The Lobsterman
Shortly after I was assigned as the management supervisor for the U.S. Coast Guard recruiting advertising program with an ad agency in Washington, DC, Charlie Winfrey was assigned to supervise activities on the client side. His sidekick shown in one of the photos on Charlie’s memorial site was Chief Warrant Officer, Joe Amato.
I had very good feelings about Charlie, because I was a veteran also, and he was known as what is called a “brown shoe,” meaning he was formerly an enlisted man who went to OCS (Officer Candidate School). Also being from the rural mid-west, he had a folksy, let’s get it done attitude that I found totally refreshing. He also did not have an ounce of pretension, preferring to be called just “Charlie” with no rank. Later, as I really got to know him, it was “Goodwill, this is Winfrey speakin.”
There are so many stories I could relate about my official work with Charlie, and then the lifelong friendship that developed, it would fill a small book. Let me cite just a few.
Charlie literally had friends all throughout the Coast Guard, a comparatively small military service with about 40,000 members in the early 1980’s. One of them was an enlisted guy named Reggie who was stationed at Jonesport, Maine and whose father was a lobsterman. We were discussing where to shoot the first TV PSA (public service announcement) under Charlie’s supervision, and we learned that the Coast Guard saved Reggie’s dad who was tending to his lobster pots during a terrible storm. Typically for these “shoots” as we called them, the ad agency and Coast Guard personnel supervising the production would book into a hotel. Charlie had a different idea.
We rented a house in Jonesport where all of us could stay, make a lot of noise and bond as a team. Charlie arranged for Reg’s dad to get us the biggest, best lobsters he had; we bought fresh corn and had a feast, and I believe there was some beer - lots of beer - involved. Then Charlie arranged for fresh Maine lobsters to be sent to all of his friends.
Rosie’s Bar and Grill
For our next shoot, we headed to a little community called Sitka in Southeast, Alaska where we learned that a deer hunter had been mauled by a Kodiak bear and the Coast Guard sent in a rescue team to save him. After the shoot, Charlie wanted us to go to a small village in a place called Pelican, and specifically to a bar called Rosie’s, because it was famous among the Coast Guard personnel that went on fishery patrols. The intent was to shoot what we would call “local color” for possible use in our TV PSA. In reality, it became a party. Some of the photos I am sharing from this trip show Charlie wearing some girl’s top, as I believe she lost a bet with him, Roger Vilsack, the creative director for our agency tending bar, and me with Rosie Miller, the proprietor.
When it came time to leave, Rosie’s little daughter wanted a cabbage patch doll and one could not be found anywhere in Alaska, due to their popularity. Charlie asked me to find one in the Lower 48 and send it to Rosie, which I did. In exchange, Rosie brought out a huge frozen salmon which we took back to the Mess Hall in Sitka and cut into steaks for everyone to take home. Best salmon I ever had.
A Natural PR Man
I have two college degrees in fields related to public relations and 40 years experience, but Charlie was one of the best natural PR men I ever knew, simply because he truly loved people. He would find their soft spot – maybe it was food, tickets to some special Coast Guard event or whatever – he would use these gifts not to curry favor for himself, but for his beloved Coast Guard.
Once we learned that the USCG Barque Eagle – the square rigger vessel used to train Coast Guard Academy cadets about the basics of seamanship - would be doing a port call in New York. We were trying to curry favor with the network community affairs directors who almost never met with anyone trying to get their PSAs on their networks. Charlie got tickets for all four network public service directors from ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox to go aboard the Eagle and have a sitdown luncheon.
Being the consummate PR man, Charlie had our agency design very handsome plaques with a color photo of the Eagle, and commemorative coins embedded into the plaque which were sent to each of the networks along with a letter of appreciation. Needless to say, we had no problems getting Coast Guard PSAs on their networks after that. For NBC network, it gets better.
A Man With a Plan
It seems Charlie went to school with a woman named Mary Anne who ended up marrying a guy named “Billy,” as he called him, an attorney for NBC TV network. So when we were planning a trip to New York to see NBC network community affairs people the first time, Charlie had Mary Anne call her husband at NBC. Normally when you call on the networks, you might cool your heels in their reception area for an hour until they invite you in. Once in, they might give you 2 minutes to make your pitch. In this case, we go to Billy’s office, and Billy takes us up to see the two older ladies who control PSA access at NBC.
