Looking Back

Dear Diary:

In January 1958 I moved to New York from Davenport, Iowa. I was 23 and starting a new job in the marketing department at Look magazine.

I had no place to live. My father had advised me to take a cab from La Guardia into Manhattan and to ask the driver to take me to an apartment building off Broadway where I could get a temporary residence on a week-to-week basis.

I did exactly as my father had suggested, and during the ride from the airport I told the cabdriver all about my life and how excited I was to be coming to live in New York.

Ten years later, I was living in Detroit with my wife and two children and managing the Look sales office there when I came to New York for a business meeting.

After the meeting ended and it was time to return home, I got a cab at 51st Street and Madison to take me to the airport.

Halfway there, the cabdriver pulled to the side of road and turned around.

“I know you,” he said. “You’re from Iowa and you work for Look magazine.”