Central to the anecdotes which follow is the character of the most remarkable man I ever met. George W. Rhine gave me my first job out of college. But his lack of acumen in hiring was not what distinguished George Rhine. What distinguished him was traditional American earthiness and native wit - already on the wane in the America of the 1950's...

    Further, George, having then only lately moved to Southern New England, was rather a fish out of water (as they say), though perhaps depending on what region of our country you hail from yourself, your choice of metaphor might more nearly incline to a wolf in the fold or a fox in the henhouse. For he and his son Chuck, and wife, Ruthie, without prior approval or notice, had moved to upscale Fairfield County, Connecticut from their native haunts along the Mississippi bottomlands. Here, both as individuals and as a loose-knit family unit, they had lived by their collective wits at just about every con, craft, trade, industry, and business known to man. George's world embraced the prairie lands of the pre-World War I Midwest and the river towns of "K.C." and St. Louis during and before the Great Depression, the rise of radio and special-interest magazines, the passing of the isolated American farmer, and the coming - and going - of World War II. Along the way George played through the Seats-of-Power in Washington, D.C. - leaving behind a bewildered but entertained constituency...

    This was another America, another Time.

    How he fared among his largely unprepared Northeastern fellows in his later years and how our paths entwined and the many adventures and lessons in Life I had at his side (both standing and on the run) constitute the moral of these tales - if "moral" there be... As the do-gooders amongst us never tire of reminding us, our Nation has moved on to "quieter, gentler" ways now, and many of the practices and events related herein would likely warrant jail sentences in these latter days, I suppose. However offensive these chronicles might seem to children of the New Age, it is hoped that their retelling might yet entertain their elders..

 
Bernie Powell
North Miami Beach
July 1996
 
 

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