Because another NBC executive brings us up to their office and makes the introductions, we are given the star treatment. We get to sit down, pull out our storyboards, explain our spots to them and tell them what the Coast Guard is trying to achieve. Between Charlie’s contacts and having an asset like the Eagle to use in promoting Coast Guard PSAs, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
There was another funny incident with Charlie that involved Billy and Governor’s Island. Billy and Mary Anne lived on the upper East Side in a very nice apartment, and apparently the wooden molding in one of their doorways got damaged. Since Billy was sort of anal retentive, this damaged piece of wood bothered him a lot.
He did not have the skills to fix it and yet he bitched at his wife all the time. She in turn told Charlie this damned piece of wood is going to destroy their marriage.
I was with Charlie on this particular trip to New York, and we go visit Mary Anne who also let us know that their marriage was very shaky to begin with. Charlie asked to see the damaged piece of molding, and it turned out to be sort of tricky because it was flat on the top and beveled at an angle on two sides. It would be next to impossible to even find a woodworker who would come to their apartment, pick up the molding, fix it and then install the new one. If you found someone it would cost a fortune.
Charlie tells Mary Ann, I will remove this molding and take it out to Governor’s Island where they have a wood shop and make you a new one. Now to get to Governor’s Island, you have to take the subway to lower Manhattan, get aboard the ferry that takes you out to the island, travel over to the woodshop, work your magic on the wooden piece, and then reverse the steps. It was like a full day devoted to this one little piece of wood that most people would never even think about. But Charlie saw a chance to do something nice for a friend, so he decided he had to take this job on.
For me, even though I lived in Manhattan for nearly two years with an ad agency there, I could never have even gotten us to the lower part of the city. Since I hated the subway, I never learned to use it, so the only way we were getting to lower Manhattan was through Charlie’s formidable navigation skills.
“Hey, It’s Winfrey!”
Charlie was dressed in uniform, and was probably something like 5’6,” but he walked so fast I could hardly keep up with him. He was on a mission and all he could think about is taking this piece of wood that he was flashing in his hand as we walked down the street and replacing it with another piece of wood to stop Billy’s bitching. New York is so weird in its own right that I am sure no one even noticed that this diminutive Coast Guard officer in uniform is hurrying across town with a piece of wood in his hand. I, on the other hand, could only shake my head in amazement at what this guy would do to make people happy.
So we get to Governor’s Island, and we head straight to the wood shop. I indicated that I almost never went anywhere without a camera in those days, perhaps a holdover from my Canon experience and love of photography. Somewhere in my photo archives, I have this photo of Charlie, hat off and with protective goggles planing down a new door molding for his good friend. By the time he was finished, the molding was an exact replica of what was in the apartment and all they had to do was stain it. On the way to the wood shop, Charlie was running into all these guys who knew him which was repeated at the wood shop. All these younger Coasties were coming up to say “Hi” to him because they either served aboard ship with him, remembered him when he lived on Governor’s Island, or perhaps were mentored by him. It was like welcome home week.
On our way back to the ferry landing area, we were walking along this hedgerow that was probably four feet high and open at the base, meaning you could see feet and heads only on the other side. Charlie was walking hell bent for leather – I am in the best shape of my life and I cannot keep up with this guy. As we are walking along, some Coast Guard guys on the other side of the hedgerow, called out “look, it’s Commander Winfrey…how you doing Charlie?” How did they know this….I guess it is because he was walking so fast…on a mission.
By now I am laughing my behind off because hanging with Charlie is like hanging with a rock star…is there anyone who doesn’t know this guy?
A History Student
Another example of Charlie’s PR skills was when he organized an appreciation party for all the people who helped make the New York visit of the Eagle a success, which was held in the Long Room inside Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan. It was just a ferry ride for the guys at Governor’s Island, and I didn’t have a clue about the place. Turns out that our boy Charlie was not just a good Coast Guard officer; he was a student of history as well. But then I am not surprised. It was in this very room where General George Washington said farewell to the officers who had served him during the Revolutionary War On December 4, 1783, nine days after the last British soldiers left American soil, ending the Revolution. Charlie showed that he was an officer who led from the front, just like General Washington.
After thanking everyone who helped make the PR event for the networks a success, Charlie and I were supposedly headed for the airport to return to Washington, DC. However, with Charlie it is never that easy.
