He Became the Magnificent Montague When He Got Off of the Boat in Galveston

                                              By Dallas Realtor Bill Cherry 

            In the early ‘50s, white people were listening to an NBC radio weekly comedy called, “The Magnificent Montague,” that starred Monty Wooley.  But the Magnificent Montague I want to talk about isn’t fictional, and he’s not white, he’s black, and he’s probably one of the most important contributors to American black culture that has ever lived.  Someone you should know about.

            His real name is Nathaniel Montague, but probably less than a handful of people know his given name.  To the public, he’s always been known as The Magnificent Montague.  He was born in New Jersey, left there before he graduated from a black military school to travel the seas as a merchant marine.  And he got off of his ship in Galveston because he heard there was a disc jockey position open at a Beaumont radio station.  He wanted to play music.  It was 1954.

            Montague got the job, and like all of the other black disc jockeys, he played rhythm and blues records – B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Bobby Bland and Little Junior Parker, but he added a new twist.  Montague used poetry, sometimes that of a great poet, sometimes that he had written himself, to connect the music together.  And he did it with a low and mellow voice, and sometimes a piercing, rapid falsetto one.   Even though I’ve had fifty years to think about it, to me his style remains indescribable.

            He learned when the Ku Klux Klan showed up at that Beaumont station to run him out of town, that more white housewives were listening to him every day than black.  The Klan thought he was causing that on purpose.  Fortunately, another disc jockey at the station, a well-respected white fellow named J.P. Richardson, was there, and he convinced the Klan members it wasn’t Montague’s purpose at all.  J.P. Richardson, by the way, later became known as the Big Bopper (“Chantilly Lace”).

            Somewhere along the way, Montague married one of his Beaumont station’s listeners, a Louisiana girl who was white.  Her name is Rose, and they’ve been married for nearly 60 years.

            Montague moved from the Beaumont station to Houston’s KCOH, and that’s where I heard him for the first time. I was 14, and every boy I knew was listening after school to the Magnificent Montague.  Magnificent Montague in the afternoon followed by Rascal McCaskill at night.   It was impossible for there to be a music diet of too much rhythm and blues.  For me, there still isn’t.

            And then one day a friend and I left Carl’s Drive-in in his black ‘47 Ford with the fender skirts and the mellow rumbling of the Smitty mufflers, and turned down 53^rd Street from Broadway.  There was a new brick building on the east side of the street that had just popped up, and on the front was a big poster with Montague’s picture, letting all who passed by know that he would be the opening personality for the new tavern.  We had to see him, and we did. 

            The Magnificent Montague was a skinny, short man, impeccably dressed.  And we watched and listened as he entertained – just like he did on KCOH – a packed house of black men and women and two underage white boys.

            Shortly thereafter, Montague moved from Houston to Texas City’s KTLW, and then almost as quickly, he vanished from Texas, going from radio station to radio station across the United States, following the chain letter that would take him to and through the big time – Chicago, New York, Los Angeles.  And he made big money because his influence on what rhythm and blues tunes became hits was phenomenal.   

            But what makes this story a story and what really makes Montague legitimately magnificent is that he came on this earth with a big brain.  He began reading and studying everything he could about American black heritage.  But what he did that was the most unique was that he began searching every garage and estate sale, every used bookstore and every art gallery, and bought every first edition book, original art piece, and historical artifact that told and validated the history of black America.  Most of the vendors didn’t know their worth.  Those that did, Montague raised the money and paid their price.  Why weren’t museums doing that?  Where was the Smithsonian? Would there have ever been a substantive collection of the works of black authors, musicians, scholars and artists had there not been a Magnificent Montague?

            Today, at 78, the Magnificent Montague has some 6,000 pieces in his collection, all catalogued, and its value is now reported to be some $5 million.  The Magnificent Montague and Rose live in Las Vegas.

            His autobiography, “Burn Baby, Burn,” was written with the help of famed Los Angeles Times reporter, Bob Baker.  It was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2003.  It is an extremely well-written chronicle of that culture, as seen and experienced by Montague.  And it offers empirical evidence to those who are unfamiliar with Nathaniel Montague as to why the name Magnificent rightly belongs only to him.   

