BILL DAVIS WAS A LUSH. (Nothing rare about that in agency land). He was also a pimp. (Still not all that rare...). He was a Princeton graduate (quite rare!), and came from a wealthy New Jersey family. He had been a Colonel or better in the Army (he was a few years older than I). He was a big, florid sort of guy and wore a cashmere overcoat with velvet lapels which he was always caressing and smoothing down. That is, whenever he was around, he did: mostly Bill was just plain "missing" most of the time. But in a business where all are more or less "on their own" and clock-punching is unknown this did not attract too much attention.

At least at first.

I was his secret weapon and the Savior of His Goose from Day One - but I did not know that. You see, Bill was "head" of our little group: he, myself and Nancy (more anon). Bill and I worked next under Al O'Brian, a kind of skin-and-bones nerd, head of the PR Dept., who spent most of his time at the new York Racquet Club stopping fast balls off the backdrop with his head. Since he was Irish, this discomfited him very little. He always looked like second best in a barroom fight however, and his glasses were taped and re-taped together in the most amazing way to hold lenses and wire frames all of one piece.

Our "group" however had one of the cushiest accounts in the house: several divisions of the old Union Carbide Corporation - whose offices lay just up Park Avenue a block or so away. I fit right in from the start. First, they were mostly Irish at UCC. Secondly, they loved what I wrote and how I caught on fast to whatever aspect of their chemicals they were pushing to their buyers. I had the Flurocarbon Account - you know, the refrigerants and aerosol gases that were later identified as "destroying the Earth's ozone layer." But back then it was full bore and high on the hog. As a consequence, I had to get one of their top customers Stalfort, of Towson, MD, in the mags all the time (they "loaded" Noxzema Shave which may make it all more real for some of you) - and do their company newspaper all in the same assignment. Soon I was going down to Baltimore every few weeks - and I got in tight with a bunch of old newspaper characters from the "Baltimore Sun" staff - who introduced me to snapper turtle soup and other "Bay" delights of Edgar Allen Poe's city...

In no time, I had "taken over" really the bulk of Bill's work - since he didn't really know squat about interviewing and writing stories and releases - and most important of all - getting them "into ink" on the other end. In his eyes, I could do no wrong. This, in turn, left him more time for his whoring around and the incredible stable of call girls he was building as a side adjunct to having your account in our agency. What a piece of work he was!

He never checked anything I did or told me how or what to do. Fortunately, I am a self-starter. With Nancy I soon had our department humming. Nancy was from North Carolina with a drawl so thick you couldn't cut it. I had written - and got approval - for one of my first News Releases. I asked Nancy how did she and Bill usually "distribute" them. She answered,

"Well, Bun-in (that is how it sounded when she said "Bernard'), I nev-ah wuked in this Wuld of Wuds before I got this job, so I can't rotly say. But mostly Mr. Davis here, he jes' uses the meteor list..."

"Meteor list," I thought. "H-m-m-m, don't know that one. Whatever can it be here in the big-time in New York?" I researched and asked around - and could get no hint of what this next step was. Finally, I faced defeat. So I said to Nancy,

"Nancy, I give up - I am just going to make up a standard old media list for distribution out of Bacon's Directory (a PR bible) - and we will run with that." "Yes," well I tol' y'all's that is what Mistah Davis does when he bothers to do anything at all, or even come in from Nurk (this was some mysterious place "across the Hudson" to which Bill retired daily...). The meteor list..."

The light dawned! My Carolinian secretary with her heavy Southern Scotch brogue (lots of Scots in NC - did you know that? Nancy had even written a book or two about same. She was great old gal.) was - actually - saying "media" to me all along - only when she said it, it sounded like "meteor."

Live and learn.

Time passed. Bill, ever deeper in cahoots with one of the sleazy photographers we used - one Irv Field (and his wife, Belle, for instance - more anon) - had now moved his side ops up to where he was flying in "gals" on the company plane from Chicago to NYC for parties with the salesmen and others at higher levels in UCC. The topless craze was just starting in those days, and they bagged the first girl ever to brave Lake Michigan in topless attire, and brought her back to one of the parties in NYC. There was a lot of hoopla about it all - which was a tactical error. Someone blew a whistle somewhere - and the next thing we knew was Bill had a serious heart attack and disappeared for good. UCC was scandalized (in the non-party-going end) and threatened to withdraw all its business from OST. The lawyers arrived. Something called the Mann Act had been violated: transporting females over state lines for immoral purposes (sounds quaint now, doesn't it?) Real brouhaha. Truth to tell, those of us who worked immediately under Bill knew very little of the details and had nothing - really - to tell. Al O'Brian came back one day and asked me and Nancy and "Earth Mother" - a big old raw-boned Amazon type who worked the furniture and upholstery accounts circuit in the agency - to stand by, while he opened up Bill's desk drawers and dumped everything out.

Man! Was it bizarre! Hundreds and hundreds of specially printed-up cards of nameless secretaries and housewives and who knows who from all over the world really - with printed up data entered neatly on each card, photographs: bust size, height, weight, bra size, etc. etc. But get this: in amongst all this rogue's (roguette's?) gallery, we we found cards for dead movie stars of long ago (Jean Harlow for one!) - but with their pictures and bust sizes listed just like for the others. There was even one for the late Queen Mother of England - giving among other things, her (supposed?) thigh measurements (!).

I'm telling you it was real weird stuff!

Al, crouched down and delving into Bill's files, turned his nerdy face and looked over his shoulder at we three standing behind him as requested witnesses and observers. He was totally at a loss for making head or tales of any of it, and he said perplexedly: "Whatever is all this stuff? Whatever was Bill doing here?"

Earth Mother (God Bless her! She was another piece of work, believe me!), piped right up and said, "Well, Al - it is obvious. Bill Davis is a procurer."

Al continued blandly to look at her, through his taped-up, squash-court-smashed glasses on the end of his nose, and asked dumfoundedly, "Procures what?"

It was a big scandal and heads rolled everywhere. Mostly it got shut up and kept out of the papers. The agency kept the accounts. I advanced, and in time came to have much of the UCC business. (Bill never came back again - indeed ,he may have died for all I know. He lived in "Nurk" as Nancy used to call it (Newark) but the waters closed behind him, you betcha.

