same Mr. Sussman 'Cecil' Volk who met his wife, Audrey Morgen, after she read a letter he had written to his sister, who also lived in her Manhattan apartment building. At the time, he was studying business at the University of West Virginia, where he was 1939 shag dancing champion, but still eventually graduated.
Audrey Morgen had never read such a poetic, completely no-nonsense letter from a young man. "I knew enough to know that this was somebody who could make life very, very important," she said. "He never had a chance of escaping."
She traded an introduction to one of her cousins for an introduction to Sussman Volk. She and their daughters, Patricia 'Gladys' Volk Blitzer of Manhattan and JoAnn Lederman of Miami; five grandchildren (including Ira) and three great-grandsons survive him.
Mr. Volk went to work in his father-in-law's restaurant business that included three restaurants, all named Morgen's.
The restaurants were all sold after World War II, and, left to his own devices, Mr. Volk turned to invention, including the Illuminated Fender Guide. It looked like a knitting needle and lighted up at the push of a button, allowing a motorist to gauge distances when parking a car in the dark.
He actually made some money on this one, his daughter, Patricia aka 'Gladys', said.
Mr. Volk also started a bakery, among other things. He got a job doing advertising for the General Refrigeration Co. as a result of his frozen food enterprise.
Mr. Volk never stopped inventing things, including a device to keep adjacent washers and dryers from rattling, which was used only in his own home. He made metal sculptures in a studio he shared with the actor Zero Mostel, who also painted.
He and his wife moved to West Boca Raton more than 12 years ago, where Mr. Volk kept up his love for creating things by making sculptures by welding pieces of metal together, and by writing poetry. His sculptures were featured in several art shows throughout Boca Raton, though Mr. Volk hated to part with them.
"When a piece was sold, he'd get depressed because he had to part with them," Audrey Volk said. " ... It was like saying goodbye to a baby."
And every Tuesday, a group of 17 men who called themselves the "Boca Boys Club" would meet at the Volk home to venture out to lunch and see "shoot-em-up movies." They all wore matching navy-blue T-shirts with "BBC" written on them.
They went together on the weekly trips because "most of the women that we knew didn't like to go to shoot-em-up movies," she said.
"They met in our kitchen, 17 fellows. They would go to a very cheap lunch, and they prided themselves on the cheaper the better, and then to the shoot-em-up so the wives didn't have to go," Audrey Volk said.
When Sussman 'Cecil' Volk eventually passed away no funeral services were planned. "My husband knew so many people, that if we intended to have a service, it would be overwhelming for us," Audrey Volk said.
***Hopefully I got the right 'Ira Lipshitz' ?