"Editors go to lunch."

I read that quote somewhere, and thought, "I don't go to lunch often enough."

Today, I'm going to Club Lago, my favorite restaurant in Chicago, with the first and second big-city intellectuals I met when I moved from Ohio to Chicago and went to work two decades ago. 

Hugh Iglarsh was my first editor at The Ragan Report and the person to whom I turned in my first professional story. At first, I agonized for whole days over 600-word pieces. After awhile, I assured him, "I think I'm getting these down." Fearing it was a formula I had found, Hugh said, "I hope not."

My second year at Ragan, I sat next to Bill Sweetland, who introduced me to Jacques Barzun. I broadcast my green idea seeds at him so continously that the bosses had to separate us. They moved him.

I should buy, shouldn't I?

Comments

[Bill Sweetland]

My, my, what a long time ago those halcyon days were! I'm thinking about 1993, when you and I were sitting across from each other, and you got to hear my tirades about the illiterates who sent us copy for their "books" about corporate journalism.

Then Mark assigned us the duties of planning Ragan's first-ever Internet conference, and we were off to the races. How could we know we were waving good-bye to the last remnants of civilization, preparing for the wave of trashy barbarism that has overtaken and drowned everything decent, superior, noble or interesting? Two decades, and now we're surrounded by zombie "Millennials," polite automatons who "share" what they call "great content" with their "friends" from inappropriate places like the bathroom, the Interstate highways, and, for all I know, at church.

David: Give me back 1993 and that uproarious, fun place we called "work."

Bill

[David Murray]

Bill, I can't think of a better place to discuss your promising plan than Club Lago. Can you?