Oh Oh!! It’s a church steeple and I’m heading straight for it

flying-my-ppFlying my powered parachute has always been a challenge, but a church steeple?

I’ve been flying My Powered Parachute for over 12 years and each time it’s exhilarating as I would constantly try a new flying technique. Once I had attempted to spiral straight down as you see test pilots do in air shows. Never could do it, but most of the other tricks i would finally get to do, maybe not perfectly, but doing it was the challenge. I’m showing you this so you can experience just what it feels like to fly a “PP”.

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As you can see it’s just a pleasant way to see everything below you. What was always very special was to fly near and around different church steeples in every area I would fly in. One time in Arizona, I was flying and came across more than 20 hot air ballons. As I passed each, They would wave. They could only go where the wind took them, but I could fly near and around each, say hello and go onto the next. Wow, what an experience. As the wind took them, I couldn’t stay with them long, as i had to stay close to me Motorhome because I had a circular limit on how far I could go with the gas I had and more importantly the wind conditions. I’d like to mention here that the only control that could overcome my flying where I would want to go is the wind. Any thing over 7 miles per hour meant that I was going the direction of the wind, so it was always import to take that into consideration when flying, especially when flying over water. Rivers always have a wind in the direction of the water flow, and the ocean shore was always a challenge cause the wind changed drastically at different times. So, you always knew, when your over water, to be very careful, cause a powered parachute without gas didn’t float but rather went straight down to the bottom non stop with you strapped in it!

One day when waiting for the wind to calm, which it did every morning a 6AM, I was finally able to take off and make a circle around our home below, but the wind was tricky, it swirled my plane around and was pushing me backwards over a highway below and then continuing to head me in a direction I knew well, directly at the church spire I have flown around many time. However this time I had no control of where I was going and it seems I was heading directly for the point of the spire. OH OH!!! What to do? Hey, ding dong, try to spiral down! So, I pulled down as hard as I could on the parachute lineswith my right arm forcing me to spiral down clockwise with my eyes on the up and comeing spire. Harder, harder and finally the shoot stopped and spiraled straight down. Taking my eyes off the spire and looking to see where I was headed, I was shocked to see a gas station below me. Which one was empty with no car getting gas on the left side of pumps. I headed there and came in for a one point landing, with the shute luckily landing along side of a pump. Whew! double whew!! Everyone at the station looked shocked as I came straight down from the sky. No-one had ever come for gas that way before and then the shoot lowered and covered three cars that were parked. I apologized and gathered up the shoot which is 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. A task in itself, and then have to push my plane over to the side, I immediately called my neighbor Sam, who thought I was nuts to ask for a lift for my powered parachute from our local gas station. He arrived in his pickup and we proceeded to tow my plane with me steering back to our homes, with all the people at the station clapping and laughing. I actually had fun through it all and all in one piece, instead of “Rest in Peace”

I was on local TV across America

When I was young and just begining to develope my business, I was asked by a friend that was the buyer for JCPenney Co. to travel with Mr Penney and a beautiful young lady to all the new JCPenny store openings. We called her Miss Penney and although she had made advances, I had no interested, being a staunch Catholic and married. Because the promotional Department of Penney’s wanted exposure, they set up TV appearance at each new JCPenny openings, having Mr Penney and Miss Penney and myself appear. They having a canned welcome speech, and I thereafter began making my floral arrangements in containers belonging to the audience. I would begin by showing the audience what materials were needed and how JCPENNY’s new store had them in their new artificial flower Department. I then proceeded to make an arrangement and with each flower stem that I applied, I did it with a flare and sudden strokes. The small audience would laugh and eventually anticipate my next move. As I did so, they would help and every so often I’d make the attempt and stop, but the audience being off guard would shout, and then start laughing. The containers I used were from people in the audience who would rush to have theirs made, and that was the trick, because I would say don’t worry if your arrangement isn’t made here it will be at the new JCPENNY store. The trick of bouncing when I placed a new flower stem into the arrangement got better with each performance in each new store opening. One time, I had a copycat watching my technique when I was opening a store in Massachusetts, at the time I didn’t know his name, but much later I watched him on a TV show where he was a guest chef. Low and behold! Emeril Lagasse!

