For retailers that sell a wide array of products and also have stores in a fairly large number of markets, advertising has long been both extremely valuable and very complicated. In the two and a half decades that TSI concentrated its work on the advertising departments of these retailers advertising was expensive. Newspapers in major markets charged over $100 per column-inch for ads, and the department stores and big-box retailers bought their ads1 by the page (126-132 column inches), not the column inch. Therefore, the advertising departments were charged by the management of these retailers with 1) negotiating the best rates possible, 2) using the mix of media that provided the most bang for the buck, and 3) designing and producing the ads that produced the most sales.
Most large retail advertising departments were divided into roughly the same areas with which we had become familiar at advertising agencies: media, production, and finance. The years that we had spent working with advertising agencies helped us understand some of their issues. However, the differences were many and complicated:
A primary difference was that retail advertising was event-based rather than campaign-based. Most retail events were the same from one one year to the next: Presidents Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc. The dates might change a little, but the approaches were usually similar.
Another fundamental difference was the calendar. Most retailers organized their finances and advertising using a 4-5-4 retail calendar2. The first month of the year was usually February. Most retailers divided the year into two “seasons”, spring and fall. Fall began in August.
The large organizations had a separate manager for each major media: newspapers, direct mail, and broadcast. A few also had a magazine manager. Inserts (the pull-out flyers in newspapers) were usually treated like direct mail in the production area, but were ordered by the newspaper area.
Newspapers were much more important for retailers than for other types of businesses, especially in the nineties when potential customers still started their day by reading the local newspaper.
Each retailer negotiated an annual contract with each paper. The contracts often provided significant discounts for the quantity (column-inches) or nature of the advertising. For example, one retailer got some of its full-page ads in one of its major papers free if it met established criteria for other ads! On the other hand, if a retailer ran too little advertising for the contract period, the penalties could be staggering.
Not all newspapers were the same dimensions. There were two basic sizes, tabloid and broadsheet, but the actual dimensions varied somewhat. Sometimes ads were just photo-reduced to fit, sometimes different versions were necessary.
Inserts were included in the contract, but the rules as to how they were counted varied.
Some ads (called “spreads”) covered two full pages and the marginal area in the middle (“the gutter”).
Merchandise suppliers often paid for part of the cost of ads that featured their products. This was called “co-op”.
Most large retailers needed to know the net (of co-op) cost of ads for each merchandise area. The bonuses for the merchandise managers depended upon their sales markups less net advertising expenses.
Many retailers with a large number of stores needed to know the net (of co-op) cost of ads for each store. This was tricky for markets that included multiple stores.
Many chains had more than one logo (name on the front of the store). They required different versions for production purposes.
A few chains had more than one financial entity. This was challenging.
The financial books absolutely had to be closed within a few days of the end of the month. In some cases, especially in the May Company divisions, a set of corporate reports in specified formats were required every month.
No agency that TSI had dealt with had a photo studio, but many of the retailers did.
The production area of most of these retailers borrowed merchandise from the selling departments. The merchandise was sent to a photo studio, either in the department or outside. After the shoot the merchandise needed to be returned or at least accounted for. A special area called the “loan room” or “merch room” managed this activity.
Most retailers did a high percentage of their business in the second half of November and December. Many of them froze their computer systems (no purchases, no upgrades, no testing) during this period, which might extend in either direction.
No law specified that every retailer must follow every tenet listed above. Every AdDept installation required some custom code.
The sales pitch: After only two or three installations I had felt comfortable talking with ad agency executives. They generally knew nothing about computers. For the most part they cared little about efficiency; we could almost never point to a position that could be eliminated. It was therefore difficult to persuade them that the computer would save them money. I generally focused on three things: 1) how careful record-keeping could help them locate which clients were unprofitable; 2) how the GrandAd media system would allow improved cash flow; and 3) how a computer system could help if they got a chance to win a big client. I called the last one of these the “reaching for the brass ring” argument.
These arguments did not translate well when we tried to persuade retail advertisers. Usually the retailer had already decided whether or not to get a system for reasons that we could not control. Something had happened that made the current method of handling the work no longer feasible. Macy’s acquisition of the Gimbles stores overwhelmed the system that the advertising department had been using. Hecht’s was in a similar situation after it acquired John Wanamaker. Belk desperately needed help when they consolidated five divisions into one in Charlotte.
Although this phrase is now popular, I had never heard it before I started using it in the ’90s.
Often I would not be acquainted with the circumstances that motivated the important players. I always emphasized the value of having one central set of data to which everyone could contribute and from which everyone could draw. I called this approach “one version of the truth” by which “everyone could benefit from the work done by others.” Everyone could appreciate these notions, but placing a dollar value on the idea of shared data was difficult. Fairly often I would find something in my talks with employees that was horrendously inefficient or even dangerous or illegal, but I could not count on it.
An equally difficult problem was trying to figure out which individual(s) needed to be convinced. In some cases the IT department might not even participate in the software search, but they may have veto power over the final decision. Finding out where the sale stood often required someone from TSI who was willing and able to spend a great deal of time communicating by mail and phone. This was something that I was definitely loathe to do. Fortunately, I found someone, Doug Pease, who was quite good at it. Much more about him is posted here.
One thing that we did not need to worry about was competition. No other software company was crazy enough to attempt to address this market. A few retailers tried to develop something in-house. They all ended up spending millions of dollars or giving up or both.
Difficulties after the installation: I disliked two things about dealing with advertising agencies as clients: 1) It was sometimes difficult to get them to pay their bills; 2) they tended to go out of business or merge with competitors without warning.
We had no problems with retailers paying their bills except when they declared bankruptcy. The first time that this happened I was totally unprepared. A few smaller clients later closed down entirely, but none of these events was catastrophic to TSI.
An equally vexing problem was when one chain of stores acquired another. If the other chain had no system, this usually worked in our favor. If they both used AdDept (TSI’s administrative system for large retail advertising departments described here), we lost one client, but the remaining one usually became more dependent on our support and services. They often also asked us to help with the transition as well.
