Well the Missus and I are moving to a new place and, say, it’s swell.
It’s also smaller and more, er, refined than our current place.
So I decided my desk has to go.
Back story: In 1977, I shared a house on Route 9 in Chestnut Hill across from the Star Market with my high-school pal Howie Cusack and Bob McNutt, who I didn’t really know at all. Eventually McNutt left – and left behind a very nice dresser and a very . . . well, a desk. Howie took the former; I took the latter.
And kept it ever since.
It’s a plain old walnut desk, as solid as the day is long.
Courtesy: The Missus
Note the deep drawer lower right, where Philip Marlowe would have kept a bottle of whatever he decided to get outside of when things went bad.
Me, I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words on this desk, often after getting outside of one thing or another myself.
And these are the last words I’m writing on it:
Ave atque vale, old walnut desk.
All due respect to Howie, I got the better of the deal.
Campaign Outsider 
You surely did get the better deal, John.
Howie
Howie! Welcome aboard – hope all’s well.
Can you still call the “copydesk” using that phone, I wonder? Can you pick it up and shout “get me re-write”?
Hell, Bill – I can get Cary Grant’s Walter Burns on that phone.
So you prefer the 1940 film “His Girl Friday” to the 1974 “The Front Page” version with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau? Hmmmmm……that’s good to know.
Absolutely, Bill – HGF is one of the funniest movies ever.
Clearly, an unseen power protects that desk.
Yeah – the Lord of the Freelance.
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