PURITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY WAS A SUBSIDIARY OF GECC (General Electric Credit Corporation), and potentially the life and health insurance arm of parent company General Electric. When I arrived the company occupied about 40% of a six storey office building, called the Doris Building, on Providence’s tony East Side. Technically my job was that of Senior Mail and Supply Clerk, but I was actually acting in the capacity of assistant to Joe Flaherty, an MBA and the Manger of General Services.
That department consisted of purchasing; mail; supply; printing and typesetting, a big operation in an insurance company; records and microfilming, another big one; transcribing, the typing pool from which I would later create the Word Processing Centre); telecommunications; office space acquisition, layout and design; company vehicles; maintenance; and various other office support services. In a nutshell, all operations that were not directly related to insurance, the ones that are generic to most businesses.
Joe was a nice enough fellow in a milquetoast kind of way, who treated me like the second coming, but he seemed a tad out of it at times—hence his nickname “The Fog!“ As someone who was not quite sure which end of a light bulb to screw in, he was definitely a fish out of water in General Services. He and his MBA were more suited to a position where he sat behind a desk all day pushing paper and people around. I, on the other hand, was multifaceted, knew how to get things done, and didn’t take shit from anyone.
From the very first I had the enthusiastic support of the superintendent of the building (not a Puritan employee), Mike Miranda. He was a loud fellow, very rough around the edges, whose daughter - who happened to be a ‘bull dyke‘ - was supervisor of our printing department. I remember one day Mike and Cheryl were having an argument, and Cheryl was swearing like a trooper. Mike starts screaming at her about her language, and she yells back that all the profanity she knew she learned from him. He went ballistic, calling her a blank blank blanking liar and so on, and in the process proving her point. It was comical.
Mike loved me from the moment he set eyes on me, and I thought the world of him as well, even though he always called me “Mr ED!!!” From the very first he told everyone to watch out, because before long I’d be running the place … he was right. Within six months Joe made a lateral move, to a department for which he was suited, and I was named “acting” manager. With control of the company fleet, I was entitled to a company car.
For $25 a month I was allowed to use that car as my personal vehicle, all gas included. Not a bad deal. It got better. Because I kept the car at my house every night, the company paid me $35 a month for garaging it. Go figure. Before the end of my first year at Puritan, I was promoted to manager, the only manager in the company who did not have an MBA. This earned me the distinction of having had the fastest level advancement, and the most dramatic salary increase (over 300% in less than a year), in General Electric’s history.
Not bad for a college drop-out … and I had only just begun. When I took over General Services there were twenty-two employees, including two senior clerks, and physically we occupied about 10% of Puritan‘s space at the Doris Building. The company was growing in leaps and bounds, and when Puritan had filled all of the Doris Building space that it was likely to get for a while, we started acquiring office space offsite, and moving departments to one space or another. I was in charge of all the logistics, the moves, including the space planning, layout and design.
As the company grew, so did my department. First, we leased 100,000 square feet downtown at the old Providence-Washington Building, owned by Paramount Studios, and I moved the actuaries and underwriters there. Then added their space (half of the Doris Building’s first floor) to my operations … taking the vice-president’s corner office for myself, which overlooked my parking space and my company car. Mike Miranda was so gleeful he was almost wetting himself. His “Mr ED” was on a roll.
THE HOUSE ON WOOD STREET provided a much needed refuge from the stressful days at Puritan, and I especially loved the private deck off of the kitchen, where I spent some time early most evenings (weather permitting) with a beer and a doobie or two. Attitude adjustment. The trees that towered overhead, mostly old swamp oaks, were mesmerizing … the music of their leaves rustling in a light breeze soothed my haggard constitution. Corporate life was taking its toll.
With our cruising adventures behind us we had taken to camping - in a tent in the woods, not camping and carrying-on like Ray and Mal in their wigs - and Maine was my favourite destination. Usually we ventured forth in the off-season, before Memorial Day and the 4th, and right after Labor Day.
