Count Raoul and Miss America....

With the political season heating up, it makes me think about my personal experience with big time politics.  I know this blog is supposed to be somewhat
local, but this is a big city story and one that you just might enjoy and I will never forget.

The year was 1977 and I was a young man with a thin waist and a noticeable drawl makin’ my way in New York City. I’d been out of UGA for almost three years and thereby knew absolutely everything. On the train to Southampton one weekend, I met a Rubenesque brunette whose smile lit up the Speonk Local and whose fascination with foreign clod-kickers put me in an enviable position. When I asked for the chance to see her again, Rachel admitted that with the mayoral race in New York City heating up, she was committed to the election of Ed Koch to be the Big Apple’s next Chief Executive. If I wanted to see her, I would have to do it while campaigning. The Count loves a challenge and a story seemed to be in the offing.  The next weekend I was part of the campaign.

First stop Saturday morning was Rachel’s apartment, where she was working on a
very amateurish banner reading ‘Meet Bess Myerson, She’s for Ed Koch’.  The explanation was that my duties that day were to be the escort, driver and body guard for Bess Myerson as she campaigned around the city for Rep. Koch, running for mayor. Wow, I thought. A 53-year-old Bronx born former Miss America (1945) who's also a well-known NYC celebrity with me by her side all day. We rolled up the still wet banner and met up with the candidate and his Miss America supporter at campaign headquarters on Park Ave. Rachel took off with Ed and I was assigned an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon, two teenage volunteers, Koch’s aging parents and what must surely be the meanest former Miss America ever crowned. It was going to be a long day.

So here’s how it worked. Miss Myerson had a ‘sorta’ agenda of where she wanted to be and when. The teenagers would either walk in front of us holding the banner screaming ‘Meet Bess Myerson, she’s for Ed Koch’ or they would stay with the double parked car trying to keep the tow trucks at bay. First stop was Bloomingdales on the Upper East Side where the wobbly parents, Miss America (no votes for Miss Congeniality) and I made our way through the Labor Day Weekend shoppers, signing autographs and posing for pictures. My role was to not lose the sunglasses and keep the crowds manageable. I did a really good job with the crowds. Bess’s sunglasses… not so much. I know she took ‘em back, I remember her doing it. But I got blamed for the loss and the re-purchase delay almost made us miss the Steuben Day Parade up Fifth Ave.

New York is great with their parades.  Many, many ethnic and national groups have their annual gala marching north up the famous avenue. Many of you may know about St. Patrick’s and the Puerto Rican Day Parade but the German’s have one, too. Honoring General Friedrick von Steuben, they march up the familiar path of Fifth Ave. in lederhosen rockin’ to the oompah bands and drinking warm German beer. 

Imagine the scene…. Two youngsters marching ahead with a hand-lettered sign encouraging all the parade watchers to meet a middle-aged former Miss America and the parents of the candidate. Yours truly dressed in a navy blazer and my own sunglasses served as security. It would be a lie if I said I never stuck my hand inside my coat to hint there might be a holster hidden there. Count Raoul escorted Ms. Myerson to the sidewalk for a photo or two and kept her size nines out of the water collected at the curb.

We lasted about four blocks before it was time to meet the candidate for lunch. We ventured to a Kosher Deli on 14th St. on the Lower East Side for latkes, matzo ball soup. A group of Hassidic rabbis and some sanitation folks were waiting to be schmoozed. See the fish, see the water. See the fish out of water?

The rest of the day was about the same; new experiences, more public gatherings and finally a visit to the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy. The policemen’s union had come out in favor of an Italian-American candidate and boys in blue, along with their Italian hosts, weren’t real sure that Ed, or Bess or Rachel or the old folks or I were their type of neighbor, and the visit to Carmine St. went sorta crappy. 

Thirty-five years does not remove the smell of the sausages and fried dough or the animus that surrounded the little group of small time politicians and pretenders on a damn big stage. The Olds got towed. But at least I finally got to spend a few moments with the woman I was chasing and the cab ride back up town included talk of a quiet dinner and a night in front of the TV.

First though, there was another sign to paint. This time it read ‘meet Shirley Chisholm, she’s for Ed Koch!’. I saw my weekend evaporating into another exhausting day of strangers and crowds and hostile environments. Shirley was a loud-spoken liberal congresswoman that I knew my dad didn’t think much of. My good story of protecting a Miss America was about to be ruined by chapter two. I
announced to Rachel in a tone she probably did not believe, that I needed to go
to the store for some smokes.  It would have been my first cigarette, ever. I said I would be right back.

Nope.