My Name Is Geraldine: Memoir of a Ballbuster

By Geraldine Sakall

Fate and a fierce appetite for success gave Geraldine a leg up in a world where men approached women as sex objects and where this woman, with exquisitely legitimate reasons to kick ass, built a career by doing a job held only by the male of our species until then. Her memoir tells of friends, lovers, and the amazing people she met in all parts of the world. Her core message is one of success and power, above and beyond the ordinary, if one takes a chance on the unknown path. She was young, beautiful, smart, and sassy. A sophisticate of a changing world order of the 1960s. She expected just rewards for her labor. Many times over, Geraldine proved her worth with canny performances, overcoming the existing stereotype of a woman working in a man’s world. Without using female charms as a crutch, she surged forward with her quick wit and voracious appetite for excellence. She is confident, urbane and comfortable in any situation. Yes. There is love, disappointment, drama, and trauma in this life. Her story will appeal to women of all ages, and the men who comfort and confound them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jan 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781641825184

Geraldine Sakall

Geraldine Sakall is a child of European immigrants and reared in the Midwest. She thrived in schools for exceptional students in music and art. Geraldine’s voice is distinctive and she expresses herself directly to the reader as if she were speaking across a dinner table. Her life has been one where she became producer, director, and star. Her stories show her passion for her career. Independence, excellence, timely performance, and attention to detail have always been her watermark. Early on she illustrated books for noted authors, then her interests developed into industrial design, modeling, and corporate interior design. Self-employed, throughout her career she garnered the design work for numerous Fortune 500 corporations, always receiving accolades from her clients and critical rave reviews.

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Afterword

About the Author

Geraldine Sakall is a child of European immigrants and reared in the Midwest. She thrived in schools for exceptional students in music and art.

Geraldine’s voice is distinctive and she expresses herself directly to the reader as if she were speaking across a dinner table. Her life has been one where she became producer, director, and star. Her stories show her passion for her career.

Independence, excellence, timely performance, and attention to detail have always been her watermark. Early on she illustrated books for noted authors, then her interests developed into industrial design, modeling, and corporate interior design. Self-employed, throughout her career she garnered the design work for numerous Fortune 500 corporations, always receiving accolades from her clients and critical rave reviews.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Little Nell, the woman who not only brought me into this world but also taught me to live.

Copyright Information ©

Geraldine Sakall (2021)

Watercolor on cover and inners by Geraldine Sakall.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Sakall, Geraldine

My Name Is Geraldine

ISBN 9781643780160 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781643780672 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781641825184 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020917484

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

Thank you to the many people who have crossed my path and shared their stories with me, and to Austin Macauley, without whom there would be no memoir.

Preface

I begin this escapade, into storytelling, at a time when I was justly able and willing to kick ass, say no sir to the chairman of the board and win my way into a big career designing and constructing office space. Quarters meant for the corporate thunder brigade gobbling up office towers in the sixties and seventies in The City. And that meant New York City with lions in the streets and tigers taking lunch at the Four Seasons. The cast of characters was not from the likes of the cookie cutter clone in today’s digital world. Instead all of the many were what you would have called movers and shakers. Dandies, drunks, big-time gamesmen, plotters planners and plodders plus the occasional man about town. No place for the timid or lackluster beige wan-a-bee. In my time, I chose excellence over the slipshod average. I was the one and only of my kind, so be careful. I’m one of those women that happens to be near at hand listening to a boisterous crowd and hearing everything that’s said, especially when you are not paying attention.

1

A Man Twice Met

Tell the dame I have been held up in a board meeting and I give my apology. Will she please, pretty please, meet me tomorrow the same time and here, of course. Please Bill, this is my number. Call my secretary, Dorthy, and have her make excuses and for God and country and a Scotsman’s honor, pour me into a cab. Now!

For an hour I had been sitting at the King Cole Bar sipping a great single malt whiskey with one ice cube, thinking about my upcoming job in Morocco? The day before, I was asked, by a good friend, to meet with someone I did not know at four o’clock that very Tuesday. It was not a convenient time for me, but, what the hell, he sounded interesting? The time for my meet was four o’clock and I waited until five and he had not appeared? So up I stood and began gathering my parcels and purse when a seemingly ordinary person stepped up to the maître d’ and spoke to him at some length, but? The person in question turned his back to me and grasping Bill’s arm he said, blurted it out, in a rush of words, a kind of vocal eruption!

Oh hells bells…take pity…me and my big mouth…well tell her, I’ve been held up at a board meeting and I cannot make it today and damn it man whatever comes to mind and so forth and so on and great to see you, William, be a sport and point me on my way and hold on tight!