But before we bid final adieu to Bill Davis, there is one more tale to relate. Man! This guy had the cajones - or else he was the stupidest guy I ever met - never could decide just which... It shall be my final tribute to him - for he was a true "Avenue Man" and PR Flack. (And this I might point out further at this juncture - of the type we in the trade know better as "press agents" - whose clients are normally "notables" such as movie stars, politicos, and such like - and where products are concerned - they tend to be "consumer" end products like whiskies, perfumes and high-priced cars and so on. You see the basic type of "PR" which we in the New York agencies were doing is "industrial" PR - and our clients are normally the manufacturers (and consumers) of industrial products. Toward this end, a knowledge of gears-and-grease and modern factory production technques stands you in better stead than the life of a "high roller." But Bill was a "natural" and so this tribute...

For it was the custom you see, every Monday morning for the PR Staff to congregate in the Conference Room and one of the "teams" (Bill and I were such) would take the point and do a little "show-and-tell" about some wonderful thing they were doing for one of the agency clients somewhere. Bill and I had a long-standing committment to some intense photo coverage (a "shoot"), out at the "House of Tomorrow" at the World's Fair grounds in Flushing Meadows. (The perceptive will note this pegs the date to 1964...).

But we had not yet got around to doing this. So one Friday night as we were leaving, Al O'Brien stops us and says, "By the way, Bill and Bernie - I want you guys to do the "show" Monday - would like you to tell the rest of us all the wonderful things you lucky guys are gettting to do out at the World's Fair for Carbide."

I gulped and swallowed. Bill never batted an eye... "You betcha, Al! Bernie and I will lead off Monday right on schedule and we will need an overhead projector, too - we got lots of pictures!"

Oh, My God! I thought. He's gone around the bend! Look what the idiot has gone and committed us to - and pictures, too, fer Chris Sake!...

When we got off the elevator in the lobby - I pulled Bill aside. "Listen!," I said. "We are in deep doo-doo here - neither one of us has been out there yet, and we have no pictures!"

He just moved off into the crowd bound for the Jersey tubes and waved, saying: "No problem, Bernie! No problem at all! Got it all sewed up!"

I got to tell you I sweat bullets that whole weekend.

Came Monday morning I slipped into the Conference Room and eased into as inconspicuous a seat as I could find. Bill was already up front, smoothing down his velvet lapels and talking about a big black-and-white photo he had projected on the wall.

His voice-over droned on and on - all about what building this was and whose exhibts were housed therein, and how he and Bernie had had to go back out late in the day to redo some of these pictures (!) and other mile-a-minute bullshit... As my eyes came into focus, I saw what this yo-yo was doing: he was projecting a set of architects' model or diorama black-and-white glossies on the screen, and describing them as though they were real life actual photos which he and I had taken on site!

And this to a crowd of fellow cons who made their lives at writing and photography, too!

I thought: "Jeezul! We're dead!"

But no one said anything. Bill's unctuous and oily, confidential tone continued up-front. He had them mesmerized. (George Rhine long before had taught me that there is no easier con to con than a con himself...).

It was a tour d'force! Bill's pointer stick raced over the constantly changing photos - and dummy mannikin figures strolled down papiermache' sidewalks under the architect's sponge-rubber trees, alongside the cardstock walls of the "House of Tomorrow"... ... and none in the audience were any the wiser!

He pulled it off, he did! In Spades, too! When the lights went up, here came Al O'Brien from the back row, taped glasses askew, to shake Bill's hand upfront and complement him and Bernie for their devotion to duty and for taking such "sharp" and informative coverage of whatever their project for Carbide was out there...

Bill Davis wasn't Jewish - but he invented Chutzpah far as I'm concerned. Right there in the Conference Room at O.S. Tyson on a morning over forty years ago...

But how did he do it you are asking? Very well - here's what he did: he knew THE architect who was THE Designer for most of the exhibits at the World's Fair, and the evening before he called him and they got together and Bill picked out a seleciton of B&W's from the architect's file copies of pictures taken of their models and dioramas long before the site was ever built! (It pays you see, to have "contacts" in this world - PR or otherwise).

There came a day when I was handling all the media PR for UCC's Dynel fibers (fake animal furs, etc.), its vinyl liner pool business - in which I occasionally met and worked with Buster Crabbe - the onetime Tarzan of the movies, and former gold medal Olympyist, then owner of his own pool company over in New Jersey. Dynel paint rollers came my way, too - and I painted my house free and traveled to Florida and elsewhere doing "how to" stories about these rollers (see for instance, http://bwpowell.com/howto/paint1.gif (and same address, with " /paint2.gif " at end...). The same vinyl liners were sold in the shower curtain industry - so we got all kinds of coverage with naked models showering on camera, etc. I guess if I ever had "salad days" those were fun-filled and full of action. Jean was my wardrobe mistress and general factotum. By now I was using and known to many good commercial photographers around the city. I had wined and dined my way into the confidences of dozens of major editors. (I like to think my delivery-against-deadlines was top notch too, but modesty intervenes...LOL!)

And then there was Giesela. And one more World's Fair story, please, before we move on in this Chronicle of Vacuties. Giesela was a beautiful blonde German model and Lou Hobermann (God Bless Old Lou! Dead these many years, but one of best craftsmen at his trade I ever knew! And Lou was German, too - and that helped, I am sure...ed) LOL!

One day I called him: "I need a shot of a model swimming in the pool at the "House of Tomorrow", Lou! Call Ford (big model agency) or someone, and set it up! I'm in a jam! Get me a gal, and let's get out there tomorrow or next day at the latest!"

Done deal!

Two days later, I was conning the shot (you know: you see them "cropping" with their hands "framing" the imaginary picture: Oh well - maybe you don't know these things - no matter, really).

Finally, I got my angle: house in backgroound. Model on diving board - the whole thing fell into place - I hollered to Lou: "Shoot Lou! Just as she dives!" - and Giesela made this beautiful gainer and a half-twist - into about two feet of water!

Bonk!

She surfaced immediately! So fast I could not believe! What happened?

What happened? I tell you what happened! The god damn "House of Tomorrow" had a swimming pool alright - but no one told us... or we failed to find out... that it was only two feet deep! Just for show, that damned pool!!

And my god-damn model almost broke her neck high-diving into same!

But - no damage done! Giesela survived her "record" dive (and neither she nor her agency sued for obscure "neck pains" or other bullshit in the ensuing months - which is a friggin' miracle, considering... - so it all came out okay!

But I was not a VP yet (the coveted "title" all PR hacks seek). And I was not too much the favorite of old Irv Tyson himself. He really had a problem this guy. He was morose and quiet and moody sort of dude. I think he had inherited the shop from his father. Whatever. He was a onetime Navy man - and he still walked the quarterdeck in his mind. The clients mostly disliked him - my contacts at UCC disliked him intensely and laughed at him all the time. With time there were many "incidents" which arose in management of their account, you see, and Irv had a vicious temper and a vicious way and he would summarily "fire" you on the spot - for the most transient of "offenses" - laughing at someone's joke maybe, or failing in some fancied detail of decorum (maybe failing to knuckle your forehead or salute or something for all I know).