A Stop at Juniors
The next move shows why Charlie was loved, and it is a message I wish to hell they had taught me in my PR classes at Youngstown University. On our way to the airport, Charlie says: “I gotta make one final stop.” I said “whaddya mean another stop…you have already done everything you came to New York to do plus some personal stuff.” He says…“Nope, I gotta go to Juniors in Brooklyn.”
I had no idea what Junior’s was…I thought maybe it was a department store and he was buying stuff for his two girls. Then he let’s me in on his culinary secret - Juniors is said to have the best cheesecakes in New York.
Founded by a guy named Harry Rosen in 1950, at the corner of Flatbush and DeKalb Avenues in Brooklyn, the place was packed. Just looking at these delicacies on display had my mouth watering, and Charlie wanted to take ten of them back to Virginia. While they packed them nicely, the most he could carry was three and I would be carrying three, and they were not cheap by any measure.
Once back on the job at headquarters, Charlie would walk around and dole out these wonderful delicacies to his important colleagues and friends. Was it expensive and some inconvenience? Of course. But what Charlie got out of this very personal gesture in terms of PR value when he needed a future favor is something everyone should think about, including the author of this tribute. I am sure his superior officer who would be giving him his future evaluation ratings got one of these cheesecakes.
“The Torch”
Beyond working with Charlie professionally, I got to know his family very well – Faye, his wife, and his two daughters, Tara and Katie. As it turned out, Charlie and his family ended up moving about 10 minutes away from my home in Springfield, so we were back and forth a lot. One night when it was really, really cold in Virginia – in the low teens - the pipes in my house froze up. It was the pipe that controlled water to my upper kitchen where my tenants lived, and it was fairly late at night, meaning I probably would have had to pay time and a half for a plumber, so I decided to fix the problem myself.
To make a long story short, in trying to solder the pipes I drained the water out of them, but not the lowest point in the house, so the pipes would not accept the solder. That led me to turn up the heat on the torch I was using and in doing that I started a small fire between the inner and outer walls of the house that could have burned the house down. I decided to put the fire out with my bare hands causing some very severe burns, and of course my attempt to fix the pipe was doomed.
I really had no one to call, but then my thought turned to Charlie Winfrey. I was in huge pain, barely able to move one hand and the other not far behind. But I walked over to the phone and called Charlie, telling him my problem while I grimaced in pain.
Charlie rushed over and in looking at the problem he says to me: “Goodwill, did anyone ever tell you that when you try to solder a water pipe you have to completely drain the water from the pipes?” I did open some of the spigots to drain the water out, but I did not do so from the lowest point. His first step was to go down to the basement, open all the taps, let the water run out and then it would be ready to do any soldering work. Once we did that, Charlie went back up to the area underneath the kitchen sink and applied the solder to the broken pipe with no problem. Another lesson learned from the master.
Then Barb, my wife to be, came over and took me to the hospital where both my hands were in big round ball bandages, until my burns healed. My new nickname at Coast Guard was: “Torch,” and both Joe Amato and Charlie never let me forget it until some other emergency came upon us.
Charlie’s Crowning Scam - America’s Cup
The next time we would see the Coast Guard Eagle – and this time it was purely social, since we were not filming or entertaining the media - was at America’s Cup in Newport, Rhode Island. Charlie had been able to finesse some of the most difficult tickets to get, because the Eagle would be the platform where you could watch the America’s Cup races, complete with grub and grog. Everyone connected to the Eagle knew someone – family, friends, people they wanted to impress to give tickets to – so for Charlie to even get any tickets was a coup. Again the gang was together – Charlie, Joe Amato, Rog Vilsack and myself.
We got there two days before the races commenced, and while Joe, Roger and I flew up from DC, Charlie drove his beloved white Checker up to Rhode Island. Charlie picked us up at the airport, and commenced to take us on a tour of Newport, which he somehow seemed to know like a tour guide.
After hitting three or four bars Joe Amato, Rog Vilsack and I sensed there was something Charlie was not telling us about our living arrangements, because we did not book hotels in the area. Charlie told us that we were booked into the BOQs (Bachelor Officer’s Quarters) at the Coast Guard Base in Newport. I’ve stayed at a couple of these places in my travels, and they are typically clean as a whistle. The best thing is, they are free.
The three of us let Charlie know we are ready to call it a day now because we had been travelling all day and we wanted to try to find a snack and then hit the rack.
