I worked for Lilli Ann for about eleven months and met Adolph Schuman in 1968 and a few months in 1969, half a dozen times, although I didn’t mind bumping into him, he was rude every time. but impossible not to, Mr. Schuman, Adolph Schuman, was the owner of Lilli Ann, his wife being Lilli Ann. (‘While operating the Lilli Ann Corporation, Adolph Schuman also held various political and government positions. At various times, he served as finance chairman for the presidential election campaigns of John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy; Director of the Commission for Domestic Trade Policy; Chairman of the California World Trade Authorities and on the Board of the Department of Commerce Died 1985.’)
Adolph Schuman came up to me one afternoon, while I was stacking fabrics in a bin, and said, “You, what are you doing? Put the fabrics on the floor correctly, no, no, and you’re fired!” The administrator reinstated me that same afternoon, which was more practical. (He was an eccentric to me, and perhaps I to him).
Well, that was not the only time we met, we met at Christmas, Christmas, 1968, I drew the design or logo for the event, and at the event, in the basement of the establishment, I found it again. He was more comfortable with me, and I with him this time. I guess he reminded me of my grandfather, and I smiled, but I tried to stop it, I tried to, and if I couldn’t, I smiled or played dumb.
“Here,” he said, handing me a bottle of Scott’s whiskey, “No,” I told him, I don’t drink any of that, “I liked beer, but I didn’t tell him that. Anyway, he looked at me. He telegraphed, and Dan, my friend, he whispered, “I’ll pay you later, half price, take it,” and I said, “Mr. Schuman, I’ll take that bottle, “and he smiled, maybe he heard Dan’s whisper.
The third time I met him, he was running away from a woman, and he was not his wife, he was a lovely young model, and as I understand it, he is stable, if he had such a thing, with a big, big, big pearl on his finger.
I had seen her around, but not running around like this afternoon. Well I got out of the fire lane, he was running from her and she was not far behind him, “Grab this door, hold it and don’t let her through” he told me. And I did, as he said, and she stopped a foot from me, remember I’m just a pawn, “Well,” she said, “are you going to move or am I going to move you?”
I moved, what could I say, I mean, it was a Catch 22, I couldn’t win either way.
Well, now we’re at number four, and I’m having lunch at Lilli Ann’s block cafe, and Adolph Schuman walks into the Chinese restaurant with his poodle, or maybe it was hers, that girl who said to me, “Move over,” or suffer the consequences. Well, I never really had a conversation with Adolph, he never said more than a few words to me, nor he to me, and I liked it that way. I mean what would he and I have in common but he looks at me and says something to his admin or manager I think both titles called him no and then my friend as far as manager friends go and I He calls me to his table and tells me to join them and bring my food. For some strange reason, I got scared, not normally, but even my hands started to shake a little.
Now I’m sitting with Adolph, the male administrator or manager, the female assistant manager, and they’re all talking, he asks:
“Where is your family from?”
“Russia”, I say.
“Oh, a lot of Turkish Jews in Russia.”
“I don’t know anything about that, Mr. Schuman,” I tell him.
“Go ahead and eat, well, talk while we eat,” he says.
In good health, we ate, but it was more difficult for me to eat, to put the food in my mouth, since he and the other two seemed to make me feel self-conscious. I mean, I never ate with a millionaire, and he was really down to earth today. He wasn’t the grandfather figure anymore, just a man in a cafe with a dirty dog on his leg, and I thought it was a little improper, but I didn’t say a word to that effect.
Over the years, I got into a small business, and I was worth $1.3 million in 2002, earning about $200,000 a year, not as much as Adolph (in 1940, his sales were only $1 million, and in 1982, 40 million, he died at the age of 73, in his office with all that money he gave to his family, a heart attack they say, and his business ended shortly after), when people came to talk to me, poor people , to eat with For me, I noticed that they were nervous sometimes, and I always went back to the little Chinese cafe on the corner of the block to remember Adolph and me, and I tried to make my company feel comfortable with them, I think Adolph he tried it for me.
It was sad that they closed the place after Adopt died, I feel privileged to have met the designers and managers and so on, from that day and from that company, and they were among the best in the world.
Written on 5-29-2008
