If a writer is going to write essays, which I try to do sometimes, ideas are needed. In the beginning, these ideas usually take the form of short notes for my files. Later I may turn some of these short notes into essays. On the other hand, many of these notes will not ever become a full essay for one reason or another. That is the risk that essayists have to take.
But that leaves the question about what to do with those notes that are not now envisioned as future essays. The notes seemed important at the time they were written and some still are. Perhaps the solution lies in the creation of a “Bits and Pieces” essay wherein several subjects may be addressed without there being a relationship between the subjects. When a series of comments are made about one subject, there will be an indication that it is finished and a new subject is about to be addressed.
There are several notes for essays in my files which may be worth considering for the “Bits and Pieces” series. Perhaps it is possible that one of these short comments may be turned into a full essay at a later date. I hope so. And so with that sort of equivocating background, let us turn to the first of what may turn out to be an essay on “Bits and Pieces.”
GORGEOUS GLORIA
When it fell to me to report for work in February 1953 to the AT&T Chicago Division Traffic organization, a long time employee mentioned Gorgeous Gloria. It was not clear to me what Gorgeous Gloria was supposed to be. Before long it developed that an operator in her mid-20’s named Gloria Browne was the famous Gorgeous Gloria of all Chicagoland.
When meeting Ms. Browne, it was not clear to me why she was called Gorgeous Gloria. In my humble estimation, Ms. Browne presented an acceptable or a nice appearance, but gorgeous would not ever come to my mind. Harry Livermore, the Chicago Traffic Manager and I roomed together at the Webster Hotel on the Near Northside. My belief is that Mr. Livermore joined me in my assessment of Ms. Browne’s pulchritude or lack thereof.
So the obvious question became why was Ms. Browne called Gorgeous Gloria. As Brother Livermore and I soon found out, Ms. Browne bestowed the title on herself. In conversations, Ms. Browne would refer to herself not as “me” or “I,” but in the third person singular. If she were asked “Where did you buy that blouse?” she would say something like, “Gorgeous Gloria found it at Marshall Fields.” If she were asked “What are you going to eat in the cafeteria?” she may reply that, “Gorgeous Gloria is going to eat a hamburger.”
When I wrote my most recent essay about the lady who responded to some questions by quoting lines from movies and the woman with the most extravagant hairdo’s in all Chicagoland, Gorgeous Gloria slipped my mind for a day or two. So Gloria Browne now becomes the first story in the “Bits and Pieces” series. That fact alone reflects great glory on Gorgeous Gloria.
As far as anyone could tell, Gloria Browne was of sound mind. In the opinion of most men around the Chicago Traffic operation, Gloria vastly overvalued her attractiveness and sex appeal. But what the hell; if Gloria thought of herself as gorgeous, who is to say she is wrong? Not me! And more to the point, who else leads off the “Bits and Pieces” series? Gorgeous Gloria Browne, that’s who.
If I knew where Gloria might be, I’d send her this essay and say it came from a long time admirer. She would probably say Gorgeous Gloria gets hundreds of letters like this from hundreds of secret admirers. So let us start off proceedings in the New Year of 2003, by ordering up a large bottle of expensive French champagne. I suspect that Gorgeous Gloria only drinks expensive bottles of the finest French champagne. That’s what being gorgeous is all about.
ARRIBA COSTA RICA
According to a Hammond Atlas, the airline distance from New York to San José, Costa Rica is about 2200 miles. Leaving the United States going southward, we come to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and then to Costa Rica which is just above Panama and South America. That is quite a distance for a small country with a population of perhaps less than 5,000,000 citizens. In terms of size in square miles, Costa Rica is about 2½ times the size of New Jersey, slightly larger than Denmark and slightly smaller than West Virginia.
The question that comes to my mind is how does this small country produce so many hard workers? The landscaper who takes care of this property has probably 20 full time employees. Without being pushed, he says his worker from Costa Rica is clearly his best.
When the house needed to be painted two or three years ago, a contractor was hired who told me that his workers would provide a first class job and do it with no delay. As it turns out, that contractor hires nothing but Costa Rican painters. Their work was excellent. We couldn’t get them to go home because they worked till darkness set in. When they were also asked to repaint the baseboards in the kitchen, an indoor job, they jumped on it without complaint. Naturally, they worked on Saturdays. When they asked me if they could paint on a Sunday, the question astounded me. They painted till sunset occurred.
All the while the painters were here scrapping and painting, they were a cheerful group of four men. In short, it was a pleasure to have the Costa Rican painters here. Previous painters were often difficult to deal with and certainly did no work on weekends. The Costa Ricans were miles ahead of American painters.
