JUST ONE DAY

I was looking back over the years, as I sat at a birthday party for a young great nephew of mine. Across from me sat 3 of my 4 sisters, and we were talking about the old days. Someone from a younger generation was asking questions about the family way back when, and it evoked more questions, about family members, places and things.

Quietly in my mind I thought about one of the big days of my life, when I was first hired as a young designer for an advertising agency that shaped me forever. It was filled with characters that were so vibrant, so lively, so filled with interesting facets.

One of those people was a man named Fred. Fred was a copywriter, who could and should have been a lot more. He had a great mind, and a great personality. There was one problem with Fred, he smelled. His body odor was so intense that you had to stand away from him when you spoke.

One bright morning, I went into his office and he had the Friday morning NY Times on his desk, opened to the crossword puzzle. He started to talk to me, look at the clue and fill in the answer. He only went one way, across, because he finished it by just going across!

If you have ever done crosswords you know that Friday is the hardest of the week, and the NY Times is the hardest of them all! Not convinced, I decided to ask him if I could borrow his newspaper, later in the day. That afternoon I went in, asked for his paper, and he dug it out of his trashcan, and I took it with me. With a dictionary I spot-checked the answers to the clues: he was on target!

I thought: “Just one day I would like to think like he does-after a shower.”