I would also sell a man who had started his business in the south and I sold him plastic utensils. He became a friend. Here is a picture we took in the 60’s:

Me and the Colonel

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A new kind of “T” Shirts for Sale!

WOW, you visited where? Did you buy a souvenir to remember your visit?

Goldfarb Novelty Co., was a company bought by Josh Rothstein, after Revlon’s owner, Charles Revson, pushed him out of the company that Josh and his two partners built from scratch, and was an artificial flower company where i worked, called Zunino Altman, or ZA. I continued working there after they left, running a Department making flower arrangement. I have written a story about that time called “Politically Correct” and how I helped Jewish families devastated by WWII, that finally came to America to live and work. you’ll find it on my blog called thewhiteknight.org

When Josh and Joe Young settled into their new company, they asked me to leave ZA company and come to work for them, to help bring The F.W. Woolworth Co, over as there customer, and naturally I did ASAP! Because besides being my bosses, they were my friends.

After a while, working there, I was told by Joe Young to go out on my own and I did, by starting Sal Bianco Inc, and the beginning of my adventures. I began travelling to the Orient to design and purchase Artificial flowers to sell to retailers, and the F.W.Woolworth’s was my first. It was at this time that I was asked by Joe Young to travel to CEYLON,INDIA to buy “T”shirts, as Goldfarb was buying their brass bells and accessories from India. I was able to buy “T” shirts for $0.90/dozen, and when I returned, along with Joe Young, we began producing souvenir “T” shirts that had the “Logos” of Tourists locations like “The Empire State Building”, “South of the Boarder” and hundreds more locations, printed on them . At the time, “T” shirts were only worn as an undergarment, and sold for $0.49 each. All souvenirs at that time were items that represented the actual popular location, and usually were either figures or pictures of famous attractions of that location, and sold to people that visited a location to remind them of their visit. Without realizing it, we started a new industry by selling “T” shirts with printing on them using a silkscreen that had holes throughout them allowing colored ink to pass through them, but only at places that would create a picture on the “T” shirt of the picture that was on the screen. Since I now had friends that were buyers for the F. W. Woolworth Co., and it had Stores in many these same tourists locations, I was able to introduce to Woolworth’s these printed “T” shirt as cheap, colorful souvenirs. It naturally was very successful and put me in better with the company to now sell my plastic flowers in “all” their stores. Their profits were much greater because “T” shirts they normally sold were very cheap, but now, when sold as a souvenir, much more could be charged. After a while, other souvenir companies began doing the same thing, but Goldfarb had the advantage of buying very cheap “T” shirts with the contacts I had set up. However, at the time, we didn’t realize that selling “T” shirts as an everyday items had not been introduced. A large amusement company saw that beside offering “T” shirts as a souvenirs, they could offer them as bright shirts with colorful designs on them. They having the same screening facilities as souvenir companies, started offering them with LOGO’s from from different popular brands. however, now it presented a bigger problem, the companies owning the brands demanded it be stopped. So, again another industry began as the brand companies charging for the use of their brand. Some companies decided to make their own “T” shirt using their brand on them, and why stop there why not use other clothing to create another product. So, the “T” shirt idea that was for souvenirs, now became a design item for clothiers. In the meantime my business was growing and I started going in another direction to Hong Kong,Taiwan, Seoul, Korea, Bangkok Thailand, The Philippines setting up office for my company.

I began by going to Troy, Michigan, to sell the largest flower company in America called FTD and began making holiday accessory products for them. At Valentines Day their largest volume holiday, I designed and made in Hong Kong, “Heart Throbs”, and then at Christmas I came up with “SUGAR PLUMS”., picture below!