One hot day when the Costa Ricans stopped for lunch, my wife Judy took them a root beer float. Unfortunately, there is no good translation for root beer float from English into Spanish. When the root beer bottle was shown to them, they quickly understood that “beer” meant “cervesa,” but why would this nice lady put ice cream in “cervesa”? Our problem was not helped at all when my Spanish dictionary showed nine definitions of “root.” None the less, the Costa Rica painters consumed the root beer floats and pronounced them “espléndido.” They brought the mugs back to the house and would have washed them if we had let them. These fellows were great emissaries for their country. When it is time to paint again, they will be invited back.
Another example of Costa Rican drive is exhibited by Jenny, a young woman who cleans our house. She is dependable, likable and trustworthy. When she shows up, there is a monstrous flurry of work until she finishes some two and a half or three hours later. The alleged master of the house (me), goes out on the porch or in the back yard till Jenny is finished.
Jenny’s husband drives a truck. They are saving to buy a starter home in a good school district. It is a great pleasure to see a woman like Jenny and her husband planning for their future and future of their two boys. It’s hard work, but Costa Ricans will gladly do it. Whatever they have done to get ahead, it appears to me that they have earned it. And she is still working on her English which is improving rapidly.
It is a pleasure for me to write about people earning and working their way up the ladder of success. It is a source of regret to me that the Costa Ricans’ willingness to work did not come to my attention sooner. But now that it is known to me, I say “Arriba (up, over, above) Costa Rica.”
THE TICONDEROGA SURVIVOR
During the Second World War, one of our adversaries was the Japanese Empire. In the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean, the Japanese Navy tried to sink our ships using submarines and airplanes as well as pounding from battleships. If my memory is correct, they named all their ships with the name “Maru” preceding a second name such as “Fury” or “Cyclone.” “Maru” means “peace” or “peaceful” according to some authoritative sources, but no one has ever identified me as an expert on naval warfare or on the Japanese language. So I have relied on outside experts.
Because the Japanese language was beyond my comprehension some years ago, it has been my fate to rely exclusively for more than 50 years on the services of Lieutenant Harry A. Livermore, Jr. of the United States Navy and a member of the crew of the Aircraft Carrier “Ticonderoga.” Lt. Livermore has explained the strategy for naval warfare so well, that the intricacies of war at sea are now second nature for me. The same goes for the Japanese language.
During the latter stages of the war with Japan, the Japanese military authorities developed a weapon that they thought could turn the tide for them and guarantee victory. That weapon was the Kamikaze aircraft. In many respects it was no different philosophically from the suicide bombers we see today in the Mideast.
The Kamikaze planes were single seat craft and were loaded with explosives and not much gas as it was to be a one way trip. Having a Kamikaze pilot return to his home base would be a dishonor of the highest order. The point of the whole Kamikaze program was to fly the Japanese craft into American ships with the intention of sinking them. Lt. Livermore has explained to me that the Kamikaze program was named by the Japanese as “Divine Wind,” just as their ships were named such things as “Peaceful Fury” or “Peaceful Cyclone.”
Before the Kamikaze pilots took off on their final mission, they were anointed by Shinto priests who bestowed Emperor Hirohito’s blessings upon them. From what has been learned since the war ended, there was a waiting list to sign up for Kamikaze training. Perhaps these people must have thought that Hirohito could get them into the Japanese equivalent of Paradise. Without having contact with the spiritual world, their fate is completely unknown to me. Their fate may be known to
Lt. Livermore, however, but he has been very close mouthed about this question.
The aircraft carrier Ticonderoga was in the far reaches of the Pacific shooting down Japanese airplanes and trying to sink their ships. Unfortunately, on January 21, 1945, off Formosa (now Taiwan), two Kamikaze fighters flew through withering fire from the Ticonderoga and hit it. There was a massive hole in the flight deck and many sailors lost their lives from that attack.
As I have said in some of my essays, war is not a game. People get hurt and some of them die. And most of the dying is done by young men with a whole life ahead of them.
It is my pleasure to report that Lt. Livermore survived the Kamikaze attack and after the Japanese surrender on the Battleship Missouri, he returned to work for the AT&T Company in New York. Now he is retired in Florida. With the North Korean problem coming to the fore, I have asked Mr. Commander in Chief Bush, to restore Harry’s rank and send him to the Korean Peninsula to guide our operations there.
Somewhere around 1951, AT&T sent the former Lt. Livermore to Kansas City. The big bosses at AT&T also decided in 1951 that there was a job for me in Missouri’s westernmost big city. With various moves happening, it took until Mother’s Day in 1952 for me to go to work in the Kansas City Traffic Office with Harry Livermore being the boss of the operation.
