DelBloggolo: NOBODY GOES THERE!

Sunday, May 03, 2015

NOBODY GOES THERE!

A lady fixed her husband a special meal for his birthday. After dinner she fixed him a pitcher of martinis then poured him a drink. Then she left to pick up his favorite dessert from the local bakery.

When she returned from her errand she found her husband, drink in hand, prancing about the living room wearing her bra, panties and high heels.
"What is going on?" she exclaimed.

Her husband got a quizzical look on his face and said, "What? You asked what I wanted for my birthday and I told you. I wanted to eat, drink and- be Mary."

OK, enough of bad jokes for today.

When I worked in Manhattan, there was a writer named Bob I worked with who had a rather successful career, hawking dictionaries, and getting a percentage of everyone he sold. He even had a full-page mail order ad in the New York Times that made him rich from this deal; it was a lot of money.

He had another talent and that was to amuse himself by poking fun of the city of Brotherly Love: Philadelphia.

He once convinced me of a joke by first making it serious sounding. We sat in the conference room one morning and we were looking at the prize roster for a sweepstakes we were doing for Ladies Home Journal magazine. In his hand was the sheet that came from a company called Ventura Associates that did all the work for the prizes including any legalese we needed.

In front of me was a note pad and a small sketchpad where I would create rough sketches of what I saw needed to be showed or illustrated.

Bob peered at the write up and said to me: “First prize is a week in Philadelphia!” I thought that a strange prize since we usually dealt in the hundred thousand dollar range up to millions. I suspected something, but Bob was a professional near retirement and I was just starting my journey in the field.

“Second prize is TWO weeks in Philadelphia!” A smile cracked his craggy face and a soft muffled laugh emanated from deep in his chest. This started him on a roll: “What’s worse than crash landing in Philadelphia? Crashing while taking off!” and his favorite: “No one goes to Philadelphia, they leave it!”

Well I’m in a hotel right now as I write this in Albany, NY. Albany is a beautiful city, filled with wonderful historic buildings and sites, as well as some of the most exquisite architecture made in this country. In some ways it mirrors San Francisco, another beautiful city, even down to and up again the hills the cities are built on.

However, there is one problem with Albany, YOU CAN’T ENTER OR LEAVE IT WITHOUT GETTING LOST!

There are more approaches and turns, exit and entry ramps, cutting under roads and bridges, tunnels and rivers to make you once you enter, go to one of their fine bars and stay until you die!