I recall an incident: about a week or two after I had gone to work there, the agency threw a huge Christmas Party at the Waldorf Astoria for itself and the Union Carbide account staffs (you see we had several of their biggest chunks of business). So here was I, just recently rescued from the streets if you will, sitting in LaLa Land with all the biggies-in-the-bizz and dining at the Waldorf, no less! My first time ever! I had arrived. We were sitting around this huge, fancy, laid out table, with a waiter at about every chair - on about our second round of drinks, our orders had been placed with the waiters - and we were chatting it up with one another and all - when a latecomer arrived from the Account side (i.e., UCC). But there was no more space at the table! It was full! Irv, sitting down some lengths from me, ran his practicised (and always jaundiced ) eye over the table, landing at last on me (the most recent of his employees).

Smoothly he jerked his thumb up into the air. "You!," he said. "Give up your seat. Go back to the agency! Now!"

I rose somewhat uncertainly - none of my new colleagues seemed to think the least thing was amiss (they knew the ropes of this sometimes shitty bizz better than I at this stage) - and the late arrivee slid into my still-warm seat, if not into my half drunk cocktail. I withdrew in some confusion - sort of faded into the woodwork as it were, and so back down Park to the agency... In time I grew the hardshell nececessary to survive here, but that day I was relatively shell-less...

To those I hope someday to meet in Hell - I add Irv Tyson to the Jap "Nisei's" aforementioned...

But Irv had one quirk that was a beaut, and it was the one that earned him the name we all knew him by behind his back: "Queeg." (Remember Queeg, the sociopath captain inCaine Mutiny? Well, Irv was his living, breathing counterpart - even to the two balls he massaged in his hands all the time. (Humphrey Bogart, who played Queeg in the movie, was always turning over two ball-bearings in his nervous hands, if you recall this famous flick at all...). And like his silverscreen counterpart, Irv always went up and down the agency halls, and the halls in the building, and the lobby - with one shoulder brushing lightly along against the adjacent wall (reminiscent of some long-vanished, but comforting bulkhead in his long-gone Navy days, no doubt...), his fingers nervously twirling a coin, or maybe even a pair of glass marbles... whatever. This guy was a time bomb waiting to explode - which he often did.

O.S. Tyson was really the pits! Real cheap outfit! I travelled some but mostly the low-budget setups for PR shootings etc. were right there in the City - and even in one's own home or one's neighbors places if you could swing it! After I moved on (and up!) in agency land, I began to travel - widely - to mines and mills and factories and breweries and whatever for stories - but back in my learning days - it was always close to home you see (Bil Davis took care of any out-of-town work we had! LOL!)

Once though, I got a cover placement (this means, promise of the cover picture IF I could produce the story-and-shot on time.) The subject was "painting your house with paint rollers." Since I serviced the huge Dynel fiber paint roller accounts for Carbide, the editors of "Painting Forthnightly" (whatever the pub was...) were offering me the placement, if I could produce it.

Trouble was it was middle of the winter! Where could I get exterior painting shots this time of year? Answer (that's a hard one...): Florida! I grabbed Jean, Tony Statile and his wife (Tony was an ex-bopxer turned PR photo - great one too, God Bless his ornery Italian hide...) and we all jumped on a plane bound for Ft. Lauderdale.

At the Car Rental Counter I said to the girl... "Say," (I said), "Do you know any houses hereabouts that are Colonial or look like tradtional American homes - not this art deco stuff you all favor here on the Gold oast...?"

She looked long and hard at me (in the land of Art Deco homes and pseudo-Mediterranean domiciles up the wahzoo - and she said (God Bless Her wherever she has got off to!) - "Why yes, there is just one that looks like that - and it is out so and so Boulevard, etc. etc."

Tony and the Missus, Jean and I all jumped in the car and Zoom! away we went.

We found the place and parked at the curb. I went up and knocked on the door. Little old lady answers. "How are you, Maa'm?" I said in my brightest, PR-desparate way - and followed on immediately with "We would like to paint your entire house - gratis here - if you would let us and we will do all the work and everything!" (Something like that).

Little old lady looked shrewedly at me - "How about my hedges? I don't want no paint on them hedges..." Since the non-tropical hedges were an integral part of what made the house look like the heart-of-the-midlands-house (which it was not), in this land of coconut palms and the like everywhere - I said, "Oh, Ma'am! You can rest assurred on your hedges... we will not harm a leaf!"

I gave a nod toward the car and Tony and the two gals sprang out, opened the trunk and began to don overalls and lug dropcloths up to cover the hedges and all right on cue!

And then we all fell to - and began to paint up a storm! LOL! We were fast (of course) and not too overly particular - but we were neat enough and cut-in the window frames and all that and Tony took pictures in between rolls with his roller...

We brought it off! Hot dang! A night or two on the town and the Expense Account, then back to NYC and Tony's "proof sheet" on my desk Monday morning. The next day I lay the picture portfolio on the Editor's desk. It was a bitterly cold day that day and about a foot of snow on the streets. The Editor's eyes popped out of his head!

"You got it!" he blurted out! "You got your cover here! But tell me how in hell did you find a place around to shoot these ? I can see of course it is not Florida - by the house architecture... I was afraid you might do that, and you see we are national distribution and so anything pegged too much to any given region is not quite right for our readership exposure.... These hit just the right note..."

"Well," I said, "you don't expect me to give away all of my PR secrets do you? And anyhow - what say we go out for lunch - maybe over to the Cattleman or the old Rough Rider Room in the Hotel Roosevelt (long gone now - with the original Fredrick Remington murals on the walls...) and grab us a couple Martinis or two - and a steak afterwards...?"

I didn't have to ask twice.

Lunch broke up around four that afternoon - leaving us both plenty time to get back out to suburbia in the face of the increasing storm. Ahhh - Salad Days indeed!

I fell in with some interesting dudes. One was a Space Rep named Les Stratton with the old shelter market mag, Workbasket. Les was always angling to get a chunk of the UCC bizz - despite my protestations that I was "...not on the Space side" (advertising) and so couldn't do much for him. But we shared kindred interests - including a love of oldtime sailing and sailing ships. Since Les had an inexhaustible expense account we took to dining high on the hog daily: right across the street on top of the Pan Am building in the old " 'Copter Club." (At that time there was an actual heliport on top of the buildings - have flown off it many times - but it was later closed down by the city). We had a "regular" table and a "regular" waiter - Henri. We invariably ate roast beef (the 'Copter Club had no proper kitchen and much of the fare was flown in on Pan Am planes earlier in the day: our roast beef came from Antoine's in Paris. I invariably got the "outside cut". Henri was my main Man! Life was Sweet!