As I recall Charlie took us to some dive where we could get some food on the run, and then it was off to the Coast Guard base where we would be staying. Once we came upon the property, which was a nice brick building, Charlie whips around the back to the parking lot. Parked behind the BOQ is this small Shasta camper and we didn’t think too much about it.
So as we are standing in the parking lot behind the BOQ, we said to Charlie: “So this is where we will be staying?” Charlie looks at us and says: “not quite…they were booked up due to the races so I had this camper towed in for us to stay in,” pointing to a little camper that might fit a man and a woman at most.
On one hand we felt like we had been hoodwinked by Charlie, because he inferred we were going to be staying in the “big house,” whereby, in fact, we were going to be staying in the slave quarters. So, we did the only thing any reasonable person would do, we flipped coins to see who was going to stay where, with Charlie’s Checker cab being the most desirable.
As one might guess, Charlie won the flip of the coin, and got to sleep in the back seat of his beloved white Checker which is shown in his memorial photos. When we opened the door to the Shasta it was pretty predictable. Very tight living space for maybe 2 people and we had three. Bunk beds, almost no kitchen and of course no bathroom. We told this story to other comrades for years and they got a big kick out of it.
When Charlie’s Charm Didn’t Work
As I have tried to make crystal clear, Charlie Winfrey could sell refrigerators to Eskimos, but finally he met his match one night when Barb and I went to a concert with him headlined by Willie Nelson.
The Coast Guard has something called the National Strike Force. It’s comprised of a highly trained cadre of Coast Guard professionals who can rapidly deploy with specialized equipment any time, or to any place or hazard. It is recognized worldwide as a highly trained team of experts who deal with harmful discharges, hazardous substance releases, weapons of mass destruction events, and other emergencies.
To capture the work of this special group of men and women who were always ready to travel at a moment’s notice, we created a TV PSA called “Strike Force,” and we got permission from Willy Nelson to use his great song “On the Road Again,” as a sound track for the TV spot that we produced.
On the night of the concert, the three of us (can’t recall if Faye joined us or not) go to our seats to get ready for the concert. Charlie was dressed in uniform, which I thought was sort of strange, because Charlie only wore the uniform beyond duty time when he thought it would do him or the Coast Guard some good. He was also carrying this item in a package wrapped in brown paper, which he would not describe, and I can only guess what he was up to.
It seems he had this very nice certificate of appreciation produced to recognize Willy Nelson for letting us use his music at no cost. And of course, Charlie being Charlie, he had to try to meet Willie in person to present this certificate to him. I have never had to face 30,000 fans for a two hour show, but I am thinking, I would guess Willy has some other things on his mind now. Nonetheless, our dedicated Coast Guard promoter somehow finds his way back stage where he is met by some very, very big beefy guards. Charlie gives them the whole drill about how Mr. Nelson did the Coast Guard a favor and now he wants to return the favor by presenting the certificate of appreciation.
The response: “Thank you sir, just give us the package and we will see that Mr. Nelson gets it.”
Charlie came back to his seat looking crushed. Maybe this was the one time when he could not charm his way into the holy of holies, but you know I had to give the guy credit, he never stopped promoting.
The Brown Bag Caper
My final story about Charlie is perhaps the best because it tells how we were able to continue the successful advertising work that our team had done for Coast Guard.
Since we had successfully helped the Coast Guard reach its Caucasian personnel quota, the problem they were having was to recruit more minorities. At the same time the advertising contract that I worked under was coming up for renewal and it appeared that Coast Guard would select a minority ad agency, thus eliminating my agency from the competition.
Charlie, myself and Joe Amato, were at our favorite watering hole, called Chi Chi’s, a Mexican Restaurant just off I-95 in Springfield, Virginia. We were lamenting that if we did not come up with a solution, then our working relationship was over. I invited Charlie to come over to my house the next day to see if we could figure out a solution that would allow myself and Roger Vilsack to continue to work with the Coast Guard.
On Saturday morning Charlie shows up at my house, and we proceeded to the basement, where I had some nice cold Budweisers in the fridge. Charlie never drank anything but Budweiser, because it was a Missouri company, and Charlie was very into his home state.
The other thing I always loved about Charlie was he knew how to cut to the chase. So once you are ready to do business with Charlie, usually he would say, “whatta you got?” That was his way of saying show him how you are going to solve the problem at hand.