Copyright 2007 - William S. Cherry

In parts 1and 2 of this three part series on sub-prime rate mortgages, I drew a somewhat interesting, albeit loose, parallel between the current situation and what is known as the Panic of 1907.

Further, I outlined the plan of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's that he hopes will bring relief to borrowers who are unprepared for the contractual rate escalation, and to the mortgage paper holders who are on the brink of being flooded with tens of thousands of borrowers in default.

While Mr. Paulson's plan shows how the federal government can influence the financial markets without passing as much as one law or one new banking regulation, this time we will see how weak the intervention will turn out.

Mortgage lenders and the media as well have been following the lead of real estate agents and brokers, as they place the entire home market bust on sub-prime loans.  And while this is certainly a significant part of the problem, it isn't the one that is making times the toughest for the market in general.

Extending the teaser rates on sub-prime loans, whether in just the one category suggested by Mr. Paulson, or all three of them is nothing more than a duct tape solution, a solution whose general benefits to the economy will hardly be noticed.

It's too late to recant the real problem:  Entirely too many people borrowed too much money to purchase homes that were way over-priced, and now they can't sell them for what they owe on them.
 

The proposed interest rate freeze won't change that.

You see, until the credit market returns to a sensible method of evaluating risk and learns how to properly value mortgage paper and the collateral backing it, there's little the Henry Paulsons and J.P. Morgans of the world can do to make things significantly better.

But in the final analysis, builders, real estate brokers and real estate sales people must equally share with the borrowers and lenders, the blame for this mess.  There's no way around it.

Copyright 2007 - William S. Cherry

Dallas Homes Highland Park Homes

It's a spectacular afternoon in the park this Sunday.  The Dallas sky is a clear almost New Mexico sort of blue, and it's a dry forty-eight degrees.  Church bells are chiming in the distance.

Thanks for stopping by for our weekly visit. 

This year it became apparent to me that those who do not celebrate Christmas and are offended that anyone else does, are winning their hopes that it will eventually be erased from their view.

For years it was a tradition for most if not all situation comedies and variety shows to script and produce a Christmas show. 

The tradition began in radio and followed the audience into television programming.  And interestingly, many of the stars of those programs were not Christians.   

This year, while there may have been some, Patty and I didn't find one of the current sitcoms with a Christmas script.

One of the most famous of the radio programs, "Amos ‘n Andy." did a broadcast in 1940 that became an annual tradition, a tradition that followed the program into TV.  And it was performed word for word every year until 1954. 

Here's the serious part of the script that Americans heard.

Amos' daughter Arbadella: What does the Lord's Prayer mean, Daddy?

Amos: Well, it means an awful lot. And with the world like it is now, darlin', it seems to have a bigger meaning than ever before.

Now you lie down and listen. The first line of the Lord's Prayer is this, "Our Father, which art in Heaven." That means, Father of all that is good where no wrong can dwell.

And the next line is, "Hallowed be thy name." That means, darlin', that we should love and respect all that is good.

"Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, in Earth as it is in Heaven." That means darlin' as we clean our hearts of all hate and selfishness and fill our hearts with love, the good the true and the beautiful, then this earth will be exactly like Heaven.

Arbadella: Oh, that would be wonderful, Daddy.

Amos: Then it says, "Give us this day our daily bread." Now that means to feed our hearts with kindness, love and courage, which will make us strong for our daily tasks.

And then it says, "And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"' Do you remember the Golden Rule?

Arbadella: Oh, yes, sir.

Amos: Well, that means we must keep the Golden Rule and do unto others as we would want them to do unto us.

And then it says, "And Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." That means, my darlin,' to ask God to help us do and see and think right so that we will neither be led or tempted by anything that is bad."

Arbadella: Uh, huh.

Amos: And then it says, "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen." That means, darlin,' that all of the world and everything that's in it belongs to God's kingdom. Everything. Mommy, your daddy, your little brother, your grandma, you and everybody. And as we know that, and act as if we know that, my darlin' - that is the real spirit of Christmas."

So my question to everyone who thinks otherwise, how can the message that Amos gave Arbadella and their entire radio/TV audience been anything but worthy of the broadcast?  I'd love to hear the reasons.  In the meantime....

Happy New Year!  I hope you'll drop by for a visit next Sunday.

GOD Blesses!

