Monday - October 19, 2009
How did this happen? Or did it?
Somali insurgents shot down a U.S. drone aircraft flying over the country’s southern port of Kismayo, a spokesman told Reuters on Monday. The insurgents, members of the Islamist fundamentalist group al Shabaab, are now searching the wreckage.
“We fired at an American plane spying for information over Kismayo. Our forces targeted the plane and shot it and we saw the plane burning. We think it fell into the sea,” Sheikh Hassan Yacqub, spokesman for the al Shabaab rebels in Kismayo, was quoted by Reuters.
“We are still searching for it,” he said.
Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, spokesman of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, said all its unmanned aerial vehicles had been safely recovered but could not give further details.
Al Shabaab, which Washington says is al Qaeda’s proxy in Somalia, controls much of the south and center where it is waging an insurgency against the fragile U.N.-backed government.
So, wishful thinking on their part, or outright bullshit? Or they managed to wing one, but the Navy managed to land it anyway. Or else they’re denying it for psyop purposes? It’s so hard to tell. But these drones aren’t very big, and they do - or at least can - fly at pretty decent altitudes. Above the 29,000 foot level that a fairly modern 40mm Bofors can shoot. Unless the Navy was using one of the older drones.
So, do these insurgents now have anti-aircraft missiles? News to me, but what do I know? And where would they get the cash to buy such a weapon and who would sell it to them, plus the tens of thousands of rounds of ammo it would need? If this Al Shabaab group is that well funded and armed, why aren’t they more newsworthy?
Posted by Drew458
on 10/19/2009 at 12:59 PM
Filed Under: • War On Terror •
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Permalink • GERMANY: FIGHTER ACE GUNTHER RALL PASSES AWAY AGE 91.
Brit papers like The Telegraph do make note of the other side on folks like General Rall.
An interesting obit. I’ve read about this ace in the past. Germans didn’t use our term “Ace.” They preferred “Expert.” And so many were.
Generalleutnant Günther Rall, who has died aged 91, was one of the few outstanding German fighter leaders to survive the Second World War; by the end of the conflict he was the third-highest-scoring fighter ace of all time with 275 aerial victories.
In postwar years he was one of the founding fathers of the modern German Air Force and rose to become its chief.
In the spring of 1941 Rall was a squadron commander in Jagdgeschwader (fighter wing) JG-52 flying the Messerschmitt Bf 109 based in Romania. By this time Germany and the Soviet Union were at war and Soviet bombers were attacking the crucial oil refineries. In five days Rall and his men destroyed some 50 Soviet bombers and were next sent to the southern sector of the Eastern Front where Rall’s victories mounted rapidly against the inferior Soviet fighters and bombers.
After shooting down his 36th victim, Rall was attacked by an enemy fighter and his aircraft badly damaged. He just managed to cross the German lines before crash landing in a rock-strewn gully. He was severely wounded and knocked unconscious but German tank crews dragged him clear. He eventually reached a hospital in Vienna where it was found that he had broken his back in three places. Here he was treated by a woman doctor, Hertha, who later became his wife.
When Austria was annexed in 1938 Hertha had helped Jewish friends escape to London, even as Nazi discrimination and anti-Semitic policy made their lives intolerable. Indeed, while Rall was always a devoted soldier in the service of his country, when the facts of the Holocaust were presented to him he came to look on them as “the greatest madness of this insane war”.
“We knew about Dachau, the concentration camps, but not exactly what happened there,” he later explained. “During the war I was hardly in Germany. The airfields were on the front, we had no idea of what was happening behind our backs. When I heard of Auschwitz, I did not believe it. We said clearly: ‘That’s propaganda’.”
Having been paralysed for months Rall returned to operational duty in August 1942. On September 3 he was decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross after his 65th victory. During the following month his score increased beyond 100, bringing him the oak leaves for his Knight’s Cross, the 134th recipient of the coveted award. In November they were presented to him personally by Hitler. Afterwards, as they sat together by the fire, Rall asked Hitler: “Führer, how long will this war take?” Hitler replied: “My dear Rall, I don’t know.” That surprised him. “I thought our leaders knew everything,” Rall recalled, “and suddenly I realised they didn’t know anything.”
In April 1943 Rall was promoted to command III/JG-52. He was constantly in action for the next 11 months. On August 29 he recorded his 200th victory on his 555th operational flight and on September 12 he was again summoned to Berlin when Hitler awarded him the Swords to his Knight’s Cross, the 34th man to be so honoured. Rall returned to operations and in October accounted for another 40 aircraft – more than many of Germany’s best pilots achieved throughout the entire war.
As the war progressed, the obsolete Soviet fighters were steadily replaced by others with far superior performance. Nevertheless, the great majority of Rall’s successes were in fighter-to-fighter combat. During his time on the Eastern Front, Rall came up against many excellent Soviet pilots and was himself shot down seven times. Finally, in April 1944, he returned to Germany.
The son of a merchant, Günther Rall was born on March 10 1918 in Gaggenau in the Black Forest. When he was three, his family moved to Stuttgart where he completed his education at the High School. On graduation in 1936 he joined the Army to be an infantry officer and whilst at the Dresden Kriegsschule met an old friend whose tales of flying convinced him that he should apply to be a pilot.
During the 1930s Rall had viewed the rise of Hitler with no particular enthusiasm but, like many soldiers, approved of the way in which Hitler and the National Socialists had ended decades of humiliation for German-speaking people.
“When Hitler became chancellor,” Rall remembered, “there was no unemployment, no more Rhineland occupation, no more reparations to the victors [of the Great War]. That impressed us as young soldiers, no doubt about it.”
In 1939 Rall trained as a fighter pilot on a base east of Berlin and was transferred to JG-52. Flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109, he saw his first air combat in May 1940 during the Battle of France. On May 18 he shot down a French Air Force Curtis Hawk fighter flown by a Czech sergeant who escaped by parachute. With the fall of France, Rall’s unit moved to Calais.
He flew throughout the Battle of Britain, when his unit was assigned to escort Junkers Ju-87 Stukas (dive bombers), very slow-flying aircraft. The fighters had to stick with them, giving up all of their superiority and speed; the unit suffered heavy losses against the Spitfires and Hurricanes, losing the group commander, the adjutant and all three squadron commanders in a few weeks. Rall soon found himself rapidly promoted to squadron leader before the unit was finally withdrawn in September to rebuild and train new pilots.
Rall was critical of the tactics used which made his valuable and capable aircraft vulnerable to attack by fighters. He always spoke very highly of the RAF. During a postwar interview he said: “In my experience, the RAF pilot was the most aggressive and capable fighter pilot during the Second World War.”
Once the squadron had been brought up to strength, it was transferred to Romania to defend the oil refineries and bridges over the Danube during the spring of 1941. After providing support for the German airborne assault on Crete, Rall’s unit hurried back to Romania following the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union.
