Pretzels for lunch; the Food of Struggling Writers

My story, “Writings of Elwin Adams” was published in the January 1970 issue of “Magazine of Horror”. My first had appeared a year earlier in the January 1969 issue. Of the stories I wrote in the horror genre, “Writings of Elwin Adams” was probably the most well received.

It was republished in an anthology of 13 stories edited by E. C. Bertin in 1975. This was published in France and I never received a cent for the reprint. The title of the book was “Histoires D’Objets Malefiques” (“Objects of Evil Stories”). It would not be the only foreign anthology to republish stories I wrote and not pay me for the use.

A year ago I was able to obtain a copy of this book.

“Magazine of Horror” was an international publication. You could find it on most newsstands back then, usually near the bottom row. It was one of the small, 7 inches by 5 inches, pulp fiction magazines such as Amazing Stories, Thrilling Detective, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Analog.

I had my fans. Here is a letter to the editor from Canada:

If C. J. had thought some more about it, he or she may have realized “Yar Grenue” was simply a twisting of my name, “Yar” from Larry and a jumbled Eugene; however, Elwin Adams was loosely based on H. P. Lovecraft and the story was set in a landscape that Lovecraft would have recognized.

This was a good start for my year as far as my writing career was concerned, but the rest of my life wasn’t working so well. I was unemployed again having resigned from North American Publishing Company. This also meant I wouldn’t be writing anymore anonymous reviews for “Media & Methods”. It also meant I wasn’t receiving a regular paycheck either.

Around the fourteenth of January an editor from “Philadelphia After Dark” called and asked me if I could write a feature story for them. Of course I could! That first feature turned into a series of essays on Children’s Theater in Philadelphia.

That first feature took me to the Children’s Repertory Theatre of Philadelphia located on Rittenhouse Square. “Philadelphia After Dark” even provided me with a photographer on this outing, who snapped several shots that illustrated my article.

My story was popular enough I was soon sent out to The Pocket Playhouse, which was located in what was then streets of hippie stores and cafes on the West blocks of Lombard and Samson just before the river.

Children’s Repertory was a very serious training ground for future actors. The plays were performed by children for children under the direction of its founder, Dr. H. Walter Wenkaert, who spoke with something of a German accent. The Pocket Playhouse was somewhat different, although just as concerned with inspiring children toward the theater. All the plays here were performed by adult actors, who lived together as a commune. They did adult plays, but once a week performed

children theater.

The picture on the right may be the old Pocket Playhouse as it is today. This building is on the corner of 23^rd and Samson, which seems about right. This whole area has been gentrified since I haunted these streets and most of what was there in the 1960s-70s has been replaced by new apartments.

I was very enthralled by both companies, but my third subject did not impress me positively at all. I went to an invitation-only premier and reception of a new children’s theater. Those I interviewed were elite snobs. Adults performed the play, but it came across way over the children’s heads. Children attending the other two theaters had been laughing and applauding and into the plays, but here the kids appeared restless and bored. I did not give it a very good review.

The photo on the left with the number 31showing is the site of The Mask and Wig Clubhouse where I believe Quince Pie was operating. Actually the address is 311 S. Quince.

I was thrilled to be publishing, but I wasn’t making enough money from my pieces to support Lois and me. I was paid $64 for “Writings of Elwin Adams”, and that was the most I got for anything. That really was not a bad fee at the time for a short story. In today’s dollars it was almost equivalent to $400, but even in 1970 $64 didn’t go far enough. So I was spending a lot of my time looking for a steady job.

I had revisited Accounts Receivable at ARCo, but I hardly knew anybody working there now. Accounts Receivable was falling apart. There was talk of breaking it up into smaller sections. My old favorite manager, Donald Jones was retiring. There had been a big meeting where the higher ups came and bawled out everybody in the department for the low quality of their work. They even fired two people. Tom Black, who was the fellow that replaced me didn’t last. He simply went to pieces and was out on a health leave. I relized I had made the right decision on leaving when I did.

I was accepted by Crowell-Collier into their Management Training Program, starting at $150 a week. It would jump to $190 a week after two months, but a week into the training turned it down because the hours were between 1:30 Pm and 9:00 PM and that would have prevented me from continuing in college.

Of course, I couldn’t attend college that semester because I didn’t have any money.