Bill Cherry, Realtors

Bill in the Park Pen and Ink Drawing by Galveston Artist Carlotta Barker

            In October, 1907, a bank-owner named F.A. Heinze made a major speculation in the stock market, and it failed.  When the news got it, it caused a run on his bank by depositors who were worried that his financial problems may end up being theirs as well.

             It's known as the Panic of 1907.

            In Part One of this series, we related the story of how financier J.P. Morgan dreamed up and promoted a plan that quickly solved the Panic of 1907, and how it now looks as though U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is trying a Morgan-esque scenario to resolve the latest panic, the one 100-years later that's being caused by the sub-prime loan meltdown.

             Sub-prime loans are hybrid instruments.  The format was not only dreamed up for the first time in recent years, but the loans were issued and sold in startling numbers, especially when you consider there was no experience history.  And to the naked eye, they looked like a formula for trouble.

            The problem we are now facing is that a huge number of the sub-prime mortgage loans were not only made to people whose credit and assets would not normally sustain the loan approval of a lender, but the loans were made with so-called teaser rates.

            Teaser rates are interest rates that start out artificially below the market, but within a short time become significantly higher, leaving to question, will the borrower be able to pay the new, adjusted payment amount when it occurs?

            In 2008, more than $350,000,000,000 (that's three hundred, fifty billion) of sub-prime loans will adjust to the higher rate.  And that means that several hundred thousand borrowers will see their mortgage payments rise by hundreds of dollars a month.

            Left as they are, most of the sub-prime borrowers won't be able to salvage their homes.  Refinancing will bring no relief, even if it is available to them, because the current rates are similar to the rates their sub-prime loan is scheduled to adjust to.

            And because there are so many of them scrambling on top of a housing market that cheap money drove to become overbuilt, we are seeing sharp declines in home prices, and that will continue for awhile.  So they won't be able to sell them for what they owe on them. much less when commissions and closing costs are added.

            So Secretary Paulson's idea sets up a system that puts these sub-prime borrowers into three categories:  those whose credit confirms that they will be able to sustain the higher monthly payments when the rates reset; those who can continue to pay the current teaser payment, but won't be able to when the rates adjust to the higher amount; and finally, those who can't afford the teaser payment amount much less the planned adjusted rate.

            Only those in the second group can expect help, and that's only if their sub-prime loan rate is set to rise on or after January 1, 2008.

            The Paulson plan is quite simple.  It will give those borrowers (the ones in the second group) five years more at the teaser rate with the hopes that by then the housing market will have recovered so that those borrowers will be able to squirm out of the obligations.

            The question many professionals as well as the man on the street asks is why did the lenders need Secretary Paulson to come up with what is such an obvious plan?   After all, lenders know that their chances of losing money is far less when they renegotiate a workable plan with an in-trouble borrower than it is when they foreclosed the borrower's house.  And the guy on the street has reasoned this out himself.

            Here are the three most important ones:

• There are so many of these loans that are in trouble that the companies servicing them don't have the personnel resources to work them on a case by case basis.

• Unlike what most think, the majority of the sub-prime loans are collateral that's backing securities that were sold to investors - individuals, partnerships, trusts and companies - and many of those are domiciledoutside of the U.S.  Finding which of them is holding a particular loan would be a nightmare.

• And finally, and of utmost importance, banks working together without the umbrella of the government would bring lawsuit after lawsuit charging collusion, and collusion is illegal.

            In the final part of this three part series, that will be here tomorrow for you to read, I'll tell you what I've concluded and why.

Copyright 2007 - William S. Cherry

All rights reserved

            It was in October, 1907, that the U.S. financial system was within moments of collapse, and there was no mechanism in the wings to resolve the issues other than some weak "Scotch tape it together" ideas that the Treasury Department had.

            This all started because a guy named F.A. Heinze had done some rather significant speculation in the stock market, and he'd lost his shirt.  The problem was that Heinze was a bank owner.

            Depositors in his bank as well as the banks that did business with his bank were unsure what this was going to mean to them.  Was money Heinze had used for his stock market speculations money that he had borrowed from his own bank?  If it was and he couldn't pay it back, would that mean that his bank would collapse and the depositors would lose their savings?

