Tag: local memoir

Chalk quotation board in a mid-century brokerage office

Bring Wall Street to Main Street: A Mobile Broker’s First Licensed Years

James Bullard, October 27, 2004

Part three of a memoir of a bygone Mobile: a Christmas bonus paid in whiskey, an NYSE exam graded by the boss, and a tape so slow a quote took 20 minutes to fetch.

Local News

Group of men in suits meeting in a mid-century office

The Cabal Behind the Stock Board: Five Mobile Brokers Shop for a New Firm

James Bullard, October 23, 2004

Part twelve of a memoir of a bygone Mobile: five brokers met each afternoon after the boss left for his club, plotting to sell a ready-made Mobile office to a Wall Street firm.

Local News

The Wrecking Ball on South Lawrence Street, and What Was Left Behind

James Bullard, October 1, 2004

Part nine of a memoir of a bygone Mobile: after years of haggling, the old family house sold for $18,292.80 and came down for a parking lot in the fall of 1964.

Local News

Interior of an old apartment with antique furniture

Suppers Alone in an Empty Apartment: A Mobile Landlord Waits Out the Old House

James Bullard, September 28, 2004

Part eight of a memoir of a bygone Mobile: the author kept going back to his mother’s apartment for supper, while the ledgers told him the old house could not last.

Local News

Historic apartment house on a southern downtown street

Sixteen Tenants in Five Apartments: A Reluctant Landlord on South Lawrence Street

James Bullard, September 27, 2004

Part seven of a memoir of a bygone Mobile: inheriting his mother’s apartment house, the author found himself collecting rent from a cast of tenants the suburbs had left behind.

Local News

Vintage photograph of a front porch on an older home

The Best Year and the Worst: A Mobile Broker Remembers November 1958

James Bullard, September 24, 2004

Part six of a memoir of a bygone Mobile: the year the author’s production soared was also the year he lost the mother who had raised three children on a secretary’s salary.

Local News

Vintage stock market ticker tape and trading floor scene

The Day a Newcomer Called Zenith to 300 and Stopped a Mobile Office Cold

James Bullard, September 22, 2004

Part five of a memoir of a bygone Mobile: brokers gave a suspicious Northern newcomer a wide berth, until the day he staged a trading feat nobody in the office ever forgot.

Local News

Men seated in a mid-century brokerage office watching a stock ticker

The Sitters, the Soybean Doctor and a Change of Command Downtown

James Bullard, September 20, 2004

Part four of a memoir of a bygone Mobile: retired men who spent their days watching the tape, a shift in command at the brokerage, and the return of the city’s biggest commodity trader.

Local News

Old ticker tape machine in a mid-century brokerage office

‘What Have I Gotten Into?’ A New Broker Takes the Measure of Mobile’s Little Wall Street

James Bullard, September 18, 2004

Part two of a serialized memoir of a bygone Mobile: a rookie account executive discovers that all three of the men above him at the downtown brokerage have a drinking problem.

Local News

Sell 200,000 Bushels: The Mobile Surgeon Who Traded Soybeans From the Operating Room

James Bullard, September 17, 2004

Part ten of a memoir of a bygone Mobile: a Mobile eye surgeon ran enormous soybean positions from the operating table, and made his broker the top producer in the office.