Playing Ball with Ezra Pound

Playing ball with Ezra Pound is a true story. We were a group of friends who played ball frequently in 1950's Washington, DC. Once a year there were league games that took place in a field behind the Whitehouse. We were sure Truman was watching us. Our team Alfandre Realty beat the Oxen hill Ford dealership with a 9th inning single by coolgool, (my moniker) My name appeared in the next morning's Washington Post. I was famous I thought. We then got in Roger Core's car. Roger, the only person that had a car. Bob Duvall's father was the superintendent of St. Elizabeth's mental hospital in SE Washington. He thought it would be a good idea if we played ball with the inmates. It would make them happy. So we drove to the hospital. The game began but it seemed we were being bombarded with bats from the inmates. We decided to keep playing but without bats and balls. The inmates couldn't tell the difference. On the side of the field were a group of people eating a picnic lunch. One of them came over to speak with me. Ezra Pound. I was in a state of shock. He was an inmate there for the last 15 years. He asked me a lot of questions. Such as my name Gould. "Gould, Gold," He said. You're a Jew, aren't you. I knew he was an anti-semite in the highest degree. The game went on and at times he ran on to the field and wanted to be an umpire. Fun was had by all.

Playing ball with Ezra Pound is a true story. We were a group of friends who played ball frequently in 1950's Washington, DC. Once a year there were league games that took place in a field behind the Whitehouse. We were sure Truman was watching us. Our team Alfandre Realty beat the Oxen hill Ford dealership with a 9th inning single by coolgool, (my moniker) My name appeared in the next morning's Washington Post. I was famous I thought. We then got in Roger Core's car. Roger, the only person that had a car. Bob Duvall's father was the superintendent of St. Elizabeth's mental hospital in SE Washington. He thought it would be a good idea if we played ball with the inmates. It would make them happy. So we drove to the hospital. The game began but it seemed we were being bombarded with bats from the inmates. We decided to keep playing but without bats and balls. The inmates couldn't tell the difference. On the side of the field were a group of people eating a picnic lunch. One of them came over to speak with me. Ezra Pound. I was in a state of shock. He was an inmate there for the last 15 years. He asked me a lot of questions. Such as my name Gould. "Gould, Gold," He said. You're a Jew, aren't you. I knew he was an anti-semite in the highest degree. The game went on and at times he ran on to the field and wanted to be an umpire. Fun was had by all.

I have been an artist since I was a ten-year-old kid sketching. My mother framed my drawings and hung them on the wall the minute I finished them giving me great confidence. She sent me to the Corcoran Gallery Art school in Washington,DC. when I was thirteen. I loved the experience probably more for the ability to see nude paintings of Botticelli. My family moved virtually every year to another city. It was never explained to me why. I thought my father was in the witness protection program somewhere. I was always the new kid in school. I quit three colleges because I wanted to find a career immediately. My father somehow got me a job as a messenger in an advertising agency in Washington. I was totally intrigued by the art department. I learned how to make a portfolio of my work. I learned to get a job in Advertising you had to begin pasting up ads. I had no idea actually what a past up was. A complicated pasting of the photo and the type for a client. The past-up then went to a printer. I had no knowledge of that. So I tore out ads from magazines and pasted them on boards. We moved to New York and I started to look for advertising jobs. I showed the art director my paste-ups. I got a job instantly. But I was fired instantly because I really had no idea what a paste-up meant. That happened in my next few jobs also. But eventually I understood what to do and little by little I got better and better jobs in Advertising. From being the paste up guy to a real art director to an art supervisor to Creative director of one of the oldest and largest Advertising agencies in New York City. N.W.Ayer. I ,as a creative director, was a writer as well as an art director.I retired from Ayer and advertising almost 20 years ago. Photography has been my love since I had the opportunity to work with every great photographer in the business like Irving Penn and Avedon. I always wrote stories about my experiences and now more than ever I've gotten serious about continuing that. Being retired doesn't have to mean playing golf everyday. That would bore me to death. Now, every day I am either writing or photographing nature or street people on our travels. Since I love fine food. I started a blog many years ago about travel and restaurants around the world called keitheats.com. I try not to sit on the couch all day doing nothing. I'm always looking for another exciting thing to keep me busy. My 50th anniversary is coming up any day now. We have children and grandchildren scattered all over the country. We live half the year in our house in Chatham, Cape Cod and the other half Naples, Florida. No more snow for us.