In the end, however, most of our biggest clients were acquired by Macy’s. The advertising was all managed by one department in New York. That process spelled doom for AdDept because by the time that it happened, Macy’s no longer used AdDept.
One other trend usually produced a little work on the AdDept side, the outsourcing of newspaper buying. We were usually asked to design and implement interfaces with the company that bought the ads. Unfortunately, this same process had a dire effect on AxN, TSI’s method of delivering and managing insertion orders online. When Dick’s Sporting Goods announced in 2014 that it was outsourcing its buying of newspaper space, we decided to shut down TSI.
Decision-making: The ways that decisions were made in retail advertising departments differed fundamentally differed from the way that entrepreneurs like advertising agency executives did. If I could talk to one of the principals at the agency, I could explain why the GrandAd system could produce positive results that could affect 1) the agency’s bottom line, and 2) the agency’s reputation. The situation was totally different in the advertising departments of large retailers.
The department either had a budget for a system or it did not. These were two entirely different cases. If the department had a budget, it was probably because of some huge external factor involving a merger or a takeover. In that case, the eventual purchase was almost a foregone conclusion. The challenge was to fashion a proposal that was within the budget, but not by much.
If the department was not in that position, the process was completely different. The first step was to find a person who had enough authority to requisition funds. This was usually the advertising director. However, advertising directors seldom requested information from us. Our contacts were generally much lower on the totem pole, usually the manager of the business office in the advertising department. So, we would first need to convince our contact and then convince the advertising director either directly, if possible, or indirectly.
We then depended upon the advertising director to requisition the funds. We might not have any idea who would evaluate the request. Sometimes it was someone in corporate finance, sometimes it was someone in the IT department, and in the large organizations approval might be necessary by a holding company such as the May Company, Federated, or Tandy.
At this point it was important for us to recognize which was the case. I was poor at this part of the job, but Doug Pease was much better. If he could connect me with the right person, I could usually frame the arguments for him or her. If no money was available, of course, we probably would not get the sale anyway. During some periods retailers were all tightening their belts. In tough times nobody in retail considered any capital purchase that did not generate sales.
If the final decision needed approval from the holding company, it was extremely difficult for us to influence them directly. In some cases like the May Company and Tandy, it worked out amazingly well for us. TSI’s problems with Federated are documented in detail here.
I began to appreciate the complexity of the situation when one customer told me that “Christmas only comes once.” He meant that the department had a budget at that point, but it had to spend the entire amount in that fiscal year. After that they would be strapped for cash. In general, that was how things worked.
However, some advertising departments had figured out a way around this. They charged the merchandise managers more than the ads cost. I do not know how they accounted for the difference, but they were sometimes had accumulated enough money in this fashion to circumvent the decision-makers in finance and IT. I know for a fact that the AdDept system was financed this way in a couple of cases.
The finance people generally were not upset when they found out about the unauthorized purchase. It was usually easy to determine that AdDept reducee administrative costs fairly rapidly. The IT department, however, might be more upset, especially if the AS/400 was not on their list of approved hardware systems.
Ancillary expenses: For entrepreneurs like ad agencies all expenses came out of the same checking account. The retail advertising departments had a different perspective. Sales tax and travel expenses probably did not hit the advertising department’s line on the income statement. No one ever complained about either type of billing, and they were always paid promptly.
However, the company may have had some rules about travel expenses. I was once grilled about flying first class for a training session. I had to provide proof that I purchased an economy fare and was upgraded by the airline. Some retailers insisted that I stay at a hotel at which they had a special rate. This was usually folly on their part. I liked to stay at Hampton Inns because of the free breakfast and the Hilton Honors points. Hampton’s rates were almost always lower than the “special rate” of the designated hotel.
1. Display ads in newspapers are always called ROP. It is not an acronym; the three letters, which stand for “run of press”, are always pronounced individually.
2. Every week starts with a Sunday. Every month has four or five weeks (twenty-eight or thirty-five days). The purpose of this arrangement and many examples are provided here.
She knows there’s no success like failure, and failure is no success at all.—Bob Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” Continue reading →
In the early years of the marketing of TSI’s GrandAd system for advertising agencies I distinctly remember being disappointed that the second installation (at Potter Hazlehurst) was even more difficult than the first. This tendency was definitely repeated with the system for retail advertising departments, AdDept (design described here). The second installation, which was began in the spring of 1990, was much more problematic than the first.
I had never heard of P.A. Bergner & Co. I now know that the chain’s original store was in Peoria, IL. After it acquired the Boston Store chain in 1985, the company moved its headquarters to the upper floors of the Boston Store in downtown Milwaukee. In 1989 the company also acquired the Carson Pirie Scott stores. The corporate management of all of these stores, including all aspects of advertising, was handled in Milwaukee.
I was not yet familiar enough with the nature and history of American department stores to understand the importance of the timing of that last acquisition. Bergner’s advertising department was presumably given a budget to acquire a computer system to enable it to handle the absorption of the Carson’s stores. The money probably had to be spent in 1990. Any portion that was not spent vanished. Little or nothing for future years was budgeted. I came to understand these things later. I wish that the situation had been spelled out to me.
Moreover, Sue and I continually tried to portray TSI as a strong stable organization that was especially good at big projects. That was true a few years later, but in 1990 the company consisted of:
Me,
Sue Comparetto (who basically wrote checks, closed the books, and did presidential stuff),
Sandy Sant’Angelo, who could do simple programming, of which there was still quite a lot,
Kate Behart, who helped with marketing and served as day-to-day contact with some clients,
Denise Bessette, who worked only part time, all of which was devoted to projects for Macy’s East,
One or two administrative people.
The only way that the whole Bergner’s project could be implemented on time was for me to do almost all the programming work myself. The closest that I came to admitting this to Bergner’s was when I told them that Sue was terrible about time. Anything with a deadline had to come through me. Dan Stroman was quite taken aback when I said this. I was also pretty shocked when I had discovered this, but there was no sense in denying it.