After returning from the Eastern Front, Rall was made Gruppenkommadeur of II/JG-11, flying Bf 109s on homeland defence duties, primarily against the high-flying daylight bomber forces and their escorting fighters of the USAAF 8th Air Force. On May 12 1944 he attacked a large formation and shot down two USAAF P-47 Thunderbolts, but was then himself shot down. He was severely wounded in the hand but managed to bail out over Frankfurt. His wound became badly infected and he remained in hospital for six months.Because he was deemed too precious for the morale of the people, and could not fire his guns because of a missing thumb, he was kept from combat. Rall became an instructor, and studied several American planes that had fallen into the possession of the Luftwaffe to find their strengths and weaknesses and to develop better tactics to teach his students. He flew the P-51 and was amazed at the luxury and quality of the American planes. He once explained that being unable to fly in combat probably saved his life at a time when Germany was totally outnumbered and the chances of staying alive were drastically reduced. But he returned to active duty in November.
Rall’s last command was as the leader of JG-300 and on arrival at the unit’s airfield he was forced to dive into a ditch as USAAF fighters strafed the line up of Bf 109s – 15 were left burning. The Luftwaffe was in retreat and he flew his final operations from Salzburg. During this time he flew the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter but never in combat. He and his inexperienced pilots flew whenever Rall could commandeer fuel. There was no organised air defence system, intelligence on Allied movements was negligible and Rall led his pilots against targets of opportunity.
He flew his 621st and final mission at the end of April. Towards the very last days of the war he asked the men in his command to try to stay alive rather than get involved in senseless actions. He felt it was his responsibility as a leader to try to save the few lives that he could as the war was virtually over and its outcome could not be reversed. A few days later he was captured by the Americans.
http://www.acepilots.com/german/rall.html
Posted by peiper
on 10/19/2009 at 11:49 AM
Filed Under: • OBITITUARIES •
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Permalink • ANOTHER BLIND DOCTOR, ANOTHER DEAD PATIENT …. daily death and life
Can’t honestly say that this is the fault of National Health. Actually, I’m not in a position to know one way or another. What do know from reading the papers every day 24/7, is that this happens a lot. Hey, if it only happens once it’s a hell of a lot to the patient/victim and the family.
I also know because I have seen lots and lots of doctors here who resemble this doctor quack. There’s apparently a shortage on this island and so they import em from wherever. That might not be a fair thing to say but sorry, it’s how I see it.
Doctor faces being struck off after woman, 26, dies of cancer ‘he failed to spot EIGHT times’
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:17 PM on 19th October 2009Nikki Sams died after Dr Navin Shankar failed to spot her cervical cancer eight times in four years
A doctor who failed to spot the symptoms of cervical cancer in a young woman eight times in four years faces being struck off.
Dr Navin Shankar told Nikki Sams her health problems were ‘nothing serious’, never performed an internal examination and ignored her pleas for a hospital check-up.
The blunders only emerged when she was transferred to another surgery after Dr Shankar was suspended in a separate case of serious misconduct.
Her new doctor immediately ordered a smear test which showed the advertising saleswoman had abnormal cells and more tests found she had a tumour.
Miss Sams had a hysterectomy and months of treatment but died a year later aged 26 after the cancer spread to her lungs, spine and neck.
Her devastated father Michael Sams, 54, who had given up his job to look after her, said a ‘catalogue of unforgiveable errors’ cost his daughter her life.
‘Nikki was so brave, she never complained or said “why me” but she died unnecessarily,’ he told the General Medical Council.
‘It is unbelievable that in this day and age a girl can go to her doctor so many times complaining about all these symptoms and be sent away and told not to worry.
‘I don’t understand how you can exhibit these symptoms for so long and they not be picked up until it’s too late.’
He added: ‘We want to get some kind of answers… We want to know why it went wrong. Only then can we have closure.’
Doctor Navin ShankarDoctor Navin Shankar faces being struck off the medical register
Under Government guidelines, young women are only eligible for regular cervical smear tests when they turn 25 so need them to be ordered by a doctor.
Dr Navin Shankar treated Miss Sams between 1999 and 2005 at the Wigmore Lane Health Centre in Luton.
He appeared before the General Medical Council last week to assess his fitness to practise and determine whether sanctions should be taken against him.
The case has been adjourned for a performance assessment to be carried out but the GMC has already ‘proven’ several complaints made against him.
It found Miss Sams had made direct requests to Dr Shankar and a number of other unrecorded complaints about inter-menstrual bleeding in the same period.
But he failed to keep adequate records of her symptoms.
She also made a request for referral to Luton & Dunstable Hospital, but at no stage did Dr Shankar perform an abdominal or internal examination or send her to hospital.
Mr Sams said his daughter went through the ‘worst pain of her life’ when she eventually had treatment for the disease.
She was given the all-clear after six months and went back to work but doctors found the cancer had returned when she was treated after a car accident.
A series of x-rays showed the disease had spread into her spine, neck and lungs and she was given six months to two years to live.
She died at home a month after being diagnosed with secondary cancer in August 2007. Her father never told her it was terminal so that she did not give up hope.
Posted by peiper
on 10/19/2009 at 10:43 AM
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Permalink • MORE LAW AND DISORDER HELPED ALONG BY KEYSTONE KOPS AND LIBTARD HAND WRINGERS
Sir Ludovic Kennedy, journalist and death penalty opponent, dies aged 89
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:13 PM on 19th October 2009Television presenter and author Sir Ludovic Kennedy, 1919 - 2009
Distinguished journalist Sir Ludovic Kennedy has passed away at the age of 89.
Sir Ludovic, whose work investigating the ‘Rillington Place’ murders is credited with speeding up the abolition of the death penalty in Britain, died in a nursing home in Salisbury on Sunday.
GOOD .. I hope the bastard rots in hell. I hope his final days were nothing but unremitting pain. Libtard ass-wipe.
It’s fools and total hang wringing bleeding hearts like this worthless shit, who are responsible for things like this.
I’m only sorry he wasn’t still born 89 yrs ago.
I understand the cops have dropped the ball. I do not say they are blameless in this case. But damn it it’s the jerks like the one mentioned above who have seen to it that Europe and the UK no longer have a death penalty.
Here’s a case where a miserable excuse for a human being murdered a girl in Germany, gets life there but is released after 15 years and deported back to England. Where he of course simply does what comes naturally, he kills again. Those previous 15 years meant nothing to him. Neither will the next 15. Or 30. Will any of you bet that he will not be out someday? Would you wanna bet your life on that?
This isn’t a case of circumstantial evidence. They had the creep dead to rights the first time around. But Germany, especially Germany, must not ever execute anyone ever again. And of course it’s against EU laws.
I am so tired of reading this kind of thing but trust me. It is impossible to avoid. It’s so damn common! I just do no understand the people who work against a penalty that guarantees the continued future of some innocent victim. Just what sort of rational would they apply here? Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. What I do know, or think I know, is that none of the ppl who oppose the death penalty have become the victim of a monster like this. I wish that they would.