           Well, J.P. Morgan was a well respected financier, and he knew that the only thing that the Treasury Department could do was to move treasury deposits to the weak banks with the hopes that the banks would then be able to cover depositor withdrawals until the run on the banks was over, and confidence had been rebuilt.

            Morgan unilaterally took matters into his hands.  He talked - quite frankly, pressured -- solvent banks into bailing out their brother and sister banks by funneling money to them so that they could cover withdrawals.  And he even made it clear to ministers that they'd best start preaching sermons aimed at restoring confidence.

            It didn't take but a month or so for Morgan's plan to restore confidence in the system, and what is called the Panic of 1907 was short-lived with only Heinze being a loser of significance.

            One hundred years later, there is a new crisis.  Again investors have speculated where they shouldn't have - in sub-prime loans.  Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is trying his hand at putting into place a J.P. Morgan scenario with the hopes that his will be as successful as Morgan's was a hundred years ago.

            Will it be?  I'll offer some thoughts on that tomorrow.

Copyright 2007-William S. Cherry - All Rights Reserved

Part 2 - HOW THIS TRANSLATES TO A PROBLEM THAT HAS NO CLEAR SOLUTION.  (Tomorrow's Post)          

Bill Cherry's Bio
Bill Cherry Realtor

Recently I wrote of encounters I had with two friends who, although well past 80, are easily keeping up with, if not ahead of, most people one-half their ages.

My friend, Frank Jewett, who teaches computer technology to real estate professionals in San Jose, California, read the piece and made a profound observation.

"We need to come up with a new term to replace ‘retirement.' 

We need a term that captures a continuing sense of purpose and activity for folks who aren't striving to achieve their own obsolescence. 

"How about ‘independent,' as in ‘saving up for your independence?'"

FRANK JEWETT

                      BANKS AND THEIR SERVICE CHARGES TOTALLY OUT OF HAND
                                                   By Dallas Realtor Bill Cherry


I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of mega-banks.   For the regular mom and pop account holders like me, they are totally out of control, and have been since banking deregulation came along into law.

You might be interested to know that Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich earned roughly $33.6 million in 2003 (including a $24.6 million estimate for the value of his stock options).  And you’ll probably find that his compensation package isn’t much different that that offered Bank of America’s chairman.

But let's make out like that Mr. Kovacevich hasn’t gotten a salary raise or any more stock options since 2003. 

In fact, let's make out like that in 2007 he was paid a salary just like you and me.  That means he brought home, before taxes, $173,076 a week, every week, all fifty-two of them. 

Interestingly, you and I as his bank’s customers can’t make an appointment with him to discuss our accounts even if we were in San Francisco where he is or were willing to fly out there to see him.

Thirty-years ago, the president of the largest bank in my hometown brought home $1,538 a week, and I knew him and I could make an appointment to see him to discuss my banking business.  And I frequently did.  If I couldn't catch him at the bank, I'd surely run into him at Rotary on Wednesday or at church on Sunday.

The old hometown banks knew what mega-banks don't.  It was important to keep their customers’ good will.  One of the easiest ways to lose it was to service charge the customer to death.  Another way was to clear a deposit or check through the wrong customer’s account.  And finally, the sure way to cook the goose was to not be available when the customer came calling.

Here’s just one of the many examples of out of control mega-banking.  This is how Wells Fargo handles and processes checking account overdrafts.

When Wells Fargo has closed the business day, all deposits made to your account are posted.  Next the charges – checks and other debits – are artificially sorted so that they can be posted in descending amount order, i.e., the largest one first, the smallest one last.

So let’s say your Wells Fargo account balance after all deposits are credited is $2,000 and you have seven checks to be posted against it – one for $2,001.00; one for $9.95; one for $27.50; one for $128.00 and one for $550.00. 

Wells Fargo’s bookkeeper will sort the checks so that the $2,001.00 check is posted first.  Your account will then be overdrawn by a buck.  They will honor the buck overdraft.  That then allows them to mark as insufficient the remaining four checks.  At $34.00 for an insufficient check, the bank then is able to post a charge of $170.00 against your account, and return all but the largest check.  What’s their risk?  It's a buck plus the $170 service charges if you decide to skip out on them.

Here’s the way the old hometown bank handled overdrafts.