First we’d take a few days respite in Ogunquit, days on the beach, walking the Marginal Way to Perkins Cove. Lobster rolls and lobster stew at Barnacle Billy’s, 2½ pound lobster dinners with steamers and corn at the Ogunquit Lobster Pound. Despite having seen a lot of the world since those days, Ogunquit is still one of my most favourite places. Initially we stayed at the motel right on the beach, but soon switched to one overlooking the tidal river, where we had more of a view and it wasn’t so hectic. According to Billy, confessed years later, he would frequently make sure I got good and drunk at dinner, and then when I fell asleep he would go to the beach, and cruise for a shag or two in the sand dunes. Sounds about right.
After Ogunquit we would travel to Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, and pitch our tent at the Allen’s Camp Ground on Somes Sound, the only natural fjord in the United States. One morning we got up in the dark and drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain to catch the sunrise, that’s where the sun first hits the United States at dawn. Two thirds of the way on up the fog was so thick I could barely see the road, so much for sunrise.
Another time we rode out a hurricane in our tent on the fjord. I checked the water level to make sure we were above the expected rise of the tide, and then lashed the tent to trees with a few extra ropes. Just so I could say I did it, I made beef stroganoff in the thick of the storm, periodically pushing up the canvas canopy which kept sagging down as it filled with water. Billy was frightened, I know, but I said what’s the worst that can happen? The tent might blow down. If it does, we’ll check into a hotel. No, he says, a tree could fall on the tent. Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.
Fall was always my favourite season in New England, and one year the day after Labor Day we set out to fulfil my long-time dream … traveling northeast along the ragged rugged coast of Maine, taking every right turn (dead end or not) to see every bit of the coast that it is possible to see from a car. Our first day we got going a little late, and spent the night in a rustic cabin with fieldstone fireplace, rather than the intended campground. We stopped at Mount Desert Island, spent a couple of days on Somes Sound, and then ventured forth around Frenchman Bay, and on through the towns of Winter Harbor, Birch Harbor, Prospect Harbor.
This part of Maine was unfamiliar, decidedly not touristy. We had travelled beyond the beaten track, houses and commerce were sparse. Harrington Bay, Jonesboro, Machias Bay, Dog Town, we drove on. State and national park campgrounds, booked solid a week earlier, were all but deserted. It was a little spooky. At Campobello Island we circled around Cobscook Bay, and followed the Canadian border to Calais; then a long drive south through the interior to – don’t blink or you’ll miss it – Hiram, Maine, and a visit with Tom AKA Mr Harris.
DIRK T RAMSEY-SPENCER was without a doubt the most unusual, yea peculiar, person that I have ever met. He came to Puritan at the behest of Charles Smith, the president, who had met him when he was on holiday across the big pond. Billed as a brilliant actuary, Dirk was retained to create some uniquely profitable new products.
He arrived with his lovely young wife, Barbara, who was believed to have been from an aristocratic British family. In truth, Dirk was a con-man of the first order, and Barbara was neither his wife nor British. She was from Farmington, Connecticut, and Dirk had picked her up in Miami where she was an “actress” cum hooker, although I must concede that her Brit accent was flawless.
At about 5’8” and in his mid-thirties, Dirk was a robust fellow sporting a scruffy multihued red beard, and a matching mass of dishevelled red hair … facially he looked like Santa Claus before his hair turned white, or the image I always had of Henry the 8th. Dirk was given offices, a staff, a car, a suite at a luxury hotel overlooking the bay, and carte blanche with the company resources.
Every weekend Dirk would hire a yacht from the Barrington Yacht Club, and covertly invite a few of the company’s rival executives, for a day of sailing and watching as the fur flew. Once they had all wised to his scheme, Billy and I became his and Barbara’s favourite companions on the bay, and we ended up spending a fair amount of time with them for a while.
With all of his bluster it was difficult to tell if Dirk‘s boasts were reality or fantasy, at times I wasn‘t certain that he knew the difference himself. Yet sometimes his claims were proven true, or he was just plain lucky. For one, he professed to be a skilled mariner. When returning to the marina it was standard protocol to drop sails at the entrance to the harbour, and proceed from there under power.
