When it's all been said and done
It was July of 1980 and I had been sleeping soundly when about 11.00 PM one evening the phone rang. The voice at the other end of the line asked, "?Jim, did I wake you?? I, in a somewhat drowsy voice replied, "?No, I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.?
The caller paused a few seconds and then asked, "?Are you busy Jim?? My reply was, "?Tell me what you have in mind.? The caller then went on to tell me that a movie was being shot in the Twin Cities and a movie set was needed. Would I be able to meet the set director in a hotel in Bloomington tomorrow morning? My reply was that it sounded interesting and I would be there.
I used to take my retired Dad with me on interesting jobs so the next morning found us talking to the set director in the lobby of a fancy hotel in Bloomington. The whole production crew was staying in this hotel including the actors and actresses.
I can still remember Dad and I standing in the lobby when this giant of a man walked up to us and extended his hand to us.
In the 70's the defensive center for the L.A. Rams was a man by the name of Roosevelt Grier. Well, here we were talking to Rosy Grier in the flesh and I was thinking, "?I surely wouldn't want to get run over by this guy on the field or off for that matter.?
Rosy was one of the actors in the movie being shot.
After the set director explained what was needed, he took us to the site in Apple Valley, MN where the set was to be built. Before he left us he handed me a fistful of 100 dollar bills and said, "?Get what you need and have the set ready for shooting by sundown three days from now.
Because the Twin City area was an area where a lot of Scandinavian people settled it has a lot of blond and I might add, beautiful girls living there. The prostitution rings on the east coast were picking up the run away girls who were living in and passing through the Twin Cities and taking them back to the East Coast to be used in their evil commerce.
A former Minneapolis policeman by the name of Al Palmquist was the director of Midwest Challenge and he had been having lots of success rescuing these girls and rehabilitating them. The program was so successful that the evil elements had struck back by torching his office in downtown Minneapolis, and this is where I came into the picture.
The movie was to be a documentary of his work and it's success and one of the scenes was a reenactment of the torching of the office building.
I spent the next day buying building materials. The building was to be a brick building so I purchased 4x8 sheets of paneling that looked like brick. I visited a salvage yard where I purchased used windows complete with the curtains and a front door.
One of my men and I went to work the next day building the set and by the evening of the third day we were putting the finishing touches on the set when the production crew rolled in followed by the actors and at last he fire trucks rolled in.
After dark the cameras started to roll and two tough looking characters could be seen sneaking down the sidewalk and stopping in front of the building. One of the goons quickly smashed the front window and climbed in to open the door for the one with the can of gasoline. This also allowed the camera a nice wide view of the action that was to follow.
The two thugs did a thorough job of ransacking the office before pouring gasoline around, sparing nothing; even the couch got a soaking. When their dastardly deeds were complete, they left, but not before one of them threw a match through the open window as they ran down the street.
The film crew shot a few seconds of footage as the building went up in smoke and flames before the fire trucks rolled in and hosed it down.
I was told that by noon the next day everything would be cleaned up and hauled away and one would never know that a building had been on the site.
That incident has provoked a lot of thought over the years. I have thought of how that event so typifies our lives. We put a lifetime of effort and time into building our lives and then in a few seconds it is over and gone. If what we have done with our lives has made no eternal impact or significance in the lives of others, it will have been lived for nothing and in a few short years there will be absolutely no evidence that we ever lived.
SO SAD
It was July of 1980 and I had been sleeping soundly when about 11.00 PM one evening the phone rang. The voice at the other end of the line asked, "?Jim, did I wake you?? I, in a somewhat drowsy voice replied, "?No, I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.?
The caller paused a few seconds and then asked, "?Are you busy Jim?? My reply was, "?Tell me what you have in mind.? The caller then went on to tell me that a movie was being shot in the Twin Cities and a movie set was needed. Would I be able to meet the set director in a hotel in Bloomington tomorrow morning? My reply was that it sounded interesting and I would be there.
I used to take my retired Dad with me on interesting jobs so the next morning found us talking to the set director in the lobby of a fancy hotel in Bloomington. The whole production crew was staying in this hotel including the actors and actresses.
I can still remember Dad and I standing in the lobby when this giant of a man walked up to us and extended his hand to us.
In the 70's the defensive center for the L.A. Rams was a man by the name of Roosevelt Grier. Well, here we were talking to Rosy Grier in the flesh and I was thinking, "?I surely wouldn't want to get run over by this guy on the field or off for that matter.?
Rosy was one of the actors in the movie being shot.
After the set director explained what was needed, he took us to the site in Apple Valley, MN where the set was to be built. Before he left us he handed me a fistful of 100 dollar bills and said, "?Get what you need and have the set ready for shooting by sundown three days from now.
Because the Twin City area was an area where a lot of Scandinavian people settled it has a lot of blond and I might add, beautiful girls living there. The prostitution rings on the east coast were picking up the run away girls who were living in and passing through the Twin Cities and taking them back to the East Coast to be used in their evil commerce.
A former Minneapolis policeman by the name of Al Palmquist was the director of Midwest Challenge and he had been having lots of success rescuing these girls and rehabilitating them. The program was so successful that the evil elements had struck back by torching his office in downtown Minneapolis, and this is where I came into the picture.
The movie was to be a documentary of his work and it's success and one of the scenes was a reenactment of the torching of the office building.
I spent the next day buying building materials. The building was to be a brick building so I purchased 4x8 sheets of paneling that looked like brick. I visited a salvage yard where I purchased used windows complete with the curtains and a front door.
One of my men and I went to work the next day building the set and by the evening of the third day we were putting the finishing touches on the set when the production crew rolled in followed by the actors and at last he fire trucks rolled in.
After dark the cameras started to roll and two tough looking characters could be seen sneaking down the sidewalk and stopping in front of the building. One of the goons quickly smashed the front window and climbed in to open the door for the one with the can of gasoline. This also allowed the camera a nice wide view of the action that was to follow.
The two thugs did a thorough job of ransacking the office before pouring gasoline around, sparing nothing; even the couch got a soaking. When their dastardly deeds were complete, they left, but not before one of them threw a match through the open window as they ran down the street.
The film crew shot a few seconds of footage as the building went up in smoke and flames before the fire trucks rolled in and hosed it down.
I was told that by noon the next day everything would be cleaned up and hauled away and one would never know that a building had been on the site.
That incident has provoked a lot of thought over the years. I have thought of how that event so typifies our lives. We put a lifetime of effort and time into building our lives and then in a few seconds it is over and gone. If what we have done with our lives has made no eternal impact or significance in the lives of others, it will have been lived for nothing and in a few short years there will be absolutely no evidence that we ever lived.
SO SAD
posted by Jim Burton at 7:48 AM
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