First, all deposits were posted to your account.  Next checks and other debits were sorted in ASCENDING amount order, then the debits processed.  So with the example above, the only check that would have been returned was the $2,001.00 check.  All others would have been honored.  You would have been charged for one insufficient funds check by the bank --$34.00 – and you may have been charged an insufficient funds fee by the payee of that $2,001.00 check. 

And you'd have a remaining bank balance of $1,284.55.
 

So while on the one hand, millions of dollars are being spent annually by the mega-banks to attract and keep clients, and branches are opened and staffed on every corner that there is a Starbucks, it apparently hasn’t occurred to upper bank management that when customers perceive they are being mistreated, that word spreads exponentially and with far greater authority than the bank’s TV ad.

For $173,076 a week, Mr. Kovacevich has just got to be better at running a bank than that.  What's your mega-bank story?

By Dallas Realtor Bill Cherry

Christie "The Beachcomber" Mitchell told me this story long ago.  It happened one Christmas Eve about 10 years after the war.

There was a fellow from a good Catholic family who had two talents. One was shoplifting and the other was picking pockets. The downtown merchants referred to him as Gonif, a Yiddish word that means "thief." The night people called him as Ducky Wucky. Now I can't exactly lay my hands on one distinguishing feature that made him resemble a duck, but there was no doubt. The guy looked like a duck.

A lot of people made their living off the streets back then. People like dirty little unshaven Pee Wee, who sold yesterday's newspapers, and Crazy Frank, who made believe he was photographing you and your car for some secret police agency when you passed him by, and Dirty Gertie, the Galveston Tribune vendor who sat on a canvas stool in front of the Peacock Café, and Yaga Man, the black fellow with the big toothy grin who would yell "yaga" if you didn't flip him a dime when you passed him by.

All were harmless.

It was cold and damp and it had been all that pre-Christmas week. Ducky knew he'd be at midnight Mass with his family on Christmas Eve. It would make God, his mom and Fr. Dan happy, and it would be profitable because he'd bump into old friends on the way to the communion rail, and by the time he'd get back to the pew, he'd be a few watches and wallets richer. But what about Pee Wee, Crazy Frank, Dirty Gertie, Yaga Man and the others?

Miss Jesse was one of the island's best madams, and she had a big brick house out west on Avenue O ½. Every year she'd hang strands of Christmas lights all over it, and she'd put up a huge Christmas tree in the front yard. Cops, cab drivers, bellboys, waiters and waitresses who had helped Miss Jesse's business during the past year, would drive by on Christmas Eve night, look under the big tree, and find the present from Roulet's Liquor that Santa Claus had left especially for them.

So that year, during the days just before Christmas, Ducky went through the downtown dime stores, Levy's, Nathan's and the ABC Racket Store in his big overcoat with the concealed pockets. He picked up rings, watches and wallets as he bumped into the Christmas shoppers, and he stuffed the big pockets full with this and that from the stores' counters. He took it to his room and wrapped each in Christmas paper and then put name tags on them. Christmas Eve afternoon, he took a cab out to Miss Jesse's and put the packages under the big tree in her yard, then he went to the Metropole Club.

He knew Arthur Clardy would be there for his after work toddy. Clardy ran a forwarding company, and one of the things his company did was move bailed cotton from the sheds to the wharves on trains of flat wagons pulled by farm tractors. Ducky profusely shook Clardy's hand wishing him and his family a Merry Christmas. All the while Ducky was picking Clardy's car and office keys from his pocket.

Ducky had a 7-Crown and Coke, kibitzed with Sherwood Brown, Dorothy Graham and George Bushong, then he nonchalantly left. The door of the club had barely closed before Ducky was swiping Clardy's car and was on his way to the sheds where the tractors and cotton trailers were stored. When he got there he had good fortune. On a table in the shed was a Santa Claus suit that had been used in the downtown Christmas parade.

Ducky grinned as he put on the suit, cap and beard. Then he fired up one of the tractors and hooked it up to a couple of the flatbed trailers. He drove downtown where he picked up Crazy Frank, Pee Wee, Yaga Man, Dirty Gertie and the others. As they rode down the Seawall on the flatbed trailers toward Miss Jesse's, Santa led them in carols. He parked in front. Everybody got off and Santa led them to the tree, saying "Ho, ho, ho," over and over again, as authentically as he could, the ever present Old Gold drooping from the left side of his lips.

