Talk of Many Things: Law, Sports, Politics, Nature

By George W. Gowen

“Cheekaah . . . Cheekaah . . . would you do me a favor . . . for
Christmas . . . a present . . . would you . . . would you . . . write your
life?”
How can a grandfather say anything but yes to a twelve-year-old
granddaughter?
So here is my life.
Cheekaah

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499018110

George W. Gowen

George W. Gowen was born in Italy and he says that makes all the difference. He lived in London, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C, Princeton, N.J., and Charlottesville, VA and since 1957 in New York City where he practices law. He has served in the U.S Army, the U.S. Forest Service, has been counsel to leading sports organizations, and chair of environmental and humane organizations. His legal practice and interests have taken him far and wide around the world. He has been married to Marcia for over fifty-five years and is the proud father of two daughters who have enriched his life by producing four grandchildren for whom this book is written.

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Talk

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Many

THINGS

Law, Sports, Politics, Nature

George W. Gowen

Copyright © 2014 by George W. Gowen.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2014908596

ISBN:                 Hardcover               978-1-4990-1815-8

                           Softcover                 978-1-4990-1817-2

                         eBook                       978-1-4990-1811-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/05/2018

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1     Italy

Chapter 2     Philadelphia

Chapter 3     Mount Desert, Maine

Chapter 4     Washington, DC

Chapter 5     Princeton University

Chapter 6     Return to Italy

Chapter 7     Wallowa, Oregon

Chapter 8     Nutley, New Jersey

Chapter 9     Missoula, Montana

Chapter 10   Charlottesville, Virginia

Chapter 11   The Nieuw Amsterdam

Chapter 12   Marcia

Chapter 13   New York City

Chapter 14   Law

Chapter 15   Nixon, Agnew, Ford

Chapter 16   Clients

Chapter 17   United States Tennis Association

Chapter 18   James Van Alen, Billie Jean King

Chapter 19   USTA National Tennis Center

Chapter 20   National Park Foundation

Chapter 21   American Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Animals

Chapter 22   United Nations

Chapter 23   Scenic Hudson

Chapter 24   The Gospel of Wealth

Chapter 25   United States Olympic Committee

Chapter 26   Fryer, Ross & Gowen

Chapter 27   International Olympic Committee

Chapter 28   Northwest Passage

Chapter 29   William E. Simon

Chapter 30   The Smartest Person I Knew

Chapter 31   Brother Bill

Chapter 32   Caves

Chapter 33   Books

Chapter 34   Reflections

Addendum:   An Evening Recalled

For Crosbie and Bea and Blair and George too

Introduction

Cheekaah . . . Cheekaah . . . would you do me a favor . . . for Christmas . . . a present . . . would you . . . would you . . . write your life?

How can a grandfather say anything but yes to a twelve-year-old granddaughter?

So here is my life.

Cheekaah

Chapter 1

Italy

I was born on September 14, 1929, in Italy, and I suppose that makes all the difference. In a second-floor bedroom in a twenty-seven-room villa on a street named Via de Colline—the street of little hills, but I don’t remember any hills—I remember the high stucco walls, the wrought iron gates, the bell that rang when a chain was pulled, the heavy wooden doors, the broad marble staircase with statues. I only remember this—the large kitchen with charcoal stoves, fresh mozzarella, the gong that was struck to announce dinner, the orchard and vegetable garden within their own walls, the dog Googie, my elderly aunt, my mother’s sister who lived on the third floor but whom we seldom saw, the walks down through town to the port—only because after we left Italy in 1933, we’d occasionally come back for Christmas.

My father was in the United States Foreign Service and was stationed in Leghorn as a vice consul when he met and married my mother, the daughter of a textile merchant from Manchester, England, whose villa it was. My father was assigned to Palermo, Naples, and to Rome, where he was assaulted for not saluting II Duce. I became deathly sick in Palermo, and my mother took me to Gressoney in the Italian Alps where goat’s milk, brook trout, and the mountain air restored my health. But ever after she felt I was frail and needed nourishment.

When I was four or five, we moved to London and lived in a second-floor apartment in Empire House in Thurloe Place. My brother Bill, two years older, walked to Gibbs School on Sloane Street, but I was wheeled in a pram by my mother—the little lady with a large child. We played in Hyde Park and in summer went to Sheringham in Norfolk. I really don’t remember much other than I was happy, played soccer, and had a panda and other toy animals that shared my bed. I think I may have repeated the equivalent of the first grade but got a prize—a book called Talk of Many Things, which I remember because somehow it has remained in my possession.