The man was like a tree bent by a hundred mile an hour wind. He was maneuvered by fits and starts toward the outer door. Bill held onto the sinking struggling gent going around and around – in the revolving door two or three times until success was reached and a cab stopped to take on a fare or two? The waiter maybe a hundred and forty pounds had a hand grip on the gentleman’s wrist. Clothed maybe two hundred pounds or a bit more? I laughed as did most of the audience around the front desk with a genuine sympathetic nod toward the two of them bunched together in the tight quarter of the see-through exit door. My first introduction to David Henry MacMillan looking like an accountant wearing a blue blazer tan pants, a white shirt and red stripe tie was toppled and forcefully pushed into the waiting taxi. The maître d’ slammed the cab door and for that one moment I felt very sorry for the poor bastard in distress. I laughed to myself noting all men might be a source of inspiration or dread.

Absent-mindedly I thought, He could do with a good tailor to cover that barrel chest and his impoverished legs. And also, cleats on his shoes might be a good idea?

That evening I had dinner with a group gathered to say Bon Voyage with a wonderful bottle of Moet and Chandon Nectar Imperial Rose and home to bed by eleven. When at home, I received a message from the DJN office concerning the upcoming afternoon and decided I would attend. Add him as a possible future client. And I called in the message to Dorothy, the secretary and traffic control expert. I will be there at four p.m. but please tell Mr. MacMillan I will be departing early the next morning. SO BE ON TIME!

He was early and I arrived at five to four. We exchanged greetings followed by his lengthy apology for the nonappearance the day before. I said nothing about my first view of him. The man was tuned to his inner self and seemed relieved to see me there for the meeting. The previous afternoon with his small feet and hands, he looked less than the big man in town I’d heard about. He was a bear. Not a plush toy teddy but a two-hundred-fifty-pound advocate of big plans and great unabashed scene stealing. First, he told me all of the reasons I should not work with him.

I am not well tempered and shout one hell of a lot. I am not reliable. I will disappoint and sometimes disappear. I like my whiskey neat with one ice cube, and often, I am loath to take on someone who would outshine me and do damage by upstaging me. I am slothful and could be called egotistical to a fault. I enjoy running my own show and my brother, is not cut from the same cloth. I am a Scotsman damaged by my history but determined to maintain my present course.

Then he said,

I have been searching for a designer who could fully commit and take on a huge challenge. A person who would jumpstart a late-running project in Puerto Rico with enormous international potential. A bull-headed primary to get the whole thing to completion in six months. Carte Blanche. Complete control of the design, construction, move in and a grand party as a finally. I can guarantee an audience of wall street money men, southern governors and a senator or two and all that for a price you set and I will agree to, forth with. This design build must not be the expected end result but one of far reaching consequence and enough forward thinking to have an effect on design build for many years to come.

From what I hear, you are that one in a million to do this job.

From there we went on to the particulars. And I’ll be damned! Wouldn’t you know my sun-filled future with Hookah pipes and the great mystery of the Kasbah and the elegance of the Mamounia Hotel would be put on hold. The one thing I knew for certain was that this man was the real article? A supreme salesman. I was impressed and inspired. If I could get the whole thing done on time and perfectly completed, he was the man to sell it. Of that I was certain. But was I wise? That I would have to find out. I knew, as a stickler of great design and fabulous construction, that a plan composed in the smallest finest detail and my overall love of this work completed, meant an on-time delivery and correct procedures in all manner of ways and means. A plan I could set out from day one. Our combined countenance would either be a fly me to the moon combination or a deep dive into obscurity. We talked into the night and Mack sent me home in his limousine. I had to decline or delay the Moroccan project with a lame excuse, and a mea culpa thrown in. At home two dozen yellow roses were awaiting me in a long white box set into the foyer of my apartment – and they must have been delivered whilst we were still meeting?

Mack’s secretary, Dorothy, made a reservation for me at the Sheraton Hotel on Condado Beach Puerto Rico. A doorman completes with epaulets and lots of gold braid carefully removed me and my luggage from the long black limousine even as I carefully slipped him a neatly folded ten-dollar bill. The attentive bell boy took all in hand and delivered luggage and me to a suite high in the hotel. We made no stop at check in. A bottle of Pinot Loire wine and a selection of Island fruit was neatly tucked into a white napkin set into a sweet wicker basket laid out on a low table in the lounge. I tipped the boy generously and turned to look through the huge window view and into the sea with waves breaking over the white sand beach. I suspect, since childhood, I had been drawn to the sea. In a gale or the soft drench and swish of a tiny rain on still water plus a color of blue cerulean reflected from the sky into deep water all gave me ease and tranquility.

After my flight a swim was in order. In my overnighter bag I dug out a swim suit. That and the hotel robe and slippers served me well in traveling through the large public spaces and to the pool and beyond that to the sandy strip a mile long and ten yards deep. I walked a fair piece to an unoccupied section of the beach threw down my towel shoes and robe and ran into the warm water. A few strokes in and before I might regain the land, I was attacked by a sea full of jelly fish surrounding me and stinging my arms and legs. The hurt was intense. Once out from the swarm I pulled on my robe and ran back to the hotel and I asked,

Is there a doctor on site?

