Thanksgiving Weekend Throwback: Black Wednesday on Two Tires And Alan Zuckerman’s First Brush With Google
Alan Zuckerman, 26, headed out on Black Wednesday to the Cherry Red nightclub in Chicago. Before that, he stopped at a bar in Lincoln Park, where he jumped into an unexpected rap battle and earned enough cheers to carry the energy into the night. He limited his alcohol intake because he’d be driving his friends home to the northern suburbs, so he stuck to a couple of Red Bulls to keep his nerves sharp.
Later that night, driving through falling snow with a few friends in the car, Alan approached a three‑car collision. All three vehicles were lined up perpendicular to his lane when they ricocheted from impact, sliding, spinning, and creating a chaotic wall of metal across the roadway. Alan had almost no room to escape only a sliver of the left lane and the median. But being Coach Mark Zuckerman’s son, and having learned to drive when he was twelve, he reacted instantly. He drifted left, rode the median on two tires, spun around, and slipped past the wreck unscathed, emerging on the other side in disbelief.
In that moment, Alan felt a surge of thankfulness that stayed with him for years a deep understanding that life can change, or even end, in the blink of an eye. Surviving untouched wasn’t luck; it was life reminding him how fragile everything is, and how important it is to cherish every moment, every person, every breath of the ordinary days we take for granted.
After the near miss, Alan’s friend a resourceful engineering student tied down the damaged hood with a shoelace. With the car secured, they survived Black Wednesday and headed to Denny’s, where Coach Mark Zuckerman of the Sullivan Tigers delivered a stern, fatherly talking‑to. That conversation set several next steps in motion with local businesses Alan knew could repair the damage at fair, friendly rates.
As Alan tunes in to watch his alma mater, the Fighting Illini, take on Northwestern, another Thanksgiving memory surfaces. He’s suddenly back on Green Street in Champaign, hosting an overeducated and charmingly blunt Northwestern student from Long Island he took to a pledge dance. After a lively night out, she woke up, stretched, and said, “Last night was fun, but I’m not going to Murphy’s or Damon’s with you to watch sports teams. Can’t you just Google a Thai place?”
Alan perked up. Google? Months earlier, he’d been paid by a marketing firm to test search engines like Ask Jeeves, HotBot, Excite, Lycos, Dogpile, and Yahoo, all while sitting in his Champaign apartment listening to the glorious static‑scream handshake of a 56K modem. He thought he knew the entire search landscape until that off‑hand remark introduced him to something he hadn’t tried yet. It sparked the first flicker of excitement about where the internet was headed.
Not long after, living in the Sherman Brothers building at 1084 N. Milwaukee, Alan shared the space with a roommate who caused endless plumbing disasters, thanks to excessive toilet‑paper usage. After one memorable flood, Alan had to use his phone to track down a plumber immediately. That frantic, late‑night search drove home the real‑world power of finding information quickly reinforcing his growing interest in Google.
Those early memories ended up shaping Alan’s path. He moved to Chicago, began selling Google Ads, and ultimately managed national teams. Today, he’s deeply proud of both his Cleveland‑based PPC team and his high‑performing St. Petersburg SEO group.
Their work can be viewed here:
PPC: https://www.yourownadstore.com/all-google-ad-campaigns
SEO: https://www.yourownadstore.com/all-seo-campaigns
These solutions are available at https://www.yourownadstore.com/store, and soon newly recruited DMCs will be rolling them out to businesses nationwide.
Alan is thankful for these valuable life lessons about driving and search engines.
Whether you like driving cars or driving traffic to your website, Alan will always be there with some very interesting stories and advice on both topics.
Happy Thanksgiving.