Word: yancey
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...short of the 100-ft. mark. In relays, men were lowered by a hoisting bucket to dig the rest of the way by hand. It was grueling work. Dirt and rocks as big as a man's head had to be hoisted up bucket by bucket. Burly Bill Yancey, a 38-year-old sewerage contractor who had been on a wartime underwater demolition team, dug for two hours and 20 minutes before he was hauled...
...doctor asked the crowd to leave. As the last figures disappeared, Bill Yancey was hauled slowly up the shaft. In his arms was a small, blanketed form. Tenderly he laid the bundle on a white pillow in the back of a black car. In silence, the car rolled slowly past the derricks and the piled dirt, past the gaping hole and the steel casing, past the rows of exhausted, grimy workmen...
...sooner had the Tafts bustled back to Washington than Tom Dewey flew into Grand Island from Albany. Standing bareheaded on a sound truck outside the Yancey Hotel, he apologized for his late arrival. Said he: "I ran into headwinds. I am tired of headwinds. I ran into a strong headwind in Wisconsin and I don't want any more...
...when Bob Crosby's band began playing a piece called the Yancey Special, no one knew who Yancey was. But the piece caught on, and the disc jockeys and record companies began hunting for Jimmy. They found him at the White Sox ballpark, cutting grass. He said he didn't even own a piano. Jimmy made a few records and had a brief burst of popularity, then had a stroke. His left hand stiffened up, and for a while he couldn't play...
Last week, with his first steady piano-playing job in 30 years, Jimmy Yancey, a month shy of 50 and all but seven teeth gone, was happy among the pink lights and mirrors. His salary is the union wage -$87.50 a week; but sometimes customers send up a free drink to him, and he thanks them kindly for it. Jimmy hopes to keep right on playing "as long as they want me." He doesn't mind what he has missed. "I'm doin' fine," says he in his slow, lazy way. "At the old bear trap they...