Marking Time.

I’m looking at the two photographs you see here.?

The one at the top, from nearly five years ago when I last visited Manhattan (it can’t have been?that?long ago), includes my?Ammirati & Puris?colleagues Eddie Safdieh, Liz Deutch, Lori Goldfeder, me, my wife Roberta with Sophie ( along with a not-visible Alvie, who recently and sadly?departed?for the rainbow bridge), Carolyn Hauptman, and Ellen Wasserman and her honorary member husband Stuart Goldstein.??

The one below it, from a couple of Sundays ago, when the same group minus Carolyn – who recently decamped to Park City Utah (traitor!) – gathered at the same downtown dining spot to consume pizza, drink too much wine, and tell stories.

Much of what we shared was more than a little sad, given so much has changed since all of us worked at one of the world’s great advertising enterprises.?Gone to the big advertising agency in the sky are?Peter Rauch,?Shelly Lanman,?Howard Lesman,?Mike Lotito, Ozzie Spenningsby, Brent Bouchez, and?Tom Nelson,?colleagues all, with a few denominated as treasured friends, each one a testament to the unforgiving flight of time.?We remember them, speak fondly of them, and miss them.

As I look at more recent photo, I search for signs of aging.?Do we?look?older?

For sure?I do, with graying hair in full retreat, a gait noticeably slower as I proclaim I’m going to see, “a man about a moose,” and fissures from metal fatigue (it remains a mystery how I managed those crack-of-dawn mornings and it’s-approaching-midnight evenings nearly every week, logging miles to and from Houston).

Just about everyone else, however, is the veritable picture of Dorian Gray.?

Stu no doubt will look exactly the same ten years from now, just as he has from the previous ten years.

Ellen’s nails aren’t quite the brilliant shade of red I remember; we share a smile as she pre-empts my teasing about her struggles distinguishing between passive and active tense.?

Lori’s children were at best an idea when we worked together; Eddie informs me his commute to his new professional opportunity is far shorter than getting on a plane to see our client?Compaq Computer.

More importantly, do we?act?older?

I might be in denial here, but to me the answer is “surely not.”

Still in attendance at our gathering was the same noisy, laugh-a-minute spirit that populated our band of colleagues when summoned for routine Friday morning bagels and coffee get-togethers. Of course there were many more of us then – Steven Kaufman, Elizabeth Ebbert, Megan Skelly, Tomás Mendez, Mercedes Niz, dozens of others too numerous to mention – but the spirit infusing those moments are pretty much as I am witnessing it now.

There even was a moment when I shared my long-held desire to write another book, which was met with ideas, including Liz’s suggestion I think about how people should build relationships in a world beset by a plague that will not relent, with in-person meetings severely curtailed if not eliminated.?Is it a book??I’m not sure, but I welcome and am grateful for the suggestion.

As we hugged and dispersed, one question remained:?will we meet again?

I used to travel to New York with greater frequency, mostly to conduct workshops.?My trips to New York are almost absent now – a casualty of age (too old), relevance (too not), and reputation (too invisible) – but my other- than-work reasons for returning home were never to visit the?Statue of Liberty, or to look at the view from the top of the?Empire State?building, or to visit Broadway or the?Temple of?Dendur.?

It was to convene with friends.

So yes, we will.