Eight days after a 999 call, police went to Maria Stubbings’ home… to be turned away by her killer
By Lucy Ballinger and Rebecca Camber
Last updated at 12:33 PM on 19th October 2009A grieving family have accused the police of a catalogue of errors over the murder of a mother-of-two by a convicted killer.
Maria Stubbings, 50, was strangled with a dog lead by her ex-boyfriend days after she had called 999 fearing he had broken into her house.
When officers visited her home eight days after the emergency call they were greeted by Marc Chivers, who told them she had gone away.
At that moment her body was just feet away from the front door - hidden in a downstairs toilet by Chivers.
He is believed to have killed her three days earlier.
It was only the day after their call that police finally conducted a search of the house and found Mrs Stubbings’s body under a pile of coats.
Chivers, 42, had previously served 15 years for strangling another former girlfriend.
Mrs Stubbings’s family are furious that, despite the previous murder and his history of violence, police did not fully follow up her complaint against Chivers in the days before her death in Chelmsford, Essex, last December. They are planning to sue Essex police.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating Essex Police’s handling of the case.
Chivers was sentenced to life in prison in September 1993 for strangling his ex-girlfriend in Germany and dumping her body in woodland when in his 20s.
He was deported from Stuttgart to the UK in January 2008 after serving 15 years.
A few months later he met Mrs Stubbings in a park, and the pair embarked on a whirlwind romance.
But their relationship turned sour within a few months, and last July jobless Chivers, from Little Waltham, near Chelmsford, was arrested for assaulting her after a night out.
An argument broke out at her home and Mrs Stubbings fled to a neighbour’s home.
Chivers dragged her back by her hair. In October 2008 he pleaded guilty at Chelmsford Crown Court to battery. He was sentenced to serve four months in prison minus time spent on remand.
After he was arrested for attacking Mrs Stubbings, she discovered his murderous past and, fearing for her safety, was given a panic alarm by police.
But her family claim this panic alarm was broken - leaving her with no protection from her aggressive ex-boyfriend.
Once out of jail Chivers is understood to have tried to rekindle their romance.
She called police when she returned home late on December 11 last year to find someone had broken in. She feared it was Chivers.
Essex Police claim they visited her the next day, but despite his previous two convictions did not follow-up with another visit in the days after this.
Mrs Stubbings made further calls to the police and friends also called the police repeatedly to raise concerns, but no one went to see her until eight days after the original call, when they were sent away by Chivers with the body lying within feet of the front door.
The following day her body was discovered during a police search of the house.
Posted by peiper
on 10/19/2009 at 08:47 AM
Filed Under: • Crime • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Daily Life • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Stoopid-People • UK •
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Permalink • SOME LINKS TO PJTV… I think you’ll find interesting
From PJTV ...
I get this in my newsletter. There is no way (so far) to embed, so here’s an interesting link to Fred Barnes runs 15 minutes.
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2572
BUT ..... This one only runs 3 minutes and I’d suggest seeing it first.
Can_MSNBC_Survive_Without_Rush_Limbaugh
Posted by peiper
on 10/19/2009 at 07:51 AM
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Editorials •
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Permalink • Sunday - October 18, 2009
Weekend Oldies
So, peiper’s doing the weekend girlies, I’ll start the weekend oldies:
I’m sure peiper is familiar with Uriah Heep!
And then ABBA:
I was only sixteen and was dancing with my first…
Yeah, she was young, and seventeen, and I was only sixteen…
Sigh…
Posted by Christopher
on 10/18/2009 at 05:31 PM
Filed Under: • Personal •
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Permalink • DON’T TRED ON ME. A DIFFERENT TAKE.
I stumbled across it when looking for something else. But I liked it much and want to share. Clever use of mouse.
Posted by peiper
on 10/18/2009 at 05:38 AM
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •
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Permalink • HELP WANTED. IMMEDIATE OPENING. JOB OPPORTUNITY provided you can figure it out.
Drew isn’t eligible.
What? Think it’s a joke? Does this look funny? Hmmm. ok. Maybe.
What sort of ppl come up with this stuff? Must H/T my own wife for this, cause I missed it entirely in the morning paper.
Roland White
The Sunday TimesI can’t tell whether this week’s duff job is unnecessary or not:
The National Policing Improvement Agency wants a Responders Community Subject Matter Expert “to assist with the identification of opportunities and subsequent planning for the inclusion of multi-agency radio interoperability into the existing regime of multi-agency exercises”.
If the job’s in communications, it’s very badly needed.
Posted by peiper
on 10/18/2009 at 04:53 AM
Filed Under: • Government • Miscellaneous • UK •
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Permalink • Saturday - October 17, 2009
Man Made Global Warming
This would be the world’s biggest barbecue if anyone lived nearby.
In 1971 Soviet geologists accidently found an underground cavern filled with natural gas when the ground collapsed and their drilling rig fell through. In order to prevent the area from being poisoned by the gas escaping, it was set alight. 38 years later it continues to burn. The hole is 200 feet across and 70 feet deep. And it’s filled with fire. This burning pit is in the middle of the Karakum desert, out in The Middle of God Forsaken Nowhere, Turkmenistan. ( Seriously, that’s the address! ) Also called the Derweze gas crater, the reek of burning sulfur can be smelled from miles away. It lights up the whole horizon.
Quite a number of excellent photographs of this can be viewed here.
How many BTUs do you think this puts out per hour? For nearly 40 years. But the birds like it, since it keeps the air warm. Even the fwench find it amazing! “It gives the feeling of schools of fishes swimming around in an inversert aquarium.”
Posted by Drew458
on 10/17/2009 at 01:37 PM
Filed Under: • Environment • Fun-Stuff •
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Permalink • The Power of the other Red State
Environmental impact? Da, cloud will leaving big dent in ground when hits!
Moscow Mayor Promises a Winter Without Snow [I didn’t know they had Democrats in Russia. A like this big just has to be a campaign promise!]
Pigs still can’t fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor’s office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won’t need to constantly clear the streets, and traffic - and quality of life - will undoubtedly improve.
The idea came from Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who is no stranger to playing God.
Controlling the weather in Moscow is nothing new, he says. Ahead of the two main holidays celebrated in the city each year - Victory Day in May and City Day in September - the often cash-strapped air force is paid to make sure that it doesn’t, well, rain on the parades. With a city budget of $40 billion a year (larger than New York City’s budget), Moscow can easily afford the $2-3 million price tag to keep the skies blue as spectators watch the tanks and rocket launchers roll along Red Square. Now there’s a new challenge for the air force: Moscow’s notorious blizzards.
“You know how every year on City Day and Victory Day we create the weather?” Luzhkov asked a group of farmers outside Moscow in September, according to Russian media reports. “Well, we should do the same with the snow! Then outside Moscow there will be more moisture, a bigger harvest, while for us it won’t snow as much. It will make financial sense.”
