by Don Potter
“Is Penn your first choice?”
“It was third on my list. Don’t know how the others will respond, but at least I’m in at Penn.”
“We need to talk with the doctor and the head of the research program before even considering this possibility,” Mom said.
“I did that before sending out my application letters. And I got a thumbs-up from both of them.”
“So all you’re waiting for are responses from the other schools?” Dad asked.
“This is not a simple matter and certainly warrants further discussion.” Mom was adamant.
“If you remember, we agreed on these schools before I got sick.”
“I wish he had included us in this decision, but Rob’s right,” Dad said.
Dad calling me Rob reset the dynamics in the family, because, in my mind, it suggested he accepted me as a man and agreed with my decision.
“If you say so,” Mom replied in a tone that meant Dad and I would take the blame if anything went wrong with this plan.
By the end of the month, I heard from the other two universities. They wrote to say they were not accepting transfer undergraduate students in their schools of journalism. So the decision was made for me and I began to do all the things necessary to enter Penn the following fall, which included getting the best grades possible this semester.
Before the school year was over, Carlson/Andrews contacted me regarding summer employment. This time I would be making $50 a week, but I did not care about the money as much as the experience this job could provide. My hope was to secure a spot in the creative department rather being on the fringes by doing traffic work, but the agency put me to work in account service.
Ed Gardner had been promoted to the position of assistant account executive and was to be my mentor again this summer.
“Didn’t think we’d be together again this year,” Ed said as he greeted me when Rita Roman released me to his charge.
“Thanks for your great recommendation. It really helped me get invited back.”
“You did so well in the traffic department the powers that be must think I have a good understanding of the agency’s interworkings. That helped me get a promotion upstairs sooner than later.”
“So we helped each other, can’t ask for more than that. Hey, before you teach me all about your job, why did Miss Roman have to fetch me from the personnel department and bring me up here?”
“The chairman insists a representative from the executive suite greet every new person. This goes from interns to vice presidents. She’s his choice.”
“Doesn’t he realize she scares people half to death on a day when they’re already a bit nervous?”
“He knows about everything going on here and Rita Roman is his eyes and ears. Her presence lets people know the top brass has a reconnaissance system, so they don’t step out of line.”
“A little like Orwell’s book 1984, which I happened to read last year.”
“The agency’s growth since the end of the war has been phenomenal. So old man Carlson must be doing something right. Actually, I think Rita gets her jollies being the office snoop. She likes to know who bought a house or got a new car, who got drunk and where, and who’s sleeping with whom.”
“Guess that’s none of my business.”
“Keep your nose clean and there’s nothing to worry about. The old man insists on keeping Carlson/Andrews reputation spotless.”
“Got it.”
“Good. As I said before, stay away from the girls in the secretarial pool and you’ll make it through the next couple of months without Rita getting on your case. Now, to work.”
Over that summer, I learned quite a bit about advertising in general and the role of the ad agency in the marketing mix. The work I did last year was to make sure creative assignments were delivered on time. This year I learned about the strategy behind creating an ad or commercial, along with the role of media placement and how other agency services fit into the equation. It felt as if I was really part of the ad business.
Rather than ride with Dad or take the bus, I decided to drive my car to the office. There was cheap parking a few blocks from Gateway Center, and using it gave me the flexibility needed to keep up with Ed’s demanding work schedule.
Listening to the radio each way confirmed that Elvis, was all over the airwaves, along with other rising stars. New hits were popping up each week. Little Richard, Clyde McPhatter, and the Platters all had hits, as the Pop charts started to feel the effects of Rock and Roll. That summer, Allen Freed’s Rock and Roll Dance Party was broadcast nationally on radio and Dick Clark took over the role of host on TV’s American Bandstand.
Finally, the time came for me to travel across the state to the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier in the summer, Dad and I drove to Philadelphia to get a feel for the surroundings. Along the way, he pointed out that a portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike was built prior to WWII and expanded later. Now there will be more great roads like this connecting the country thanks to the Interstate Highway bill signed by President Eisenhower. It was interesting to hear about this, but it made no particular impact on me. I was more interested in the fried clam dinners we ate at Howard Johnson’s located on the turnpike.
Because it was to be my first time away from home, we decided, or I should say Mom decided, it would be wise to stay in student housing on campus and leave my car behind. Based on what I saw at Pitt, the prospects of joining a fraternity did not appeal to me, so I did not fight dorm life.
When it was time to go, we loaded up Mom’s Ford station wagon with the wood side panels and headed east. I immediately liked my new environment. The campus, the curriculum, the faculty, the students, it was all I hoped it would be. Therefore, I saw no reason to go home until the Thanksgiving holiday. Mom wondered why I was not homesick, and Dad was glad I adapted so quickly.
There was no reason to share with my parents how easy it was to concentrate on my studies during the week and party on Friday and Saturday nights. By the end of the first month, this had become my habit. I deserved to have a little fun, and letting go on the weekends did not seem to get in the way of my primary purpose. Another habit picked up during the early days at Penn was smoking cigarettes. It took me about a month of casual smoking to become a daily smoker and carry a pack of Chesterfield’s with me all the time. I believed the social advantages of smoking outweighed any disadvantages, besides Dad and several other men in the family smoked.
