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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Oh Bill

Just googled and found Bill's twitter photo.
I've written HERE BEFORE about Bill Strugger, the charming prepster who was a couple years younger than me and a fellow editor on the Rutgers Daily Targum. He and his family live in nearby Maplewood, and tonight Bill & I met in Montclair for dinner at Egan's on Walnut Street.

Over Riesling and cottage pie [mine], beer on tap and devil's chicken [Bill's], we laughed and exchanged stories, snippets and updates on our Targum friends. We met near 7 and I was surprised when I checked the digital clock back in Dad's old car: 9:35. Time flies when you're looking back.

Bill went to prep school in Princeton; I loved how he dressed at Rutgers [his yellow slicker and rubber boots brightened rainy days]. We talked about our first Targum assignments--Bill's about a run-down sorority house on College Avenue, mine a thrilling recap of the freshman picnic @ Antilles Field on the Douglass College campus. We smiled about the fellow students, the characters we worked with--the grumpy ones, the polished ones [a couple of staffers even wore skirts, blazers and heels every day], the chain-smoking ones. And about how far we've come. Among our pool of friends: a Washington correspondent, a Wall Street Journal reporter, several attorneys, one mother of 8. With a master's from Columbia, Bill works in competitive analytics and has three children. 

It's nice to reconnect; like a dose of youth, maybe better than a pricy eye cream. It takes me back to a simpler time, a more sheltered time and let me admit, a thinner time--back to college. Who was I back then, anyway? Less of a tortured soul, that's for sure....still, I do remember talking to the cleaning lady, wonderful Hattie, for love advice when she wheeled her cart of mops and sprays into the Targum office at night...I wrote about Hattie HERE.

How lucky we were to land so many nice friends in that newsroom. To see Bill is to remember the camaraderie in that office full of busy manual typewriters.

There I was, a girl from Dumont with lots of girlfriends and very few guy friends, suddenly working day and night with a team of brilliant men and women. It was great. I would like to remember the confident young woman I was, to tap back into her strengths.

Oh, and btw, Bill is still best-dressed: suit with great crisp shirt, pocket square, cool glasses, hip shoes. Long live his style eye.

Good night.

TCOY
  1. Slept to catch up on deficit.
  2. Salon blowout.
  3. Bill paying.
  4. Calm thinking.
  5. Walked Sug around block once.
  6. Did not cancel my doctor's appt in NYC tomorrow--though wanted to.


4 comments:

  1. So nice seeing you last night!

    But yellow slicker, really? Is that poetic license on your part or do you truly remember me wearing a yellow slicker on rainy days. I have no recollection, but do remember the L.L. Bean duck boots. If true, my daughters are going to have quite the chuckle.

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  2. Hi Bill....hmmmmm....I definitely remember the boots and i could swear it was a yellow slicker. Maybe it was another color. But it was one of those slicker raincoats/jackets. Unless my old memory is playing tricks on me, and I think not. have a good day! alice

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  3. It's hard for people who aren't reporters to understand how much fun it is to work on a newspaper. Most of my Daily Orange friends and I still consider that our favorite job, ever.

    I laughed at your description of the girls wearing dressy clothes to come work at the paper. In my senior-year high school yearbook, on the day we had our pictures taken with our various activities, I am wearing a turquoise silk blouse, a straight black skirt, and heels. At 17! Figgy would probably laugh her head off. :)

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  4. Oh Eileen, the Daily Orange sounds awesome and you met Eric there, right? that must have been so much fun. And I LOVE the sound of the outfit you wore....very nice!!! love alice

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