OCTOBER 12, 1935-It Takes All Kinds of People to Make a List of Ernie’s Friends
THE WASHINGTON DAILY NEWS — SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1935
It Takes All Kinds of People to Make a List of Ernie’s Friends
By ERNIE PYLE
When a fellow has been shooting around the country for a couple of months, and then comes back and walks down the street, all the people he knows stop and shake hands and say, “How was the trip?”
So you stop and shake hands, too, and say, “Oh, fine,” and you chat for a minute or two. That has been happening to me since I came back to Washington a few days ago.
I met an artist friend, all shivery and cold, one morning. He is a mural painter without any murals to paint, and he’s been on relief for months. Lately, the way crazy artists will, he’s been roaming around the streets from midnight on, picking up atmosphere for a series of “earthy” paintings. He also has entered the competition for muraling a new post office at Hagerstown, Md., and if he wins that he’ll be out of the relief trenches by Christmas. He isn’t discouraged.
Then along came William P. MacCracken, once Assistant Secretary of Commerce, better known now as the big “contempt of Senate” man, and still a very successful lawyer. Mr. Mac, as we call him, had been wondering whose wife I was with up in Jersey the night we were taken for newlyweds (he had read a piece about it), and he had it all figured out, but he was wrong.
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Up in the new Supreme Court building the other day, a handsome young man stopped and said, “You don’t know who I am, do you?” I didn’t, so he said he used to be a Western Union messenger and was always running messages for me.
Down at the District jail, I saw a friend of many years who is waiting to be tried for murder. He was glad to see me, and I to see him, and to see that he looks better than he has in years.
Crossing the street, I heard somebody yell at me. It was a man standing on the corner, counting cars. I asked him what he was doing that for. He said he was doing it on relief and the traffic bureau wanted the figures. He used to be a cab driver, and I knew him well. A lot of taxi drivers are my friends.
In a restaurant I walked over to Gene Vidal, who heads the Federal Bureau of Air Commerce, and I said, “If you think you’re such a hot dresser, just take a look at my tie.” He had on that combination that always makes me flinch. “Who do you like in the third at Belmont today?” Mr. Vidal was burned up. He just gave me my tie sweater and a look, then let on as if he thought the outfit was funny. But I could tell he was really burned up.
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One day we went over to the city hospital to see John, our old colored janitor, who is all crippled up and lying in a ward over there. He was so glad to see us, and said, “They treat me fine over here and the nurses is so nice. I feel better already.”
A fellow stopped me on the street and said, “I’m the man whose poem you wouldn’t publish last winter.” I started to square off and make what little defense I could, but he said he just wanted to say hello, and he didn’t suppose he ever would get it published anywhere.
One of these super-looking bright red roadsters, with the exhaust pipes sticking out the side, passed and stopped. The driver was an airline pilot with whom I’ve flown all up and down the East coast. He says he’s had his new roadster up to 111 miles an hour, and it wasn’t wide open then. The motorcycle cops’ bikes will go only 95.
So you see, when I sit at home in the evening reading in the Greek and thinking about my friends and what a diversified lot they are, I feel very proud of them, and proud of myself, too, for knowing them.
Of course, I just dismiss all those who stop and say, “Have you been away?” or “Where are you working now?” or who want to talk about what they’ve been doing.
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