Oh well, I really didn’t want to sell encyclopedias anyway. I would have much rather wrote for “Collier’s Magazine”, but it had ceased publication in 1957.

I was offered a job of being a companion for a quadriplegic young man. I would push his wheelchair around a college campus and assist him in classes, feed him and help him with his lessons. Another guy would take care of his medical and physical needs. My recompense would be free room and board, a salary and all my college expenses paid. The catch was the college was the University of Vermont and Lois and I would have to move there, but that was not why I turned down the job. The guy I was to be a companion to, was a nasty, miserable person. Think the Bubble Boy in the Seinfeld TV show. I just didn’t want to be around him.

Wilkie Buick offered me a job as Assistant Controller at $155 a week, but I turned it down too. Why? Because everybody around me was saying look for a writing job, don’t waste your talent keeping books of numbers.

On January 21, a hiring manager from  Knight Newspapers called me to come in and take some tests. I had taken some tests there the previous week, so I guess I passed. If I did well on this second round I’d be writing marketing copy for the Inquirer and Daily News. So what, it was still writing something, wasn't it?  Starting pay was $125 a week.

I wrote four ads for them, two for the Inquirer and two for the Philadelphia Daily News. There was one print ad and one radio ad for each publication. Those were all I ever did there.

Meanwhile I was living on soft pretzels for lunch.

Living the Double Life

       1967 was an oddly quiet year. On a personal level things were going rather well. I had put together several collections by now and I took a photo of my binders spread across my bed.
       My wife and I sat down and did what I called a photo essay on the riots that had burned across America during the Civil Rights Movement. It consisted of clippings from imagines, such as Newsweek and from newspapers that we matched to the lyrics of "Singing in the Streets.  We titled it Danse Macabre and we both laws pseudonyms.  I was back to being Eugene Lawrence and Lois used the name Jean O'Heaney.
   I also collected the poems I had written between 1965 and 1967 as  Lost Laughs and Last Lovers as well as a themed collection of Short Stories called Tales Out of Wilmillar and Other Town, which were mostly based on my life in Downingtown. The stories had been written from 1954 to 1967. For these two books I used my full and real name.

As for my day job, Eight months after I became a Control Clerk, I got promoted again, this time to TBA Ledgerman. The elite regular job in Accounts Receivable was Ledgerman. These were the persons who the Ledger Clerks worked for. All the debits and credits cards the Clerks pulled from the storage bins went to the Ledgermen. (Lederman was the title, but several were women.) The Ledger men matched up the individual accounts and cleared items, and justified and balanced each customer's account. There were a half-dozen Ledgermen in each region and they were all Level 10s.
     TBA Lederman was a specialized version one level from the top. It was not assigned to a region, because this person handled items from all regions. TBA stood for Tires, batteries and accessories. There were far less items for these than for gas and oil. That is why there was only one TBA Lederman, and now that was me.
     Oh, now some may look at me in 1967 and think you do not look much like a serious business person in some big corporation. Well, yes and no. During the day at work I wore the dreaded three piece pinstriped suit, pants, vest and jacket. I wore wingtip shoes, a white shirt and some sort of stylish necktie.  This was my prison uniform, all I needed was the number across my breast pocket. On one of my reviews, Donald Jones, the manager of the department did suggest I get a haircut.
     "You look like a Beatnik," he said.
     He was a bit behind the times. The long hairs now were Hippies.

     TBA Ledgerman was a level 9. I went from a Control Clerk at Level 7 to a Level 9. In other words, I made an unusual jump in grade. Ron Paul, remember him of the two thumbs on one hand, immediately bought a union grievance against me.

      Yes, Atlantic employees were in a union, the Atlantic Independent Union. I had even run for Shop Stewart. The current Shop Stewart had held that position since Atlantic was part of J. D. Rockefeller's Standard Trust, I think. Nobody ever ran against the guy and he couldn't believe I did.  I ran on a platform that the union and the company were too cozy for the good of the employees. I very narrowly lost. Maybe I should make it more positive sounding and say, I almost won. But truth is, I lost. People choose to keep a company cozy union. I guess they were afraid we’d strike if I got power. In all honesty, I was happy I lost. Being Shop Stewart was probably more trouble than it was worth.