One Sunday, however, after much badgering, the young skipper acquiesced and under Dirk’s guidance proceeded into port under full sail. Everyone that saw us stared in shocked disbelief, as the yacht traversed the small harbour, and continued under full sail weaving its way around the moored boats in the crowded marina, then cut a sharp “U” turn and landed silently at the pier with not so as much as the slightest bump. I was impressed.
One weekend Barbara wasn’t feeling well, so we three guys were off on our own. Before the yacht club we stopped at Marie Darlings restaurant for breakfast … it a lace curtain, linen tablecloth kind of place, with an English tearoom elegance. Dirk noticed a woman and her daughter, maybe seventeen, at another table, and simply could not take his eyes off of the girl. While we were trying to contain him, he wrote a note and gave it to a waiter to deliver to the mother, who was clearly about the same age as Dirk. “Tell me, Mum, would you fancy a handsome English son-in-law?” She didn‘t. Mother and daughter left abruptly. That was Dirk.
Dirk was appalled that we had never had curry, so one night he took us to an Indian restaurant - the closest was in Hartford, Connecticut, two hours away. Dirk drove while Barbara and Billy sat in back mixing martinis. At the restaurant he ordered a full course meal, and when we finished that he ordered another. To reciprocate we invited them to Wood Street for dinner, but Dirk insisted on cooking.
Once they arrived he and I went shopping, where he spent a hundred on food and a hundred and fifty on wine (a hundred dollars was still a lot of money in the seventies, at least to me). Dirk adored my house and could never get over the fact that I had designed and built all of it myself, with my own two hands. It wasn’t long before he had his own project for me.
No matter where Dirk went there had to be a party, and they were always entertaining riotously in there hotel suite. In addition, any time he went to one of the hotel restaurants, he’d mix his own concoction of sangria in champagne buckets, and pass out drinks to all of the other diners. This was amusing at first, but as the complaints piled in the hotel had finally had enough. First he was banned from all of the restaurants, and not long thereafter he was summarily evicted. Dirk continued undaunted.
He rented a two story house on Barrington Beach (at Puritan‘s expense), and had grandiose plans for remodelling it - which he had no permission to do - with me as the contractor. He liked my Franklin fireplace so bought one of his own, and then one cold windy evening he had me hanging off a ladder with the goal of finishing the installation of the exterior stove pipe. I got as high as twenty of the thirty feet to the peak, before I told him, “You’re nuts! You go up there yourself if you want.” He didn’t, so the stove pipe topped off just under the second floor bedroom windows. When he said he wanted to demolish the wall between the two upper bedrooms to create one large one, I told him he was on his own. He tore out the wall, but that was as far as he got.
By now Dirk was beginning to wear on my nerves. We visited a few times at the beach house, and the two always wanted us to stay over. Billy and I could never figure out exactly why they had only red and blue bare light bulbs in their expanded/semi-demolished bedroom, and we were never clear as to what their intentions were vis-à-vis overnight guests. We didn’t hazard to find out.
About this time back at Puritan, Ralph told me that Dirk’s days were numbered, as were those of his benefactor, Charles Smith, the president. He recommended that I temper my association with the brash Englishman, which I had already started to do, and that I should not under any circumstances honour any of Dirk’s requisitions for anything, unless they were signed by the president himself.
When Dirk first came face to face with his changed status, his reaction was that of a petulant child, child, but he recovered quickly and fell headfirst into his latest endeavour … an all-out Guy Fawkes Day celebration on Barrington Beach, the centrepiece of which was to be a massive bonfire. He enlisted the aid of many in the Barrington community, and even had the Coast Guard dragging huge pieces of drift wood and rotten old skiffs to the site. In every sense of the word, Dirk was too much. Easily a couple of hundred people attended the affair, and it actually made the “Second Front Page” of Providence’s Sunday Journal-Bulletin. Nonetheless, that proved to be Dirk’s last hurrah … both he and Charles disappeared unceremoniously not long thereafter.