When I went back to Pittsburgh for the Christmas holidays, smoking and drinking beer made me a lot more comfortable at the parties and probably made me more accessible as well. I thought I was the big man on campus with my preppy, conservative look, even though everyone else dressed the same way. The only way to be different was to sprinkle in the latest campus slang words and hope they had not yet made it to Pittsburgh, because that would be un-cool.
After the Christmas break, it was time to hit the books again, although I did some studying at home in preparation for a few January exams. Nothing was more important to me than having a banner year at my new school with my new major.
It used to be difficult for me to read or study with distractions such as people talking or listening to the radio, and later with the television on. But dormitory living cured me of that problem. The journalism students said it was the best way to learn how to work in a noisy newsroom. I had other thoughts. My two summers interning at Carlson/Andrews had me thinking about being an advertising copywriter instead of a traditional journalist.
No matter what I was doing, the radio was usually blasting. And what a time it was for listening to the music I had come to love. Rock was changing and expanding on a daily basis. Country singers were popular thanks in a great part to Elvis Presley and his trailblazing “Rock-a-Billy” sound and style. Jimmy Cochran, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis were aired again and again. Little Richard, Bill Haley, and Chuck Berry were still tearing it up as well. It s
eemed there were no boundaries or limits in Rock and Roll. How cool was that?
I had become friendly with lots of students by the end of the semester, particularly those studying journalism. One of them was Jeff Newmar. He was from the Mainline, just outside of Philadelphia, but wanted to have the experience of campus life rather than commute. I was invited to his home in Wayne, an affluent suburb, on several occasions.
Jeff was a bit shy in crowds and not into the dating scene, but I found him quite smart and funny in a dry way. He had plans of moving to New York to be a copywriter for an ad agency after graduation.
“The ad business is centered in New York City,” Jeff said with the tone of a wise man. “So why would you go anywhere else if you want to be a copywriter?”
“I’ve been working summers at a great agency,” I said.
“What’s the name?”
“Carlson/Andrews.”
“Never heard of them. Who are their clients?”
“Westinghouse, ALCOA, PPG, and Gulf Oil to name a few,” I said with some pride.
“That’s industrial stuff. The name of the game is packaged goods. Cereals, beverages, laundry products - things you buy at the supermarket. This is where the big bucks are spent and where writers make big money.”
“We handle a couple of Heinz products.”
“Ketchup?”
“No. Not yet.”
“That’s the only big-time product they have.”
“So you think New York’s the place, huh?”
“You got that right. If we both go to New York after graduation, maybe we could be roommates while waiting to get established.”
“That’s more than a year away. I’m not ready to think about my career moves quite yet.”
“Give it some thought. I like the idea,” Jeff said.
“I hope to be back at that agency you never heard of this summer and work in the creative department. That’ll give me a better idea as to what I want to do.”
“Hey, speaking about this summer, will that Pittsburgh agency give you any time off?”
“It’s a ten week gig, maybe more.”
“My parents have a great place at the Jersey Shore. If you can get away before the big Labor Day Weekend, you can stay with us in Ocean City. That’ll be a super way to end the summer before starting our senior year.”
“Sounds cool. Let me see what I can work out.” I had heard tales of the Jersey Shore and that it was the place to party with some of Philadelphia’s best looking babes. This could be a blast, but hanging out with Jeff for a week or more might be a little more than I wanted to handle.
He seemed to sense my reluctance and added, “Bay Shores and Tony Mart’s are in Somers Point, right across the causeway from Ocean City. This is where a lot of the Philly bands come to play. And, of course, we could run on down to Wildwood where the bands are playing at a half dozen or more clubs. This is going to be a great summer of Rock and Roll at the Jersey Shore.”
Jeff’s final point pretty much sold me.
8
Sputnik astonishes the world. Have Gun Will Travel hits the TV airwaves. Westside Story is a Broadway smash. Buddy Holly hits number one with That’ll be the Day. Jeff has a surprise for Rob.
* * *
Philadelphia was a five and a half hour drive, and in many ways a million miles, from Pittsburgh. Everything was different in Philly, even the food was different. Some of it like hoagies and steak sandwiches, I loved; scrapple and pepper pot soup, not so much. At the Horn & Hardart automats, sprinkled around the city, the food was displayed behind tiny glass doors that opened when you inserted the right amount of change. And being Philadelphia, there were historical buildings scattered throughout the downtown area, which the locals called Center City.
School went well and I was back at Carlson/Andrews before I knew it, only to be greeted yet again by Miss Roman
“Welcome back for another summer,” Miss Roman said before escorting me to the creative department and into the office of the copy chief, Peter Erskine. She seemed almost glad to see me. Almost.
“Well, Mister Fleming, I hear you have aspirations of becoming a copywriter,” he said after Miss Roman left.
“I’m a journalism major at Penn.”
“And that’s going to make you a copywriter?” Erskine fired back.
“I have always been interested in writing.”
