Number One

Harold Hardy is his name. We can all remember his name. He, on the other hand... The classic Harold Hardy hail is waving his finger at somebody, saying "Hey, aaaaah..." His default name for anybody is "Number One." At first, co-workers are put off by his apparent disinterest in learning their names. I know I was. The turning point for me was when I worked with Harold and his son, Harold Hardy Junior, at the same time. Harold. would address his own son, who had the same name, given to him by him, waving his finger saying "Hey, aaaaah... Number One!"

I first worked with Harold Senior at the Star Wars installation. Mystic sent in the big guns for a lot of days and nights. Harold was 'Router Man,' when things didn't exactly fit right when the glass cases went together. He is a genius at seeing how a router with a top bearing bit and a stick to run the bearing on can solve any problem. I was in awe. Over the four years we worked on many projects together, and became buddies. Our musical tastes had many overlaps, most notably George Benson and Earth Wind & Fire. I kept his projects better organized "Where's the paper for this cabinet?" he'd ask. I'd rescue it from whatever precarious willy nilly place he'd forgotten and left it - on the floor somewhere or on the saw table or the lunch table - wherever. I used to demonstrate the Harold Hardy method of organization: I'd take the armload of drawings and specifications and just fling them into the air so they landed everywhere. Then I'd pick them up and keep them safe and together.

Our first real collaboration was the New England Sports Network set. We were filling a whole studio with columns, flats, decks, curved steps, frames with fabric stretched across, and a lot of laminate. I had ten years of F/X experience building television news sets, so I was actually more at home than Harold was with this particular kind of construction. By the time we were ready to install it, he was as impressed with my work as I was with his.

If you let him, he'll suck you dry of pencils and cigarettes. You can foil the pencil 'borrowing' by carrying flat carpenter pencils - he doesn't like those. The only way to stem the flow of cigarettes is to run out, or just refuse to give him one. I couldn't do that. I really liked the guy.

I haven't heard anything about Harold since I left Mystic over two years ago. I hope he's still doing well.