Maybe I should try to grow a big white mustache.
Several IBM reps were involved in the sale of the AS/400 for the AdDept system to Bergner’s. The one whom I remember best was Sue Mueller. One of our last meetings took place shortly after the trip that Sue Comparetto and I took to England (described here). Sue brought to Milwaukee a copy of the magazine. When Sue Mueller saw my picture on the cover, she literally did not believe that it was a photo of me.
My recollection is that IBM sold Bergner’s a model B30 of the AS/400, the same machine that Macy’s was using. I think that it also had the faxing software and the modem that it required, and it definitely included OfficeVision/400, the word processing software.
Our primary contract person at Bergner’s during the negotiations was Dan Stroman1, who was either the advertising director or the production manager. He arranged for me to meet with the individual managers—production, ROP, direct mail, and business office. Either I did not do a very good job of collecting the requirements from them, or they did not do a good job of describing what they needed.
We tried to emphasize to Dan the importance of having one person designated as the liaison between TSI and the users. At first he wanted the liaison to be a person from the IT department. However, everyone agreed that the person whom the IT department assigned to the project, Kee-Huat Chua, would never have worked for many reasons. So, the job was given to Sheree Marlow Wicklund2, who at the time was the manager of the merchandise loan room.
I don’t think that in 1990 TSI yet owned the tools to produce detailed design documents. If we did, we certainly did not use them for that purpose in this installation. I merely described in the proposal what we planned to do.
The project was focused on quite a few things that required significant design changes.
Bergner’s stores had four or five logos (the name on the store’s signs). So, a table for logos had to be created, and separate versions of each ad were needed for each version of an ad.
On some pages of some direct mail catalogs and newspaper inserts the merchandise varied by market. That is, one “block” on a page might show items from one department in one market and different ones in others. Bergner’s called these “swing pages”. Providing a way to handle them meant, among other things, that the entire approach to measuring books needed to be rethought.
Bergner’s wanted to use the system to “traffic” production jobs. We proposed to do this by defining lists of steps, which we called “production schedules” and “timetables”—date relationships to the release date (the date that the materials were delivered to the printer or the newspaper). This approach worked well for setting up the original schedule, but the traffic coordinators did not like to use it, and I never did figure out how we could make it more useful for them. Sheree was certainly of little help.
Macy’s newspaper coordinators ordered their space reservations by phone. Joyce Nelson3, the newspaper manager at Bergner’s, sent a schedule to each paper once per week with all the ads, positioning requests, and other notes for every ad to be run in that paper over the next week. She wanted the system to fax them all. I was very happy to add this feature.
Bergner’s employees wanted to be able to record comments in many places. These requests were often difficult to accommodate. I devised a trick to handle some of them. IBM’s office-vision software had the ability to run programs within documents and to display the output sent to an output queue within the document instead! The parameters for the program could even be included in the document. So, a form letter could be created for sending detailed information about an ad to a group of people. The text surrounding the report could be changed every time. I especially liked this approach because I was fairly certain that it could not be replicated on any other system.
I was signed on to our B10 all day every day.
By the time that the software was delivered, TSI had a small AS/400 in its office, and we quickly established peer-to-peer communication with Bergner’s system. This allowed us to sign on to their system from TSI’s office and to send programs directly from our AS/400 to theirs over the phone lines. I worked all day on programs in TSI’s office and installed the ones that I deemed to be working early in the morning. This was feasible because our office was an hour ahead of theirs.
I communicated with Sheree via the AS/400’s messaging system, which supported both plain text and word processing documents. Kate communicated with Sheree by telephone. I expected Sheree to interact with the users and managers personally. Instead they had weekly meetings that all the managers attended. They appear to have been mostly gripe sessions. Sheree took notes and sent me a list of the issues reported. She did not send one document per area; all areas were included on one document.
I liked the idea that we received a written record of the issues, but my responses expressed my exasperation at some of them. Often users were still complaining about things that I was positive had been fixed. In other cases they had changed their minds about decisions that they had previously made and we had implemented. I responded to all of the issues that Sheree had sent in one document. I did not anticipate that Sheree would share all of my responses with all of the managers. I guess that I should have anticipated that possibility, but I had not worked at a large company for seventeen years, and the meetings at Macy’s were usually limited to one area at a time.
At any rate, I ended up on several shit lists because I responded negatively in print to some managers’ comments, and all of the other managers got to read. It never occurred to Sheree that if I had wanted everyone to read my answers, I could easily have sent the document with the responses to each of them.
More than a scribe.
Privately I was outraged that Sheree had violated what I considered to be a special relationship between the developer and the liaison. I expected her to be a strong advocate for the system when working with the users and an equally strong advocate for the users when speaking with us. She evidently considered herself more of a project manager whose responsibility was to organize and keep everyone informed. She did this. However, for such a complex system with such a compressed timeline, this was just not enough.
I talked with Dan about the situation, and I pleaded for a different liaison. He said that it was out of his hands. Ouch.
The installation at Bergner’s should have been a great success story. Some of the areas—notably the newspaper and loan room areas—were working very well in record time. The other areas proceeded much more slowly. I felt extremely frustrated by the incredibly inefficient process upon which Bergner’s insisted.
Bergner’s put the X back in Xmas.
Nevertheless, by the time of my visit in December of 1990 the ill will had dissipated to the point that they invited me to the department’s Christmas party. I could hardly believe it. A live band was playing. There was a mosh pit! The young people who worked in the creative and production areas were going crazy. The old fogeys with whom I dealt were much more subdued.
That evening Joyce Nelson asked me to give her a demonstration of my technique of throwing playing cards. She produced a deck of bridge cards, which are not as easy to throw as poker cards. However, I was sure that I could spin one at least twenty yards. Unfortunately, the ceiling was too low. To get a card to go a long way, its flight must describe a loop. I could not possibly throw a card at high velocity without it crashing into the ceiling or floor after a few yards. I had to demur, and I never got another chance to display my prowess.