A COUPLE OF MONTHS INTO MY NEW STATUS AS MANAGER, not acting, I came face to face with a potential disaster in the person of Albert. My father always cautioned, don’t shit where you eat, which was - if the prevailing rumours about he and his secretary were true - a case of do as I say not as I do. Much of what Dad said I took with a grain of salt … should have listened to that one.
Moving past the clichés, one of my biggest problem areas was the records department, some of which was the first to be annexed to an off-site location, a warehouse a few blocks away. Being perpetually understaffed, we had a regular crew of temporary help from an agency, and one such temp was a married man named Albert. He was a very positive addition to the crew, and doing a great job.
At staff meetings I had always sung Albert’s praises, in my monthly management letters as well - it was my intention to hire him permanently when I got approval for the position - and I was extremely happy to report when Albert volunteered to be stationed at the warehouse, to organize things once and for all.
None of that, or his marital status, had anything to do with the fact that Albert and I were having an affair. For my part, that was just plain stupid. Particularly because by then Billy had left his job in East Providence, and had taken a position that I had arranged for him at Puritan.
As far as I was concerned, nothing changed between Albert and me once I got my promotion, other than the fact that I stopped going out with him at lunchtime to get stoned. Yet affairs are tenuous at best, and I was losing interest. The thrill is really in the conquest. When Edmund Hillary conquered Everest the rush was over, he didn’t hang out up there for a few months.
Nonetheless, it was a complete surprise to me when Albert quit one day, with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. A week later he came back to Puritan and went to Personnel (AKA Human Resources). In the absence of the Director, Diana Simmons (a close friend and fan), he laid his tale of woe on Constance Arrington, the Deputy Director (an extremely close friend and major fan).
Albert explained how he and I were having an affair – true – but that once I was promoted I abruptly terminated the relationship – not true, but getting close. He went on to say that I then maliciously assigned him to the warehouse as a way of forcing him out of the company – bordering on completely ridiculous. He was a “temp!” I didn‘t have to “force“ him out of anywhere, a simple call to the agency was all it would have taken to get rid of him. Fortunately, Ralph’s weekly staff meetings with Diana, Connie, and me refuted those lies, and my monthly management letters provided the written documentation. Needless to say, Connie made a beeline to my office with Albert’s juicy accusations.
Being one to confront things head-on, I went up and talked with Ralph. He took it in his stride, fully supporting me, and doing his best to make me feel better about the situation. He likened it to an employee he had had years earlier, a man who was being stalked by an infatuated female subordinate. There was no discussion at all as to the so-called affair or the homosexuality.
It would be quite some time later through Kathy, of Kathy and Betty, that I would learn about Ralph’s sister, and his sensitivity towards those of the homosexual orientation. The Girl Scouts was a major involvement for Kathy, and she had been absolutely enamoured with the Director of the Connecticut branch – chapter, whatever they call it – who happened to be a lesbian.
Who also happened to be Jan Swenson, Ralph’s sister. I only met Jan once. I had gone to see Ralph in hospital, and we had a nice visit … but when Jan showed up I got a quick introduction, and an abrupt, “Thank you very much for coming, Lance, goodnight now!” Anyhow, as far as Albert went that was pretty much the end of it … except at home!
One evening some time later Bobby and Debbie were coming over for dinner, and I arrived a half hour later than usual. Not later than I had planned, but later than Billy had anticipated. This set off his harboured rage over the Albert incident. Bob and Deb were there when I arrived, and Billy gave me “the look” and told me to come into the bedroom so that we could have a “little “talk!“ Code for: So I can beat the living shit out of you.
Discussing things with Billy was about the same as doing so with my father, brother, Bobby, or Hal. I got bounced off of this wall and that one, swung around by my hair, and generally messed up. At one point I left the bedroom briefly, and Debbie said, “Look, we’re going to go home.” “No! No! Please stay! It will be over in a few minutes. If you leave he’ll kill me.” So I went back for more abuse, and then we came out for dinner. Ever the happy couple J.