The air force will use cement powder, dry ice or silver iodide to spray the clouds from Nov. 15 to March 15 - and only to prevent “very big and serious snow” from falling on the city, said Andrei Tsybin, the head of the department. This could mean that a few flakes will manage to slip through the cracks. Tsybin estimated that the total cost of keeping the storms at bay would be $6 million this winter, roughly half the amount Moscow normally spends to clear the streets of snow.
So far the main objection to the plan has come from Moscow’s suburbs, which will likely be inundated with snow if the plan goes forward.
I seem to recall this old wizards battle game (D&D perhaps) in which one of the offensive spells was “solidify cloud”. Just what the suburbs need, right, is wet concrete falling from the sky. But that’s the power of the modern super state. They can do anything! So think big, comrades.
And just for fun, or to test your gag reflex, here’s another example of Cosplay, Done Right and Done Wrong:
Posted by Drew458
on 10/17/2009 at 12:41 PM
Filed Under: • High Tech • Humor •
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Permalink • A DIFFERENT SORT OF WEEKEND WOMAN. ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES
Not much text here but a few interesting photos of some young Israeli women who should be brought over here to knock some sense into the heads
of the binge drinking, falling down girls in the UK. Mess with these ladies I dare ya.
Oh ... one tiny bit of interesting news. Nothing to do with Wkend Ladies.
That anti muzzie Dutchman was finally allowed into the UK where he was met by members of The ROP, who were carrying signs that read ..
“TO HELL WITH FREEDOM” What could I add to that? And those dopes want to rule here.
Ok about today’s Weekend Women. I got the idea from a Times columnist named Robert Crampton, because he wrote.
“When it comes to beauty, the I’s have it.” He was referring to the ladies of the Israeli Defense Forces and most especially because he really liked “Girls With Guns.” Now then, he made the claim (and I might argue the point just a tiny bit) that Israeli women were sexier then Nordic and Latin women. Who am I to say he hasn’t a right to his opinion? But I was once married to a wonderful girl south of the border. It was so long ago I can’t even remember the years. But she was not the stereotype we gripe about here. She was legal, and .... but I don’t want to get into that sort of thing here. Not the place. Just sayin that that I think there are beautiful women everywhere and from time to time we males get our heads turned around.
But there is something about about a girl and her gun that sure is a turn on.
Have fun people.
Does she frighten you? Must be that “attitude” someone wrote about with regard to these ladies.
Not trying to be funny here but I really,really love that dog!
Posted by peiper
on 10/17/2009 at 08:32 AM
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •
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Permalink • Conclusion … A TALE OF TWO FAMILIES …….
Conclusion:
A TRUE TALE OF TWO FAMILIES and a totally unbelievable coincidence. Except to the ones who have the experience.
“G R E A T E X P E C T A T I O N S” Charles Dickens
“GREAT DISSAPOINTMENTS” US
After fifty years of work and building a solid reputation in the business world, Poof. Gone with the ocean breeze. See what happens when you send your son to college and he becomes a lawyer? (my feeble attempt at humor)
So back home from the war my uncle joined and headed the family business, expanded it and started a family of his own. His new bride was a tall and very beautiful willowy blond with the brains to match her extraordinary looks. She had besides what I can only describe as the most seductive speaking voice I have ever heard. To my ear, it was a soft and soothing voice. One of the very few family members I actually liked.
They had four children and that’s important to note. Three daughters and a son. A son who would one day grow up to become a lawyer and threaten his father with a law suit, and be a principle in bringing down the family business.
It would be entirely correct to state that our family business and fortune had it’s days numbered from the day of my cousin’s birth.
My mother worked very hard through the years that her brother (the youngest of her siblings) was in school, then college and then four years in the military. If the business grew and things got better because of my uncle’s brain and education, it’s fair to say that the business was also propped up on her strong shoulders and back.
In the early years, when the police would call to notify us that the store alarm had gone off and needed shutting, it was always my mom who got the call and had to get dressed at whatever hour, then drive across town to shut off the darn thing.
Then as well there other late calls. Calls to our house from some special client/customer hours after the store had closed for the night. Funny thing that. They always called our house. Again my mother would have to go across town to open the store for a client who had to have 50 or 100 yards of some material to finish off a commercial project. At say a dollar a yard for 100 yards, that was a big sale in those days and couldn’t be ignored. But no matter how nice or how apologetic, I hated the person we had to sell to so late. If I leave the impression that it happened often, that would not be right. It didn’t. But even once was one too many for me, as there were times later on when I had to go too. One time our front show window had been broken. Glass everywhere. Went with the territory in those days but thankfully that window episode was only once.
Today at age 72, I HATE the sound of a phone late at night. As soon as I hear it, I resent it.
As stated earlier, my mother was quite content with the status quo. Things were working out well, business was good and appeared to be getting better. We had a sewing facility upstairs over the store where custom drapes and slipcovers were made, the seamstresses were wonderful and all Canadian or of French/Canadian origin. Yes, they were all legal. We had a fair sized work force in those days. I had an awful crush on one of their teen daughters named Fern. Funny how I remember after all these years. Nothing was allowed to come of that however.
My mother didn’t want to move in the same direction as my uncle. For his part, standing still was death itself. You could not sit still while the world was spinning. People and business had to expand and keep moving, always moving. And illness was never an excuse with my uncle to be out of work. You could only be excused from work if you died and were able to prove it.
And finally my grandfather did, although he was retired by then.
With his passing and the controlling interest of the business firmly in my uncle’s capable hands, things not only changed. They changed quickly.
I have already mentioned our entry into the discount store chains all across the country. Well, perhaps the single most important change was one my mother fought but couldn’t overcome with her 49% share. It was not a war she could win.
My uncle took the company public.
I think our stock opened at around $17.50 a share. Penny ante compared to stock prices during our late lamented tech bubble. (I’m still waiting for it’s return)
But not bad at all back around 1969 or 1970.
The ex governor’s law practice was one of our business and personal legal representatives. And a family friend. Over the years my uncle’s circle of friends expanded to include various politicos including senators. You might say he hobnobbed with the rich and famous. He even had a private audience with the Pope. He’s had his photo taken with at least two presidents. In addition to all else, it’s my understanding he was sent on a fact finding mission for the govt. My guess would be the mid east but I don’t know. I just know for a fact he was asked to go somewhere for the govt. and he did. I’m certain though it was Israel.
During all of this, mom was a thorn in his side and I tended to question my mother’s judgment. After all – but for him the business would never have grown the way it did. He had to know something she didn’t. She finished high school, he finished college and was a flier in the late war and I was in awe of him.
But she complained that he was moving too far too fast and not giving things a chance to settle down. From his viewpoint, to slow down didn’t infer settle down. It meant sinking. You kept moving or you sank. Period!
Eventually our corporate headquarters were moved to So. Calif. where much of the business interest was, in addition to the fact that my uncle loved the area and wanted to live most of the year there. And so he did, but he still maintained a million dollar home right smack on the beach front in Ct.