As Santa passed out the presents from under the tree in Miss Jesse's yard, the cops, taxi drivers, bellmen, waiters and waitresses started stopped by to get theirs, too. Not one of them saw anything strange about Ducky Wucky being dressed as Santa and his elves being Pee Wee, Crazy Frank, Dirty Gertie and the others. After all, this was Christmas Eve on Galveston Island.

Copyright 2007 - William S. Cherry
All Rights Reserved

DOOPED BY UTILITY DEREGULATION

I've always been grateful for Chuck and his wife Kindall for our many years of friendship. 

Chuck sent this piece this morning, and I would very much like to share it with you. -- DALLAS REALTOR, BILL CHERRY.

PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN.

(Is it just) a greeting card sentiment that seems like a long forgotten remnant of our idyllic youth?  Prototypically Shultzian in a rather arcane sort of way.
 
Since Linus (as one of the Three Wise Men) first uttered these words almost 45 years ago, A Charlie Brown Christmas has left an indelible impression of the true meaning and spirit of the Holidays on several generations world-wide.
 
Linus' line is actually a paraphrase of the last verse in a series found in the King James Bible (1611), long considered by scholars as being the least politically correct of all.
 
The Latin text has it, "et in terra pax hominibus, bonae voluntatis".   So, the phrase properly rendered is: "PEACE ON EARTH TO MEN OF GOOD WILL".
 
In these turbulent times Peace on Earth would be considered nothing short of a miracle.  Yet miracles happen every day. 
 
So, the potentially miraculous promise of this quaint wish ultimately could come down to something as simple as a commitment by each and every one of us to be men and women of good will.
 
Imagine the possibilities!
 
May your life be imbued with the joys, the warmth and the true meaning of this Holiday Season all year-round.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

BILL CHERRY

SLICK THE SHOESHINE MAN, MR. SAM AND CHRISTMAS EVE 1949

By Dallas Realtor Bill Cherry

Normally Slick the shoeshine man carried 78 RPM records of black artists, the ones that Mrs. Evelyn Stein at the Melody Record Shop around the corner didn't.

But for some reason it was Christmas, and he was pushing a new song written and sung by a white cowboy film star, Gene Autry.  It was "Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer." And it was the Christmas season of 1949, and that song was on its way to becoming the first tune to ever reach the platinum benchmark in sales, even bigger than Bing Crosby's "White Christmas."

The tiny shoeshine parlor was just behind Galveston's Interurban Queen Newsstand at the corner of 21^st and Market Street, and it had been in business since the war years.  I have no idea how many black men owned it over time, but they were always known as Slick. 

The 1949 version of Slick the Shoeshine Man had two gold capped teeth in the front, one with a perfect five-point star carved in it, and he had a great head of black hair that was pressed back and held in place with Peach Dressing pomade.  He wore brown and white spectator shoes year around, and a pocket watch on a long, gold chain that rode along on the side of his right leg.  He all but danced when he walked.  He was an impressive sight.  We later became friends.

Slick had a vintage RCA radio-phonograph combination in the back of his shine parlor.  He had taken the big speaker out, put it in a wooden box with loads of holes drilled in it with a nail he had hammered in, and had wired it with red and white doorbell wire so that it could sit in the transom above the parlor's door.  He'd turn up the volume so everyone on the sidewalk could hear.

On both sides of 21^st and Market there were end-of-the-line bus stops, where every bus route on the island began and terminated.  Men waiting for the bus could step into Slick's to get a shine, but mainly to get away from the foul smell that rose from the gutter and sidewalk. 

A spit shine -- Slick's specialty -- was 15 cents plus a dime tip.

It was Christmas Eve, a Saturday, and the stores downtown were finally closing.  The sales ladies from the dime stores had balanced their cash registers, and the men who sold shoes and haberdashery were on their way to the Corner Bar for a Christmas toddy before they caught the bus home.

Slick was still there, catching the stragglers who were planning to eat supper at the Peacock Cafe's counter, even though they knew they would be eating the leftovers from the lunch, play the slots at the Interurban Queen, pull a few tips, and nurse a few highballs before going to St. Mary's Cathedral for midnight Mass.  No sense in going home only to turn around and come back, they reasoned.  Their families would just meet them there.

