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FRIDAY NIGHT FOLLIES
On Friday evening, the 13th of February, 2004, after all the press corps had left the White House Press Room, there appeared as if by magic, a two inch pile of paper having to do with Boy George and his lack of service in the Texas Air National Guard. The Friday in question was the…
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK PART 8 – GEORGE FEYER – ONE OF THE GREAT ONES
In the international telephone business in the 1970’s and 1980’s, it was a delight to visit correspondents in Montreal, London, Paris, Rome and even Johannesburg. Those were the easy ones with good airline connections, good hotels and food to please any palate. Among the tough ones were countries in Africa and the eastern European states…
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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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OUR PAL – SHANNON P. CATT
Writing essays is often hard work mentally for me. But all things taken together, it is pleasant work, particularly when the essays are completed. In recent months, I have been writing essays about politicians. That is sordid business. So now I am going to give myself a treat by writing about people I like, including…
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ASHCROFT ENDORSES CRISCO, LILLIE CARR AND JACOB’S LADDER
No essay on Bush would be complete unless it included a thought or two about the Assemblies of God follower in Bush’s cabinet, John Ashcroft. He believes that God’s hand is on his shoulder in every move he makes. Ashcroft – The Ultimate Embarrassment John Ashcroft, Bush’s selection for the United States Attorney General, comes…
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YASSER’S LOVE LIFE
Preamble I offer you this three part preamble to set the record straight and to prepare you for my thoughts on Yasser Arafat’s love life. Writing about this subject comes naturally. My first name is Ezra who is generally described as the scribe of Jerusalem in what the Christians call the Old Testament. (See 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 2 – THE MAN WITH A COMB
In Part I of this series of stories about people I knew after coming to New York City, I told you about my friend Bob Creasey who never saw a steak that he could resist. You may recall that lots of those nearly raw pieces of steer meat were consumed at the old time saloon…
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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…
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LILA
AT&T Long Lines had its headquarters at 32 Sixth Avenue in New York City. At its peak, that building housed about 10,000 employees with telephone operators accounting for about 80% of that total. Because the operators and the telephone craftsmen worked around the clock, the Company provided two cafeterias and one dining room. The dining…