To make a long story a little shorter, working for Harry Livermore was a great pleasure for me. He ran a happy Traffic office. There was no carping or back biting. On top of being happy in my work, Kansas City was a good place to live. The people there are genuine and plain spoken. If a person from the Kansas City region makes a promise, you may be sure that he will keep that promise. At least that’s the way it was in the early 1950’s.
But good things come to an end after a while. Somewhere in the Fall of 1952, Harry was promoted to the Division level job as Traffic Manager in Chicago. That was good for Harry, but not so great for the rest of the Kansas City operation.
Within a few weeks on a Sunday morning, Harry came to my house and asked me to come to work for him in Chicago. There was no hemming or hawing. I was ready immediately to leave for Chicago, which happened on February 1, 1953.
One way or another, while searching for a permanent place to live, Harry and I took a two room suite at the Webster Hotel on Lincoln Parkway in the Near Northside of Chicago. We got along very well. Harry did not snore much and he discovered that putting peanuts in the refrigerator made a nice hors D’oeuvre. I reserved an opinion on that subject.
Almost everyone smoked in the 1950’s. In our suite at the Webster Hotel, when the last cigarette was smoked, the packages would be crumpled into a small ball and would become a source of athletic entertainment and achievement. Over our door to the hallway, was a screenless transom which could be opened to varying degrees of wideness. With one person in the bedroom and the other man in the hallway, the balled up cigarette package would be pitched through the transom with the door closed. The fellow receiving the throw would not know when it was thrown or whether it would be to his left or right. The object, of course, was to catch the thrown cigarette package ball. While we were on the honor system about catching the ball, as soon as the ball was pitched through the transom, the pitcher would run for the door and open it to see if the catcher really did catch the ball. When our neighbors alighted from the elevator and occasionally saw our game of pitching the ball through the transom, we were helped by the liberal view of the Chicago Police Department on minor crime. They did not send the paddy wagon for us.
There is one other story on which Harry Livermore considered me as a practitioner of shady play. In this case, the balled up cigarette package was again being used. Our living room at the Webster was quite large probably 12 feet across and perhaps 18 feet long. Harry was sitting on a divan at the far end of the room. Across from him was a window that was opened to a height of two or three inches.
Standing at the entrance to the room some 18 to 20 feet away, I told Brother Livermore that it would be possible for me to pitch the ball out that window. Harry immediately took the bet saying no one could do such an impossible feat. Now remember, my offer was to throw that ball out that window. Nothing was said – at least by me – of the window opening being only two or three inches or of my distance from the window.
With the bet firmly in hand, I simply walked over to the window and opened it to seven or eight inches, and while standing next to the window, the cigarette package ball was thrown out on Lincoln Parkway.
As you might imagine, old Harry screamed bloody murder. Foul play was all Harry could say. It has been 50 years since my triumph of cigarette package ball through an open window in the Webster Hotel. When talking to Harry over all those years, he still accuses me of enticing him into a nefarious betting operation. As always, I claim complete innocence, and rightly so.
It has been my pleasure to know Harry for more than 50 years. We have never had a cross word, if you exclude the cigarette ball out the window episode. Harry originally comes from Nebraska where he was born in 1915. That makes him nearly 70 years of age or thereabouts. I hope he lives to see his 100th birthday. If he does achieve that goal, however, I am absolutely sure that he will still be protesting my brilliant move to throw the cigarette package ball out on Chicago’s Lincoln Parkway.
So this is the first “Bits and Pieces” essay. My hope is that you enjoyed your visit with Gorgeous Gloria and with the hardworking Costa Ricans and finally with Harry Livermore, the Ticonderoga survivor. Writing this inaugural edition of “Bits and Pieces” has been a pleasure for me as it brought back some favorite recollections. And I have finally figured out what to do with the notes that populate my files.
The “Bits and Pieces series may run intermittently for quite a while. It will be fueled by headlines in the newspaper and by quotes from highly placed government officials. But, it is a matter of great dismay to this old essayist that Gorgeous Gloria is no longer a source for future essays. Gloria is well into her retirement years. If I run across her, she will be asked to go to Florida to work her remaining magic on old Harry Livermore. Who knows what might happen. My money is tentatively on Gorgeous Gloria Browne. In racetrack terms, my bookie rates Gorgeous Gloria’s charms at odds of 7-5 or higher. As they say at Hialeah, you can’t cash in a winning ticket unless you bet. So folks, get ’em down early before the first race starts.
E. E. CARR
January 4, 2003
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There are four of these in a row, so buckle up for plenty of mini-essays! I happen to love ’em, myself.  Kinda funny to see Jenny mentioned in this essay, since she went on to be such a big part of my grandparents’ lives. I wonder if this is her first appearance in an essay — with all the chronological messing about that I’ve done on this site, it’s hard to be sure.