It started with a phone interview …

I really didn’t want to write a story about how an Oregon entrepreneur automated shipping tariffs.  But International Thomson/Brandon’s Shipper & Forwarder thought an interview might dredge up info to help them decide whether  to invest in his company or not.  WMB insisted on read-backs (to be sure he wasn’t misquoted) and though they weren’t standard practice at Brandon’s, I reluctantly agreed.  Writing about computers was new territory for me, but WMB liked the story, and when he was visiting his NY office, we met near Tall Ships in the World Trade Center and got lost finding our way  to dinner.  Did I mention that we met on July 22, 1983,  and WMB proposed six weeks later?  That I couldn’t stop thinking about him and our telephone bills were gargantuan?   So –bursting with love, I sublet my apartment, quit my job, said good bye to my friends and Ray’s Pizza, and on January 1, 1984, said,  “I do.”  International Thomson never bought WMB’s company, we can’t find the story I wrote anywhere, but our love is where it always is.  And, if you go to the Magazine section of the Showcase,  and look for Brandon’s Shipper & Forwarder, you can see what columnist Jack Reagan wrote 28 years ago.