dec 1, 1942 - Willie Keith
Description:
"Having one of the highest draft numbers in the land, Willie had past the first war year peacefully without taking refuge in the navy. There had been some talk of him returning to Princeton after graduation for a master’s degree in literature, the first step toward a teaching career.But in September following a summer of tennis and multiple romances at his grandparents’ home in Rhode Island, Willie had found a job in a cocktail lounge in a minor New York hotel, playing the piano and singing his original ditties. The first earned dollar has remarkable weight in deciding a career. Willie elected art. He was not paid much. The fee was, in fact, the smallest permitted by the musicians’ union for a piano player. Willie didn’t really care, so long as fifty dollar bills flowed from his mother. As the proprietor, a swarthy, wrinkled Greek, pointed out, Willie was gaining professional experience.:
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ben
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