Thankful for another memorable Thanksgiving! Been feeling a little wistful about our years in London lately and was reminded of this note I, the American, used to send out to the largely British staff every year at this time.  Here it is from 2008: Avril showed up early for a meeting the other day...

Between Two Meetings Room 722 The man’s voice was pleading, insistent. Kind. Tinged with a note of urgency. Unavoidably loud. “WHY DID YOU TRY TO KILL YOURSELF? No response. Ten seconds went by. A full minute, maybe longer. Nothing. The cringing silence was broken only by the frequency and pitch...

This great man, more than any other, fostered my love for words and a respect for the art and precision in how to connect them. Ed taught the first class I ever had at USC. Journalism 101, news writing. Lou Grant brought to life. Crusty on the outside, warm and wonderful on the inside. My small...

Perfect start to a client meeting. A dozen gorgeous doughnuts, right? Look again. In the lower right corner. The downright homely one. “Ordinary,” one might sneer. Bereft of all the sparkly, blingy adornments of its neighbors. The Charlie Brown Christmas Tree of doughnuts. The stripped-down cheapo...

I hail from a line of frustrated inventors. Back in the late ‘40’s, my grandfather received a patent for what was basically a hollowed-out aluminum spike that one filled with spicy seasonings and hammered into a raw chicken. Judging from the 20 cases of unopened “Season-Awls” I discovered as a...