Tag: horatio alger

1980s/Business school case study/Family Business/Investment Schemes

CHICKEN LITTLE

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Above illustration courtesy of Mabel Hill – http://www.romanceroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/barnesreader07.JPG, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10806723

Chicken Little was annoying for at least two reasons.

For those of you reading this blog from overseas, perhaps you may know this little fluff ball and the associated folk tale as Henny Penny or Chicken Lichen.

By way of review, the story goes like this.  Chicken Little (or Henny Penny) was a chick outside somewhere, probably in New Jersey, when all of a sudden she was hit on the head by a falling acorn.  Her gut reaction was to conclude that the sky was falling and that the king would benefit from a warning of this “fact.”  So, she embarks on an epic journey and persuades all that she encounters that, indeed, the “sky is falling.”  In this way, she is joined by other feathered friends like Ducky Lucky, Cocky Locky, Gander Lander, and so on.

Eventually, the flock encounters a clever fox who listens attentively, and then invites them all to his lair for some refreshments.  This turns out badly as the fox simply latches the door and devours them all.

In some versions, Cocky Locky manages to warn Chicken Little who escapes and lives happily ever after, most likely ending up in an EconoLodge outside Newark.

But I digress.

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1980s/Dementia/Family Business/Horatio Alger

DATE OF RECORD

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In the run up to August 18th, 1986, the date of record for me, a typical training session that summer with my replacement Paul Campo went down something like this:

“OK, Paul, this is the computer inventory of all trademarks owned by The Wellcome Foundation.”  I put my hand down softly on a large green binder by my side.  Inside were hundreds of pages of green tractor-feed paper held together with white plastic paper ties.

Getting very little on the way of a reaction, I flipped through the pages making a ruffling noise.  “You see, the marks are organized by country.”

Again, no reaction.

Continuing to flip through the sheets, I stopped at one page.  “Here, this page is for Sudan.”

Paul looked lively all of a sudden.  “Dan who?” he asked.  “And I don’t know anyone named Sue,” he added.  A real comedian.

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1980s/Business school case study/Dementia/Family Business

MURPHY AND HIS LAW

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This week’s post is dedicated to Carrie Fischer, who was a tremendous advocate for victims of mental illness.  Despite tremendous hardship and emotional neglect, she became the sole caretaker of her father Eddie Fischer during the last years of his troubled life (divorced 5 times!) in a completely selfless manner.

carrie_fisher_2013

Brown Brothers Harriman.  Manny Hanny.  Cantor Fitzgerald.  First Morgan Sachs Fifth Avenue.  Taco Bell.  If Michael Lewis wrote about them, I interviewed there in my search to get out of a destructive work and family situation.  Like Horatio Alger‘s characters, I needed a powerful mentor to groom the trail ahead.  Lacking such, my quest was doomed to heartache.

Nevertheless, I did find many helpful folks along the way; it was just they were never in the right place to clear an obstacle for me.  Even though somewhat underpowered, I tried to compensate by being as thorough and complete as possible.  For example, an unusual source for job leads was to be found in the salmon pink colored folds of the Financial Times of London.  I knew this paper from my frequent trips to England.  There was a recruitment section on the back pages.  I answered lots of postings and bought sheets of international air mail stamps to send out my resume.

Occasionally, I received a courteous reply thanking me for my application.  Invariably, they promised to contact me promptly if “a suitable match were found.”

I watched the backs of pigs anxiously for any signs of wing buds.  But like watched pots that never boil, I couldn’t get my bacon to fly.

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1980s/Family Business/Nostalgic New York

MAN-KILLER!!!

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In my post last week named after Salvador Dali’s surrealistic masterpiece, “PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY,” I ended the story, “I dusted off my resume and …”

… sent it off to the HR departments at all of my favorite potential employers!  With, as previously noted, many misgivings.  But I had to do it.  It was time.

Not long after, some initial feedback trickled back to me and it was a little unsettling.

Turns out that I was no longer what you would consider to be a new graduate.  Technically speaking, this meant that I was trying to make a prospective “career change.”  In the job market, that’s a no-no and often a no-go.  You see, if you’re skilled in one thing, you are automatically presumed to be no good for anything else.  The job market is very simple-minded that way.

Look, I don’t write the rules.  Just a silly blog.  I’m merely reporting here.  You decide.

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Family Business/History of Patent Annuities/Horatio Alger/Nostalgic New York

OF GIANTS AND DWARFS

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Special note: Today is Dad’s 98th birthday!

As related in my last two posts, “THE NIGHT IS DARK AND FULL OF TERRORS,” and “FIRST TEST,” my full-time entry into the family business was marked by both gloom and doom on one hand, and affirmation on the other.

You could say it was a study of extremes. Like my Dad.

The location of the office was, well, anything but standard.  It was close to my home in Manhattan — five miles as the crow flies.  Just across the river, the first stop.

Yet, it was hideous from the point of view of public transportation.  Two subway lines to Times Square; a bus from the New Jersey Embassy (otherwise known as the Port Authority Bus Terminal); and then a quarter mile uphill slog.  This was a tough commute of one hour’s duration, each way.  It was the Goddamn bus that took the longest, inching its way through hellacious traffic to and from the Lincoln Tunnel.  If I could have walked on water, I could have hoofed the whole thing in just about the same amount of time.

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1980s/Family Roots/Foreign Adventure/Lithuania/Parents

BOOMERANG THROWN

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The past 5 posts describe the first of the 5 days staying at the Hotel Lithuania (not to be confused with the Hotel California).  In Vilnius, Soviet occupied Lithuania during May 1985.  Intermingled in the details were other anecdotes about my stay in Moscow the prior week.