      Ron Paul, of course, claimed I broke the seniority rules by jumping a level. He had blown his chance in Addressograph and been shunted aside, now he thought he could exact some revenge. He claimed he had more right to the Level 9 job that I got. The company and union had to hash this one out. It was true he had several years seniority on me and it was also true you just didn’t see people jumping two levels in this company, but in the end it went my way and I became the TBA Lederman while Ron Paul disappeared into obscurity. (This is not the guy who kept running for President.)

      I slid easily into the position.

On October 23 I was at my parents enthusiastically telling them I had sold a story to Magazine of Horror. This was not only the first story I sold to a publication found on newsstands everywhere, but it was an international magazine with a good sized world-wide circulation. On top of that, it was the first time I got to see my real name as a byline. I had visions of greatness. Move over Hemingway, there's a new top dog in town! This was just the first step to my Nobel Prize.

The magazine was edited by Robert A. W. Lowndes. He, himself, was a science fiction writer as well as editor of several publications. As a boy he had been inspired and encouraged by H. P. Lovecraft. As an editor he not only bought and published my tales, but he was also the first to publish a young English teacher named Stephen King. In the photo, taken in 1939, Lowndes is the second from the right. He is with a group of writers of fantasy and science fiction, who were once quite popular, From left to right we have Cyril Kornbluth, Chester Cohen, John B. Michel, Lowndes and Donald A. Wollheim. Wollheim went on to be co-editor of the annual World's Best Science Fiction from 1965 through 1990. Kornbluth won Hugo Awards, one for best story and another for best novella. He was also awarded the Prometheus Hall of Fame honor. He died at the age of 34. I think all these guys are dead now. Lowndes passed away in 1998; Wollheim in1990.

In 1966, Atlantic Refining merged with the large west coast Richfield Oil Corporation. Atlantic was a fairly conservative company when I came on board in 1959. Henderson Supplee, Jr. (left) was in charge of it, having become President in 1952 and then Chairman in 1964. He was given a lot of credit for saving a once faltering institution and being instrumental in the Richfield merger. How instrumental he was in the merger, I don't know. He left the company in 1965 as that merger was festering,  saying, “Because it was time”.  To be honest in those early years I worked there, I considered Atlantic a solid, but stodgy company. It made a consistent profit and its stock price was very dependable, but nothing about it was particularly exciting. My 5^th Great Grandfather was an Abraham Supplee, born in 1746. I don’t know if we are related to Henderson.

       Actually Atlantic merged with a smaller firm called Hondo Oil & Gas in 1962. When Henderson Supplee stepped down, a head honcho of Hondo, Robert O. Anderson, who had come to Atlantic into a high position, stepped up and became chairman. On a fishing trip that Anderson took he met Richfield’s chairman, Charles Jones. Anderson enticed Jones into the merger. Thus in 1966 the Atlantic Richfield Corporation was born. It would be better known as ARCo. Sinclair Oil Corporation was absorbed into the fold later in 1969.

      Anderson (right) was anything but stodgy and contented with the status quo. He was a dynamic gentlemen and once he had full control ARCo became a giant, one of the Fortune 500s top 50 companies. The stock went on an upward tear, a situation that proved very good for me. When I had first been hired at Atlantic, one of the benefits was what they called a Credit Plan. It was very similar to what would later become known as a 401K plan. I would have a set percentage withdrawn from my weekly pay. Atlantic would give me 50% to match whatever amount I choose and put all this in a savings account. I had a choice between an account that would pay me a set interest rate or my money and their contribution could be used to buy Atlantic stock. I had chosen the stock.

      Thus the company was doing well and so was I, too well I felt. All I wanted to do was get home at night and write, but I kept being successful in the office and being given more responsibility. In January 1968 I reached almost the top in Accounts Receivable, I was promoted to full Regional Ledgerman. The Region I was assigned was New England.

      This was a Level 10 and with the Merit Raises I was also getting yearly I was making $127 a week. This was the equivalent of $880 in today’s dollars or $45,760 a year. If we had held on to that house up on the hill, we would have been able to afford it. Instead we were living with my father-in-law and trouble was brewing.

      With a couple of exceptions, 1967 was a placid year. One bit of excitement came when one day I felt sick at work. It was pretty overwhelming and Donald Jones, my boss, told me to go see the company doctor. That's correct, Atlantic had its very own in-house company doctor. It also had a company nurse and a medical suite.  
          