My aunt and uncle would spend several months a year there. Hey … he earned it. Nobody handed it to him.
After a few years the corp. moved yet again, this time into their own large and new bldg. and, we even had our own warehouses.
I say “we” but for my tiny part, I only worked for the corporation a short time although I did manage at least three domestic departments in the chain over the few years I was there.
It was also there that I came to utterly despise unions with a passion to this day. I was forced to join the union when I went to California to work in our outlets there. Does that draw a corrupt picture for anyone?
Why would the son and nephew of the owners need a union to represent him to his own mother and uncle? And that isn’t all. This union represented the whole store.
That meant of course the shoe dept, the electronics, men’s and ladies cloths, sports dept. and of course domestics. The reason I mention all these different departments is because, the miserable corrupt union that represented the store was ,,,,
THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES GARMENT WORKERS UNION
Yup, they also represented the Electronics Dept. which of course included anything from TVs to electric guitars. And the shoe dept. It was a union that got it’s teeth attached to everything there. And what grief they gave me when I tried to get a raise for one of my people who I felt damn well deserved it. I committed the high crime of going to our head office with the request instead of clearing it through those slimy, commie thieves in that sweetheart union. Corrupt evil bastards . I hope they’re all dead today.
My last year with the company was improved somewhat after being transferred to a non union state. Tucson, Arizona. I liked it there but missed Calif. I wanted to get back there and really needed to get back to school and into radio. My first and most enduring passion till I met my wife. I believe it was around that time as well that he took the company public.
So … I left the company and thought I was at last free of the business (I really owed so much to). But the corporation wasn’t quite finished with me. I just didn’t know that at the time.
I know this is long, but there are things that need explaining before I work my way to the finale.
There are some things I have edited out of this story but it is important to know that while I may not have felt comfortable in a business world, that did not mean I was not intensely loyal to my uncle and to the company. But it turned out to be a one way street. I too often defended my uncle much to my mother’s frustration. Not that my defense was needed nor was it asked for.
I can never be certain of the exact point in time but somewhere along the line, I think company greed set in. Not only that, but a bit of snobbery as well.
My uncle and by now his son, my cousin , were opening stores I promise the reader only the very rich could afford to shop in. Wish I had photos of some of those showplaces. Maybe Palace is a better word. These were really fancy stores with artwork and statuary and all kinds of imported “things.” I once wrote the company a letter saying how nice the stores appeared but thought that since there were more poor and middle class folks then the class who could afford these stores, they were limiting their field. I believe I wrote the letter after getting the quarterly report. And oh boy was that thing an expensive four color separation project of immense size. I was offered a 10 percent discount should I ever want to shop in those stores. Who-Haa. Such a deal! That was a laugh. As my wife says, every time people get too far away from their roots, they court disaster! And that was just waiting in the wings. It was still a few years away, but it was watching.
H U M P T Y D U M P T Y H A S A G R E A T F A L L
It never occurred to me and I never asked about stock shares. I had none and am sorry to say I didn’t have the cash to buy any on my own and in any event, at that time things like stock shares were a foreign language to me. It also never occurred to me that my mother would have a huge block of stock in the company.
Like, 120,000 shares of stock. That made her a major shareholder. 40,000 shares of which were voting shares. Or B shares. I should explain the difference for those who aren’t aware of this.
If a company is in a buyout or going bust, the ‘B’ shares are ALWAYS the first to be redeemed. If all you’re holding are the ‘A’ shares, they could become worthless especially if the company has to make payouts. The ‘Bs’ get paid first.
But … the ‘A’s pay higher dividends. It is important to this story that you know that.
Before my mother died in 1978, my uncle persuaded her to make a slight change in her will that would tie our hands for nine years. I would receive interest from her estate but not be given control over the stock shares until I reached age 50.
This was so my uncle could be certain there was no interference in the running of HIS company. As well, he was concerned that I should not be in a position to sell shares of company stock on the open market. When an insider sells stock in a company, it doesn’t have to be due to bad news. Maybe someone just needs cash. Here’s an example true to life because it was mine and of course my wife’s as well.
There was a small plot of land that fronted music row in Nashville,Tn. and it was for sale. At the very same time we were looking at houses after living in a mobile home for years. It came down to a choice between the two. An empty lot on music row or a house in Franklin, Tn. We bought the house. Had we been in a position to access the money, we could have bought both the house and the lot. Eventually a three story office building with underground parking was built on that lot. boo-hoo. That little tiny bit of land became worth multiple millions of dollars only a few years later.
Loyalty obliged me to sell stock ONLY back to the company once it came into my possession. My uncle always insisted that the sale price had to be based on the average of the last ten days trading price. He said it couldn’t be done any other way. The wife, who reads the financial pages and understands them, pointed out that in one of the company reports, when my cousin divorced his second wife, she was given $5.25 per share in a payout, at a time when the stock was only trading at $3.25 per share. I never questioned my uncle about this although my wife was vividly angry. And that’s putting it mildly.
During all the time the stock shares were held in trust, the stock price was falling steadily. But I paid no attention. At the point we did come into possession, my wife wanted to dump the shares. The very thing uncle worried about. But I refused out of loyalty, and in spite of falling share price, felt that to sell would be seen as a lack of faith in my uncle and his company.
Quite honestly though, the business had kept us in some comfort and looked after the entire family for years. There was no reason to question anything and I didn’t. It had also been drilled into some of us, that if shares must be sold, then sell only to family. That is, sell direct back to the company.
There had been a group of lawyers in Chicago who were buying shares and had a keen eye out for any shares with the intent to make a run on the company.
When we lived in Riverside, Ca., for the first time in our marriage we got an invitation to lunch at my uncle’s home in Irvine, Ca. I remember expressing some small concern with regard to the share price and wondered what was happening to the dividends. He made the suggestion that we might want to consider trading our ‘B’ shares (the voting shares) for the same number of ‘A’ shares as we’d receive a bit more in dividends. We thought it was a good idea especially as I never voted anyway, and if I did it was always with the company and never against. So, we agreed not being aware as he surely must have been, of the true state of the company. I never questioned his motives for suggesting this plan, although my wife always believed and still does, that the reason for the invite was simply to get his hands on the voting shares. Even today I’m not wholly convinced he was totally aware, considering what his son was doing behind the scenes. So in the end, we agreed to his plan.
Six months later the dividend payments were cut in half, and shortly after that they were discontinued entirely.
AND THE WALLS COME A TUMBLIN’ DOWN
To end my part of this story, my cousin and his partners made an end run around his father, forcing his dad off the company board. He also had him locked out of his office. When my uncle accused his son of skulduggery, he was threatened with a law suit.
At that point he (cousin) and his partners sold all the assets ( stores and warehouses worth many millions ) at less then market value to realize quick money. It forced the closing of the company and finally into bankruptcy. It left my uncle who did have a sterling reputation in the business world, with a lot of bad debt and no cash to settle them.
