I was once on a Board of Directors. Really? Yes! It was for t5he Winterhaven Water and Development Company, a cooperative association of ninety (90) homeowners. We also owned two deep wells with pumps, and we met once a month to administer affairs involved with water rates (no meters) street lights and garbage collection for our little suburban community. We also did the planning, provision? of prizes, and publicity for our annual Christmas "Festival of Lights." Would you believe bumper-to-bumper auto traffic past our homes each evening for two weeks--as many as 30,000 cars! Fantastic!
This entailed an annual meeting for all homeowners at Cr????n Elementary School, always an occasion for happy gossip, neighborly rivalries, exchange of recipes, minor politicking, etc.--and sometimes even serious debate about how best to fight off annexation by the City of Tucson. I remember these meetings as happy times, followed by delicious home-made refreshments.
Once enroute to Europe, Fay and I stopped over in New York City for four or five days, and I had a chance to attend an annual shareholders' meeting of the J.C. Penney Company. It was held at luxurious Essex House Hotel, overlooking Central Park. Seated with us shareholders and introduced with honor and affection was frail, elderly Mrs. James C??? Penney, widow of our founder.
Well, one of these corporate gadflies--I think her name was ????e Z. Phillips--had taken over the meeting. Bitterly, she attacked the officers and directors, telling them how inefficient, worthless, and overpaid they were, etc. After ten or fifteen minutes we were all squirming under this harangue. Mrs. J.C. Penney struggled to her feet and quietly said, "We have an agenda to follow. Perhaps you could speak to Mr Bethe? (the Chairman) later?"
Glaring fiercely and pointing a bony finger at Mrs. Penney, the vixen shouted, "I have the floor! Sit down you old bag!"
There was a gasp of shock and embarassment. Then the tirade against the officers resumed. Soon, however, a burly N.Y. cop appeared, and, taking the awful creature by the arm, in an Irish brogue, he said, "Come along, then! So far 'tis only 'DISTURBING THE PEACE'! But if you don't come quietly, 'twill be 'DRUNK AND DISORDERLY', too!"
After we moved to San Francisco, I was able to attend several annual meetings. Stauffer Chemical Company, before they were swallowed up by Ch?sebrough Ponds, (who was in turn gobbled up by Unilever) held their meetings in the penthouse atop the Wells Fargo Bank. They always gave us nice souvenirs--handsome desk-top accessories, little thermometers, etc. The first year after "Ma Bell" had divested herself of the regional telephone companies, A.T.+T. held its annual meeting in the massive San Francisco Civic Auditorium. Fascinating!
Chevron and Transamerica met their shareholders in the Masonic Auditorium. The last annual meeting I attended was there, for Transamerica. The company had been featuring "King Kong" in its T.V. commercials, clambering up the side of its landmark slender San Francisco skyscraper, the pyramid. (Remember, in the original film, "King Kong" climbed N.Y's Empire State buiding gently holding Fay Wray in one hand?) Well, I felt that Transamerica had been overdoing it. It was effective at first, but too much of a good thing becomes boring! I waited patiently through the corporate reports, and when it came time for questions, I seized a microphone and brought down the house when I scolded Chairman James Har?ey, "When are you going to get rid of "King Kong?"