Not for jugglers.
I located in our basement a few pages of memos written by me or Sheree about the installation. Kate had written notes in the margins. At a distance of thirty years (!) I could not understand the details of what was being discussed, but it was evident that I was trying to juggle a large number of balls at once. However, the use of the test system and the attitude of some managers made it seem like the balls were all coated with fly paper.
At some point in 1991 Bergner’s agreed that we had met the terms of the contract, which, by the way, was TSI’s simple version with only a few amendments. They made the last payment and also indicated that they also wanted to prepay TSI’s software maintenance for, I think it was, a year. They asked us to send them an invoice for this, but they wanted the description to be something like “Miscellaneous programming projects”.
The proverbial wolf was at TSI’s door again, and we had never turned down a check. So we did what they asked.
Bergner’s also approved quite a few enhancements that TSI had quoted. These projects were not covered by the original contract. So, I was still very busy with writing and installing all of the new code.
We used part of the money to hire Tom Moran to help with marketing. His role at TSI is discussed here. Perhaps I should have hired a programmer instead. I was more confident in my ability to produce an abundance of good code than my skill at closing sales. Also, I could not afford to devote the time necessary to train a programmer.
Bankruptcy: By August of 1991 Bergner’s had not sent TSI any checks in several months. We learned that the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. My recollection is that they owed us more than $10,000. We had no experience with this; none of our previous clients had ever done this.
Our first experience.
Dan told me on the phone that Bergner’s would not be allowed to pay any invoice that was received prior to the default date and was still open. I realized immediately that they must have suspected that this was coming. That “miscellaneous” check was done that way so that we would be obliged to provide support for programming projects that they never paid for.
Maybe no letter?
I wrote them a letter that said that we intended to apply the money from the miscellaneous check to the projects that we had delivered but they had not paid for, and we would begin to bill them for software maintenance. The Senior VP of advertising, Ed Carroll3, was furious at me personally. Dan Stroman called me about the situation. He said that I didn’t know who our friends were.4 Well, he might have been a friend, but I don’t think that many people at Bergner’s qualified for that distinction. I told him that our legal advisers (Me, Myself, and I) said that money given on deposit like that could be applied to open invoices. Dan did not respond to that. Instead, he asked if he wanted us to continue as a customer. I told him that I wanted them to become a paying customer.
I don’t remember the details of the rest of this episode. We continued to support the users at Bergner’s. They asked for a few more projects. We felt compelled to bill them at higher rates to try to make up for the money that we had lost.
I learned later that much of the retail advertising community considered Ed Carroll a sleazeball. What his advertising department did with that invoice was probably illegal or at least against company policy. He resented that what I proposed would make him look bad.
Test Environment: I found a letter dated May 13, 1992 that Kee-Huat Chua sent to TSI. It began with these two sentence fragments.
As you are aware of PAB’s intention to set up separate program environments for the AS/400 system. What it entails: one environment for intensive testing by users and one environment for developer/programmer to perform units [sic] test on the program module(s).
It then describes electronic forms that we needed to fill out before we made changes to the system. After we sent the form to him, he would copy the entire production library and the entire data library to the test environment. When this would happen is not designated in the letter. It could not be done if anyone was using the system. So, presumably it would be done at night.
After the libraries were duplicated, we would be allowed to sign on and implement the changes. We were also supposed to test them and send him a memo documenting that we tested them.
I guess that the users would then test them, but the letter does not mention it. It also does not mention how the changes will get into the production environment.
However, it does emphasize (in bold print, capital letters, and underlines), “NO COMPILING OF PROGRAMS ALLOWED DURING OFFICE HOURS UNLESS UNDER SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES; when making program modification.” Those special circumstances are not described.
Kee also included a list or reasons why this approach would be good for “TSI/Programmer:”
– To better perform & concentrate on their development. – Less interruption and delay for development tasks. – Secure production application: AdDept.
Although I considered this additional requirement a breach of our contract, I did not feel that I could refuse outright. I was sure that no matter what the missing details were, it would slow down our delivery of projects that they had requested by 50 percent or more. It also pretty much excluded them from ever getting new releases of our software.
This time Dan called me. I told him that we could have done it using test libraries from the beginning, but the project would have been hopelessly behind schedule if we had. He replied that he thought that that was what I would say.
I didn’t say this to Dan, but I also knew that this approach guaranteed that we would be doing a lot of extra work for which we would not be compensated. I cannot imagine who would really benefit from this. The alleged benefits for Bergner’s were equally bogus:
– To stabilize the “live”/production system both in the short run and the long run. – To adhere with PAB’s standard of implementing computer systems established by Management Information Systems – To encourage more users involvement with the implementation of the application.
I was mostly thankful that they did not come up with the idea of inserting this guy from the IT department between us and their system while we were still working on the base system specified in the contract.
I made lots of mistakes, but I also fixed problems very rapidly.
This was a good example of why it always took IT departments ages to develop and install new software and why so many companies ended up outsourcing the IT department itself. My shoot-from-the-hip approach admittedly required some pain and frustration for a short period of time. However, it had worked extremely well in the ad agency environment, and it would also eventually prove effective in many other retail advertising departments.
If only it were that easy.
Documentation and Ease of Use: Macy’s East’s long and involved contract did not require TSI to provide written documentation of how the programs worked. Although they demanded a commission for any AdDept systems sold in the first year after it was signed, they considered the whole project a custom job.
I no longer possess a copy of our contract with Bergner’s, and so I cannot check on whether it specified anything about documentation or not. I doubt it. Producing a user’s handbook that covered every eventuality of every aspect of the system would have been an overwhelming undertaking that got worse with every program change or new module. Instead, I made a conscientious effort to try to make the system fairly easy to use.
The layout of all of the screens was consistent.
The top three lines of data entry screens described the purpose. The screen number was in the upper right corner.
If a new item was being created, the word “New” was also in the upper right corner, and it blinked.
