WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS!

It seems that if it can go wrong it will.

Many years ago, while still a pup in the advertising industry, I worked for a very famous man in the business by the name of Lawrence G. Chait. Larry was a big man in human proportions eating like it too. Larry was a great mind, a leader in the field of direct response advertising, and on the famous 'Dean's List' during Watergate!

der sherman hairlion!

In January of 1972, the company, Lawrence G. Chait and Co., landed the Lufthansa Airlines account, and it meant a big push to hit all the media and really sell it. As an agency, we now held both American Airlines and Lufthansa, two rather large feathers in our cap! But the big push meant that we would be on a break neck pace with no relief, a seven day a week schedule for about three or four weeks.

So what does my nephew John go and do? He decides to get born, that’s right, in the middle of all this tight schedule and pressure.

So everyday we worked until 5:00 pm, Saturdays and Sundays too. Larry being the great guy he was, insisted that we all have lunch on him, everyday of the schedule. Lunch was not a sandwich: it was a meal, a rich, expensive meal that he paid for.

So one Sunday morning, early about 6:00 am, right before I was about to leave our little apartment in East Patchogue on Munsell Road, the phone rings. Mom is on the other end and she is mad at me!

“You haven’t seen your newborn nephew yet, and you are going to be his Godfather! When are you going to see that little boy?”

Feeling bad but not able to do a thing about it, since I was getting home every night well after 7:00 pm, and dead tired, I go to work, and am waiting on the Hunter’s Point Avenue station of the Flushing line, when suddenly the top of my foot is swelling up to the point that I have to loosen my shoe from the pain and lump! The station is opened on one end and the platform is cold in February, and I think it must be the cold that is causing the swelling. About a week goes by and I call the doctor since I am limping. (I’d say I was limping badly, but that would mean there is a limping good.)

I finally get to the doctor and he looks at it and says:

“Have you been eating rich foods lately, with butter and cream sauces?”

“Yes doctor.”

“Well Your Highness, you have the gout!” Apparently gout is the King’s disease.