“Why don’t you want to be a reporter?”
“This is my third summer at Carlson/Andrews and I have developed an interest in advertising.”
“You know we have a public relations department here, don’t you? Lots of wayward journalists end up there.”
“I was thinking about writing ad copy.”
“Bet you like to read too.”
“Yes sir,” I replied, reluctant to play whatever game he had in mind, a game I would surely lose.
“What do you read?”
“I have studied the Classics and Modern American Literature. I stay current with the Times’ best sellers.”
“Ever read ads?”
“Yes, when shopping for something.”
He reached behind his desk, picked up a stack of trade magazines and shoved them at me. “Take these and read our clients’ ads. The pages are marked with a red tab. Read the ads of their competitors, marked with a yellow tab. After that read all the other ads in each magazine. While you’re at it read the articles and editorial content as well. When you finish, rate all the ads and report back to me. By the way, call me Pete. My secretary will show you where to sit. Be back here at four.”
I followed Pete’s secretary to a cubbyhole, lined up the magazines on my desk, and started to read through them as instructed. At 4 PM, I knocked on Pete’s door. When invited in I carried the magazines with me along with a note pad and a memo outlining my findings.
“What do you have for me, Mister Fleming?”
I handed him the memo and started to expand on what was written.
“Hold it. Let me read what you put down on paper. That way I get the whole story in half the time it would take for you to tell me half the story,” he said and focused on the memo.
“Good start,” he said when he finished reading.
“Thank you, sir.”
We spent the next hour reviewing the client ads and compared those with the others in each of the magazines. Surprisingly, he took on the demeanor of a teacher when explaining why my assumptions were either right or wrong. Then Pete went back to his old self when he commented on my writing style.
“If you’re going to make it in advertising learn to write memos in a business-like manner rather than as if it was a letter to your mother. Writing ad copy is different from memo writing, so go back and take a shot at rewriting the client ads we just discussed. Here are the creative strategies for each of them. I presume you learned about strategies when you were in account service last summer.”
“Yes, I did.”
He handed the material to me and said, “See you tomorrow; same time.” Pete turned to his old Underwood typewriter, rolled in a fresh piece of paper and began pounding on the keys to indicate I was dismissed.
The next day I received my first lesson in copywriting and continued to receive them for the remainder of my summer stint at the agency. Pete Erskine was a tough teacher and demanding boss but decidedly fair. I learned a great deal from him during those few weeks, all of which pushed me closer to pursuing a career as a copywriter.
My job at C/A ended two weeks before Labor Day and I headed for Ocean City, New Jersey looking forward to meeting lots of hot chicks. I had a few dates over the summer but nothing exciting, so this was going to be the highlight of my vacation before returning to Penn for my senior year. But first, I was going to make my mark on the Jersey Shore.
Jeff’s summer house was in a section known as the Gardens and that meant we had to drive over to one of the tourists’ beaches where the action was supposed to be. We par
ked my car near 14th and Central and hustled to find a spot to pitch our beach umbrella and open the lounge chairs. Soon we would be surrounded by Philly’s finest young ladies. At least, that was my expectation.
The beach filled up but mostly with families. My attempts to make contact with the fairer sex in the immediate area did not go well, so I kept moving to new locations around the beach.
“Why don’t you just cool it with that beach blanket hopscotch routine?” Jeff suggested.
“I doubt if the girls will be flocking to us, so I have to reach out to them.”
“The beach is for relaxing during the day. At night, the party crowd hangs out in Somers Point. We’ll go over there tonight. They’re pretty loose on carding over there, so a few brews and some real rock and roll will put everyone in the mood.”
“In the mood for what?”
“For whatever you want to do.”
By nine that evening, Jeff and I were on the other side of the causeway headed for the bash he promised me. After turning onto Bay Avenue we quickly came upon two huge nightclubs. Bay Shores was across the street from Tony Mart’s. The latter displayed on the marquee that Bill Haley and His Comets were appearing all week. I pulled into the parking lot and said, “Let’s go hear my kind of music.”
“No, let’s go get a couple of dime beers at Bay Shores and see what’s going on over there first,” Jeff said. “Then we’ll come back to Tony Mart’s for the show.”
It was obvious Jeff knew how to play the game. But he was not one for picking up the girls, and it was difficult to get something going without everyone playing along. I did not care that much, since I got to see Bill Haley in person that night at Tony Mart’s. We went back every night that week, but the place was so mobbed on the weekend, it was better to stay at Bay Shores and dance. The girls said yes to dancing but no when I suggested cutting out and going someplace else.
It did not take long to slip into the Jersey Shore way of living. Get up late, go to the beach, have dinner, walk the boards, and then go to Somers Point. The only variation was where we ate, because Jeff’s mother refused to cook when she was on vacation, so it was a different restaurant every night. Her favorites were Chris’s, Hogate’s, Flander’s Hotel and Watson’s. Our local clubbing routine was interrupted by a trip to Wildwood to check out the Philly bands and a jaunt up to Atlantic City to see the diving horse at Steel Pier and, of course, check out the strippers at the Globe Burlesque Theater.