The dining room had floor to ceiling length windows. One time this guy is standing at one of the windows looking down into the street - 53 stories below – between his toes and going Wow! Gosh! and "Would you look at that!" You would have thought he was a tourist in from the Nebraska flats. Les turned to me and said, "Know who that is at the window?" I wasn't sure... "John Glenn," he said. John Glenn, the Astronaut! LOL! I bolted from my seat and ran over: "Mr. Glenn! Would you mind autographing my restaurant chit, please?"

"No problem," says Mr. Right Stuff, the original. I later gave the chit to my son, Travis, and trust he cherishes it yet...

We were soon joined by two other cronies in our daily repast - both friends of Les' from elsewhere. One was a real cool old bird, who then worked for Bendix Corporation - I cannot remember his name. The other was no less than Frank Braynard, he of South Street Seaport reknown and a well-known marine artist in his own right. At that time, he was then-director of PR for Moran Tug down in the Battery.

It was not long before we four had hatched a scheme: USS Constitution or "Old Ironsides" up in Boston is THE preeminent American icon – moreso even to me than the more controversial Goddess of Liberty down New York way... And Old Ironsides was then as she has been nearly ever since she was taken off active duty way back when, in need of "extensive repairs." Though she is headquarters (or was then) for the First Naval District, she was in deplorable shape - and volunteer funds from aroused citizens were always welcome.

We would put on a trade show over in UCC's "splendiferous" lobby (Bernie to pull the strings) and we will pack the hall with industrial sponsors (Les and the Bendix guy to huckster this end) and Frank's name and prestige can help smooth the way over any hurdles. And by Jeezul, we did just that! We four citizens put on a volunteer effort trade show that would knock your socks off and we raised thousands and thousands of dollars (I cannot recall a figure...). UCC itself took a booth in its own lobby - Linde Division, I remember. This is the division in the old company that manufactured industrial gases. Among other functions they were involved with was deep-sea diving. And one of their lead divers was no less than Charles Lindbergh, Jr. - brother to the famous kidnap victim and son of the illustrious aviator father! So we often broke bread with him and critiqued together what we were doing. He would often drop by his Division's booth for a chat and checkup.

I produced one of the handsomest Press Kits of my career - all gratis. Among other things we offered the press (for whom it was designed) a sliver of one of Ironsides timbers - since restoration work was evern then going on on her and that is what we were raising money about. (Someone once said that if all the slivers of the True Cross in Churches throughout the world were put together you would have a mountain of same... and the same is likely true for splinters from Old Ironsides and her many revampings and reworkings... LOL!)

And so our Show ran its course and in due time, Les got the grand check of monies we were to donate to Old Ironsides. That night, he and I grabbed a late train out of Grand Central for Boston and checked into a hotel on Scollay Square. Next morning, bright and early, we were down at Ironsides' wharf. Our visit had been timed to coincide with the famous annual "turnaround cruise" which Ironsides does every year: she is "backed out" into the Charles River, and turned around stem to stern - while an honor flotilla of fireboats play their hoses overhead - and then eased back into her wharfside berth. The point of all this is to "even the wear" that tourists cause by their continual trekking aboard and going over the same route down gangways and across decks all the time. But tradition has now made this quite an "event" - and only luminaries and others are "invited" to go on a real, annual "Turnaround Cruise" on Old Ironsides. At the end, you receive a parchment, attesting that you have indeed "sailed aboard USS Constitution" etc. etc. - and mine yet hangs framed on my wall - a proud possession.

Photographers are the gossip mongers of the bizz, since they work with all the different Account Execs in all the different agencies. And several had often said to me, that I should dump OST and "get on board" with one of the better agencies around. They said they just knew I was head and heels over what OST could ever do for me, etc. etc. but I just listened and did nothing for a long time. Then one day, things were slow - and I just got up from my desk and walked across town to the offices of the (then) G.M. Basford Company - soon to become the Avenue's "hot property shop," and renamed Creamer-Colarossi, Inc. Basford was an old-line PR shop and sort of a mecca for wannabes in the bizz. I walked in and had a short interview with John Pulusak - a guy younger than me, who was Head of their PR Operations. John took my measure and asked me only a very few questions about background and experience, and then asked if I would go to work for them right away and he named a salary that was exactly three times the salary I was getting at OST! He was in a hurry to go somewhere else, so the interview was short and perfunctory (and as you can see: sweet! LOL!). Then he hastily showed me my new office (could I start Monday?) . It was huge - a corner office - windows both sides (prestige in that world..!.). It even outshone Queeg's office back at OST!

I jumped ship so fast your head would swim!

Barely had time for Jean to get me some new shirts and neckties (my grey flannel suits were always ready and waiting). Monday I rode the elevator up to CCI (there was once another "C" in that name, I think - "Case" - was that his name? I don't recall - likely his fellow sharks ate him up early in the arrangement... Hell, I cannot remember at this date and besides the principals were duking it out even at the time.

John Sasso! That's it! Listen! (This gets confused now because I am LEAVING OST and SIGNING ON at CCI here all same time!) This little tiger was the driver at the CCI core just then. He was slated to go (he dated to the Basford days, I believe). Dark-haired, short little dude. Intense. Came into my office.. welcomed me aboard. Vanished! Listen! It all begins to come back! John had been the lover of ...Joan Kerajian... a gorgeous Near Eastern type gal of some kind ... who had been private secretary to... Queeg at OST! But actually she was in love with John Sasso - over here at the competition's office... CCI! And another guy, too! (Somehow there was enough of Joan to go around...). For two whole years at OST she ignored me like dirt when I would come to work and go through the lobby (she was

Then she said, disdainfully.... "They are Brooks Brothers, you know, and not like those cheapies you wear."

So I said, "Well, I dunno - I will ask Jean tonight if she thinks it's okay."

Joan said, "Who's Jean?"

I said, "My wife."

She just nodded. Then she added: "My boyfriend's got cancer." There didn't seem much else I could say - or add - so I expressed my sympathies - and passed on into my own office.

So that night at home at dinner, I said to Jean, "This lady in the agency wants to give me a whole bag of expensive Brooks Brothers shirts - says it will improve my image - and they were her former boyrfriend's. He's got cancer."

