By Ed Lowe
How do you find your stories? Any way you can imagine. Sometimes, they find me.
Central Islip Alternative High School Principal Star Wahnon wanted to tell me a story for more than 15 years but never
made the call, wrote the note, or, in recent years, e-wrote the e-mail.
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Last year, after telling her story to yet another Long Islander who responded: “Oh, Ed Lowe would love that story,” she
wrote the tale and slipped the note pages into her pocketbook, vowing to make the call one day, someday.
Late last month, my mother tried to call my son, Jed, to wish him a happy 24th birthday. She had written his cell phone number in her personal telephone directory, but she also had written his old cell phone number in an older directory.
I have since concluded that she consulted her older directory, found Jed’s former cell phone number, dialed it, but then mistakenly transposed two of the last four digits of that number.
Despite the seasonal blossoms’ bubbling effects on her 85-year-old vocal cords, she’d intended to sing to him—not
the “Happy Birthday” song, but the opening lines of a Charles Trenet tune, recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1964: “I
wish you bluebirds in the spring/To give your heart a song to sing/And then a kiss, but more than this/I wish you love.”
Jed, of course, didn’t answer the wrong number of the phone he no longer carried. A mechanized voice directed Grandma Doe to leave a message. She dropped the song idea and said, “Hiya, honey. It’s me, Grandma Doe [as if he wouldn’t immediately have recognized her. She ends all her messages on my answering device with, ‘Love, Mom.’].”
Grandma Doe left a long, endearing message about how much she loved Jed and how fervently she wished he was having a great birthday. No doubt she ended her message with either, “Love, Grandma” or, “Love, me.”
The next day, she received a call from a person who said, “You’ve got to be the coolest grandma around. I wish more kids had a grandma like you.”
“Who is this?” asked Grandma Doe.
“I got wished a happy birthday yesterday, but I knew right away it wasn’t for me. You tell Jed, or Jeb, that he’s a very
lucky young man.”
“Oh, my God. I can’t believe I did this. I’m so glad I didn’t sing. I was going to sing to him, and my voice is all scratchy.”
Incredibly—though, maybe not— they chatted for 30 minutes or longer. The woman said her name was Star and that she was a school principal in Central Islip. Grandma Doe said, “My mother always used to say to me, ‘If you don’t
keep your mouth shut, you’re going to wind up in Central Islip’ [State Psychiatric Hospital].”
Somehow, Star decided to tell her 15-year-old story to Grandma Doe. She said that she and her husband, Bob, were living in a tiny cottage off Phyllis Drive, in Patchogue, just south of Sunrise Highway. Star was an English teacher at
the time at Central Islip Middle School, which, as a Bronx native whose family moved out to C.I. when she was 5, she
had attended.
One morning, her husband left for work early and noticed, first, that Star’s car was nowhere to be seen, and, second,
that Star’s pocketbook, which he had last seen on the kitchen table, was in his car, its contents strewn about the front seat. He returned to the house and said, “Your car is gone.”
Rattled, the couple decided to take the day off. They visited the 6th Precinct to report the theft and then called a close
family friend, Paul, who lived in the area, and told him of the theft.
At 10 a.m., they received a call from a manager of a women’s clothing store on the north side of Sunrise Highway. A clerk had become suspicious when a young man of about 18 had tried to use Star’s credit card, claiming it was his aunt’s. When asked to prove his identity, he had bolted, driving away in a black Plymouth Turismo.
“That was my car,” Star said.
Later that day, Star told Grandma Doe, their friend Paul telephoned, saying excitedly, “Star! Star! I’m on Route 112 near Horseblock Road in Medford. I’m looking at your car. It’s across the street, near a beauty salon. I’ve called the police. I’m just waiting.” Paul, a Cablevision worker, said he was going to hide in the woods, “…in case the guy tries to leave.”
Police officers arrived, followed shortly thereafter by their sergeant. The young man insisted that the car was his aunt’s
and that he merely had borrowed it. Paul interrupted, yelling, “That’s not true! That’s my friend’s car! It was stolen from in front of her house this morning.”
“Calm down,” said Sgt. Vinnie DiResta. “Are you the guy who called us on this?” Paul answered that he was and
repeated: “That’s my friend’s car. Her
name is Star.”
DiResta looked at him. “Star Wahnon?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Paul, dumbfounded. “You know Star?”
“I went all through school with her, in Central Islip.”
Police arrested the young man. They later learned that he was a drug addict, who lived in the bathroom of an abandoned Texaco station on Sunrise Highway.
When Star had finished her tale, Grandma Doe said, “My son would love that story. You really should tell him. If you’re a teacher, you may have met my son. He makes speeches to teachers a lot.”
“Really? Who’s your son?”
Hee hee.