In the late 90’s, possibly 98 or 99 we finally sold out our remaining shares at 25 cents a share. I really don’t even remember how many shares we had left as we did sell off quite a bit to the company in yrs past.
THANKS A LOT FOR THAT ....
Cousin STANLEY!
FINALE and THE COINCIDENCE
Well we’re about at the end and this is brief and is the wife’s tale.
My wife’s father persuaded his father, to make his will so that his money would be divided equally amongst his eight children. Four boys and four girls.
The youngest boy was her Uncle Red. So called because he had copper colored hair.
But, when her father died in 1956, Uncle Red suggested that he should come and help Grandpa with his various business interests, of which there were many. Very soon Uncle Red was running everything. At this point he suggested to Grandpa, that he change his will. The remaining boys would divide the money, and the girls would get the contents of his house. After all, they all had husbands!! And girls didn’t need cash.
The grandchildren were each given a nominal sum, leaving my wife’s mother with exactly NOTHING! The reason given was that she had only married into the family and wasn’t actually part of it as in a blood relation.
So Uncle Red reasoned that she was not entitled to any money. Of course Red wasn’t his given name.
THANKS A LOT FOR THAT,
Uncle STANLEY !
end
Postscript about coincidences. My wife’s family was all Church of England. Not a Jewish person among em.
But for reasons never ever explained, one uncle to his dying day received a state pension from the state of Israel for services of some kind. The services were never explained or referred to or questioned.
Posted by peiper
on 10/17/2009 at 06:34 AM
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Permalink • on the drink-sodden streets of modern Britain, their paths crossed in the most sickening way
That very old and overused expression, The Road To Hell, etc. comes to mind right now.
I had every honest intension of beginning Blog Saturday with humor, I have my weekend ladies all lined up ready to go, but this double story came up and has reignited a bit of anger and yes. RCOB is back in all it’s glory yet again.
The article here that deals with the dumb jerk who pissed on a war memorial was aggravating when I first saw it this week. Well, I passed on it because it was just another story of drunk students, yoots, pin heads acting bad and who cares? Then too, I thought the dope did what he so publicly did without any thought to where he was doing it. I didn’t think that was his way of making a public statement. Like way too many “"yoots" of his generation of both sexes, this binge drinking thing is par for the course. Some of these kids have actually died from over drinking.
BUT THEN ...
We get two papers every morning and you can imagine what weekend ones are like. So the DAILY MAIL who somehow knew I was up a bit early and hadn’t had coffee or breakfast (still haven’t) just had to have the drunk and piss story tied to a story of a soldier of WW1, his death in battle and the lower standards since that time. And so reading about that long dead hero and the future he never got to see along with so many others on every side, and the comparisons made and the photos published, naturally I just HAD to make this my first posting of the day.
I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing or not. I tend to think I have. I think the “yoot” needs to be arrested and spend some time in a cell. Or be made to do community service.
Since I started writing this, I suddenly realized that maybe it isn’t all this jerks fault. What standards has his generation been given to meet? An “ORGANIZED Drinking Binge?” That’s a standard to aim for? Heaven help us all.
On Facebook, however, some of Laing’s friends congratulated him on his antics. One wrote: ‘Most amazing thing I have ever seen …I’m very proud. LEGEND!’
A tale of two very different Britons: The student who defiled a war memorial and the soldier who died at Passchendaele
By Paul Harris and Jaya Narain
Last updated at 12:09 AM on 17th October 2009They are separated by the best part of a century and a lifetime of change.
One volunteered to fight for his country and made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom. The other became part of a culture where respect has no meaning and courage comes from a bottle of cheap booze.
Edwin Ievers and Phil Laing never met of course. But on the drink-sodden streets of modern Britain, their paths crossed in the most sickening way.
Laing, a 19-year-old ex-public schoolboy studying sports technology at university, was among thousands of students on an organised drinking binge in Sheffield.
Edwin Ievers was the name on a wreath that the soldier’s family had placed on a memorial to those who fell in World War I. Edwin Ievers volunteered to fight in the First World War
They were linked when Laing, barely able to stand, defiled the memory of the dead by urinating on the memorial. He drenched the Ievers family’s Armistice Day poppies before tottering away to collapse in a shop doorway.
The disgraceful episode was captured by a photographer and highlighted in the Daily Mail. Tousle-haired Laing was identified from the pictures and duly found himself facing a charge that perfectly summarised reaction to his loutish behaviour: outraging public decency.
But it also underlined just how far standards have sunk in a country for which Edwin Ievers fought and died.
Sunderland-born Mr Ievers (pronounced to rhyme with drivers) was a railway manager when war broke out, but was keen to sign up.
The father of three was 29 then, far older than many of the young men who volunteered to fight.
He became an infantry private in the 1st/7th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. Their motto is Quo fata vocant, variously translated from Latin as ‘Whither the fates call’, or ‘Where destiny calls’.
At training camp in Alnwick, the Geordie lads wryly interpreted it as ‘We gan wor us telt’ (We go where we’re told).
It was here that Edwin stood proudly alongside 21 fellow fusiliers for a photograph before they went to war. No one knows precisely how he died but it is not hard to speculate.
His unit had moved to the front line of one of the bloodiest battles of the war, fighting in the cloying, stinking mud of Passchendaele. The day he died – October 26, 1917 – coincides with a military push that became part of a huge Allied offensive in the notorious Ypres Salient.
Private Ievers was one of three brothers who served in the so-called war to end all wars. Robert Ievers joined the Royal Engineers and survived the conflict but the third brother, Private R W Ievers, was killed at the age of 27 in April 1917 while serving with
the Durham Light Infantry.Edwin Ievers is buried at Tyne Cot military cemetery in Flanders, the largest British military graveyard, alongside some 12,000 fellow casualties. His name also appears
on a flagstone outside York train station, marking his pre-war railway service.Yesterday Edwin’s grandson John Ievers, a 49-year-old software consultant and company director, described the urinating student as ‘a drunken idiot’.
Mr Ievers, a former Royal Engineer cartographer and father of two teenage boys, added: ‘It was a stupid thing to do but I doubt he remembers it. He must have been out of his tiny mind. I don’t think he should be flogged in the streets, but there should be some reparation. There’s a certain irony in contrast between my grandfather and his generation and this idiot, especially when there are people his age going off to Afghanistan at the moment.’
Mr Ievers, whose takes his middle name of Edwin from his grandfather and great grandfather, had placed a wooden cross surrounded by a poppies at the foot of the memorial Baker’s Pool in Sheffield during an Armistice Day service last November 11. It had lain undisturbed with other wreaths ever since – until Philip Laing came along.
Laing is a product of the £8,700-a year King’s School in Macclesfield, Cheshire, which he left in the summer. A talented sportsman, he played for the rugby 1st XV and also enjoys cricket. He enrolled at Sheffield Hallam University in September to study sports technology.