Jean chewed a bit on her steak, then said, "Who's this lady?"

I said, "Joan Kerajian. Queeg's Executive Secretary."

She chewed some more (by now we had moved up to many cocktails every night, and dinner cooked outdoors - late - grilled on the outdoor grill - mosquitos - lanterns, the works...)

"Can you arrange to have me in for lunch with this Joan?"

(Me) "Baby, I'm the new guy who can do no wrong in that agency. I can arrange anything!" >P>She just chewed some more and said nothing.

Next day we three dined in the old original Cattleman (I think it defunct now. I was a regular). All great men are dead and I don't feel so well, as my mother used to say....Sigh.

Upshot: Jean and Joan became great pals, believe it or not, and I got a bag full of very expensive shirts! Privately, I worried over the fact that their former owner "had cancer"... but Jean just sniffed and said I was nothing but a worrywart - and the shirts felt so nice when I put them on - not like the "cheapies" I had always known...

Back to Creamer-Colarossi. John Sasso was moving into posh new quarters over by the United Nations. In some odd-fashion, I became Joan's confidante! She would come into my office and tell me all kinds of things about Queeg and Sasso and so on. I would then tell Jean at night and she would roar: "Listen! Big Stoop! You are only guy in that shop not angling to bed Joan Kerajian. She is very lonely and no one to tell these things to! It's time you took us all out on the expense account to lunch again!" And so I would. And she would come into town, and she and Joan would talk and talk and talk and laugh up a storm! And I had a fresh Brooks Brothers shirt every day - and the clients noticed, and the guys at the shop noticed, and everyone noticed everyone noticing, and everything! Then I would go into my office and type up News Releases and Feature Stories and stuff like that, and they would all gather around the watercooler and talk, and talk, and talk... Sheesh! What a world this advertising was! LOL!

Then she went to the dentist one time. Joan I mean. But something went awry. She bled to death in the dentist's chair! Just like that!

What a world this is ...!

Jeezul!

A pal at OST called to tell me.

So anyhow, John Pulusak called me into his office. He said,

"You will have two accounts to handle here. One is some kind of packaging outfit over on Third Avenue. The other is a very important computer outfit down at Princeton, N.J. I think you ought to get right down there and check them out: management here thinks they may be big deal soon!"

So I drove down to Princeton to check this bunch out. What a Chinese fire drill! No one knew anything and it was the blind leading the blind. I reported same back to John. I could see his face fall - obviously the "new man" (me) didn't know shit from Shinola on sizing up accounts...

(Within six weeks the Princeton account was dead and gone). Meanwhile I decided to look up the "packaging outfit" over on Third Avenue. It turned out to be Continental Can Company - a Fortune 500 Company - and they had their own skyscraper! Even I had heard of "Continental Can Company." Some "little packaging outfit"..indeed! (What, I thought, did the Princeton operation have that this outfit lacked?).

Wonderingly, I pushed into the lobby and onto an elevator. I was whisked to the 53rd floor and spewed out into the (huge!) "Advertising Department." Someone came over and asked if they could help. I said,

"Yes! I'm Bernie Powell, and I am the new PR Account Exec on your account!"

The person chuckled, and said to a couple nearby, "Hey! Wanna laugh? Guy here is from OUR agency!"

Several people gathered around. A guy came out of his office and joined them. "You from Creamer-Colarossi?" they said.

"Yep! That’s me," I said.

More chuckling. "Hasn't been anyone over here from CCI in months!," someone said. Another offered: "I thought we had fired them or were going to?" "Yeah!" said several others. The guy with the office pushed through the press, and invited me in to sit down.

"Well," he said, "how's John Pul-, Pal-, Plee-...." and he trailed off and spread his hands. "Pulusak?" I offered helpfully.

“Yes, Yes! That's it! John Pulusak. He still there? Still head of PR?”

I gave him an affirmative.

"Listen!," he said. "Can you write News Releases? Get us articles in the trade mags? Do speeches for corporate biggies here?”

I nodded affirmative again (exuding a confidence I didn't quite feel). "Sure!, I said, I do all those things!"

Shifting, he suddenly said, "What happened to Jonathan Whomever there – big, fat guy who was our supposed Acct. Exec here? Never came around except at lunch time. Haven't seen him in months.”

I started to mumble something about Jonathan (my predecessor on the account) had "moved on" (actually Pulusak had fired his ass out of the shop a day or so before I had my interview: Jonathan it seems was hanging around the bars too much and packing the expense account: hazards of the trade. His accounts were drifting...). But the Office Guy – he turned out to be the Ad Manager for whole firm -bored steadily in: “ Listen!,” he said, leaning forward intently, “This new agency of yours - we are about ready to tell them to take a hike! Pull the account! Fire them you know! Bunch of meatheads! Incompetents! We are a major player in packaging in this country and we need better representation!"

Then he said , "Can you write me a release right now on a new tomato juice can that has a sacrificial anode in it to protect against spoilage? I’m gonna take you into the National Sales Manager right now – he will tell you what it is and then I want you to use his girl’s typewriter and have a News Release ready for press mailing back here on my desk in 20 minutes! Okay?”

With the computer firm down the drain, and the Can Company ready to walk… I knew I would have more than tomato juice dribbling down my front if I went back to Pulusak with some lame tale of client distress…

My “Okay!” was overly loud as he led me off to the slaughter.

Twenty minutes later, he had the Release on his desk. I sat nervously watching while he read it. Then he put it down. “So you’ve worked in packaging before?,” he said. “Well, no – not exactly,” I said. “No? Then how the hell do you know how too write like this then? Touch all the hot buttons – avoid the chemical threat mention to consumers of such anodes, etc.?”

Then ……(not waiting for an answer)...“You a chemist?” he asked suspiciously?

I assured him I was neither and that I just figured out from my chat with the Sales Manager who the intended audience might be… and trailed off rather lamely.

“Well, I’m damned,” he said. “An Account Exec out of CCI, who isn’t a lush, and can spell, and thinks in terms of target audiences. Do you have a degree in PR like the rest of ‘em?”

No, I said, my degree is only in English – Creative Writing, really.

He stood and said, “Well, god damn – I think maybe you going to be our secret weapon around here. Don’t wait to be invited back – I don’t want you hanging around that agency cross town: get in habit of coming in here: we’re the hand that will feed you.” <>My contact interview was over and I left.

About a week later, my phone rang and a guy said he was the National Sales Manager for Continental's (extensive) meat-packing products line: film, whole carcase "body bags" for beeves, stuff like that. They had a new pliable wrap film they were desirous of introducing and did I have any ideas what we might do? I thought a moment and then I said, "How about a big Press Party to let the Industrial Eds know about it?"

