Working on a Deadline

For those too young to remember the technology, I’ll have to start by explaining that, once upon a time, there were no cell phones. Not even pagers. Seriously, dudes, there were only phone booths. Those were little nooks and crannies in which the Phone Company; yes, there used to be this one big company called the “Phone Company”; would place “pay phones”. Pay phones required you to have the necessary 10 cents to make a call. The phone did not have a dial tone until the dime went down the slot, which set off a bell, which in turn, activated the phone. This was the world in which the following story takes place.

I was working on a deadline, computing the costs of competitive bids for county road jobs in the 1980’s. I was the Estimator of Earthworks at the time for an outfit named Anthem in Cockeysville, Maryland. The main idea of “bid day”; when the Proposals would be submitted; was to find a phone and wait for the final price to come in from the office. The Estimator would then write that number in the proposal and seal the bid before delivering it to the Public Offering. There the bids would be opened and read aloud so as to avoid any overt corruption.

Once the sealed bids were opened, the names of the firms responding and the price of their proposals were read aloud, with all the estimators, like me, writing down the final numbers of their competitors. The goal was, of course, to get the job, but at the same time make a profit. This was easier said than done.

For instance, if the “Engineer’s Estimate”; which was the price the municipality was relying upon as the price to perform the work; was $300,000 you knew it was worth more, but needed to come at least close if you hoped to get the contract, since the counties have the right to reject a bid for being “over budget.” The joke at the time was that the Engineer’s Estimate reflected the cost of construction in Heaven.

On the other hand, if the job was really worth about $400,000 you needed to get as close to your competitors without giving away all of the profits, which was known as “leaving too much on the table.” So the goal for any Estimator hoping to retain his job was to place 2^nd. That meant you didn’t get the job, but providing that your number was close to the winning bid, you could look the boss in the eye and say, “We almost got it!” with pride. The boss, for his part, didn’t want to leave anything at all “on the table”, and so his reaction would always be, “There’s no way they can make money at that price!” It was Aesop who said that “any fool can despise what he cannot get.”

Working on deadlines can be nerve wracking, or thrilling, depending on how you manage your time and resources. I was always several bids ahead of schedule; with each bid clasped to the appropriate set of plans and laid in chronological order as to the date of the actual bid. In that way I could remain ahead of schedule while allowing enough time to add, or change, whatever was necessary to “hone” my number to a fine point while still allowing a decent profit.

Still, in spite of all precautions, it was always a relief to come in at a close second, where you could look intelligent to the boss while risking nothing in return.

"Carolina Israelite" by Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett (2015)

I was first introduced to the writings of Harry Golden by Leonard Herman when I was 15 years old. He was the father of one of my friends when I was growing up in Brooklyn. Come to think of it, he also was the first person to expose me to Isaac Singer’s wonderful short stories. Years later; something like 40; I went to live in Charlotte, N.C. where Mr. Golden is somewhat of a legend; if only for the fact that he lived through the Civil Rights Movement here while writing about it like a liberal Jew from New York.

His home/office on Elizabeth Avenue was even burnt down in reaction to something he printed in his self-published newspaper the “Carolina Israelite” which is the tile of this book. The authors’ mother actually worked for Mr. Golden for a brief period in the 1940’s and uses the title in the way Mr. Golden meant it. It wasn’t the title of the paper as much as it was a description of Mr. Golden himself; he was the Carolina Israelite; roaming the wilderness of North Carolina espousing his views on racial and social equality, much as the Israelites roamed the desert for 40 years in search of a home.

The author does a wonderful job of chronicling the life of this enigmatic man; including his years in New York where he rose from the Lower East side selling newspapers on the corners, to engaging in some very astute stock market swindles which landed him in jail for a time. It was after his stint in prison that he began to roam, looking for a new start somewhere. For some reason he chose Charlotte, North Carolina as the place to transform himself.

As a spokesman for African-Americans he penned the controversial, and hysterically funny piece of satire called “The Vertical Negro Plan”, in which he solves the whole lunch counter seating problem which was then engulfing North Carolina by simply recommending that all seats be removed from restaurants and schools, as the only time black and white people seemed to have problems concerned seating arrangements; even on buses. Make ‘em all stand.

His friendships’ with some of the most influential men of his time are well chronicled, and the author does a great job of reviewing those relationships and even how some of them came about. His habit was to add a famous person’s name to his subscription list and then mention that they were subscribers, thus enhancing his own stature. Shades of his Wall Street days come to mind here. Surprisingly, most of those he befriended in this way actually did become friends with him. The Kennedy’s, both Bob and Jack; Carl Sandburg, who also lived in North Carolina; Adlai Stevenson; even Billy Graham all were proud to count him among their friends.

