This is a seldom told story of mistaken identities, a nervous decorator, a Polish waitress, a Florida bon vivant and telling the time of day. That is quite of bit of ground to cover but with the help of my long time friend, Charlie Miller, I think we do it with ease.
During the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, I was the Labor Relations Manager for AT&T Long Lines. Several times each year, I would be asked to discuss labor matters at various locations in Long Lines. There were, as I recall it, about 400 locations where Long Lines had installations. I didn’t get to all 400 locations, but I was able to talk to a lot of people as area, division and district managers would call people in to hear what I had to say and to ask questions.
Neal Wade was the Division Plant Manager in Springfield, Massachusetts. He had districts in Albany, Boston, West Haven, Connecticut and perhaps one or two more locations. Charlie Miller was the district manager at West Haven, and so I met Dr. Miller for the first time in a meeting called by Neal Wade in maybe 1958 or thereabouts.
Unfortunately, the night before our meeting, a Texas Tower off of Long Island had collapsed. There were injuries and I believe loss of life in that accident. You may recall that in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the Soviet Union was perceived as a security threat to the United States. About three or four Texas Towers were built on the East Coast to give United States inhabitants early warning of attack. The one located several miles off the tip of Long Island was the first casualty. Not long afterward, all the Texas Tower locations were abandoned. In any event, the collapse of the Long Island Texas Tower threw a pall over the meeting called by Neal Wade, and I really had no chance to get to know Charlie Miller on that occasion.
AT&T and Long Lines moved many people around the country in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Buying a house in that climate meant risking a big loss in the event of a transfer. So most of us rented. In many cases, rent was the only way to go as homes in the New York and Chicago markets, for example, were priced beyond the reach of telephone workers, particularly when there was a chance of loosing your equity in a house in event of a transfer.
So Brother Miller and I shook hands at Neal Wade’s meeting and each of us set out to put in time at various AT&T and Long Lines locations across the country. I lost track of Charlie but I had heard he was at Scott Field in Illinois, but I did not know why.
Things changed for the better in 1969 when I was transferred from Washington back to New York. Both of us were Directors at the time with Charlie having one of the Marketing organizations and I became the General Sales Manager. Our offices were located next to each other on the 25th floor of the Long Lines headquarters building at 32 Sixth Avenue in New York City.
Having offices next to each other did not add to the tranquility of several people because those folks say that we looked alike. Charlie at that time, was a handsome dude standing perhaps 6’-3” to 6’-4” and weighing what a well conditioned full back should weigh. His head sported a sparse amount of hair. When Charlie walked, you could tell that he was no toe dancer. Now at that time, I was not as handsome, I only reached to six feet and I weighed what an out of shape half back or line backer weighed. And I probably had less hair on my head than Charlie. When I walked, far from being a toe dancer, some people said I resembled an elegant Missouri farmer stepping over three rows of corn.
When people saw us together, they usually could make the distinction between the two of us. Apart, that is where the tranquility of some people took a beating. Charlie and I agreed on a code. If someone misidentified either one of us, we would never straighten him or her out. That would be a deliberate violation of the code, so whatever name a person used in addressing us, became our name with no correction.
So here is a case in point. Mary Yoshida was the official decorator for Long Lines. She was not Japanese at all; she had married a fellow who was of Japanese ancestry. Mary seemed never on firm footing when dealing with male clients. She was given to self doubts and hand wringing. She was a lovely person but to male clients she talked in terms of that color needs some more sand rose or this place doesn’t really welcome you because the colors clash. Or the carpet is not in harmony with the walls. Most men care very little about such things, but Mary agonized over them.
So it was decided by some other authority that the Directors offices were to be refurbished and painted. We were to have draperies which was a new innovation. Draperies were a major expense. The 32 Sixth Avenue building was constructed mainly as a telephone equipment installation. The ceilings were perhaps 10 to 12 feet high. The double hung windows were at least six feet in length and the ledge under the windows started at waist high levels. So the draperies started at the top of the windows and dropped down to the ledge underneath the windows.
My office was done first. I was out of town when Mary was having my place done. When it was finished, Mary moved over to perform her decorating magic on Charlie Miller’s office. With me being temporarily gone from New York, Charlie moved over to my place and operated from there for a few days. The identification outside my office still said Mr. Carr.
So one day while Charlie was sitting at my desk, Mary came up to look at the completed office. She noticed the Carr sign outside the office and asked if she could come in. So Mary said to Charlie, thinking it was Carr, “How do you like your redecorated office? Isn’t it nice?” So Charlie said, “I don’t think so.” Then Mary asked about the draperies. Charlie said the draperies stunk. Mary fled from the scene wringing her hands. Charlie never straightened Mary out about him sitting in my place, and he didn’t tell me.
In a few days, I came back and occupied my regular quarters. With great trepidation, Mary came in to inquire about my objections to her decorating work. I told her it looked fine to me. Then she plaintively asked about my complaint about the draperies. I told Mary I had no complaint and that the draperies were fine. Mary looked at the sign outside my office and it still said Carr. Mary withdrew from my office as quickly as she could. I couldn’t figure out why she asked about the decorations and the draperies. I suppose Mary went back of her office and called for cold compresses and in the process, she assumed that I was insane. Miller didn’t tell me what happened for perhaps a week. But he didn’t break the code.
