Raunch, Race and Respect

poor georgie’s almanack:

Steamy Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas, Mid-1960s.

RAUNCH, RACE AND RESPECT.

Five of us on The Postmaster General’s staff took turns as Advance Men for his official trips outside Washington. There always were complications. 

At that time the Postmaster General (PMG) still was a Cabinet Member with way more  patronage jobs, like postmasterships, to distribute than anyone else.  So, most of his trips were at the behest of an important Congressman or Senator who would make the job announcements, thereby implying that he was behind the appointment.  Announcing a new post office building and speaking at it’s dedication also was an even bigger prize.

One coworker bragged about his many sexual adventures on “advance trips.”  Except for one instance, as outlined below, I never even came close to such an adventure.  When reporting the episode to my very lovely wife, a longtime nurse, she complained that, popular legends aside, she never was sexually harassed in a hospital. 

Anyway, PMG Larry O’Brien, one of the three Postmasters General I worked for, was scheduled to make speeches in Port Arthur and nearby Beaumont, Texas.  I drew the short straw.  Larry agreed to go at the behest of Congressman Jack Brooks, an immensely powerful Congressman from Beaumont.   

Steaming, uncomfortably humid, Southeast Texas still was the Deep South.  For instance, segregation was alive at side-by-side water fountains with “colored” and “white” signs above them.

I didn’t have a clue about how to make a few things happen so O’Brien told me to contact the Congressman’s chief fund raiser.  “If you want to get something done,” the PMG said, “always contact the fund raiser.  He has the connections.”  

Fortunately, Brooks’ guy lived in Port Arthur.  We met in his home.  Lounging on a couch, he interspersed comments about various local officials and their affairs, along with hints on how to carry out my assignment and his willingness to make a few phone calls.  Port Arthur sounded like the sexy book and TV series Peyton Place.  He also invited me to a cocktail party the next night.

I then toddled off to the post office and went through the usual checklist … police protection, sound system, approving his hotel room, dealing with media, getting a limo to carry the PMG around, etc.  (The limos, as usual, were borrowed from funeral homes.)

Then off to Beaumont, where things turned sour. 

A reporter told me that a potentially serious racial confrontation was expected at the next day’s ceremony.  He reluctantly gave me the organizer’s name and phone number.

The disturbing back story was that black kids had to walk along a busy highway with no sidewalk to get to school.  Along their trek they passed an all-white school.  I was told that repeated attempts by infuriated parents to talk to school and municipality officials and to reporters were rebuffed.  

With cameras and reporters scheduled to be on hand to hear talks by O’Brien, Brooks and a US Senator from Texas, the event was a perfect place to make their case.  The reporter said there was a high potential for it to be rough.  

I called the demonstration’s organizer and left a message.  I called Ira Kapenstein, my boss, and suggested setting up a meeting with the PMG and the protesters’ leadership before the ceremonies.  Ira thought bigger.  He or the PMG would contact the Congressman and the Senator to see if all three would meet with the the organizers.  Quickly the Washington group agreed and a quiet place was located.

Segue now to the evening cocktail party, which seemed from the conversations to be attended by some of the licentious folks the finance guy mentioned.  Not long after it started, a lovely young lady whose husband, she said, had long been deployed in Vietnam, initiated a conversation with me.  I began to ask myself, “Is this a proposition?”  

The thought, in real life, was interrupted by someone who said there was a phone call for me. 

It was from the demonstration’s chief organizer, who coincidentally was a postal employee.  I outlined the proposed plan.  When we hung up I had no indication about what would happen.  Never saw the young lady again because I immediately returned to my hotel to coordinate hoped-for possibilities.

The meeting with the bigwigs actually took place.  Being involved with minor crises, I couldn’t attend.  Apparently, the parents whose kids lives were endangered were satisfied with the results of the meeting because no demonstration arose.  They had made their case to officials way more important than the local scum bags.

O’Brien and I sped to the airport as soon as the ceremony concluded.  The limo’s trunk was filled to the brim with fake grass used at burials and our luggage.  I never learned the fate of the kids at risk.

However, the next day back in Washington I called the reporter and asked what happened, or didn’t happen, and why? 

Bottom line was the organizer told him that I was the first white man who ever called him Mister and Sir.  

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