Okay, story time! This happened when I was in 4th or 5th grade, so this would have been 1982 or 1983 or thereabouts. I had a friend named Steven who lived across the street from a hoity-toity private school. Steven’s father was a police officer in the town where we lived.
One day, I was over at Steven’s house and we were playing—as kids do—across the street in a wooded area that separated the neighborhood from the school. This would probably have been on a Saturday or Sunday because we stumbled across a complete stereo system in the middle of the woods. It was on a rack, like something a teacher would have brought into a classroom. It had a turntable, two very large speakers on the side, an amplifier, and a couple of other pieces like a cassette player. You have to remember that component stereo systems were huge in the ’70s and ’80s.
The Evidence
Seeing this, we went back and told Steven’s dad what we had found. He came out to look at it, and we were looking at a couple of the records that were there. However, what caught my eye was a piece of scrap paper on the top which had somebody’s name written down on it. I didn’t recognize the name but immediately thought that this was a clue to whoever stole it.
By the way, each piece of equipment was marked with “Property of the Hoity-Toity School,” so it being out in the middle of the woods was no accident. I grabbed this piece of paper and told Steven about it. We didn’t tell his father; instead, we decided to figure out who had stolen the stereo equipment and left it in the woods.
The Investigation
While Steven’s father took over moving the stereo system back to his house, Steven and I hopped on our bikes and drove to the Grand Union just down the street. We went into the phone booth and started looking up this name in the phone book for Westchester County. This was a six-inch-thick phone book for everyone from Yonkers all the way up to Pound Ridge, including White Plains.
We couldn’t find the name, so we decided to dial 411 on the payphone. For anyone who doesn’t know, that was the old-school Google. You would get connected to an operator who would ask who you’d like to be connected to. You could give them a last name and a city, and they would give you the number.
We asked for the name, and the woman said, “Give me a moment, let me look this up.” She came back in about a minute and said there was no such listing for a Fogelberg.
“Dan Fogelberg? Would you like me to look up Donald?”
We said sure, and she stepped away for a moment. Meanwhile, Steven and I were anxiously awaiting the identity of the criminal. She came back with a much lighter tone and asked us if this was a joke. We both said no, that we were looking for Dan Fogelberg. She laughed and said, “Well, Dan Fogelberg is not in this area. He’s from California and is a musician.”
The Realization
At that point, we hung up, not realizing who Dan Fogelberg was.
Anyway after having no luck with the 411 operator we went back to Steven’s house and saw that there was a police van in front of his house. And they were taking away the stereo system minus the speakers.
We went into the house and found the speakers in the living room and Steven’s mother told us to stay in the house until the van leaves. Winds up that The speakers that went back with the Hi-Fi set where Steven’s dad’s old speakers. He had switched them and they were already in the van by the time we had gotten there to Steven’s house so we never saw them put in there. We just saw the component and cart being put in.
It wasn’t until I asked my mother if she knew a Dan Fogelberg that she told me, “Yes, he’s the singer of several popular songs on the radio.” 😬