At Gibbs, I learned about King Canute and Sir Walter Raleigh. King Canute was a powerful ruler, and his courtiers told him anything he wished would be done. So he had his throne set up by the incoming tide, and he ordered the tides to stop. Sir Walter Raleigh was playing bowls. When advised that the Spanish Armada was approaching, he announced that he would finish the game and then take care of the Armanda. I don’t remember what happened to King Canute after he got wet but know Sir Walter Raleigh beat the Spaniards with the help of a giant storm. At an early age, I learned man doesn’t control nature and not to panic in the face of challenges.

I remember hearing of buses being blown up by the IRA, killing some children, and wondering why or if anybody would like to kill me. Bill followed the news and told me Nazi Germany was a threat and might conquer Europe. I remember seeing the Prince of Wales in a parade on horseback and was very impressed. Through an iron garden fence, I saw Emperor Haile Selassie in exile from Ethiopia. At some function, I was to present a blue silken pouch containing a charitable donation to a member of the royalty, bow, and then leave the stage by the stairs. I bowed and inexplicitly turned my back on the royal and jumped off the stage to join my mortified parents.

Once when my father returned from reporting to Washington, he gave me some balloons with one-way valves that I had never seen in England. As I marveled, he said, America is a wonderful country. As the son of an American, I am an American by birth even though it would be over ten years before I came to America. Till then, I only knew America through my father’s love for his country and for balloons.

My father was also born in Italy. His father had left Philadelphia to live a comfortable life in a favorable climate where a dollar went far and he could dabble in painting. When in World War II the Germans occupied Italy, they confined my grandfather to a house south of Florence where he died in captivity in 1944.

In 1938 Roosevelt named Joseph P. Kennedy ambassador to the Court of St. James. The whole Kennedy family arrived. They were handsome and athletic, and London fell in love with them. Bobby and Teddy went to Gibbs School, and I would go to Teddy’s to play. My mother told me they would change my clothes on arrival so that when I returned home my own clothes would be as neat as when I left. Once one of Teddy’s sisters quizzed us on geography and gave me a shilling for locating some island in the Pacific.

We celebrated Christmas in 1938, but it would not be until 1959 that we would be all together again for Christmas, with the possible exception of 1944.

I forget the sequence, but I remember being issued a gas mask, seeing barrage balloons over London, and antiaircraft guns in Hyde Park. The sirens wailed on September 3, 1939, the first day of the war. It was a false alarm, but we had a Portuguese maid who became so terrified by the sirens that she wrote a letter home, which was intercepted by the censor, recounting that London had been destroyed.

Mothers and children were asked to evacuate London, and we went to a distant relative’s estate near Newbury. It had suits of armor in the hallways, Angus cattle in the fields, separated by a ditch called a haw-haw. One of the bulls was named Winston. Troops were stationed in the stables.

A Belgian veteran of the First World War came in the morning to teach us French. I remember looking over battlefield maps as he described his war experiences. Dogs also left London, and we adopted a bloodhound named Lollipop. One morning Lollipop and I went for a ramble through the magnificent English countryside. Oblivious to time, we had a wonderful, carefree romp, which I remember to this day. I don’t know when I fell in love with the outdoors and animals, but it may have been then and when my mother read me Wind in the Willows.

There was a tennis court, and my mother presented me with a Slazenger racket, commenting, Tennis is a wonderful game. I never thought of my petite Victorian mother as an athlete, but once she commented that at Roedean she played lacrosse.

One day I looked up and saw a low-flying plane. It had a black cross outlined in white under its wings—a German bomber.

My brother was just twelve, but it was decided he should go to America to be followed by my mother and me. He sailed from Southampton on the Washington for New York and then took the train to Philadelphia where he would live with a cousin, Nellie Hood. While my parents made arrangements for his safety, he basically was on his own. Wars are characterized many ways, the separation of loved ones being the most universal.

In January 1940, we left England for Genoa as US flagships no longer left from Southampton. It was cold and bleak as we crossed the channel into France. I remember noticing in Calais how slovenly the French soldiers were. Paris was also cold and bleak. On the night train to Genoa, passengers and their credentials were repeatedly examined by what I thought were troops. As my father and mother were with me, I felt secure and