Word: cigar
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Willie Lurye was a mild-looking, curly-haired little fellow who would give a man the shirt off his back, people said. Like his Papa, who had been a cigar maker in Sam Gompers' union, he was hot for unions. Willie was a dress presser in the biggest in New York, the International Ladies' Garment Workers (405,000 members). With a wife and four kids to look after, Willie gave up a $180-a-week pressing job last fall to work for $80 as a special organizer: there were still some non-union no-good-nicks...
...while, the gorillas lay low. They were on the prowl one hot afternoon last week when Willie Lurye went into the ground-floor lobby of a Chinatown loft to make a phone call. Traffic was heavy in the building and nobody noticed anything wrong until the man at the cigar stand saw Willie come out of the booth, walk with painful erectness toward the door, call out "Tony" in a strangled voice. Tony was Tony Milletti, another organizer...
...blues soon had them breaking their hands for joy. Grizzled Sidney Bechet, who has been nozzling out New Orleans classics on clarinet and soprano sax since 1911, got a Toscanini's wild and respectful ovation, And when Yardbird Parker cut loose, puffing his tenor sax like a big cigar, the zazous drooled, twitched and finally screamed...
...feet and puffing a big cigar after many toasts, he let them in on his plans. He would continue to record, for the "benighted and tone-starved multitudes of the New World who lack the advantages of English musical culture." More important, he let them in on the anatomy of his vitriol: "There is something about a large gathering that brings out my basest instincts. Before a crowd of 1,000, I am malicious. Before 5,000, I am positively evil, and, facing a crowd of 10,000, I am compelled to say the most abominable things...
...July, two Eastern Airlines pilots flying over Alabama met a "wingless aircraft, 100 ft. long, cigar-shaped and about twice the diameter of a B-29." Dazzling blue light glared from its windows, and long orange flame streamed out behind. It shot past the airliner at a speed one-third faster than common jets...