Laing is the second of four children. His mother, Kathleen, 53, an ophthalmic optician, and his Guyanese-born father Robert, 57, a computer programmer and IT expert, married in 1985 but split up this year and sold their £450,000 detached home in Macclesfield.
The night he was photographed at the memorial, Laing had been on a commercially organised drinking binge entitled Carnage UK. He was one of 2,000 students on a seven-hour pub crawl through the city while a similar event was taking place in Cardiff.
Half-naked girls were seen passed out on the streets as drunken boys weaved through the traffic.
On his Bebo website, he says he is happiest when he is ‘Eatin ’n’ drinking ’n’ shoppin ’n’ listenin to music’. Although he is in the middle of his course, the student has returned to the rented home he shares with his mother in Cheshire.
Yesterday he answered the door bare-chested and said: ‘My lawyers have advised me not to talk about it until my hearing is over. I intend to plead guilty and issue a full public apology when the time is right.’
University officials were said to be ‘deeply embarrassed’ by the incident while the Students’ Union was believed to be holding a crisis meeting to review activities for freshers.
On Facebook, however, some of Laing’s friends congratulated him on his antics. One wrote: ‘Most amazing thing I have ever seen …I’m very proud. LEGEND!’
Here, lets take another look at what a “LEGEND” looks like these days.
Yup. I would definitely say and believe in my bones that standards have gone to hell.
Disgrace: Before urinating on the war memorial, Laing was in such a state that he curled up on the street in front of a shop window
Posted by peiper
on 10/17/2009 at 02:03 AM
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Permalink • Friday - October 16, 2009
PART ONE … A TRUE TALE OF TWO FAMILIES.
PART ONE
A FAMILY COINCIDENCE or WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF THIS?
A TRUE TALE OF TWO FAMILIES
I have a true story to tell. I have wanted to relate this for a very long time. One of my problems was being lazy, which I read in today’s paper is actually an illness, so may I expect get well cards? A problem for me was, how do I start? This isn’t so much the story of two families as it is the really very weird coincidence of the fortunes of both, as you will see. Notice I didn’t say I did not know where to start but how to start. This is one of those stories that ask:
What Are The Odds Of This Actually Happening?
I guess a bit of history of my family and my wife’s family has to be the start point. Because of the skullduggery and how things happened, it can’t be as short as I’d like it to be. I can trace my family way back to at least 1900 with my grandparents.
No Plymouth Rock stuff in my background.
My grandparents came to America around 1903 or 1906. They came from Europe. My grandmother’s family first came to England where at least one of her siblings was born, in London. And from England on to the USA. But even before that ……
I understand my great grandfather was a blacksmith and a seriously addicted gambler. In those far off days infant mortality was high, and his daughter of only a few weeks died. My great grandmother gave him just enough money to buy a coffin. You already guessed no doubt that he gambled away the money she gave him.
I’m sorry now that I have no photos to share, and there were a few. I just never got any, and honestly I wasn’t smart enough to ask.
A great uncle and the oldest was sent on to America even before 1900.
The first to leave the old country, he was meant to be a beacon for those who would follow him. The family scrimped and saved and pooled their money and the women weren’t exempted from these donations to send him to America, with the idea of him succeeding in his field which was architecture.
But it wasn’t to be.
He actually went on to become a successful and well connected architect and engineer. But he ended up divorcing his own family. You might say with some justification, that he was very much ashamed of his peasant Jewish family from Eastern Europe and wanted nothing to do with that reminder of his background. So he divorced his family.
He married into a wealthy Washington D.C. family, changed his name which I suspect he did even earlier, and never did send any money home to those waiting at home.
There was no further contact with him and so that family link has been lost.
My wife on the other hand can trace her family in England as far back as the middle 1600’s and possibly before. There are in existence and in the possession of a cousin, portraits in miniature of some ancestors in the 1600’s. Not copies friends. The originals.
She has two cousins in different parts of the world who have done very serious and quite extensive research on the family, and only age and infirmity have slowed them down.
I’m not clear on exactly what my grandfather did at the beginning of his career in the USA. I seem to recall stories about selling hats. But I do understand that until the crash of 1929, he had become a very rich citizen indeed. That’s very with a capital ‘V’ which was all lost with a capital ‘L’ and a capital ‘C’ as in capital gone bye-bye we are broke!
Before the crash he and my grandmother would attend the opera at the famed Metropolitan Opera House in N.Y., and they had the clothes to go with the lifestyle. Not only that, but they owned season tickets. Swank stuff I’m told and he had this big fancy car which was always breaking down. I think it was a Hudson or a Packard. Anyway, he said he was happy when someone stole it. He simply bought another car of another make. My grandfather didn’t have a chauffeur.
Like most upper middle class or wealthy families of that period, they had live in help. Nothing like Upstairs/Downstairs but help nonetheless. Except in the kitchen. Grandma wouldn’t have anyone in her kitchen doing her job. The kitchen help she did accept came from her children. I doubt any of em had a choice in the matter when it came to cleaning up. Poor kids. No civil, human or children’s rights when mom said wash and dry.
Then the depression came along and put an end to that sort of lifestyle. Forever.
Hank Williams Jr. isn’t the only one who has carried on a “Family Tradition.”
My grandfather made and lost two fortunes in his lifetime.
I followed right along in his footsteps losing as many as well. His second fortune was literally stolen from him. I can’t say my first was stolen exactly, but we (wife and I) were cheated out of the first. Actually, I may have lost three but don’t remember too well. I had the knack to make it but not to hold it. And I must add here, I’m NOT a gambler.
At some point in time grandfather opened a fabric and drapery store which eventually became quite well known And it grew after WW2. Oh boy, did it grow.
Meanwhile, over in England my wife’s family on her dad’s side were quite successful also. Her granddad started out as a floor walker in a major drapery store and eventually ended up owning his own fabric and drapery business. And it grew. And it grew again.
Her grandfather did have a chauffeur.
Even that isn’t the coincidence I’m writing about. Although lets face it, what are the odds of two strangers from different countries and cultures getting together and suddenly finding fabrics in common? But as you know, I am quite fond of saying “$tay £Tuned.” There’s always more.
During the late 30’s and throughout WW2, my mother worked with my grandfather in their store, building the business. But it wasn’t till the end of the war when her brother, my uncle, returned and joined the business. Then it started to grow.
My uncle trained as an accountant and before the war graduated from college near the top of his class. During the war, he became a navigator on a Liberator bomber, getting the Purple Heart and a Distinguished Flying Cross with three Oak Leaf Clusters. I never asked what those clusters meant.
His plane was hit and crash landed in an English farm field. He was wounded and very lucky not to lose a hand. They were hit by flak and shrapnel cut right through a fur lined gloved hand. Inside that glove was wiring which at the altitudes they flew, was the heating that kept the hands from freezing. He still carries the scar on his hand and I guess he was lucky. Many never made it back. Or came back minus body parts.