      I was greeted by the nurse, a sour-faced woman. She sent me into an examination room and bid me strip to my underwear and socks and then sit up upon this padded table. She took my blood pressure after which I sat there shivering for a bit until the doctor strolled in. I don't know where he had been or what he was doing that took him so long, there were no patients in the suite except me.      He proceeded to do what doctors use to do, thump my knee and hold my tongue down with a stick to look down my throat. He had some kind of instrument that he put to his eye and looked in my ears and up my nose. Finally he pressed a very cold stethoscope against my chest. He told me to take deep breaths as he moved this hearing device about my skin. Then he went behind me and ran the thing up and down and around my back, all the time going, "Hm-m-m?"

      "I can't find a heartbeat," he muttered. "I want you to leave an hour early this afternoon. I don't want you in the evening rush."

     Really, don't get in the crowds headed home because I don't have a heartbeat? Shouldn't I simply lay down because I must be dead. I lost all confidence in the company doctor that day.

      I was writing essays and reviews here and about, and had sold my first fictional short story. I was doing well at work. There were some events in the world that really had more impact for the future than immediately, especially upon me.

     The Supreme Court ruled that interracial marriage was constitutional. The suit was brought by Mildred and Richard Loving. In 2005, Nanci Griffith recorded a song she wrote regarding this case called “The Loving Kind”. I’m sure that many members of the younger generations don’t know that once it was illegal for people to marry someone of a different race in many states. People actually went to jail for such a thing. That prejudice was what made it somewhat risky walking about Philadelphia with Jane.

     Otherwise things were relatively quiet that year within the Civil Rights movement. Stokely Carmichael, head of SNCC did coin the phrase, “Black Power”, however.

The National Transportation Board was created to look at safety in automobiles. This was a direct outcome of Ralph Nader’s 1965 book called, Unsafe at any Speed.

Over in the Middle East, Israel won the Six Day War. This all evolved around the closing by Egypt’s President Nasser of the Straits of Tiran to Israel shipping.

Troop strength continued to grow in Vietnam, the numbers were up to 475,000. One not among this number was the boxer Muhammad Ali, who refused to be inducted. As a result, he was stripped of his World Champion crown.

Pirate radio had become quite prevalent in Great Britain and similar aspects were popping up in the U.S.  A DJ known as Wolfman Jack, real name a mundane Robert Smith, was becoming popular on underground radio in the states.

Personally, what really caught the attention  of Jim and the gang in his basement, beyond their own artistic posturing, was a large number of reported UFO sightings. As a writer of horror and science fiction, I took a deep interest in the Flying Saucer phenomena. Lois, Joe Rubio, Dot Waters and I spend some nights driving all over Delaware County believing we were in hot pursuit of some kind of invasion from outer space.  Look, there is a light, follow it, follow it! It’s a wonder we didn’t smash into a tree  or something because we were speeding after the mysteries in the skies rather than watching the road. Did we catch any aliens? No, my conclusion years after the fact was that we were chasing the landing lights of many airplanes heading to Philadelphia International. Imagine that, airplane lights near an airport!

In 1965 a company called Polaroid introduced a very cheap camera called The Swinger, probably a very apt name. It wasn’t much used for quality or artistic photography, but for taking those photos people didn’t want to drop off at the local drugstore for developing. The salient feature of the Polaroid was it took instant pictures, you developed the prints as you snapped them.

It was a messy operation from what I recall. You had to smear this very smelly chemical on the film to make it develop, then let it sit a bit. You then pulled off the front and there was your print, a glorious wallet sized black and white image. It never lost the chemical smell, by the way, but over time the image had a habit of fading away.

The advertising aimed it toward the youth market, fresh scrubbed kids on the beach and that kind of thing. The lady who gave it the name the Swinger claimed she got the inspiration from watching Edwin Land (right) walk around with the thing. She said he would hold it by its strap and as he ambled along, he would swing the camera back and forth.

Maybe the kids did use it for those beach outings. But that is not what the people I knew used for their main portraits. The advantage of The Swinger was you could take nude photos and never have to have a developer see them. I did take some general pictures with the thing, but the outcome was often streaked or blurry and over time the picture would fade and warp.