One place where, in the course of my career, they took no prisoners was JFK. Although stories abound, and rightly so, about the often downright hilarious responses of the-controller-known-as Kennedy Steve, the rest of the crew often had a far less light-hearted approach to controlling traffic. I would not have wanted to be a pilot whose cradle language was not English on a first trip into JFK!
On another note, you nowadays actually can relive your Controller days, by signing on with an outfit called Pilot Edge, which is a live ATC service to the computer-based flight simulation hobby. The Edge hires real controllers to provide these services, and although there are some elements of the “job” that have been compressed and combined to accommodate the “virtual” aspect of things, it is quite realistic indeed!
Oh - and flying C-141’s? Yeah, me too! Great job while it lasted.