If the item already existed, the user ID, date, and time of the creation and last change were displayed.
All binary fields required the entry of Y or N. The 5250 standards used by all of the terminals and PC’s did not support check boxes.
The options for all fields that would have had radio buttons on a GUI (graphical user interface)5 were listed on the screen.
Two function keys were available at all fields that were verified against the database. F2 produced a detailed description of the field. F4 called a program that allowed the user to list and from the existing entries. Exiting these programs returned the user to the original screen with the cursor position maintained.
All dates were entered in the form MMDDYY.
All fields were verified when the Enter key was pressed. Any entries that were not valid were highlighted, and the cursor was positioned there.
The format for all reports was as consistent as possible. The report number was almost always in the upper right corner.
A list of the names of the most important tables and their key fields was provided for querying purposes. The names of the fields was consistent from table to table.
The biggest gripes were the lack of a user handbook and that the system was not “intuitive”. I considered trying to write a handbook, but I could not figure out a way to do it. Furthermore, I could not even start on it until all the programming required in the contract had been completed.
In all honest, I have never seen a system that was intuitive. The text-based user interface, which the only thing IBM provided at the time, probably seemed difficult to people who had never learned the keyboard.
I thought of a few ways to provide better documentation later, and we provided them to both new and existing clients. By then, however, Bergner’s had decided to try to find a different system.
Camex Interface: We were not the only software developers who felt Bergner’s wrath. When the AdDept installation began, Bergner’s produced its ads using Camex software on very expensive workstations from Sun Microsystems. Macy’s East did, too. Both of them wanted Camex to work with us for a two-way interface between the two systems. The story of how this project never got off the ground is recounted here.
Epilogue: The story of the installation has at least four epilogues:
I think that after the bankruptcy brouhaha Bergner’s hired Gary Beberman, who had done a fantastic job as our liaison at Macy’s East, to help them. He called me about it. I told him that they had a good system installed, but we did not get along with some of the people there. I told him about the restrictive process that IT had set up for me to use. He was sympathetic, but he had no advice about how to turn around. He also warned me not to use Bergner’s as a reference account.
Bergner’s advertising department tried unsuccessfully to replace AdDept for years, maybe even decades. I went back there for something some time in (I think) 1992. Joyce told me that they now had two systems, a pretty one and an ugly one. She said that she preferred the ugly one that worked.
Bergner’s emerged from bankruptcy in 1993. They paid us pennies on the dollar. In 1998 the company, then known as Carson’s, was acquired by Proffitt’s Inc., which later became Saks Inc. All of the other Saks Inc. divisions used AdDept. Carson’s was merged with Younkers and Herberger’s, which both had successfully used AdDept. The resulting entity was called the “northern division”. Saks Inc. sold the division to the Bon-Ton in 2005, which closed down all 267 stores in 2018. During that entire disastrous sequence of events Ed Carroll ran the advertising department in Bergner’s. Carson’s, the northern division of Saks Inc., and the entire Bon-Ton.
Some time early in the 2000’s I unexpectedly ran into Ed and Sheree (?!) at Saks Inc. in Birmingham, AL. Steve VeZain, who was in charge of the corporate marketing group, had asked me to come there for some other reason. Sheree was cordial to me, but when Ed saw me he barked, “What are you doing here?” More about this event is documented here. I never saw Dan Stroman again. I have no idea what happened to him.
Miscellaneous: Here are a few things that I remember about the installation:
Lovable Bucky?
Dan and his wife had Sue and me over for supper on evening. She was a big University of Wisconsin fan. I remember her saying “How could you not love Bucky Badger?” I thought that Bucky Badger was ridiculous then. I have subsequently learned to hate him. The Stromans’ house was on a large pond. Dan had a boat. I don’t know why, but he revealed to me that he had had a vasectomy.
Bergner’s insisted that I stay at the Mark Plaza Hotel when I was in Milwaukee. It had a doorman. He held the door for me even though I always had a free hand. I guess that that was his job, but it annoyed me. I have always hated it when people offered an unsolicited service and then expected a tip.
One evening I tried to get some work done in TSI’s office, where I had “passed through” to Bergner’s system. After a while I became too drowsy to be productive. So, I intended to end my remote session. Unfortunately I keyed in PWRDWNSYS on a command line rather than ENDPASTHR. I accidentally shut down their system! I had to call the IT support line in Milwaukee and talk someone through starting it up again from the system console.
The German food in Milwaukee was unbeatable.
One day Dan Stroman, a guy from production whose name I don’t remember, and I went to lunch at a Thai place. I didn’t think much of it.
I had fun jogging down by Lake Michigan in the evenings.
Failure: This entry has made me think about the nature of failure.
For about thirty-five years I designed, wrote, implemented, documented, and supported software systems. In the fifteen-year period that we actively marketed AdDept, we had thirty-five installations. Of all of those, the only one that I would characterize as a failure was the one at P.A. Bergner & Co.
I probably made mistakes. I tried to work on everything at once. I wanted to provide each stakeholder in the department with something to show that we were making progress.
Perhaps I should have insisted on doing one media at a time. Would Bergner’s have accepted that strategy? Who can say? They put a lot of pressure on us to get the entire project delivered. They seemed to have underestimated how much new programming they wanted. I am certain that I never said that we had already written software that was not actually working, but we were definitely trying to be optimistic. We desperately wanted the job. Maybe some statements that we made got misinterpreted.
I often took the “one area at a time” approach in other installations. We usually started with ROP and quickly achieved successful faxing of insertion orders and printing of schedules. That served as a confidence booster. If we had achieved important objectives quickly, perhaps no one would have suggested that wretched test environment. That approach would probably have also eliminated the weekly committee meetings. If my reports had been to one manager at a time, I would have been more careful in my comments.
In some future installations I designed one-time programs to help with the initial loading of tables by reading in user-supplied spreadsheet files. It did not occur to me to try this at Bergner’s, and no one suggested it. I am not sure that they actually had any files that I could have used.
