Thoughts from the guy on the shirt . . .

Hello from Bill!

"It's better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." —Samuel Hugo Boyd This was something that my maternal grandfather, who worked as chief Red Cap at Grand Central Terminal, used to tell his grand children, and although we didn't always follow it, we all took it with us. (I can remember all of us sitting around the kitchen table, both in New York, and at our country house in Hopewell Junction, discussing it.) He died on New Years Eve, 1951, of Stomach cancer. He was the son of slaves in Virginia. My father used to work for him. Grandpa used to work directly with A. Philip Randolph and The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Philip_Randolph ). My grandfather was also a good friend of Matthew Henson, the first American to set foot on the North Pole, who was part of Admiral Peary's expedition (1909). My grandfather took me and my mother to meet Mr. Henson when I was seven- or eight-years-old. At that time, Mr. Henson and his wife lived in the Dunbar houses. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Henson ) I was encouraged by Grandpa to ask him something; so I asked him what the North Pole was like. Sitting in his chair, Mr. Henson smiled at me and said very seriously: "Well, it was *very* cold." He was the first person I ever met who had an article about him in The Encyclopedia Britannica.