A degree in English is not exactly a ticket to
success.  My first job out of college was
as a houseparent in a residential facility for retarded children (later to
become known, in politically correct vernacular, as developmentally disabled).  We had one kid who, though severely retarded,
was a genius at escaping from the place.  He would run nude down the street and around the corner to the hamburger
joint (in those days a Royal Castle) and point grunting at the burgers cooking
on the grill until the police arrived to return him to his locked home.  After a few weeks of that I too escaped and
took a week in the Florida Keys to recuperate.

Returning to Miami, I landed a job driving a Yellow
Cab.  I had to get a chauffer’s license
and pass a test to illustrate my knowledge of the sprawling city, a simple task
since (a) I had lived most of my life there, and (b) Yellow Cab gave its
drivers a copy of the test –with answers—before you went to the licensing
bureau to take it.  I worked the night
shift, which meant that I was in my cab from dinner time until breakfast the
next morning.  Yellow Cab had the exclusive
pickup franchise at the airport, which helped, but I actually spent most of my
time sitting at a cab stand across from the Olympic Theatre downtown reading
Joyce’s Ulysses.   

Eventually the B.A. in English helped out when I
became a copywriter for Richards, a small chain of department stores in south
Florida.  My specialties became men’s
clothing and major appliances, not exactly a natural pairing.  I discovered that advertising people liked to
drink.  We imbibed lunch around the
corner at the Jockey Bar.  One might
argue that my post-lunch copy excelled over my morning’s output. 

Fate intervened to knock me off-track from a life in
advertising.  In this case, “fate” was
the girl who remains my wife after 45 years.  She was still at F.S.U. which, as it happened, had just opened a law
school.  Goodbye advertising; hello
courtroom.  Perhaps there lies the
natural pairing:  both professions
involve a high level of shysterism.