Yes, madam of course and are you in need

I damn well am in need and sooner than later will suit me just fine!

Thank you, madam, the doctor will see to you in your suite.

Not an auspicious beginning for the onset of a commission on an island paradise and danger encountered before I had unpacked my luggage. Following the good doctor’s ministrations, in a little less pain, I turned down the covers on the enormous bed pushed a button to lower the window blind and soon fell into a long and revitalizing sleep. When I awakened, sometime during the night and in a pre-dawn I thought, Perhaps I’d made one huge mistake?

So, I turned over in the bed and soon slept once more. When dawn arrived, I let up the blind to a calm sea and the sun was melon pink overlaying blue water. My mind was clear and I felt revived and happy.

Give it all a go girl and aim high.

That morning unpacking my wardrobe I realized, I must shop. For my original destination I need be dressed in demure attire, everything for a Muslim community. I was not set up for a business office and the designer studio awaiting me so I shopped the hotel stores and came up with the basics that would do, for a week or so. White soft leather loafers. White linen trousers several long sleeved white shirts and a jacket with no buttons but clasps that cinched the waist in two places. I picked up something that was made to cover a table, pale blue with tassels and that rolled into a very fine long scarf.

First on the agenda was to let an apartment near to the beach. The real estate person had called me in New York the day prior and he was ready with a list of places he felt appropriate. I met with him in the hotel at three pm and picked the first one I saw. It was light and airy painted white throughout and had a plant filled terrace on three sides. Perfect. Next to check out the office where I would be working one week hence and have a look at the general layout and meet and greet personnel. Later in the day I scanned the group. Eight people in all including the secretary and no Mack in sight?

So I was meant to swim or sink like a stone to the sea bed!

My first impression of the staff was dismal. Cut off blue jeans, shirts in need of starch and jiggling breasts with nipples pointing up plus unshaven men and hair in need of cutting and shampoo. Tight ass men and women. Gum chewing galore and a bit of grass in the pocket.

Add a lackadaisical crew used to fucking off when the big man was not there!

Not a one person who knew shit from shineola. More importantly our business was to be the selling of great design, precise planning and superior construction on budget and within the constraints spelled out in detail on all plans submitted. I decided to write a memo and paste it onto the wall for all to see.

ATTENTION ALL STAFF

From Monday forward all personal will be dressed for work in a business office. That means shirt and tie trousers or well washed and pressed blue jeans and preferably white or light blue shirts. Woman in non-revealing blouse, skirts trousers or to the ankle blue jean. Have jackets available for meeting clients. Lace up shoes or loafer type only. No flip-flops.

Both men and women will be held accountable.

Our office opens at nine am and closes at six pm.

There will be one hour for lunch from twelve to one o’clock.

*Feel free to bring a lunch of your choosing.

"I will be ordering a couple of tables and eight to ten chairs where anyone may sit during lunch and we shall conference there as well This coming weekend I shall be rearranging the desks for a better flow of personnel and visitors. Please place all personal items in a box and take those items home where they may be enjoyed."

Thank you for your cooperation; it is appreciated,

My name is Geraldine Sakall, Director of Planning and Design, Construction and Move-in of Client – The DJN office in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In New York movers were packing up my city apartment. Absolutely everything! My automobile and house goods wouldn’t arrive for three weeks so in that time I could, with no home base, use the hotel as my planning haunt where I might concentrate on the design for PR TELCO. The second week in Puerto Rico, dressed to the nines in white linen at eight am a car was at the front door of the hotel ready to ferry me to the office. What to expect in this small island community still a wonder? A business center located away from the playground of surf and sand and though small, new construction of jutting towers showed growth that had occurred over the past decade. PR TELCO was an old institution with newly warranted expansion needs. It was the hub of a growing interest of the North American business community as well as the steady increase in Island communication traffic.

The small inexperienced staff was mighty young and it would be my task to pull out of them enough detailed work to make a construct of sophisticated parts. A new kind of assemblage and the rule was for sheet rock walls not fancy plaster work. Metal studs and other materials of modern construction. A Recessed black shiny four-inch base mirroring a shallow kind of moat pool circling the building core and constructed of polished chrome with an interior of stainless steel that would not rust. A shallow water tray with black polished Japanese stones laid the entire length. Black walnut veneered solid core doors.

Door weight would be apparent when entering and departing offices and meeting rooms. Heft equaled a feeling of quality.

I would design the hardware throughout or modify what was available in the existing market. This trademark would be a signature for me throughout all of my career. After two weeks half a day and in my hotel room the other half in the office, I sketched out my ideas and the task of getting detailed drawings done by a staff that knew only a modest amount of outdated architectural solutions, a real challenge befell me. Typicals? The way things had always been done! I meant to do things with an entirely new format.

