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EATING HEELS
This is a story about eating. Specifically, it has to do with eating in old fashioned saloons. The eating I refer to took place in St. Louis which used to offer perhaps a dozen breweries and hundreds of saloons. It has nothing to do with heels on shoes or boots, although St. Louis was also…
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CHARLIE BROWN
Charlie Brown died this week. Death came Charlie’s way on November 12, 2003. He was 82 years of age. In proper terms, Charlie was Charles Lee Brown, the former Chairman of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Charlie worked for AT&T and its Bell System companies from 1946 until his retirement in 1986, a forty…
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WE HAVE A BOY
[Editor’s note: The NY NY series will end with part 12 tomorrow. It’s even longer than the Moscow one, and I’m a little pressed for time tonight, so we’re doing this instead and switching it later] I can’t ever remember having delusions of grandeur. If I had, my mother or my siblings – all older…
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK PART 6 – L’AIGLON AND VOGA E VA | TWO GREAT ITALIAN ARTISTS
In the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament, there are two biblical injunctions or commands to “make a joyful noise.” If you are skilled at reading Roman numerals, you can look them up yourself to make sure that I know what I am talking about. One comes from Psalms, Chapter LXVI, verse one and…
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK PART 5 – “SORER THAN A BOILED OWL”
In Part 4 of this New York series, I dealt with a Personnel Vice President of AT&T who earned my complete disrespect and anger over a period of five years. Now that we are free of Jack Marsh, we can return to some men who had my respect and admiration. In this section of the…
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK PART 4 – IS JACK MARSH A SPHERICAL OR A MISERABLE S. O. B?
In the fall of 1942, the Army Air Corps decided that 100 soldiers should attend an Aerial Engineers School at the Embry-Riddle School of Aeronautics in Coral Gables, Florida. Two thoughts come to mind. In 1942, there was no separate air force in the U. S. military; the Army had the Air Corps and that…
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK PART 3 – A MAN NAMED BEVERLY
In my long experience, I have only heard of two male Beverly’s. Where I come from, Beverly was usually a female name. The other person, aside from the subject of this essay, was a baritone who seems to have devoted his life to Billy Graham. His name is George Beverly Shea. I am not a…
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HARD BOILED EGGS
This is a morality story about people I knew when I was President of the Federation of Long Lines Telephone Workers (Local #5) in St. Louis. Among other things, my job was to present grievances to the Company on behalf of the workers. At its peak, there were perhaps 800 to 1000 members of Local…
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MISTAKEN IDENTITIES
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…