Father Dan was a kind soul.  He always made certain that he had a doctor and a nurse on duty to rescue those who would pass out and fall off the kneeling benches.  After all, when you mixed a day on your feet selling shoes with a few toddies at the Corner Bar, and combined that with a stuffy, incensed filled cathedral, your chance of making it without a whiff or two of smelling salts was just this side of zero.

This Christmas Even night was cold, damp and foggy.  Slick had eaten a take-out plate of turkey with a cloverleaf roll and banana pudding from the Peacock, and then closed his shine parlor down as the last bus left for the barn at 10:15.

He and his third wife had five children living at home.  They lived in a two-bedroom apartment above a beauty shop on the northwest side of 25^th and Market Street. 

Slick's wife was a housekeeper for an elderly couple who lived in Cedar Lawn.  Slick and his wife's apartment was so small that three of their children slept on pallets on the living room floor.

As Slick was crossing the alley just south of his shine parlor that Christmas Eve, he realized that he had forgotten to turn off old Gene Autry.  That cowboy was still warbling about Rudolph even though there was no one on the sidewalk to hear him. 

Slick went back, opened his door, and turned off the RCA radio-phonograph combination.  Just as he stepped back out of the door and turned to put the padlock through the hasp,  his head was struck hard with a gun wrapped in a handkerchief.  Slick went to the ground.  The guy grabbed Slick's paper bag that had all of his shine and record sales money for the day, and ran to the alleyway, turned east and disappeared among the shadows.

Slick and his wife were planning to take their children for Christmas Day dinner at their church, and then to a movie.  A movie was all that the children ever got for Christmas. 

And without the paper bag of money, that year there'd be no movie.

Before he began the walk home, for some reason Slick walked up 21^st Street to St. Mary's where he heard the bells sounding to let everyone know that Mass was beginning.  When he got to the church, he sat on the steps by the north door.  What was he going to do? he wondered.

The midnight Christmas Eve service at the cathedral never began until Evelyn Malloy and Sam and Sedgie Maceo and the kids got there, and they were always at least fifteen minutes late.  They were big supporters of the cathedral. 

(Sam Maceo, Below)

The front pew on the left side were always reserved for the Maceos.  I don't think I ever heard where Mrs. Malloy sat.

This night Mrs. Malloy was already there.  Everyone was waiting for the Maceos.

About then, Mr. Sam, Miss Sedgie and the kids drove up, got out of the car, and started toward the cathedral.  Mr. Sam spotted Slick sitting on the steps with his head in his hand. 

He walked over to him.  Miss Sedgie and the children followed a few steps behind.

"Slick, is that you?" Mr. Sam asked, bending down.

"Yes sir, Mr. Sam."

"I was hoping I'd find you tonight.  I have something for you," Mr. Sam told him. 

And with that, he gave him the paper sack with all of the money from the shoe shines and records Slick had sold that day.  The bag that had been stolen from Slick by the bandit with the handkerchief covered pistol.

"And here're two ten-spots for your trouble.  Merry Christmas, Slick.  You're a treasured friend.  You and the wife stop by and see Mr. Books at my office after Christmas.  He'll have  good jobs for both of you."

As he started to walk into the church with Miss Sergie and the boys, as an afterthought, Mr. Sam said to Slick, "Ducky Wucky wants you to know he's sorry he got stupid from those hand rolled cigarettes he bought this afternoon from Pee-Wee the newsboy."

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Sam, and may God always be with you," said Slick with a big smile.

Copyright 2007 - William S. Cherry

Former Cathouse Madam, Miss Dorothy, Tried Taste of Presbyterianism

Last weekend I got a letter from my friend, the Grace Kelly lookalike. I hadn’t heard from her in nearly 40 years. She’s been married to one of my friends for as long as I’ve known her.

In my mind’s eye we’re all still young. Her boys are playing with cap guns.

The letter was a newsy three pages. The little boys playing with cap guns are now living their own lives. Her husband has had some health problems, but they seem to be stabilized. Meanwhile, she’d resurrected a career she loved, but has now put that to rest for the last time.

What prompted her to write was a recent column I had penned, as well as a story she had read in my book, Bill Cherry’s Galveston Memories. A friend had sent her a copy of the newspaper column. Her oldest son had given her the book.