I learned my lesson. In all subsequent AdDept presentations, I emphasized what I called “our dirty little secret”, to whit, the biggest factor in determining the success of an installation was the person who acted as liaison. I also took pains to specify what precisely the liaison’s responsibility and traits should be.
I also recognized that I should never have put in writing anything even slightly derogatory about a third party. Thereafter I always assumed that everyone would read every word that I wrote.
I learned one other lesson from this experience. I needed to investigate prospective clients more closely. From then on I asked prospective clients why they had decided to pursue automation of their advertising department at this point in time.
I can’t be too hard on myself, however. I don’t know of anyone else who managed to automate two advertising departments of large retailers. Over the years I installed thirty-five AdDept systems.
1. I never saw Dan Stroman again. I have no idea what happened to him. I suspect that he must fallen out of Ed’s favor. He may have been blamed for selecting TSI to design and implement the administrative system and for the collapse of the Camex interface project.
2. Sheree (pronounced like Sherry) Wicklund now goes by Sheree Marlow. Her LinkedIn page is here.
Ed
Joyce
3. Joyce Nelson worked for the company until 2004. Her LinkedIn page is here.
4. Ed Carroll, one of the very few people in my life who really hated me, died in 2016. His obituary is here.
5. IBM did not provide OS/400 with a real GUI until more than a decade later, and even then what they suggested was slow, resource-intensive, and lame compared to what people were accustomed to on PC’s and Macs. TSI’s screens maintained the same format throughout the history of the company because we never found a way to convert the hundreds of screens that we had to produce something that was reasonably attractive. The approach that came closest was to write everything over in a language that used CGI for HTML files. That was how AxN worked.
It would have been folly to do so, but I certainly wish that I had kept my notes from our second Manhattan adventure. In a strange way it was an important milestone for TSI, but my recollection of the details are now very spotty, and the only aspect that I could verify from research on the Internet was that the year was almost certainly 1990. It may have actually begun in late 1989. Sue remembers nothing about this whole escapade.
In 1989 Gulf and Western changed its name to Paramount Communications, Inc.
The prospect was Paramount Communications Incorporated, which was based in New York City. I am not sure how the people conducting the software search heard about TSI. The Manhattan IBM office with which we sometimes dealt may have recommended us. We had a pretty good relationship with them. If the word “advertising” was mentioned in a conversation, they probably would have thought of TSI.
Of course, Sue and I had heard of Paramount studios. We had both seen the company’s logo on lots of movies. I am not sure whether we were contacted by phone or by a letter. In any case, we had only one face-to-face meeting in New York City with the person who was looking for a company to develop a system for them. She sent us a Request for Proposal (RFP) with fairly detailed specifications.
I generally hated RFP’s because they seldom allowed us to emphasize what we did best—come up with imaginative solutions to database problems that were difficult to implement. Instead they were designed to be easy to score and to prevent the vendor from distracting attention away from the most important issues. Each vendor’s answers were awarded numerical values. The software companies with the highest scores were asked to write up a detailed proposal, perhaps after an interview.
Madison Square Garden is actually close to round.
We were learned that Paramount owned a set of radio and television stations and some small cable networks. It needed a system to manage the advertising on these outlets. Of course, it also owned production companies as well as other things such as Madison Square Garden and its two permanent residents, the Knicks and Rangers. So, in some cases Paramount owned both ends of the transaction. This complicated matters, but we always liked complications. If nothing else, this helped explain why the company did not just use a software package designed for broadcast stations. Surely by 1990 there must have been some.
The RFP had set of a dozen or so numbered areas that required (or at least allowed) fairly extensive explanations.It also contained something that I had never seen before. At the end or perhaps in the cover letter it indicated that the submission should “be indexed” according to the required areas.
The proposal that I wrote was organized so as to emphasize our company’s strengths, namely our ability to deliver very large projects on time, our willingness to write custom code, and our strong relationship with IBM. I also sang the praises of the AS/4002. Needless to say, I did not emphasize TSI’s lack of experience in scheduling advertising from the media outlet’s perspective. In point of fact, I was convinced that we would be writing most of this code from scratch. At the end I included an index that listed the page number for the answer to each numbered area.
Individual 1 purchase the G+W building and made it a hotel.
A few weeks after we mailed the response to the RFP we were invited to come to New York to discuss the document. The company’s office was in the Gulf and Western Building at 1 Central Park West on Columbus Circle. Sue and I took Amtrak to the city and then the subway to Columbus Circle. Columbus Circle was thrilling. Neither of us had ever been there before; ascending from the subway elicited a “Wow!” from both of us. We had never seen a section of Manhattan that was not rectangular!
The meeting was less inspiring. I distinctly remember two aspects of it:
The lady conducting the search (whose name I don’t recall) seemed annoyed that I had not organized our responses in the same order as the numbered areas. I explained that the RFP had not specified an order for presenting the responses. It said that they should be indexed, which is exactly what I did. She paused for a few seconds with an icy look on her face. She then asked my why I had organized it the way that I did. I told her that I was simply trying to make a case. The rest of the meeting went a little better. I don’t think that she had realized that the RFP had used the word “indexed” instead of “ordered”.
She provided us with a little more information about the project, including the news that they favored a UNIX-based solution. The only other thing that I specifically remember came from Sue, who at one point remarked, “I am not sure that we even want this job.” I am not sure how this struck the lady making the decision, but it certainly shocked me. For the first time in the decade that we had been working together Sue and I apparently did not agree on the direction in which TSI should be heading.
Frankly I was not certain that it would be a good idea to undertake this project. In point of fact the situation at Paramount changed dramatically only a few years after our meeting. The whole company was purchased and then split in two with all the media outlets going to an independent company. If we had committed to a large investment in time and resources for Paramount’s project, we probably would have found ourselves out of luck at that point. As it was, we devoted the time and effort to the AdDept system3. At just about the same time that Paramount was acquired and then split up, the marketing of AdDept was really gaining traction.