Now about the bon vivant from Florida. Cal Tuggle was a very likable, story telling Southerner. He had known Charlie Miller for a long time. At the time of this incident, Cal was working at 195 Broadway. I was leaving Stamm’s bookstore which was located in an annex to 195 Broadway. As I walked out on Fulton Street, Cal was walking toward me. I knew who Cal was although we had never worked together nor had we attended conferences together. Cal did know Charlie Miller. Cal stepped right up with a cheerful grin and said, “Good Morning Charlie”. I said, “Cal, how are you?” And then Cal told me how he was. So after a little more chit chat, I said, “Nice to see you, Cal” and Cal replied, “It’s good to see you again, Charlie”.
A few years later, Cal came to work with me in the Overseas Department. I never mentioned the incident on Fulton Street which would be breaking the code. A little later, Cal, Howard Pappert and I were in Kuwait City where there had been a public hanging at the time we were to arrive at our hotel. The execution took place a block or so away from the Hilton, our hotel.
The English language paper in Kuwait City is normally a six page publication. For the execution, the paper expanded to eight pages. In the expanded edition, the paper covered the exploits of the Kuwaiti football (soccer) team and the report wound up just after the story of the execution. For some time after that trip, old Cal loved to tell the story of how the Kuwaitis reported the hanging as a sporting event. Even then, I never broke the Miller-Carr code by telling Cal that he had the wrong man back on Fulton Street.
Now we come to two ceremonial occasions. In 1971 I was honored for completing 30 years with AT&T. This was not a big deal. Anniversaries were commonplace. In this case, Dick Nichols the Vice President of Marketing had a conference dinner and after it was about finished he handed me a fine wrist watch. That was a standard gift from AT&T. I had at least one other wristwatch from my 25th Anniversary so I could wear one on each wrist.
Now the fact of the matter is that I only use watches when I travel and the watches are carried in my pocket, never on my wrist. During the war, the army gave me a wrist watch with a sweep second hand so that airplane fuel transfers from one tank to another could be timed. In November, 1945 when I made it clear that I had no intention to re-enlist, the Army asked for its watch back. That was fine by me as I had no use for it.
I got along fine using wall clocks and sneaking peaks at other people’s watches. In any case, in all these years from 1945 to 1971, I never missed a meeting or an airplane. But I did have the watch I carried in a pocket when I traveled where I might not be able to find a wall clock or someone else’s wristwatch.
So when my new Girard Perregaux watch was given to me in 1971, Dr. Miller was well aware of my habits. As part of the ceremony, Charlie presented me with my own copy of “Ant and Bee Time” by Angela Banner. This book explains to children how time is told. In presenting this rare volume, Charlie wrote:

E. Carr
This was exhumed from a pile of books during some remodeling work at home. My kinder can now tell time with reasonable facility and hence do not need to refer to Ant and Bee. However I’m told you still carry your watch – hidden – which means you still are unable to tell time. Use it in good health.
C. H. M.

A true copy of these documents is attached. I read “Ant and Bee Time” several times until I attained a small degree of competence with telling time. Nonetheless, I still have the Girard Perregeaux watch which runs perfectly as long as I carry it in my pocket when I am on the road. Now a secret. That watch has a magnificent band – which won’t go completely around my wrist. But that matters not at all. I still carry it in a pocket.
Now a few more words about the watch and the pocket I carried it in. Perhaps I was influenced by my father, but I doubt it. As a young man, my father worked for the Illinois Central Railroad as a fireman working mainly from the Kankakee, Illinois division point. Every railroad man carried a watch. In my father’s case, it was a 21 jewel Illinois pocket watch. In work clothes, every man carried their watches in the watch pocket of their trousers. These days, watch pockets seem to have disappeared. For the uninitiated, the watch pocket was located at the belt line on the right side of the trousers. On Sundays, my father carried his watch in a vest pocket accompanied by a gold chain across the chest and a fob.
The old man was death on wrist watches. For girls, wrist watches might be grudgingly accepted. But for men, a wrist watch would be a sign of effeminate behavior. If there was anything old Ezra was not, effeminate behavior was it.
My parents used to attend Pentecostal and Nazarene churches that barely stop short of snake handling. The preachers at those churches used to rail against women with – as they called it – bobbed hair, and lipstick and high heels. They claimed that all these things were forbidden by Scripture. I suspect that, with no trouble, I could find some preachers who would contend that wristwatches were contrary to scripture teachings. I didn’t think of this thought back in 1971 when Miller was nagging me about using my pocket to carry my wrist watch. But now, I want to tell Dr. Miller that my method of carrying my watch was in accord with the teachings of the Bible, both in the New and the Old Testaments.
