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No place to keep a horse
DURING MY BRIEF SOJOURN in the financial markets, I became friendly with a guy from New York called Tom Foord. I think his full name was something like Thomas Algernon Winthrop Foord lll. He could trace his family back to Plymouth Rock; he belonged to all the right clubs, and lived on an estate in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
His wife was a daughter of a Daughter of the Revolution and it was a toss-up as to which of them had the bluer blood.
It turns out that, not only was I talking to Tom for about an hour each day on the phone trading foreign exchange futures, Sharon, his wife, sold fabrics to my girlfriend on a regular basis.
With such a double connection, it was easy for us to accept their invitation at a weekend chez Foord in Connecticut with an emphasis on being just a short jaunt into New York.
I had ridden horses as a teenager and Tom belonged to a hunt club. The plan was that he and I would “ride to the hounds” on Saturday afternoon then drive into the city to meet up with our ladies for dinner.
The hunt ended quite a bit later than expected and there wasn’t time for me to go back to the house to change. Tom (of course) had a change of clothes at the clubhouse, but I was stuck. The only way I could pull this off was to carry on with the gag and stay in character.
That was how I arrived at the Russian Tea Room for dinner wearing jodhpurs, riding boots, red jacket with mud up to my ribcage, carrying a crop and a riding helmet.
We had dinner and everything was fabulous. There was a man dining alone at the next table and it was clear he was listening in on our conversation. After a while, he couldn’t contain himself and asked me where my accent was from.
Now, I have always maintained that I don’t have an accent – everyone else does, but I told him I was from Dublin and he asked how long I had been in New York. “About an hour-and-a-half” I replied, but when he asked what I thought of the city, I said “Well, it’s no place to keep a horse”.
That broke the ice and he joined us for dessert. I didn’t recognise him, but the others certainly seemed thrilled that he was at our table. It was only when he had left and we called for the bill, only to be told that “Mr. Thomas had picked up our tab”.
Without knowing who he was, without ever having heard of him to be honest, I had dinner with Danny Thomas.
He was charming and a totally lovely man and the gesture of paying for our meal was truly appreciated.
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ABOUT FOUR YEARS later, I was in New York with a different girlfriend and we stayed at a Hilton hotel where Danny Thomas was hosting a born-again Christian telethon. I had told my girlfriend about my earlier meeting with him, but she wasn’t completely sure she believed me.
Early on the Sunday morning, we were in the elevator when it stopped on the 50-somethingth floor and Danny Thomas and two other men got in.
“Well?” gestured the girlfriend. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”
At that point, as I was trying to come up with the words to re-introduce myself, Danny Thomas turned to me and said: “I think I know you. Are you from Dublin? The horse!”
And that is how it happened that the first guest on this Lebanese Christian’s born-again telethon was a Jew from Dublin.
Danny Thomas was an icon in American TV history, but he is just as well-known for the amazing charity work he performed over the years. He founded St. Jude’s Hospital for children with cancer where patients from all over the world received treatment absolutely free.
A wonderful man - and a delightful dessert companion.
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