If we somehow survived that crisis, we would have had to learn how to deal with show business people. Can you imagine?
In any case, I never begrudged Sue the right to her judgment. I wished, however, that she had told me about her misgivings earlier and in private.
We did not get the Paramount job, but we had one more memorable meeting about it. It was a flea on the world’s greatest (true) shaggy dog story, which is recounted here.
1. Prior to 1989 the parent company was known as Gulf and Western. In 1994 Viacom acquired a controlling interest in it. When that company split into two entities, Viacom and CBS, most of the stations went to CBS, and the film studio went to Viacom. Some other properties were sold. Wikipedia’s account of this period is here.
2. Much more about the hardware and operating system that were the focus of TSI’s activities from 1988 until the company closed in 2014 can be found here.
3. The design of the AdDept system is explicated here.
If I had read TheInnocents Abroad, I might have brought a notebook on the trip to London. I definitely brought at least one to Milwaukee.
In December of 1989 I had won a story contest (described here) held by the Hartford Courant. The prize was a two-week trip for two to England!
I should mention at the outset that neither Sue nor I took any notes on the trip to England. I think that Sue must have brought her camera, but I have not located any of her photos. I definitely took no photos. So, all of the following content was based on our memories, and the photos that are include, with the sole exceptions of the tattered notebook on the right, the shot of Rocky perched on the toilet, and our souvenir coaster, were all taken by others.
I might have made a mistake in the dates, but the schedule worked out so perfectly that my confidence level is rather high, especially considering that the events happened more than thirty-one years ago.
My preparation for my first trip across the Atlantic was, by necessity, greatly inferior to my efforts for our twenty-first century vacations. Research was much more difficult in 1990. The Internet sort of existed, but there was no Google or Wikipedia. We had Cox cable in our house, but Cox did not offer Internet services until the last half of the nineties. Even AOL dial-up was still three years in the future.
Moreover, I had no time to research. The installation of TSI’s AdDept system at Macy’s in New York was entering phase two (as described here), and, at the same time, we were desperate to sign up a second large retailer to use the system that we had worked so hard to develop for Macy’s. TSI was in a rough spot. We no longer had a dedicated marketing person, and we were also quite short on cash.
The Enfield Public Library.
We obtained a guidebook somehow, probably from the library. Sue and I decided that we wanted to see as many famous sights as possible, but, despite what I had said to Lary Bloom at the Courant, on the way we would also try to investigate some places that were related to the Arthurian legends.
Sue worked with the Jameson Travel people that the Courant had hired to handle the details of trip. The newspaper provided enough money to cover all transportation costs (including auto rental) and lodging. We had to pay for food and anything else that we wanted. Our basic plan was to eat big breakfasts at the hotels and either lunch or supper at a restaurant. The other meal would be snacks that we picked up at whatever store we chanced upon.
We had a pretty good plan with four bases of operation:
London for three nights. Starting with our arrival early in the morning on Thursday, February 22, 1990, and ending with a car rental on Sunday the 25th.
Wells for three nights with side trips to Glastonbury Tor, Stonehenge, Wookey Hole, and Cadbury Castle. We drove through, or at least very near to, Bath (BAHTH) on the way.
Plymouth for two nights with a side trip to Tintagel (tin TAH gehl) and a stop in Bristol on the way to York to enable Sue to shop for miniatures on her thirty-ninth birthday.
York for three nights with a drive through the Dales and, on the return trip to London, a short stop in Barnsley so that Sue could see Locke Park as well as an afternoon stop in Warwick Castle.
Back to London for two nights. Since we gained five hours flying west, we would arrive in Boston at lunch time or even earlier.
The story of my trip actually begins on a February flight from Bradley not to London but to Chicago. It was an early morning United flight on Monday the 19th. For some reason most of my airplane horror stories have involved flights on United airlines. The one to Chicago, however, was quite uneventful.
One IBM Plaza.
From O’Hare I took a cab into town for a meeting at One IBM Plaza with some IBM sales reps who specialized in the retail sector. Some really big retailers had headquarters in Chicago. Sears and Walgreens came to mind. Marshall Fields still had its headquarters in Chicago at that point, too. I tried to explain AdDept to them, but they had trouble understanding it. I am not sure that they even realized that retailers had advertising departments.
From IBM regional headquarters I took a cab to the train station, where I bought a ticket on the next Amtrak train to Milwaukee. The schedule said that it was a ninety-minute journey. Unbeknownst to me, this train happened to be the famous Empire Builder, which went from Chicago all the way to Seattle and Portland. Union Station in Milwaukee was its first stop.
When I boarded my car, it was rather empty. I found a seat by a window, lifted my suitcase up to the overhead rack, and sat down to read.
To my surprise, a man who may have been in his sixties approached me and asked if he could sit next to me. Here was my chance. All that I had to do was to utter the word “No.” I, however, chose politeness. This would be a better story if I had introduced myself and asked the gentleman his name, but I was not that polite.
I didn’t say that it was an express train.
My unexpected companion explained that he and his wife were traveling together to Oakland, CA, to visit their daughter. They liked to take trains, but on long trips like this one they soon tired of each other’s company. So, they each sought out other people to sit with and engage in conversation.
The gentleman was certainly friendly. He asked me where I was getting off and, after I responded, what I was going to do in Milwaukee. Nobody could explain TSI’s unique business in just a few minutes, and my activities that day would seem confusing to anyone. I did my best, and he listened politely.
The cars were a little sleeker, but this was still the Milwaukee Amtrak Station in 1990.
Then, without being asked, he told me that he was from a small town south of Chicago. He may have also worked the price of corn into the conversation at some point as I glanced longingly at the mystery novel balanced on my lap.
Somehow the topic worked its way around to his daughter’s marital status, which was evidently “divorced”. She had moved to the west coast and was living by herself “because, you see, he turned out to be one of them gay fellows.”