View from my window at the Lietuva

My view out the window of the Hotel Lietuva.  The Neris River is in the foreground and the Old Town behind.

For the sake of repetition, my primary purpose in going to Lithuania was to meet my Father’s family, his uncle and cousins.  Our roots in this small, little-known country in Eastern Europe was something we shared.  Plain and simple.

Curly Hair

The author with Eugenija’s son (and my cousin) Vytas.  At least I figured out where my curly hair came from!

When I got there, I discovered insights into what exactly constitutes oppression.  Some of it boomeranged to hit me in strange ways.

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1980s/Family/Family Roots/Foreign Adventure/Parents

IN SEARCH OF… MY FATHER’S MOTHER!

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Before I cover the apparently sudden demise of my father’s mother Patricia in Queens, NY, on August 22, 1943, let me backtrack a bit and take a look at her origins.  At least the little that is known.  So I go in search of…  my paternal grandparents!

For that, my story today starts off on one beautiful bright Saturday morning in May 1985.  I was in a rental car rolling through verdant countryside.  The birds were chirping, the sun was streaming, and my Al Green cassette tape was cranking through the sound system; Al crooning “Love and Happiness.”  It was a happenin’ morning!

Yet this was not your normal stretch of New Jersey Turnpike, say between Elizabeth and Rahway.  Nor was I in a 1984 Buick LeSabre.  This road trip was distinctive for many reasons!

Well for one thing, the player’s fast forward was broken so when I got to the end of the last song on side 1, I had to eject the tape, stick my finger into one sprocket, and twirl the tape around my finger until I got to the end of side 1 (which was the beginning of side 2).

But that was just a nit.  Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was rockin’ a recent vintage Volga sedan like the one pictured below.

MHV_ZiL_117_01

Switch out I-95, and sub-in the fact that I was rolling southbound on the A4, a rural two lane highway in Soviet occupied Lithuania.

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1940s/Family/Nostalgic New York/Parents

MING AND DARTH

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Aside from World War II and the War of the Worlds broadcast, there were other haps in the 1930s and 1940s that informed my Dad’s interests and personality.  For example, as he told me numerous times, his favorite comic strip of the era was Flash Gordon.  Flash was big at the time.  Dad loved Flash so much, it was even his college nickname!

As I reviewed the original comic strip in preparation for this post, I was struck by how much it resembles Star Wars of my generation.  The action takes place on the planet Mongo, locale of kingdoms like Arboria (forests) and Frigia (ice).  Kings and Queens galore!  And the villain?  A bad guy with interesting headwear!

Ming the Merciless

Meet Ming the Merciless!

When looking at the above image of Ming, I am not sure if Darth Vader was ever so similar a lady killer.  Well, the young Jedi Anakin certainly was, in the prequels.  Unfortunately, he lost his man parts — GOP Presidential candidates please take note — on the lava planet (or moon, whichever) after losing the sword fight to Obi Wan.

On the other hand, what Flash didn’t have was the tiresome drama of Luke and Leia playing “who’s your daddy?”  Who needs parents anyway?  That’s right, you heard it asked here on the Bernard Olcott Story blog!

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1940s/Business school case study/Early/History of Patent Annuities/Horatio Alger/Nostalgic New York

THE PROVENANCE OF DILIGENCE

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The scenes featuring Gloria in “The Lost Weekend” are said to be shot in PJ Clarke’s bar, still at the corner of Third and 55th, but no longer under the shadow of the El.

It was not “New York’s New Yorkiest” joint, however, as declared by Walter Winchell, the leading radio personality of the 1940s and 1950s. That honor fell squarely on The Stork Club.

Unlike PJ Clarke’s unfortunately, nothing is left today of The Stork. Owner Sherman Billingsley was arguably one of New York’s greatest celebrities from the 1940s and 1950s. Where he once fought union pickets and sabotage, while throwing customers out (who dared to patronize the rival Harwyn club), a peaceful pocket park marks the former location of the famous glitzy eatery and bar.

There aren’t that many relics of old New York left. Probably one of the best “New Yorkiest” venues still in existence is the storied Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. It’s a puzzling institution in that many New Yorkers don’t seem to know about it. When I asked my Dad where he went to college, he told me proudly “Cooper Union” and when he noticed my quizzical look, proceeded to tell me about it.

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1940s/1950s/Horatio Alger/James Thurber/Nostalgic New York/Wife No. 5

LOOKING BACK AT THE FILM NOIR 1940s

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“The Lost Weekend,” as previously noted in my post of the same name, was the Academy Award best picture of 1945.  It not only reveals Gotham of yesterday by way of moving images, like the main actor stumbling haggardly under the Third Avenue El in search of a drink, but also by way of the language and the accents of the era.  Unlike the 1960 classic “Butterfield 8,” the personalities in “The Lost Weekend” engage with each other directly, with a minimum of game playing or social charades.  It was the 1940s way.

Significantly, as it relates to The Bernard Olcott Story, it’s about a writer!  There’s even a reference to my distant cousin James Thurber (on my mother’s side) in the first few minutes.

What can you say about the film noir world of the 1940s, the formative decade for my Dad?  Well, for one thing, there were a HELL of a lot of barber shops.  Everywhere!

However, the first thing I noticed were the strong New York accents, most notably as spoken by the bartender Nat.  He routinely addresses the main character, Don Birnham, as “Mr. Boy-nam.”  This brings me back to working at Olcott International in Weehawken in the late 1970s and afterwards, please see my post “GOODBYE 212, HELLO 201?”

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