MONDAY MORNING, THE 6TH OF FEBRUARY 1978, started like every other winter’s day, and sometime after arriving at work it began to snow. Not at all unusual, but for some reason I was uneasy. The snow continued, but still not out of the ordinary. Perhaps it was precognition (something that I have experienced on a regular basis for years), but to me this ordinary snow storm was ominous.
Closing the office was Ralph’s call, but he wouldn’t listen to my concerns, so nigh upon eleven o’clock I told Billy and Connie to be ready to leave at noon. For a few months Connie, the Deputy Director of Human Resources, had been taking a ride with us to the bus station in Fall River, from whence she would take the bus on to her home in New Bedford. Billy said he didn’t want to leave, and I said do as you please, but I’ll be leaving at noon.
The snow continued and Ralph was still stubborn, so at noon I told my staff, “Ralph’s not closing, so it’s your call. If you want to stay, stay. If you want to leave, I’ll figure some way to pay you for the afternoon. If you want to use me as an example, I’m getting my ass out of here while the getting is good.” So the three of us – Billy, Connie, and I – piled into the company station wagon, and we were off.
The snow was unrelenting. Again my instinct took over, and rather than chancing the Interstate, I opted for the old Route 6, which would bring us into the north end of Fall River. Every mile the snow kept coming, and the going got tougher and tougher.
That twenty minute twenty mile journey took us more than an hour, and once over the bridge into the city, traffic stopped on a one way ramp.
Fifteen minutes, twenty, and more, we didn’t move an inch. The snow never let up. A little longer and I had to do something, I was not going to be snowed in there. Telling my passengers to hang on, I took a sharp right and gunned it, banging up over the curb, and fishtailing madly for a block through a bumpy field. Next I floored it as we flew over the edge of a two foot high embankment, landing with a crash onto the street below. Did I mention that it was a company car J?
From there I drove like a madman through the streets of Fall River, then came face to face with the infamous seven hills – the street that runs up along a park for seven blocks, climbing Fall River’s biggest hill. Each block was a fairly steep incline, which levelled at each cross street. With the car in low I floored it and kept it there, as we skidded and swerved and bounced and fishtailed our way to the top.
Once on the main boulevard that ran south through the city the going was easier. When I got near the bus station I looked up the street, and it was complete bedlam. I wouldn’t chance driving, so I told Connie she’d have to walk the four blocks, or she could spend the night with us. She chose the latter, but didn’t stay one night … we were snowbound for five days!
The snow stopped on Tuesday evening, after going steady for thirty-three hours. Snow was at five foot levels in some areas. Later John, who lived in Providence at the time, would tell me that when he was out walking on top of the snow on snowshoes, he noticed a series of strange short thin metal shafts sticking up from the snow. They turned out to be radio antennas; he hadn’t known that he was walking on top of cars that were completely buried.
Twenty-five of our employees were stranded at the Doris Building for four days, with no food except that which they pilfered from the vending machines. A comical good friend, Mary Devine, told me that when Bill Wilson started looking good to her (an inside joke), she was walking … on Thursday she did, with most of the rest.
The three of us made out okay on Wood Street, and ate well thanks to provisions from the Lowneys’ freezer. The back of my house was so completely buried by snow, that when I dug out to get firewood from the shed, it was not a path but a tunnel. On Friday we ventured forth in the car, and managed to get Connie on a bus to New Bedford. At that point our “stash” was getting low, so after leaving her we ventured on to Swansea.
The roads and highways were passable, but the banks of snow were many feet high, obscuring all landmarks. It was confusing. On the way home I thought I had turned onto the ramp to enter I/195 east bound, but by the time I realized that something was wrong, we were coming out on I/195 alright, but we were heading west on the east bound side of the highway. The ramp was not the entrance; it was the exit from I/195 east. Fortunately we didn’t encounter any exiting traffic; we were pretty much the only car on the road.
“The Great Blizzard of 1978“ was the worst in the history of Southern New England. Rhode Island was completely shut down for a week, as was eastern Massachusetts. The main arteries and freeways had been clogged with well over 3500 abandoned vehicles covered by the snow, and fifty-five people lost their lives. And I knew it was coming, because I was clairvoyant. But you can call me “Claire!”