He paused a moment and then said, "You mean a REAL Press Conference - like where the editors and their staffs would come see us?" I really was getting out on thin ice, but I said "Sure!" He said, "We never had anything like that! Can you do this?" I said, "You bet! Call you tomorrow!"

Then I put the wheels in gear! Where else for such a gathering of the meat packer industry than the Chicago Stockyards area? I got on the horn to the Banquet Manager of the old Stockyards Restaurant (now long gone) but it once was right down in the stockyards area (I mean you SMELLED the beeves outside as well as CHEWED on them inside!)Lol! I made a reservation for couple weeks down the road. Then I got out my Bacon's Publicity Checker and I personally called every editor of every food-processing mag in the field that could even remotely have an interest in this development. When I mentioned my client, they practically sat up and saluted: "You mean Continental, those stingy bastards, are actually going to spring for a REAL Press Conference at last? I'll be there!"

I went over to CCC and interviewed the experts. Then I got going on a "Backgrounder". Then Press Releases. Histories of the meat-packing industry, etc. I contacted my old photographers and got product pictures. I made hotel reservations. Plane reservations.

The Great Day came. I hopped an early flight out of New York and was in Chicago by maybe 11:00 a.m. their time. Grabbed a cab to the Stockyards Restaurant.

Bedlam! The room I had reserved was already overflowing with editors and their staffs slurping down the free booze and sizing each other up (you see these guys are all competitive, so they are very canny when meeting at Trade and Press Events...LOL! You see this most when the talks are over and question-time ensues. Everyone wants to "ask" some important question of the client product experts there assembled, but at same time they know their competitiors are all watching and listening, too, and they don't want to tip off hot leads... LOL! I used to love to watch them squirm - but then my role was to "give" them the data they sought later on the side...). I had bagged them all! There were New York eds, and the local Chicago and Midwestern crowd. Guys from Denver and cities in California. Everybody who was anybody made the scene that day ("They got this new PR dude you see - let's go to the conference and see what kind of guy he is").

Everyone filled up on big thick steaks and more booze. Free cigars. I passed out the Press Kits. A couple of client guys got up and gave a little song and dance about this great new product. I was on top of the world! (Because just like any host or hostess who "throws a party" you never know lwho will show till the chips are down). I happened to glance in the back of the room - and there was....John Pulusak standing with a group in the shadows. My boss! He had secretly inserted himself into the event and flown out separately to see "how" this new PR exec of his was going to do...

He looked like one of the pole-axed beeves outside in the loading pens... LOL! "Jeezul, Bernie - he said. I never saw so many editors come to something like this yet. What did you do? What did you promise them? Can Continental pay the bill?" But he was really impressed! I told him: "John! Continental has money running out its ears! They spill more than most companies use! They want the bars rattled here and they want INK: they want articles in all these mags going in front of their customers!"

Well, it did and I did and the editors did - and from that date on for a long long time, I could do no wrong in Creamer-Colarossi!

CCC was my highwater mark. Peak of my career. A month after I had taken over the account , we doubled their billings! Two months later – again! A “staff” was put together to work under me. Two real dud PR hacks: a firey little Irish guy who could write alright, but did nothing but argue with me… and George Garmus – proudly and everlastingly claiming Estonian descent for some godamn reason, and a scammer and lush into the bargain. My vibes told me I could not send them over to CCC. I made all the personal contacts. The CCC crowd were polished apples – many Ivy Leaguers among them –sharp as pins, and hip. They taught me about marketing, packaging, promotion, stress, dining, spending on the expense account like there was no tomorrow – damn! They were good!

In return, I kept just one inch ahead of them in press relations and ideas-for-stories, and parroted it all back with the result they perceived me as sort of their “leader.” (I once knew a guy (back in my encyclopedia days – a Dr. Schinerla – up at AMNH, who was a world authority on army ants: he told me army ants are not “led” anywhere in their columns: they are merely pushed ahead by those behind following up the pheromones!) I now think of advertising something like that….

* The "chine" is the annular rim of metal at the bottom of your steel 3-piece can. One function of same is really to "prevent" ringing (grin!) - better, to serve as a bumper for the preceding and following cans when they start and stop on the production line filling stations. You see, "packaging" isn't all just razzle dazzle and hype (though there is a lot of that!). You also got to absorb one hell of a lot of techie stuff to make it here...

I couldn’t get along with any of the office secretaries! (Better: they couldn’t get along with me!) Some gum-chewing Brookylyn brat in tight bra was always in tears outside my office door – and Pulusak storming in (but not too stormy: CCC was the “star” account now! LOL!). So he “increased” my staff: no more office pool secretaries for me: they hired someone just to “handle Bernie” Damn! It was a guy! A real faggot! Jay Salessio was his name – he had been Gen. Westmoreland’s Secretary in Vietnam or something was his story – and also Zsa Zsa Gabor’s – but then in the Ad racket you get used to somewhat inflated resume’s you see… Best thing that ever happened to me! Hey! Don’t get any ideas now! I mean this guy could type, take shorthand, anticipate problems, “coo” on the phone to clients – he kept everyone at bay!

Even Pulusak – which I am sure Pulusak had not figured on. LOL! Later, they hired a private Secretary (gal with long legs) to “help Jay!” Mon Dieu! And as this support staff grew, outer offices were added and added till I was walled away in a splendid silent office with all kinds of furniture and an always-closed-door. No one could get to me unless Jay okay’d it out front! Management thought I was some kind of scamming, wheeler-dealer in the back room bringing in big bucks in fees for them. So they left me alone. What I really was doing was typing on an unknown typewriter smuggled into these splendid quarters and turning out yards and yards of copy for the client!

Jay even bought me a silver tray and water pitcher and glasses for my giant private desk. (Later, he stole same when his ass got fired out in the inevitable pogrom…). Sometimes I worked so hard I fell asleep on the couch I now had in my office and never made it back out to CT. Jay bought me a razor and stuff (no beard back then! Perish forbid! LOL!) and he knew how to get back into the building before sunup, and would have the razor and toilet goods all laid out in the 53rd floor men’s room of this empty skyscraper – so when I woke at dawn it was just like home in a way: I would shave and Jay would brush my grey flannel suit with a brush and fluster about. There was even coffee!

Then I would be back at flights of fancy on my typewriter.

