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MY FIRST CONTACT WITH JACK came 23 years ago, when he called to ask if I would accept the editorship of our journal. I believe, with the urging of Nat Stockhamer, he had read my CV, which contained the irrelevant trivia that after the Second World War I had worked for a short time on a small-town newspaper, and had had some experience with industrial magazines, before I had gone back to school. I think it was Jack's focus on the practical, and his utter confidence in the real, that pushed him to propose my name to the Executive Committee of the Institute. It might have been delusive, but I suppose he thought I had some potential. Later, when it turned out that he too was a graduate of city-desk journalism, we showed our affinity and affection for each other whenever we found ourselves together.
Although it may be difficult to believe, I tended to be somewhat diffident in those days, and, soon after his call, at a meeting of some committee, I wondered aloud how I could include all the names of a newly proposed Publication Committee on the masthead of the Journal. Jack said, with characteristic, puzzle-solving directness, and aplomb, "Use smaller type!" From then on I was on my own, and I knew that Jack and I seemed to think similarly. Jack had one abiding question which was: Was it (anything) good for the Institute?
About this time, Jack asked me for some advice about the Newsletter, of which he had assumed editorship. On this project too, we became fast friends and colleagues. The Newsletter's staff met at least four times a year at Jack's home (it was a quarterly in those days), and, separately, so did Jack and I, to put the thing together. Jack