This was my time to let Charlie know I had a possible solution to our contractual issue. I didn’t have a Powerpoint presentation or a whiteboard to illustrate my plan, so I grabbed a brown grocery bag and a pencil.
On the brown bag I demonstrated how we could outsmart the U.S. government by giving them what they were trying to achieve, but do it in such a way that it would be done by people with experience working with the U.S. Coast Guard’s advertising department.
I had a black friend by the name of Thomas Buffington, whose advertising agency would be the prime contractor in my proposed scheme. All the white people who had worked on the U.S. Coast Guard contract in the past with the confidence of Charlie Winfrey and others, would serve as sub-contractors to the prime contractor, Buffington & Associates. Just as he taught me about how to fix a leaking pipe, now I taught him how to outfox the foxes.
With this brown bag, I drew organizational boxes which showed Charlie how we could structure an organization that could do everything we had done at HJK&A, do it at much less money, and do it with people who had extensive Coast Guard experience. Of course, I would once again be the Account Director, calling all the shots, just as I had before.
On our side we had a proven record of performance, while on the other side it would be starting from zero. Officially speaking, Charlie put his job on the line for me, and we ended up winning the contract and continued our work for Coast Guard for many more years.
Complete Devotion
Just prior to his moving on to his next assignment, Charlie told me to meet him for a final luncheon at his favorite hangout place in the city – Blackie’s House of Beef – thinking this was Charlie’s going away party.
When I came into Blackie’s, I went to the hostess to tell her I am there for a Coast Guard luncheon, and she directed me to a room that had been reserved. When I walked into the room it was one of those gotcha surprise parties, and I guess you could say that I was the gotchee. All the Coast Guard staff that I worked with regularly were there – including the Captain that was the head of the Recruiting Advertising Department - people from HJK&A such as Roger Vilsack, Tom Buffington, Joe Amato, all the vendors we worked with, etc.
Charley did for me - what he did for so many others – he showed his appreciation for my work in the form of a formal certificate. He had his boss, the Captain of Coast Guard Recruiting issue a formal certificate to me.
I am not very comfortable at all with these kinds of things, because I believe that you are paid to do good work, and you should stay behind the scenes and let your boss take the credit. That is just how I have been trained, but Charlie made sure I was recognized via a beautiful certificate of appreciation, which hangs on my office wall to this day.
My Mentor Moves On
Charlie, being a sailor’s sailor, missed why he joined the Coast Guard, which was to serve at sea. It is the same with our combat arms services. If you ask a warrior if they would rather push paper at the Pentagon, or go kill the enemy, I guarantee almost to a man, they would choose the latter. Charlie was that type of guy, except his battlefield was on the water, not on land.
Soon he got to do battle with one of the largest corporations in the world, Exxon Corporation. Charlie was selected to go to Alaska to help with the Coast Guard’s cleanup of the Valdez oil spill, and I can’t think of anyone who was better suited to the task. He was chosen largely because of his other stints in Alaska, and he was very familiar with the terrain.
I not only stayed in touch with Charlie while he was in Alaska on the cleanup; we stayed in touch long after, including his retirement. By this time he had been promoted to a full Commander, and had been considered for promotion to Captain, a rank he surely deserved. However, Charlie did not have his ticket stamped by the Coast Guard Academy, and that is where Captains were coming from.
As shown on his memorial page, Charlie went on to secure his “Captain’s License,” which meant he could command any ship of any tonnage anywhere in the world. Barb and I often kidded him that he should take command of a cruise ship, so we could come as his guests, but he ended up in much riskier assignments. Much of his work involved taking supplies out to oil rigs all over the world, and he told me many very scary stories about dealing in ports off the coast of Nigeria, where pirates would try to storm vessels and take the crew hostages for ransom.
I last spoke with Charlie in late July of this year, and unknown to him, I was going to plan a reunion of the old advertising team of Winfrey, Goodwill, Amato and Vilsack, plus their wives hosted at the home of Barb Goodwill (who never knew about my plans).
As always he sounded in great spirits and we parted with the words that I was going to come and do a road trip with him to President Harry Truman’s Library in Independence, Missouri, because we both loved history.
When his daughter Katie called me about his passing, it was like someone punched me in the stomach. I took this news just as hard as losing any of my family, because Charlie and I were family.
While we never got to take this final road trip, I know one thing for sure. Charlie Winfrey is in heaven doling out charms, presents and favors to people, just as he did here on this mortal plain for more than six decades.