There is one other case where as Master of Ceremonies, I led the shouts of “Charlie Who?” Somewhere along the line, Charlie was asked to take the top marketing job in the Eastern Area at White Plains. That was Charlie Miller. At about the same time, headquarters advertising appointed a new director named Charlie Mitchell. Two different Charlies.
The Eastern Area had a newspaper for employees. The naming of a new Marketing Director was big news. Somehow, the editors wrote a story about the new Director – saying it was Charlie Mitchell instead of Charlie Miller – which was a colossal mistake. For Charlie Miller’s farewell, Wes Laugel produced a dozen question marks, each one being three feet tall. So as each of Charlie Miller’s accomplishments was noted, a new question mark was introduced together with the shouts of “Charlie Who?” To the best of my knowledge, the editors of the Eastern Area newspaper did not put out a revised issue. So I suppose instead of being mistaken for me, old Charlie Miller was now confused with Charlie Mitchell.
There is another story to be told of misidentifying Charlie and me. In the seventh floor dining room, there was a large table in the corner that could seat perhaps twelve people. As the earlier arrivals finished eating, new people would sit down so over a two hour period from 12 noon to two in the afternoon, the waitress would serve many customers.
I have developed a vapor lock in my brain as I can’t recall the name of the waitress. Perhaps it was rendered as Freda in English. In any case, she came to this country from Poland and spoke English surprisingly well. But most of all, Freda was a good waitress who followed orders.
I didn’t always eat at the table in the corner preferring to go to the Franklin Coffee Shop. When Charlie was in town, he must have eaten at Freda’s table every day. Unbeknownst to me, Mr. Miller decided to go on a diet. He was to have half a grapefruit without sugar, a piece of white toast without butter and black coffee without cream or sugar. He was so intent on making his new diet work that he informed Ann Bristow the Manager of the Dining Room and Freda, that if he ordered something other than the three things his diet called for, they were not to serve it. So Brother Miller had his new diet – but while he told the people in the Dining Room, he did not tell me.
Miller was out of town. It was raining so I went to the Dining Room on the seventh floor. There was a wire rack in the center of this large table to hold menus. So I wandered in and sat down at Freda’s table and started to read the menu. While I was reading the menu, Freda placed a grapefruit half in front of me and moved the sugar out of my reach. When I could catch Freda’s eye, I told her that I had not ordered grapefruit.
As I said before, Freda was very strict in following orders. She said to me that I had better get started on the grapefruit because my butterless toast was on the way. When the toast was served, Freda proudly poured black coffee. She reminded me that there would be no cream or sugar for the coffee. When I mumbled something about a tuna sandwich, Freda said, “Mr. Miller, that’s all you are getting.” Finally, a light bulb went on. She thought I was Charlie Miller. So I paid the check and was quiet but the next day, I went to the famous Franklin Street Coffee Shop where a man could get a proper tuna sandwich.
In a day or so, Charlie returned to the office and both of us repaired to the dining room for lunch. This time, Freda guessed right and gave Charlie his diet lunch. As we left the dining room, I mentioned to Charlie that a day or two earlier, I had eaten his lunch. When he figured out what happened, old Charlie doubled over with laughter. That was before we had Polish jokes, but in this instance the joke was on me.
I last saw Charlie at Frank Tuttle’s farewell party when Frank retired. Charlie had lost a lot of weight and presented a handsome figure. That’s all well and good, but his new reduced weight didn’t help his noggin. It was about as sparse as usual.
There is one other story of misidentification. Our boss, Dick Nichols, the Vice President of Marketing apparently told me to do something. I have long since forgotten what that something was. In any case, Dick Nichols waited until he thought that whatever he wanted was about to be forgotten. He then politely growled at Charlie. Charlie listened to Dick and then he came to tell me to get on my horse. He never explained to Dick Nichols that he had the wrong guy. That would be breaking the code.
I hope that you can tell that Charlie Miller and I were good friends. In all the years I knew him, he never tried to take advantage of anyone else. He was and is a very intelligent man. People instinctively like him. And so after all these years and in spite of the mistaken identities, I’m still delighted to call Charlie Miller a first class friend. But he is still a lousy toe dancer.
E. E. CARR
September 14, 2001
PS: After a lapse of at least 14 years, I spoke to Professor Miller on September 17 on the phone. He still laughs just like he used to and has the same happy outlook on life.
On the same day, I spoke also with Cal Tuggle to get him to release the copyrights on his life story. He wants a cut from the vast proceeds of this essay. As always when I called, Cal asked whether I was out of jail now. I told Cal that my sentence had been computed or commuted. I get big words like that mixed up. Whatever.
~~~
This is one of the essays that I can definitely remember reading in hardcopy as a kid. I’m sure it was much later than 2001, but I think I got a big stack of essays in 2004 or so that I sat down and read all at once, and this one stood out to me for the grapefruit story in particular. Anyway, both then and now I found it fun that he had a friend who would go along with that particular charade with him.
Also kind of funny that this essays are in a position where they actually could be monetized, in relation to the postscript where pop was definitely joking. Of course I have no intention to ever sell ads on this site, and do not plan on ever getting any sort of page volume, but it’s a little silly nonetheless.