Back in CT I had bought a home in the country with a barn I was building and a pond on it and everything. We bought a horse for Candy, our daughter. We shopped in Westport. I cut all my own firewood on my own place: I have always been bigtime into fireplaces. So one Thanskgiving, I thought, “Well, Jean and I will invite Jay out for dinner” – he had no real home (in those days I was still so naïve as to suppose Jay had no real “life” outside the office at all! Ha-ha-ha!). So I thought he can come out with us and work in the air with me and we can saw up about a cord of firewood! Neat! Do him good to get out of the city!

So I did (we did) and he did, etc. and he arrived on the commuter train one fine Thanksgiving Day. Jean already knew him (had approved of him in lieu of Brooklyn sexretaries in fact, many times over!), and so I went out and started my chainsaw and got to work on the woodpile. I had sawed away quite a while and… no Jay.

So I put the saw down and went indoors to see what was holding him up.

It was a kitchen out of a Currrier and Ives print: the great turkey about to go into the oven for roasting, Jean – Master Chef and Mistress over all, running about – kids polishing silver, etc. – and Jay! Jay had on an apron! And Jay was setting the dining table and rearranging the knickknacks and candles and things. Jean ran up and gave me a hug and stepped on my foot real hard. I mean “ouch!” hard. And she said – sweetly – “Oh Bernard! why don’t you shut your mouth (it had come open you see). And go back out to your woodpile! We are all very busy in here and Jay is such a godsend here in the kitchen!”

I think I sawed up about two cord before dinnertime that day. Alone.

Well, it is hard to believe this, but I really came to like that job! One of only I ever did like. I became an expert on …everything! I had to travel everywhere: border to border and coast to coast. I’ve been in food packaging plants from Pennsylvania to Texas – (Heinz - and Gebhardt’s, to be specific). Bigtime into breweries: my press party opened the Schaeffer brewery in Albany, NY. I did a plant story on Lone Star in San Antonio; I froze my ass one winter day at Hamm’s up in Wisconsin; I “opened” (this means “press party”) a Piel’s (was it?) brewery on the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn (they used water from there for their brew! Mon Dieu!). I did a masterful plant article on “Oly” – Olympia to you – the famous brewery at Tumwater, Washington, upon whose beautiful, landscaped grounds there is an actual migratory salmon stream…

Jean and I spent a delirious week on the expense account in New Orleans – dragging Bourbon Street every night – while I put a Coca Cola bottling plant at Gretna across the river on the map! (The reason for all the “free” downtime was that my ONLY assignment when sent down there was to “count all the electrical wall outlets” in the Ballrooms of two major old hotels. Client “hospitality suites” were then pending, and the new Ad Mgr. at CCC (more below) never left anything to chance! I did Turtle Wax for cars (a polish) and had to put up with Sandra Hirsch the owner’s officious daughter who ran the whole op out there (Chicago) like the tyrant she was. I wrote a super story on the Green Bay pickle packing works at Greenbay, Wisc. one day while I stood out on the cucumber receiving dock with miles and miles of tubs of salted down cucumbers – their tops open to the gentle snow blowing in off Gitchee Goomee…

Then there were our 5-Star Trade Show Events! I may lose you (and I understand) when I tell you once we took over the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, lock, stock and barrel. We (and I must really give this credit solely to the brilliant ad manager, Glen St. Pierre, who was my client contact first, and a buddy, and independent business associate, later). Glen was an Ex-Marine (the “Major”) whom no one at CCC could get along with and of whom they were all scared. He came aboard after I had the account.

He was a "Sooner" and I was raised Texan. Thus, we sort of knew each the other, what each the other was maybe capable of, and checked our firearms appropriately. To our fellow Manhattanites, we were just further proof of the migration north of rednecks everywhere. His Ivy League associates being aghast at his tucking a napkin under his chin at our “Four Seasons” lunches … but I called him chip for chip – and we drank bourbon together all afternoon and ate Steak Tartar into the night. He smoked cigars and roared at his staff. My kind of guy! We in time came to cover for each other!

He was a former University of Missouri football All-American. And a Thespian! He and Barbara lived in Armonk, then Chappaqua. We began to socialize (the way accounts are really held!). The agency was aghast at this animal ad manager over at CCC – give Bernie what he wants – they are two peas in a pod!”

But – San Francisco – I cannot forget what we did to the Fairmont.

The Main Ballroom is off the Lobby to the back. Glen decided we would “theme” it to the early Barbary Coast days of ‘Frisco’s history. We brought in a huge stand-up bar with brass rail. We all were outfitted in sort of Gay Ninetie’s outfits – the guys all had bowler hats and string ties, the Girls in mesh stockings and flouncy skirts. We had open poker tables and roulette.. (Interspaced with product displays, of course! Heh-Heh). The free bar was open day and night. The result was that attendance at the Trade Show Hall was severely depleted, and whose operators lodged a (useless) complaint. Meanwhile back at the Fairmont the “show” continued. LOL! Other Hotel customers and tourists who “strayed” by accident into the Ball Room (ignoring the signs) gaped and wondered. From the ceiling hung special swings we had made in the shape of cutout crescent moons – and in each sat a mesh-stockinged Flora Dora gal, swinging and blowing bubbles to the throng below. There were free meals and free boiled eggs at the bar. It was a scene out of the past! (Fortunately, Glen’s interest did not run as far forward as 1906 – or I fear we would have had a “quake,” slated for Closing Night, no doubt! He was the only Ad Manager I ever worked with, whom I am sure could have arranged it!).

Which all puts me in mind of other Trade Shows out of the past…

Once we had one at one of the big Chicago Hotels. Again, we took over the Main Ballroom. The “theme” this time was (naturally!) the Chicago Hoodlum Years. We brought in fake panels of red brick and completely covered the gigantic ballroom walls with them – Voila’ – instant “old Chicago brick warehouse” look. His staff and many of the salesmen who manned these all-important extravaganzas, as well as myself from the agency, had to dress in dark suits, low fedoras and flashy ties – and several carried fake revolvers in their pockets and a tommy gun or two here and there… The ‘molls” were decked out in flapper-era style, with cloche’ hats and gobs of bright lipstick, etc.

Best of all was the entrance.

You see when a Trade Show is “on” in a big city somewhere, all the vendors and corporations who sponsor it, have “Hospitality Suites” scattered around in the big hotels. Show attendees and customers are given “invitations” to the various Suites and the whole week is one prolonged party around town, with beaucoup drinking, and beaucoup (you can be sure!) sales being consummated, too! These things run into big time bucks! (For me, it was of course, big time op to hobnob with my pals: the out-of-town press and the trade eds whom I didn’t see regularly in New York.)