One person in the existing staff stood out. A young man from the Argentine. A quiet person who spoke softly with a lovely Spanish lilt to his spoken English. He was the talented draftsman I knew could do the work but only if he was given clear and concise direction. Ten days later and I was still living in the hotel. I invited the draftsman, Javier for a meal and talked at length about what needed to be accomplished. I asked for his full attention and help in producing the necessary documents and showed him my sketches and went over the plan of parts, bits and pieces, with special attention given to clean concise construction. I would allow no more than a one sixteenth inch variation in cabinetry and typical wood working detail dimensions. The work would be done as specified in the constructions documents with no substitution allowed of method, means or materials. All would be done with a deadline that was set and not flexible and I was to be chief. Head Honcho. PERIOD!

I meant to hand hold Jorge through the first process of producing architectural drawings and my intent was to supervise construction start to finish, to the end of the project. That drew a hue and cry from the New York Office but Mack said to His brother, president of the firm.

Let her run. She knows what she’s doing and a hard-tough bitch is just what is needed! Particularly, if we are to meet our commitments and dates.

The President, had other ideas. So he sent a kind of keeper to San Juan. Someone to set me down a peg. A man with a mechanical hook attached to his right arm to supply the missing hand.

Now how to describe our meeting. Once upon a time there was a heliport on the East River at twentieth street and that’s the scene to consider?

There was a man who commuted every day from the end of Long Island into Manhattan. He was a suave well-dressed version of wall street. Chalk stripe suit and French cuff shirt with gold monogramed cuff links a year-round tan and big feet covered by tassel loafers hand made in London. He was in no way provincial but prosperous to a fault. That kind of guy that got your hackles up soon as he entered a room? Can’t really describe him sufficient to be understood but when we describe a feeling of personal entitlement, he claimed entitlement with a plus factor of ten. So here is the story.

One rainy wet snow day in the city the helicopters were running late and overbooked. One man in the copter took personal offense as he had not been let onto the ten am, Long Island Sound departure? He was late into the city and stewed and complained. Passengers fled the aircraft. After he deplaned the rotors started up to speed for the trip back to Long Island. The man, a briefcase in his right hand and a coat in his left as he lifted his brief case up, straight up in the air, in order to throw on the coat, the rotor came around and took off, clean as a cleaver, the right hand and the briefcase too! No pun intended he was not fit to be tied. The bloody scene captured a few other passengers but the hand was sent to a burial at sea in the East River and the guy was helped by other folks as they hoped to depart the ridiculous scene. An ambulance arrived in about ten minutes. That’s all I know of the beginnings of my meeting with a chrome plate hook and the man who stuck his hand in the air and came up wanting. Dumb bugger, non the less.

He came into my office in San Juan at the instruction of our firm’s president. I honestly do not recall his name. He appeared without notice one fine day and off handedly, he said to me,

I will be doing the construction supervision so perhaps you will fill me in?

I smiled and his shoulders dropped to relieve the tension in his arms and the shiny metal claw slipped into the right-hand pocket of his jacket.

NO WAY BUSTER!

No fucking around with my project. You can go back to New York and tell John Henry I will approve or disapprove every single item built delivered or installed or thought of by the contractor in order to save a buck or two READ MY CONTRACT and the company’s contractual documents signed by the client.

Work began on the drawings and each evening when everyone else left for the day I checked the finished working drawings making minute corrections. Sometimes adding correct response,

RE-DO and refit and NO DAMN WAY!

Pull out and redo this mess and check with a level all existing dimensions.

This is good, just right, thank you.

The work took on a life of its own and after we were well under way and bad habits ceased, at the end of the day roughly six pm, Mack would take everyone for drinks. We would run to cars, race across town in our respective automobiles seeing who would get to the Sheraton first and that person had the first round free. Later we had supper in a Cuban restaurant with twelve-inch bowls generously spooned from a pot filled with pork belly pieces. beans rice and Caribbean spices. Then off to bed until the following day’s surprise and disappointments when I would crack the whip all over again. One North American southerner working alongside the Spanish speaking crew uttered a spitting complaint,

Ain’t fitten’ some little gal runs us around like with a cattle prod where in hell she get her manners?

No matter, I got on with my personal schedule. Five am swim. Eight am in the office. Six o’clock race across the island. Nine pm dinner in Old San Juan to bed near eleven and then on to the next day the same. Six days the same two months running. No let up. Moved from the hotel I was living on Condado Beach in a simple apartment with a wraparound terrace. Most pleasant but nothing special until one early morning I heard the sound of a cello? The strings being set right? A tap of the bow and then a masterly rendition of an Albinoni concerto. Such