I deplore the name “little people,” but it was bequeathed to us by Leona Helmsley, the wealthy woman who, at the end of her life, controlled the predominant interest in the Helmsley hotel chain and real estate. Throughout her life, Leona made other people as uncomfortable as possible. Upon her death, rather than giving money to old or indigenous people or the sick or the wounded, Leona specified that twelve million dollars should be devoted to the care of her dog. There was a time when Leona had to pay some taxes and complained that taxes are for “little people.”
Throughout my life, such as it is, I have considered myself one of the “little people.” Looking back on my career, I may have been happiest between 1945 and 1951 when I was the union president in St. Louis and a member of the bargaining team that bargained with AT&T. I found that there was a practice of many years standing which required that people in the construction gangs, those at the low end of the pay scale, have $7 a week deducted from their wages, which was known as a “board and lodging equivalent.” When I reached the bargaining table, I demanded to know if company representatives had similar deductions from their vouchers. I knew very well that when executives traveled, they turned in all of their expenses and were fully reimbursed. There was no such thing as a “board and lodging equivalent.” One of my triumphs is that at the end of the 1951 bargaining session, AT&T reluctantly agreed to give up that practice. These were small people in the eyes of the company because they performed work with their hands, as distinguished from those who worked with their minds and heads.
AT&T could not have been really mad at me because at the end of the bargaining session in 1950, the company offered me a promotion to a supervisory job in Kansas City. In the end, four years later I wound up at the same bargaining table that had been used in 1951, on the other side of the fence. I tried to see to it that all of the time I held that job that the “little people” were protected.
And so with that background of my propensity for “little people,” let us proceed. I am now at the end of the 8th decade of my life and my views have not changed about “little people.” For example, on Tuesdays and Fridays, when we go grocery shopping, I find that I am greatly cheered by the “little people” who greet me as I tour the produce and fish departments at the Whole Foods Market. Paul Byfield, Garth and Allrick Simmons, and Owen Gaynor are Jamaicans trying to make it here. The Jamaicans are given to great humor and I thoroughly enjoy them. Then there is Gregorio Russo, an Italian immigrant, as well as a collection of people at the fish counter probably born locally, who also greet me warmly.
There is the case of a restaurant that we regularly use, where the help is all Ecuadorian. Those fellows from Ecuador are very solicitous of me and put horseradish on my oysters and cut up my food so that I can eat it properly. And because of my service with the American military, they always bring one extra desert to be split between myself and my wife.
At the moment, there is a great crisis in the Gulf of Mexico involving a tremendous oil leak. The men who are trying to fix the problem by stuffing mud down it are “little people.” The movers and shakers who conspired as supervisors to shave expenses are, I suppose, the “big people.” Obviously I wish for that hole to be stopped but it will probably come about largely through the efforts of “little people.”
Over the years I have known only two what might be called “big people.” First there is Charlie Brown, who was Chairman of the Board of AT&T, whom I knew earlier in life and then I had the pleasure of introducing him at a retirement party for one of my colleagues. Charlie responded by referring to me as “Fingers” Carr, which was the name of a prominent piano player and entertainer. Charlie Brown was a regular person with no pretense of exclusivity.
I also knew Lou Hagopian who was the head of the NW Ayer advertising agency. Lou and Charlie were “big people” because they never lost their sense of starting as little people. This essay is about those “little people” identified by the dishonorable Leona Helmsley, “The Queen of Mean” as she was called by the New York Daily News. Leona was anything but a “little people” and was widely disliked, I suppose by even her husband. My friend Tallis Leacopolous, whom I grew up with, had a thought for people such as Leona Helmsley. He said that Leona Helmsley’s excrements to her smelled like ice cream. I am not an expert on the subject. But I will tell you this: “little people,” the ones who build the automobiles and dig the graves and shovel snow, are people that I have always admired and want to help.
Well, so much for “little people.” The “little people” of Jamaican origin and of Ecuadorian origin and of Italian origin etc. are the ones who brighten my life in these last years. For brightening my life and giving me a few laughs along the way, I am indebted to them forever.
E. E. CARR
June 1, 2010
Essay 458
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Kevin’s commentary:
Man, I was hoping that this one was going to be about midgets. How does Pop feel about midgets? The world may never know.
In the interim my respect for Pop’s attitude toward the less fortunate is well documented but I can reiterate it here. I think more of the “big” people would be better off if they took a play out of Pop’s book in their interactions with the “little” people in their lives.
My chief takeaway here is that Pop used to be called “Fingers.” I wonder when the last time anyone called him that was?
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Pop’s response:
Hey Kevin,
You inquired about the last time I was introduced to society as “Joe Fingers Carr.” When I reached New York in the 1950’s, there was an orchestra leader who also played the piano called, “Joe Fingers Carr.” He was not a top flight entertainer in the style of Eddy Duchin, but he remained employed as an orchestra leader for perhaps two or three decades. I do not play the piano. Nonetheless, in introductions where I was to speak, Charlie Brown, the Chairman of the Board of AT&T, always worked in a reference to me as “Joe Fingers.” The last time that I was introduced by Charlie Brown as Joe Fingers Carr was at the Nichols retirement party in about February of 1984. I was the Master of Ceremonies at the Nichols’ farewell party.
Charlie Brown was a great and good man who unfortunately came down with Alzheimer’s Disease, probably in the late 1980’s. brown and I seemed to hit it off quite well. He absorbed a fair amount of my needling bullshit, which he returned in kind. I’m glad that I was considered a friend of Charlie Brown. Sometime when you are here Judy will play the DVD of the farewell party for you.
Pop