So back to civilian life he came and with him ideas to help grow and expand the business. That’s when we got seriously into things like custom made drapes and slipcovers and the installation of same.
Our original store was a small one, wood floors and old wooden counters. We were in between two other stores.
On one side there was a men’s hat store, on the other a ladies shop of some kind. I can’t recall. When those stores went out of business, or maybe he bought em out, I don’t really know. He got the lease on them and proceeded to knock thru the walls on both sides to enlarge our store. And gosh was it large after that.
I can’t remember the year my grandfather died, but when he did, 51% of the business went to my uncle. 49% to my mom. In a way, it may be better that it worked out that way. My mom was a very hard worker, she knew her subject well, which was cloth of almost every type. But she was quite satisfied to remain as they were and not expand anymore. Not so my uncle and so a second but very upscale store was opened .
Right on the pricey main street called, Main St. Woo-woo folks. Nice fixtures and thick carpet on the floor.
Gas was fifty cents or less a gal. Of course, I wasn’t even making a dollar an hour. And I HATED our business. I was sooooooooo booooored you have no idea. I always hated working in stores being stuck in one place doing the same boring thing and doing inventory.
The only thing I enjoyed about my employment was learning displays and how to present merchandise. I even started making curtains out of some of our better line of towels, using nothing but café rings and wash cloths as tie backs. NO SEWING involved. And ppl started buying towels for small windows in bathrooms and kitchens, cause they could see what they’d look like as curtains. Eventually all our discount outlets also sold rugs and carpets.
Unfortunately …..stores have inventory.
Oh God how I hated inventory especially when I had to count the patterns.
Woman who still sew their clothes because they actually enjoy the pastime, will recognize names like McCalls, Vogue and Simplicity. We carried all three brands. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds! And they always HAD to be counted.
Worse then patterns were the endless numbers of plastic doilies of different styles and size.
Do you know what a pain it is to inventory material that’s sold off the bolts by the yard? Or count carpets of different size and price?
Then we started carrying a line of ready made curtains. Which of course required different fixtures and sales counters. And then … at the very beginning of the discount department store movement, my uncle took us into a place that opened at the scruffy end of the city, a huge warehouse like place with no fancy anything and light fixtures that hung from the ceiling with chains. A place called Topps. We leased space in that store whose motto was spelled out in HUGE red letters painted all the way across the back wall of the store. It read as follows.
PROFITS IN PENNIES
In the very beginning, businesses like ours would lease space in those discount stores. Eventually we owned the domestic departments in Zayre’s,Zody’s, some but not all K-Mart stores and hundreds of others whose names I cannot recall. All major outlets however. In the 60’s and all thru the 70’s almost all the departments in those discount stores weren’t actually owned by the store whose name appeared on the front of the building. I think but can’t be certain now, that except for Alaska and Hawaii, we had an outlet and usually more then one, in every state in the USA. We had outlets in most major cities. Reading this, you’d think we were rolling in high cotton. Nope. You’d be wrong. Almost every dime went right back into the business to build either free standing units (totally owned by us and specializing in domestics) or else leasing more space in an ever growing discount dept. store field. Well, that was the plan but like all good plans that go astray ….
Let us call this, fortune number one. Okay, not mine of course. Not yet anyway. That was in the future. And to be lost there as well. But while it was spendable, how sweet it was.
In England the folks in that proud country still had very severe rationing long after the war was over. Even clothes were rationed. As Americans and just as proud, we had some rationing as well. But if you had to compare it to what the Brits had to go thru, you wouldn’t really call it rationing at all. In fact, to do so might be embarrassing.
England had rationing of almost everything all thru the 40’s and I don’t think it ended till 1951 or maybe two. You can check. In any event, it didn’t matter too much cause hardly anybody had any money anyway. But things were turning around and some got lucky. My wife’s father should have been one of them.
The wife’s dad didn’t much like the family business I guess, and had an argument with his father and they didn’t speak for ten years.
There were 8 kids in her dads family. Four boys and four girls. her dad was the oldest boy. He married her mother in 1943, during the war. It was her mom who finally brought about a reconciliation of sorts.
My wife’s fortune in the making part one.
FOUND and LOST
The wife’s story also starts with her grandfather who was a draper who started as a floor walker as already mentioned. A floor walker in those days long gone, was an important person. He represented the company to the public coming through the door and there is NO comparison to today’s Wal-Mart greeters. They hired the better looking young and “charming” men in those days.
The wife’s granddad was born in 1870, and was a true Victorian who aspired to become a gentleman. ( He married a lady whose name was Farmer and, believe it or not, her family was in farming as far back as the late 1500’s and remained farmers into modern times.)
He became a very successful entrepreneur branching out into far more businesses then did my own grandfather. For example, he owned a warehouse on the docks in Southampton, which he leased out to shipping interests in a day when that city was a major industrial shipping port.
Most merchants were not wealthy enough to own their own ships. Instead, they sold wool and cloth to the visiting ships of the Italians, French and Spaniards, whose countrymen paid a high price for good quality English wool. The wool was weighed in the Weigh House and then stored in The Wool House. A huge warehouse with a massive timber roof.
Originally called The Wool House and built around 1450, the building survives to this day as a museum.
Southampton docks today are still at work but host mostly cruise ships.
During WW2 the Germans heavily bombed Southampton docks and the city suffered much damage as well.
My wife’s grandfather was a part owner in a major store which was one of several that were in the chain. The city of Southampton was ordered to be totally destroyed by Hitler. It would take me another page to write out all the bomb tonnage and destruction that visited this city. One thing I can tell you.
The fireball on one occasion could be clearly seen in France.
Stay Tuned … There’s more as soon as I can finish it. And I’m in a hurry to do so.
This is being done in Word 2000. Cause I can’t figure out publisher.
JayD
THIS WILL CONCLUDE TOMORROW .... If you’ve read this far, much thanks for your patience.
I’m gone for the night. Been a very long day that started at 3:30am. Yeah. Insomnia.
Cheers ...
Posted by peiper
on 10/16/2009 at 01:55 PM
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Once Again, The One And Only Post
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Tracked at iHaan.org
Thｅ advantage to having a guide with you is thɑt an expert will haѵe very first hand experience dealing and navigating the river with гegional wildlife. Tһomas, there are great…
On: 07/28/23 10:37
The Brownshirts: Partie Deux; These aare the Muscle We've Been Waiting For
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The Brownshirts: Partie Deux; These aare the Muscle We’ve Been Waiting For
On: 03/14/23 11:20
Vietnam Homecoming
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On: 03/20/21 07:00
meaningless marching orders for a thousand travellers ... strife ahead ..
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Tracked at Casual Blog
[...] RTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPL [...]
On: 07/17/17 04:28
a small explanation
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Tracked at yerba mate gourd
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On: 07/09/17 03:07
DISCLAIMER
THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.
Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
- Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
- Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.
Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner
Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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