Back before the ’70s, illegal gambling arrests in Hudson County rarely resulted in incarceration. With Judge Lerner’s arrival on Newark Avenue, that all changed quite abruptly. One courtroom observer related nearly falling on the floor one day when Lerner told an octogenarian “You need a shock!” before sending the old guy off to jail.
The wife half of a husband and wife bookie team put out of business tried a novel tactic to avoid winding up behind bars in this new era of interesting times . She checked into the Psych. ward of St. Francis Hospital with various vague symptoms. Nurses told of the Mrs. lounging about the floor attired in fine gowns and robes. She was conversing one day with another quite obviously pregnant patient and asked what the father did for a living.
“Are you a Christian?”
“Yeah?”
“you know about Mary?”
“Yeah?”
“Well that’s how it was with me.”
Mrs. 5$-Straight suddenly decided that the County lockup didn’t seem all that bad after all. Saying that all mental clouds had lifted, she made a speedy exit from the mental illness experience.
# # #
In those pre-HIPAA days, it was common for the nurses to tell one and all of goings on in the hospital. Upon hearing of a famous Rock musician visiting his father in the Psych Ward, I — as nephew of a LCN Associate — had to say that this should not be talked about. The reply was “Why not?”
Insurance in those days only paid for hospitalization for a single disorder that hadn’t been discussed in my Psychology 101. (Something Reactive?) As luck would have it, each and every patient was admitted as diagnosed as being in that category.
