After being discharged from the Navy in 1962, I was hired as a junior buyer in the mechanical parts acquisition section at Airborne Instruments Laboratory, a large aerospace company in Deer Park. The purchasing department had more than 100 people, mostly skilled professionals. We purchased sheet metal and machine parts that were made to specification. I was part of a three-man group in the department: a senior buyer who was a former top machinist, me (a wet-behind-the-ears junior buyer) and an expediter.
Our expediter was Lyman Vunk, who always shouted. He had a bass-baritone voice that could carry for miles. If you were too close to him, the wax would fly out of your ears. Lyman was a sharp dresser in the 1940s style: always had shined shoes, a knife crease in his slacks and a pocket handkerchief in his suit pocket.
He always introduced himself the same way, whether in person or on the phone. “This is Lyman Vunk, V as in Victory-U-N-K.”
After hearing that about 100 times a day (he sat next to me), I got to the point where I could imitate him. I’d call our boss, a crusty former machinist, and imitate Lyman. It took our boss six months to figure out it was me.
He sneaked up behind me one day and said, “This is Ed, your boss. You are skating on thin ice.”
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My career as an impressionist stopped that day.
Ed was a great teacher, a practical man with no patience for posers or egotists. He was an imposing figure of a man, well over 6 feet tall with the hands and shoulders of a defensive tackle. His most famous quote was along the lines of “Give him an evasive answer: Tell him to go fly a kite” — though his version was more colorful.
Ed could get away with telling people that because of his personality. I tried it once, it didn’t end well, and I never said it again.
Back to Lyman. He had a unique style of expediting parts from vendors. His voice alone must have put fear into them. He would accuse them of hiring philistines, and he threatened to visit their machine shops and personally supervise the production. I don’t think any of our orders were late for delivery.
He was a semifamous horn player for most of the big bands in the ’30s and ’40s, mostly Charlie Barnet. He backed up Bing Crosby, Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra and others. Not too shabby! But he decided to settle down and get a “straight” job, lucky for us.
His best friend in his band days was Joe “Wingy” Manone (pronounced ma-KNOWN). Wingy lost his right arm in a streetcar accident, resulting in the nickname “Wingy.” He had an artificial arm made of wood, and it never affected his outstanding playing style. Lyman said Wingy was the butt of practical jokes from the other members of the band — one would send him a single cuff link every year for his birthday.
According to Lyman, he and Wingy were prodigious drinkers before performances. One night, Lyman told me, he played a practical joke on Wingy. As Wingy got up to play his solo, Lyman took out a hand saw and made as if to cut off his wooden arm. Wingy didn’t miss a note but finished the set.
I lost track of these men, and others from my first years, as I moved on to a department of my own at a smaller company, but I think of them often and smile.
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