Remembering Bill W...Remembering The Man

[Tomas]

Today is January 24th....The Birthday of my God mother...If alive this day, she would have been 100 years old..Coincidentally; when annually, this day rolls around, I'm also easily reminded that it is also the anniversary of Bill W's passing...January 24th 1971 to be exact.

I did not know Mr Wilson as a member of AA , that was a little before my time...but I knew Mr. Wilson the man, the customer I waited on for several years. The cerebral association, that Mr Wilson was in fact Bill W. from AA was not made till 15 years later...The last brief spoken interaction with Mr Wilson, as I remember it, was back in June 1968... "Tomas.. good to see you, what are you doing here?...What are you doing now? I'm a trainee with Hayden Stone... I'm living at the hotel, pointing inside the revolving door...well good luck and much success...I hadn't seen Mr Wilson in 4 maybe 5 years..having now graduated from College, completing my military commitment, freshly back from Graduate School in Europe...hired on as a Wall Street trainee...Mr Wilson was staying at the same hotel, The Bedford off Park Ave So. and Lexington on E.40th St. When I thought about it years later, quite natural indeed ...The Hotel, was around the corner from AA World HQTS. which at that time I knew nothing about.

From 1962-1965 I worked in an upscale tobacconist store in New York City during my college days. I worked during the summer months, and after classes during the school year, mostly to pay for the insurance on my sports car and my drinking money.

I would generally arrive at afternoon work, the store on 43rd Street & Madison Ave, in the Biltmore Hotel Bldg, a hub of American class and accomplishment, with 2 half quarts of Rheingold Beer, a N.Y. favorite, under my arm along with my books.. One for me...one for my boss, a very likable charismatic Irishman from Cork Ireland. On more than one occasion he would exclaim...Hide the beer here comes Mr. Wilson..in my 19-20 year old mind..”What is he talking about”..on other occasions...he would exclaim..I'm not drinking ..I'm on the wagon.....in my own mind “Why”?

Our clientel were the N.Y. power brokers, the advertising execs, Broadway entertainers, politicians, socialites, corporate attorneys. I liked my job, I was young, waiting on this class of people, I could learn a lot, and I did.. My product knowledge was superlative and I remember selling 3 high quality pipes to a U.S Senator. Every couple of weeks I'd trudge up to Sutton Place, N.Y's most exclusive neighborhood, delivering a couple of cartons of imported cigarettes to the actress and socialite Ms. Tulliah Bankhead...On one occasion, late in the afternoon, while with the maid in the kitchen who took delivery, she appeared and offered me a can of beer. She said that I looked worse than she..I laughed and said I was up all night studying for 2 philosophy exams. She was true to her nature..LOL

It was store policy to get to know our credit card customers well. It was before Master Card and Visa....Credit cards weren't such a big thing in those days, Diners Club for the well to do,,...but that's how I happened to know who Bill Wilson was...he was a regular, blending in, typical among this distinguished crowd... like many, on his way to the commuter train to Westchester County from the Biltmore tunnel around the corner.

For years, coming through the iron/glass door I would greet him..Hi Mr Wilson... Hi Tomas..how's school... fine Mr Wilson...the usual...2 cartons of Winston's Bill was no different than many of our customers, who would like to shoot the breeze with my boss Jack and unwind a few minutes, before the commute home. Jack quick witted and funny, always ready with a British or Irish story...sometimes fastenating, about the London Blitz, or an RAF story, 20 years before..

On occasions, Mr. Wilson would go in the back, to the little office, in order to talk to Jack...At times I thought it a bit unusual...most of the customers stayed out front.

It seemed that on these occasions, both men appeared a bit subdued, very un-typical of Jack I thought. I would collect his credit card, process the transaction, his two cartons wrapped in paper ready to go... On occasion, He typical of many of our customers whom I served for several years, would ask, What are you going to do when you finish school? I would answer Law or Wall Street, maybe both.

4 years passed., it was now 1968... Jack was gone, no point in visiting...I just remembered, as I pen this, Maxi Seinfeld worked with us, also at the 42nd St. store.. I forget now, He lived, either in Brooklyn or Queens..I sometimes wonder at times, if Maxi was Jerry's grandfather..the slight thin fragile figure of the man.. his own related business having closed. The physical resemblance was certainly there..

Now as I walked toward the Hotel where I was temporarily living for three months with some other trainees from around the world, upon entering, wearing an expensive stylish Wall Street suit , a smart attache case under my arm, I was greeted by an acquaintance from the near past...Mr. Wilson.

As time surely passes...now 1985, sober 11 years, living in Fl, I bought the book “Passing it On”...There, just inside the back cover, a picture of Mr Wilson. He was wearing a hounds tooth sports jacket..That, was what caught my eye. I remembered the jacket well. My mind jumped to the next thought...That's Mr Wilson..AA Bill W..I had no idea till then. All the pieces quickly fit....Our store convenient from AA HQTS, and the commuter train at Grand Central... Jack, shouting..hide the beer..here comes Mr. Wilson, the long talks in the back, and the serious expressions. The clincher, The Bedford Hotel, where Bill W. often stayed while in the City. Is there such a thing as irony? Bill W. died of emphysema... does fate play jokes... On us?....I guess?...maybe?...Did I help, in a small way to put Mr. Wilson in his grave....I wonder what Jerry Seinfeld & Kramer would make of that..

Tomas
Jan 24th,2009

[tomvlll]

awesome story,Tomas.

[bballdad]

ty Tomas

[theothersteve]

thanks

[CAPTAINZING2000]

Great story