The rabbi in the lumber business

Thirty or more years ago, many stock trades were executed not by ambitious investors sending messages through the Internet, nor by a few deft keystrokes on computer systems, but by a trader at one brokerage calling a trader at another brokerage and asking for a quotation.  The local traders got to know each other and the stocks they traded.  Some of the stocks acquired nicknames; the Knower of All Things assures me that in those halcyon and pre-P.C. days, one trader might call another and ask, "How's the rabbi?"  The reference to "the rabbi" meant, not the spiritual leader of the local synagogue, but the firm of Pope & Talbot, whose Anglican management likely never knew that Portland's version of Wall Street had ordained their shares.