IN ADDITION TO ALL OF THE MOVING AT PURITAN, on the home front Billy and I had been doing some moving as well. Before we moved to Wood Street we had had a couple of break-ins there, and we knew that it was his brother Jerry, but we never had any proof. By the time we started living there fulltime, however, Jerry had disappeared and we had a few years of peace. Then he was back.
I’m not willing to relive this in written form - I already mentioned the six foot high barricade fence - but it became unbearable. Finally I turned the place over to a realtor, and we rented a gorgeous oversized Cape with a huge two car garage (my first ever), privately secluded on a vast, thickly wooded lot on Fawn Road (ADDRESS #18) near Bob and Deb in Swansea, Massachusetts. Of the Lowneys, only Bobby and Debbie, and Kitty and Ted (her husband) knew of our whereabouts.
Perhaps foolishly, I had told the landlord a little about the problems that we had had in Fall River, and six months later rocks came through our front windows during the night, breaking a large plate glass table and scaring the shit out of us. The next evening more rocks, while we were playing cards in the dining room with Kitty and Ted. A few days later the landlord told us that he had sold his home, and was going to move into ours unless we wanted to buy it. How’s that for timing?
Despite that fact that Jerry Lowney was in jail, as a result of my identifying him and pressing charges, I never thought that this had anything to do with him. I was convinced that the landlord was responsible. He got the house heated for the winter, and figured that once he sold his other house we would be easy to scare away. He was right. Once again we were packing, and we moved into a townhouse on Squire Lane (ADDRESS #19), an up-market complex with two swimming two pools in East Providence, Rhode Island … a quick commute. There was no longer any reason for Billy to pass by the rest areas on I/195, where he had a habit of lingering and lurking about looking to shag; as if that stopped him.
WE WEREN’T THERE LONG WHEN BOB PERRON SAID HE NEEDED TO STOP BY. He was a dear friend, my senior mail clerk - being groomed for supervisor. He and his girlfriend, Lorraine, would always house sit for us on Wood Street (to protect it from Jerry) when we were in Maine. They were too cute. We would stock the freezer with steaks; the fridge with food and drink, etc.; and tell them to help themselves. But they rarely touched anything. Once, when they wanted to go to a movie, Bob drove all the way to Providence to pick up his mother, so that she could watch the house while they were gone, then he drove her all the way home. Talk about devotion.
Bob was devoted, to say the least, and he came late in the evening, under the cloak of darkness, to tell me something that no one in Puritan’s management knew … there was a vigorous unionizing campaign underway. Naturally I blew the whistle the next morning, going through Ralph to share a little of the hero status with him.
General Electric immediately dispatched its crack union busting avoidance team to Puritan Life. Thus began two years of union avoidance training … two years of hell. For reasons of confidentiality, all meetings and training sessions were held at the Marriott, but we had no space to accommodate them anyhow. All conference rooms had long since been converted to offices and work stations.
Personally, I have always hated unions, but never had any experience with any until Mossberg Pressed Steel, where I was required to join the United Steel Workers. A few of the old-timers always called a few of the other old-timers “scabs“ because they had crossed the picket line during the strike. When was the strike? 1949! These union folk take this stuff seriously, and they did at Puritan as well. The work environment was extremely tense, growing more so by the day. Lines were draw, sides taken. Emotions were hot. Tempers flared.
A constant stream of management flowed in and out of the Marriott, strict rules drummed into their/our heads. What we could and could not do, what we could and could not say, where and how the union organizers were allowed to operate, and how to handle enforcement of that.
Much to my surprise, I saw Bobby Holcomb at the Marriott a couple of times; it had been what … a decade or more? I never approached. It didn’t seem appropriate. There I was a high paid executive, looking handsome and trim in my tailored three piece pinstriped suit, and there he was … a fat bellboy. Sometimes vengeance withheld is sweeter than rubbing it in.
It would be two long years before the inevitable vote, at which time the union was summarily trounced two to one. The union folk were devastated, and many left the company … but slowly life got back to normal. Whatever that was.
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