Heart Throbs were 16 wires, each with 3 hearts on each them, that were placed into a stem, pictured below, to be able to then be pushed by a florists into a vase, adding fresh flowers placed in between them.The hearts then stuck out around the flowers. This was put into a flower arrangement to sell at Valentines Day

My “Sugar Plums” had Five smaller sugarplums(not as shown in picture below) on a branch that was used in Christmas flower arrangements.
All of a sudden my reputation became known as a source of products, and when other retailers saw that I was supplying F,W,W, with products that they wanted as well, they too came to me for products. So before long I was selling Walmart’s, Montgomery Wards, J.C. Penney and later Home Depot, and then later others, with all my products being shipped from Asia.. So, I was on my way! Please don’t be mad at me for doing business in Asia, cause all the products I made didn’t exist in America. When in the 90’s I saw what was happening to products made here, I formed a Company called “MADE IN THE USA”, business card pictured below. another story will follow about “MADE IN USA”

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You visited where? and need a cheap souvenir to remember your visit?

Goldfarb Novelty Co., was a company bought by Josh Rothstein, after Revlon’s owner, Charles Revson, pushed him out of the company that he and his two partners built from scratch, . It was a artificial flower company called Zunino Altman. Josh and Joe Young  then asked me to leave that company and come to work for them, and get The F.W. Woolworth Co as there customer and naturally I did ASAP! Because besides being my boss, they were my friends.

After a while, working there, I was told by Joe Young to go out on my own and I did and started Sal Bianco Inc, and the beginning of my adventures. I began travelling to the Orient to design and purchased Artificial flowers to sell to retailers, and the F.W.Woolworth’s was my first. It was at this time that I was asked by Joe Young to go TO CEYLON,INDIA  to buy “T”shirts for $0.90/dozen and along with Joe Young at Goldfarb Novelty we began producing souvenir “T” shirts that had the “Logos” of Tourists locations like “The Empire State Building”, “South of the Boarder” and hundreds more . At the time, “T” shirts were only worn as an undergarment, and sold for $0.50 each. All souvenirs at that time were items that represented the actual popular location, and usually were either figures or pictures of famous attractions of that location and sold to people that visited a  locations, to remind them of their travels. Without realizing it, we started a new industry by selling “T” shirts with printing on them using a silkscreen that had holes throughout them allowing colored ink to pass through them only at places that would create a picture on the “T” shirt of the picture that is on the screen. Since I now had friends that were buyers for the F. W. Woolworth Co.. It had Stores, in many these same tourists locations, so, I was able to introduce to Woolworth’s these printed “T” shirt as cheap, colorful souvenirs. It naturally was very successful and put me in better with the company to sell my plastic flowers to all their stores. Their profits were much greater because the “T” shirts normally sold were very cheap, but now when sold as a souvenir, and much more could be charged. after a while, other souvenir companies began doing the same thing, but Goldfarb had the advantage of buying very cheap “T” shirts with the contacts I had set up. However, at the time we didn’t realize that selling “T” shirts as an everyday item had not been introduced. A large amusement company saw that beside offering “T” shirts as a souvenirs, they could offer them as bright shirts with colorful designs on them. They having the same screening facilities a souvenir companies, started offering them with LOGO’s from from different popular brands. however, now it presented a bigger problem, the companies owning the brands demanded it be stopped. So, again another industry began as the brads companies charged for the use of their brand. Some companies decided to make their own “T” shirt using their brand on them, and why stop there why not use other clothing to create another product. So, the “T” shirt idea that was for souvenirs, now became a design item for clothiers. in the meantime my business was growing and I started going in another direction with my company.

Wrestlemania 29 New York New Jersey Empire State Building WWE T-shirt

I began by going to the largest flower company in America called FTD and made holiday accessory products  for them. At Valentines Day I designed and made  in Hong Kong  “Heart Throbs”, and then at Christmas called “SUGAR PLUMS”.

Image result for a picture of sugar plumsHeartTrobs2

All of a sudden my reputation became known a source of products that other retailers saw I was supplying F,W,W, with products they wanted as well, so before long I was selling Montgomery Wards, J.C. Penney and later Home Depot, and others. So, I was on my way! An actual shot of

“Heart Throbs”

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