An Introduction or It Began with Governor Curley
Opportunity knocks but once, according to one unknown ancient wag, who didn't know beans.
Maybe opportunity knocks only once for some people, but for others it not only knocks more than once, it kicks the door down if they don't answer right away.
What I mean to say is, there are those who start making pizza in their kitchen and in six months they have a chain of pizza parlors all across the United States which are eventually bought up by Pepsi Cola for millions of dollars. Or, someone we can call Mrs. Paul, makes a few crab cakes for her friends and in no time sells the whole kit and kaboodle to Campbell Soup for millions, or maybe billions.
Success never overwhelmed me this way. My definition of success was falling down the cellar stairs and not getting hurt. And it's a wonder opportunity didn't get bored with me because every time it knocked on my door it tripped over the welcome mat.
Once, on my fist newspaper job I was mistaken for a bank robber instead of a reporter. Another job I had was selling popcorn on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, a business which did not grow into a national chain of popcorn stands. Instead, on only my second day, a car pulled up to the curb and men with badges got out and started to arrest me for innocently saying, "Get your hot buttered popcorn!" The popcorn, alas, was slathered in coconut oil and the Pure Food Administration took a dim view of calling it butter. I was saved in the nick of time, however, because one of my customers was actor Edward Everett Horton, who put in a good word for me.
Then there was the time I wrote a radio show for WFAA, Dallas, called "Dan Dunn, Secret Operative Number 48" taken from a comic strip. The show nearly came to an untimely end when the sound man pushed a pile of crates over on me to simulate a car crash I had written into the script. I don't remember how long I law on the floor under boxes of scrap iron and old hub caps, but they tell me I read the last lines on the floor with my head bandaged.
When I finally decided I only wanted to work for a newspaper opportunity did not give up. I went to Boston. As a freelancer I began selling items to The Christian Science Monitor. I set myself up in an apartment furnished in early Salvation Army. I ate at an establishment known as Hayes Bickford, where one could eat for 30 cents if he didn't care what.
I sold enough to the Monitor to keep going till one day opportunity went bananas and knocked again. When Gov. Ely lost the election for a second term as governor to James M. Curley it was made-to-order for an out-of-work journalist. I borrowed a press pass and went down to the hotel near the State House where Gov. Elect Curley had his headquarters, hoping to sketch a cartoon of him.
The press pass was useless. Reporters and photographers were roped off and no one was getting close to Curley, who was headed for an upstairs suite for a strategy conference. The former governor had tried to tie up the Curley Administration with a lot of last minute appointees and the damage had to be corrected.
While the guards were distracted I ducked under the roes and hunched along with a group of aides following Curley to the elevators. I remember wishing I looked more like an Irishman and less like a young, starving, unemployed cartoonist.
I stumbled along with the group into the elevator and we spilled out onto an upper floor and into a large, noisy suite. I perched on a table at one end of the room with my pad and pencil. Curley wasn't far away but there was so much cigar smoke in the room it was hard to see. Besides, I was getting nervous.
For three or four minutes things went just fine. Then suddenly all went quiet.
"Who the blankety-blank is that blankety-blank in the corner? yelled the Gov. Elect, leveling a finger.
He didn't actually say blankety-blank, of course, but I knew he was talking about me even though I didn't understand the language.
He turned to an aide. "Get a cop up here!" I understood that.
Visions of my near arrest in the past for the hot buttered popcorn and once being mistaken for a bank robber spurred me into action.
"Governor, I'm only trying to draw a picture of you to sell to The Christian Science Monitor," I said. For some reason this brought a burst of uncontrollable laughter from one politico which broke the tension. Curley took the unfinished picture and looked at it. "They might not know it's me," he said.
"They will if you sign it," I answered.
Then followed what writers call a pregnant pause. Curley took a pen from an aide's pocket and signed the drawing just as the police entered the room. Then I was helped towards the door, my feet hardly touching the floor because of the firm grip on the seat of my pants. But when we got to the elevators, the policeman said, "OK, lad. Beat it."
The Christian Science Monitor bought the picture. They didn't pay extra for the signature but they put it on the front page (01/03/35). Later the same day I managed to get a sketch of former Gov. Ely, which was also signed. I was then suddenly put on the payroll. The Monitor, in its wisdom, saw it could get pictures cheaper if I was on the payroll than if they bought them one by one.
Editor Roscoe Drummond shook my hand and asked me how I liked working for the Monitor. I told him it was better than going to jail.
So that's the way Gov. Curley and I got started.
Gov. Curley went on to his destinations.
I went on to mine.
— Guernsey Le Pelley
This book is in like-new condition from our Study Room