So when Continental’s guest arrived in the Lobby , and asked at the desk for the Hotel Suite – they were directed (by pre-arrangement with the Desk) to “check with that house phone over there, Sir” – and were pointed to an apparent legitimate phone booth we had set up on the back wall of the Lobby. The unsuspecting guest entered the Booth and picked up the “house phone.” Instead of putting a call through however, this activated a peek-a-boo slot in the back of the booth – just like in the gangster hide-out doors in the movies.

One of the CCC staff (on duty right behind the wall) and selected for his gravelly voice, would look through the slot and growl “Whadda youse want? (or) “Did Louis send ya?” – something like that. Before the startled guest could recover, the whole back end of the booth swung open as a door and ushered him into our brick-walled warehouse complete with low lights, and lounging toughs and gun molls.

I tell you – some of these sets rivaled Hollywood setups! (More to the “sets” in just a mo).

And once we “took over” the Royal York in Toronto. This time the theme was an “Old English or Colonial era taproom.” Again, we did the panel displays around the walls with fake wattle-and-timber effect, and we had saucy English barmaids in tight bodices and mob caps serving drinks in mugs and appropriate chinaware to seated “patrons” at rough plank tables, etc. Glen, always a stickler for detail, added a finishing touch: he set up several “Shove-a-Ha’Penny” tables throughout the area and insisted the girls learn how to operate them and the rules therefore. (“Shove-a-Ha-Penny” as best I recall, is an old period English taproom game, involving “real” farthings or ha-pennies we obtained for the occasion (and which the guests might keep) and is played by “shoving” them down a smooth plank table, lightly dusted between rounds with flour (!) to reduce friction. The object being to skid nearest to a mark or goal line.

Anyhow – get this: Our setup was so attractive and so unique (outsiders and non-guests passing by were so drawn to the looks and merriment inside, they often tried to enter!) LOL! And – after the Show was over – hotel management decided to keep our “décor” intact, and sponsor our transient “English Bar Room” as one of their own attractions permanently thereafter! LOL!

I tell you – we were a hard act to follow in those days!

And once, there was this Chicago cop and he had two gorgeous blonde identical twin daughters. Glenn found them somehow through a model or talent agency and decided to work them into a skit. We had a real nice traveling theater built, that was a knockdown and could be taken around (shipped) ahead to wherever the next Trade Show was and set up on site. It had footlights and curtains and was the cat’s meow – a real, honest-to-gosh “trod the boards” platform theater.

Now one of our product problems at that time was look-alike competitive packaging – or something. (I have forgotten just exactly what the story line here was). But it had to do with confusion over what was real, and what was fake, and what was a quick “do-over” and what was the genuine product, etc. etc. So Glen wrote this little skit working this whole thing up you see (with minimal dialogue from the blondes, for they were …well, …sorta dumb, you know…(Grin!). And this whole thing was done around absolutely gorgeous, detailed costumes – period dresses really – that they wore during this act – to illustrate part of the story line.

We set the theater up - I think down in the Chicago Convention Center itself maybe this time – part of our actual “Booth” there. The crowd would assemble out front. Ta Da! Lights and the curtain would go up and here would be this gorgeous gal in fancy hairdo and intricate cosmetics and jewelry and all – plus involved costume (she might be say , Marie Antoinette, or something like that) in a set-period tableau with appropriate furniture and knickknacks and all: the whole thing telegraphing the “idea” that here was something that had really taken a lot of experts a lot of time to “create” and get just so.

The crowd would Oooooh! And Aaaaaah! Voice-over would hype it up about the “involved effort and time” it took to achieve such a vision.

Then the curtain would fall. And then within maybe 10 seconds or something like that – rise again to reveal an entirely different setup with (apparently) the same gal but all rigged out in entirely different clothes, makeup, background, etc. The crowd would gasp and shuffle… How in the world was this ever achieved? And the sales pitch went on and on about what you get is not what you see, and be warned of cheap imitations and products too quick on the market and all stuff like that. Then the curtain would fall again – and then just as suddenly rise again to reveal yet a third unbelievable change - for same gal! Etc.

(What the crowd did not know – and what was never revealed) was that Glen had had this theater built with a silent revolving turntable in the stage floor. When Tableau 1 was present to view, Tableau 2, with the other identical twin! – was being readied right behind it and when the curtain fell, the stage was noiselessly reversed, front to back and the curtain raised - to confound the viewers! While Tableau 2 was being viewed, Tableau 1 was being replaced with Tableau 3, etc. etc. It took a lot of practice and “dress rehearsals” to get this all down pat. (That is why many often went out a couple weeks in advance to set it all up). It sounds like fun, I know, but it was really exhausting hard work to bring it all off.

Once, back in New York, Glen’s “charges” to run his department were reaching astronomical levels and I suppose top management was beginning to ask questions or something – so Glen called me in one day and said, “Listen! I need you to run out to Chicago tonight and check something for me!” Figuring a plant tour and interview was in the offing, I was about to ask which one when he interrupted and said, “It’s not a CCC plant this time, it is a … warehouse out in Cicero.” He gave me an address and said, “I need you to verify that a shipment there is what the guy says it is.” All very mysterious.

Next day, in the dark recesses of the Cicero warehouse, I listened and looked while the “guy” pointed out a big truckload of what looked like hundreds, maybe of big plywood sheets. “That’s every one of then,” he was saying. “We can’t store this stuff here gratis anymore. Taking up too much space.” Then I saw what it was: it was the torn down panels from dozens of onetime Trade Shows such as I been discussing here. And our old Traveling Theater (sans blondes). All knocked up and strapped with big nylon shipping straps. “Guy said you would know if it was all here.”

(LOL!) “Well,” I said, “guess ‘tis. Looks like it, anyhow.” Then I paused. Then I asked (although I felt I already knew the answer). “Where’s it all going?” “Going to an address here your guy gave me – somewhere – here: Armonk, Westchester County, N.Y. Gotta’ ‘cross-country’ leaving here today I can get it on right now if you think this is all there was! No charge!

Look okay to you?”

I tugged at a few nylon straps. “Looks good to me,” says I. The forklifts moved in.

Glen, you see, was a home handyman with bells on and was busy remodeling the home he and Barbara had bought up in Armonk. Remodeling I might add, with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of “free” plywood panels, some still bearing traces of brick walls and wattle-and-daub from our various sojourns around the nation. And trans-shipped from …everywhere…gratis! Way to Go, Man! Way to Go! With a promotional team like ours in the saddle, it is small wonder that CCC rose to the top of its pile…and eventually went under! (Grin!).