As far as Jewish-American relations go, Mr. Golden was not idle in that theater of operation. His most stunning piece of work; at least in my eyes; is his essay “Teaching Shylock”, in which he shows the reader how the “Merchant of Venice” and its portrayal of Shylock were not anti-Semitic at all. In fact Shakespeare has lampooned the Christian aristocracy in such a subtle way that people have been reading that play all wrong for 500 years. This is some accomplishment and I urge you strongly to read that piece. I will include a link to it at the end of this review.

In short, this is a wonderful book, long overdue, about one of the most underrated and unappreciated writers in American literature. It is only in the past 20 years that he has begun to be recognized as such. Lenny Herman was way ahead of the curve when he introduced me to the works of this wonderful man of letters.

Here is a link to the “Teaching Shylock” piece, which I really hope you will take the time to read.  If you are a Shakespearean scholar, or just a humble Jew like me, this piece will simply blow you away.

http://robertwilliamsofbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2014/05/teaching-shylock-by-harry-golden-1961.html

And for a review of “For 2 Cents Plain” use this link;

http://robertwilliamsofbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2009/05/for-2-cents-plain-by-harry-golden.html

Journalist Bloggers - Bloggers as Journalists

Have you noticed that many of your favorite local newspaper columnists have become bloggers? Some have found themselves out of work as a result of the demise of the daily newspaper; and others have found themselves working essentially for free as “featured bloggers” in the very papers they once worked for. I have no idea how they are making a living. Some have fallen back on grants and fellowships to pay the bills while they further their educations; while others have gone on to jobs working in the universities.

All of this brings to mind the question of just what is a journalist and where do bloggers fit into the picture? It can be argued; and has by many of the columnists who are out of work; that bloggers are nothing more than wannabes with no credentials and little talent. Ouch! That’s a bit harsh, considering all the grammatical errors I correct in the daily paper. And that’s not to mention some of the outright falsehoods and stretching of the truth that most columnists rely upon to make their case about whatever they are writing about. Most, if not all, have an agenda.

Bloggers, for the most part, are “wannabes” like me. We write because we always have, it’s just now that we finally have a place to put our stuff with any hope that someone might read it. We are composed of poets, armchair historians, storytellers, hobbyists and political hacks; the latter being the most closely related to the columnists who decry them to begin with.

The reason I blog is because I no longer work for a living. Sidelined by health, blogging has proven an effective way to keep in touch with my own intellectual abilities and also functions as a sort of diary of what I am reading; music I am listening to; and stories which I want to pass down to the grandkids. Along the way I might take on some politics; even the Constitution if I feel so inclined.

But mostly I enjoy writing about films which I have grown to love and books which have become a part of me. By writing it down I hope to leave an impression of who I was while I was here. Not for fame, fortune or love do I toil; I write for me. But when I get notes, letters, e-mails and even books from people who are reading this stuff, well, I feel as if I have made a connection. And when I get an e-mail from someone who was related to someone I have written about; and this has happened more times than you can imagine in the last 5 years; giving them back a piece of what was a puzzle to them; then I am over the moon!

So, I guess this is what bloggers do best; we fill that space between the columnist hacks and the legitimate news reporters. We are composed of people just like you. While it’s true that many of us don’t have degrees in journalism, we bring a whole wealth of knowledge and skills to the table which would not be represented elsewhere. For that we neither ask, nor expect, anything in return; except for a nice e-mail when warranted.

The above illustration is of the bronze statue titled “Newsboy” which sits in the Library at the University of Arizona. It was unveiled there in 2010 and was created by artist John Muir. The number for the Libray is 520-621-6406.

"Deadline Artists" - Edited by Avlon, Angelo and Louis (2012)

When I was a kid we got two newspapers a day; the World Telegram and Sun in the afternoons and the evening Post, which my father brought home with him from work.  The columnists in both these papers and the Daily News helped to shape my world, often introducing me; through their own writings; to the likes of Harry Golden, Jack London, H.L. Mencken and others. All of these authors are included in this collection along with such icons as Ben Hecht, and  Frank Ward O'Malley.

With these columns from the golden age of newspapers you will recapture the excitement of the daily newspaper;  in an era before the 24/7 news cycle took control; and journalists really worked at their trade, while columnists did their best to distill the bigger picture into the essence of meaning for the masses.

Some of the columns featured here, and chosen by co-editors John Avlon, Jesse Angelo and Errol Louis include such events as the Scopes Trial, the execution of Mata Hari, Ku Klux Klan Klaverns, Civil Rights Marches, Al Capone's Trial, the Black Sox Scandal,the Galveston flood of 1900, and a myriad of others.

Deftly edited , the book covers some of the best columnists; and some of the best columns ever written. In the best tradition of Twain, O. Henry, Damon Runyon, Melville; and so many others; these authors all began their careers as journalists. And in doing so, they have left a portrait of us all; sometimes good; and often bad; of just who we really are.