Oddly, the book’s story, titled At Miss Dorothy’s, Arthur and Summer Saw the Midnight Sun, is, by far, my favorite of the over 650 I have told you during the past fifteen years.

It is an accounting of two college-age boys, Buddy and Arthur, who were home for the Thanksgiving holidays. After a double-date with their girlfriends, they decided to stop by Miss Dorothy’s Market Street cathouse to visit and dance with the girls in the living room.

Galveston boys frequently did that back then, just like they’d stop off at Honey Brown’s for a barbecue sandwich and to listen to the big floor model radio playing George Prader’s blues program, "Harlem Express," while they ate.

If a cathouse could be defined as genteel, that would have described Miss Dorothy’s. As beautifully furnished as any nice home’s living room, with cocktails served to guests from a bar hidden in the back, the music played was primarily cheek-to-cheek danceable jazz.

Sinatra, Mathis, Fitzgerald, Ellington.

And the girls were dressed in beautiful gowns from the couture departments of E.S. Levy’s and Nathan’s and Leopold’s. Jacqueline’s Charlie Killebrew and Bob Ford took care of their hair and nails. That was the finest salon on the island.

When the boys went to Miss Dorothy’s on that night, things were different. That time they recognized one of the girls in the living room as Summer, a popular and beautiful Dallas co-ed from their school, Sam Houston State Teacher’s College. The story is an accounting of that discovery and how they both felt and handled it, and what happened at a chance meeting between Arthur and Summer many years later in the Dallas airport.

According to my friend, when Galveston’s spools of professional sin were removed for the last time in the middle-60s, Miss Dorothy and her man moved into the county. "Did you know that she morphed into a hairdresser, a hairdresser with a new name?" my friend, the Grace Kelly lookalike, asked.

I loved it. Miss Dorothy and her man had married, opened a convenience store, and Miss Dorothy had put in a beauty shop next door. And she had a new name.

"She was my hairdresser for 10 years....She was a character and was actually fun to be around (No sir, I did not run with her)," she further explained, obviously building my interest in this tale.

"As incongruous as you may think it is, after awhile Miss Dorothy started investigating the various church denominations of the small town. When she’d come to one of the Sunday services, she’d always come in the costume one would expect of the hairdresser who was married to the convenience store owner. Cotton dress and flats. You know.

"One Presbyterian lady, who somehow knew for sure that her former name was Miss Dorothy, and that she and the convenience store owner had run Galveston finest cathouse, decided that it was time for Miss Dorothy and her husband to be saved and forgiven of their pasts by the Almighty.

'Why don’t you two join us for the Christmas service at the Presbyterian church? It’s always so beautiful. Flowers everywhere, lovely Christmas caroles sung by the choir, and the pastor does an especially good job with his Baby Jesus in the manger sermon,' she said to Miss Dorothy while Miss Dorothy was blow drying her hair.

"The Christmas service was just about to begin," my friend continued. "We were all in our seats and the minister stood up to make a few announcements. Then from the back of the church, we heard rustling from people squirming in their seats, so we turned around to see what was going on. There making the grandest of entrances was my hairdresser, Miss Dorothy, dressed in couture as she did in her former life.

"Miss Dorothy had on a beautiful red dress, and a huge red picture hat. She had on red spike heals with bag and gloves to match. Her hair was turned in a French twist, her roots carefully doctored, and her make-up was done as though by seasoned Academy Award winning Hollywood make-up artist, Percy Westmore.

"She must have spent hours preparing for her parade, and it certainly paid off," my friend continued.

"Then Miss Dorothy and her husband "glided down the aisle as though they owned the place and took their seats on the front row.

"Gasps followed them."

Most of the women didn’t recognize her, my friend said,  but I’ll assure you that any of the men who had ever visited Miss Dorothy’s cathouse in Galveston knew precisely who she was, and in my imagination I’ll bet they were doing their best to hide their smiles.
 
You see, the Miss Dorothy they knew from their past had always looked and acted just like that:  a beautiful and elegant lady with impeccable manners, and who was a perfect hostess.

Sort of a Washington socialite Pearl Mesta gone wrong, if you know what I mean.

Copyright 2007 - William S. Cherry
Bill Cherry's Wikipedia Biography