Fortunately, this revelation came just as the train was pulling into Milwaukee’s Union Station. Some other passenger would undoubtedly get to hear the rest of the story. Actually, probably several unsuspecting people would be subjected to it. In the cab from the station to my first appointment it occurred to me that the idea of sitting with strangers on the train was probably the wife’s.
My destination in Milwaukee was the office of an ad agency, the name of which I don’t remember. I met there with some people to discuss the possibility of the agency purchasing an AS/400 and running ADB, the version of TSI’s ad agency system designed for that computer, on it. The employees at the agency treated me very nicely and seemed quite interested in what the system had to offer.
The Mark Plaza is now a Hilton.
At the close of the business day I took another cab to the Mark Plaza Hotel in downtown Milwaukee, which was within walking distance of the Boston Store. P.A. Bergner and Company owned that store and a large number of other department stores in the north-central states. The advertising department for the entire chain was located on one of the top floors of the store.
Before going to bed I called Sue and told her about the two meetings as well as my encounter with the long-distance rail traveler.
At Bergner’s I met with the production manager, Dan Stroman, and the loan room manager, Sheree Marlow Wicklund. Their loan room was much simpler than Macy’s. The merchandise seldom was sent to outside photo studios. One person could really run it without a computer.
We had not written a system for keeping track (called “trafficking”) of the status of the various aspects (copy, layout, art, photography, etc.) of production jobs yet. So, what Dan was interested in was a new area for me. I also met with the finance and newspaper people. More details are here.
In 1990 a small restaurant in the Milwaukee Airport sold these delicious brats.
After an entire day gathering system requirements, I left with a lot of notes in my spiral notebook, a folder full of sample reports, and my suitcase. I took a cab to the airport. I bought two Usinger’s brats for supper, spent a few minutes in the airport’s used book store, which, as I recall, had a set of Goethe’s complete works that was short a couple of volumes.
Nobody made this drive in an hour in the evening on February 13, 1990.
It was snowing lightly when I boarded the plane. My journey home went through Chicago. That first leg was always so short that the seat belt light was never turned off.
We had barely taken off when the pilot announced on the intercom that O’Hare Airport had just closed because of an ice storm. So, the plane was being diverted to the nearest available airport, General Mitchell International Airport, the same one from which we had just departed.
When we had landed, an agent proudly informed us that United had hired buses to transport all the passengers to O’Hare. So, evidently the airport itself was still open, even if all of the runways were closed. I was a little fearful of a bus ride in a storm that was ferocious enough to frighten the airport that was a hub for two of the nation’s largest carriers, but I really needed to get back to Enfield to attend a meeting scheduled for the next day.
The rest of the trip went as smoothly as could be expected. The bus that I was on made it to O’Hare. I had to wait in line to speak with a United agent, but I was then booked on a flight to Hartford that was scheduled to depart early the next morning.
Since the cancellation was due to the airport’s decision, United did not offer to put me up at a hotel. I had no credit cards and too little cash remaining from all of those cab rides to pay for a room on my own. So, I snatched as much sleep as I could in one of the seats that were specifically designed to prevent people from nodding off and missing their flights. I had a lot of company.
For the next two decades I was a regular at Executive Valet Parking.
The flight the next morning left on time and arrived in Hartford on time. I took the shuttle to the airport parking lot, ransomed my car, and then drove back to Enfield.
I arrived at our house a little before noon. I called the office and told them that I would take a shower, grab an hour or so of sleep, eat lunch, and then come into work. I did not sleep much, but otherwise I followed that plan.
In the afternoon a couple from New Jersey appeared at our office. I don’t remember the details of this meeting. I seem to recall that it had something to do with our pitch for Paramount, which is described here. These people had experience with UNIX, the operating system preferred by Paramount. “UNIX” had always been sort of a dirty word in our office.
After they left I formalized my notes from my three meetings in Chicago and Milwaukee and sent letters to the people with whom I had met. That is what you had to do in the days before email. Because we were scheduled to depart for London the next evening, I left it up to Kate Behart to follow up on the phone with them.
I did not feel hopeful about the meeting in Chicago and the meeting at Bergner’s. The last meeting in our office was just a flyer. On the other hand, my hopes for the ad agency in Milwaukee were pretty high. If someone from the agency called our references, I thought that we could get it. Our clients loved us, and they always praised our work.
After supper I packed. I remember bringing along several books by Jack Vance. Chick Comparetto1 had volunteered to take care of our cats, Rocky and Woodrow, while we were absent. It was not a weighty responsibility. They had their own door. I had purchased plenty of Cat Chow. If Chick forgot to give them water, they were not shy about helping themselves to the toilet. If they got hungry, Woodrow was adept at ripping open the bag of food. They probably also had two or three survival tricks that I had not yet discovered.
We must have brought either travelers’ checks or a lot of cash on the trip. I am quite sure that we had no credit cards.
Someone drove us to Logan. I have a vague recollection that it might have been Sue’s sister Betty.
I remember nothing about the experience in the airport in Boston. Our plane did not leave until late in the evening. We must have eaten something in the airport, but it was not memorable.
We lost five hours in the flight across the Atlantic, and so it was rather early in the morning when we landed at Heathrow. We had no trouble with our luggage or with customs. That aspect of travel was much easier in those days.
We also had no difficulty finding the driver who had been hired to meet us. I don’t remember his name or what he looked like, but I recall him being very welcoming in a reserved, British manner. He asked about the contest, and he recommended that we invest £5 each in the double-decker bus tour of London.
I am pretty sure that the Camelot was somewhere on this map.
He drove us right to the Camelot Hotel2, our home for the next three nights. It was located on or near Sussex Place quite near Hyde Park. As soon as we entered the hotel, Sue and I had the same thought: “We are staying at Fawlty Towers!” Manuel was missing, and the details were all different, but the feel was remarkably similar. I suppose that at one time there were small urban hotels run by amateurish entrepreneurs in the United States, but by 1990 they were pretty much extinct.
We had to sign the guest registry, which was a huge book lying open on a desk, not a counter. A television was on behind the desk, and—I am not making this up—an episode of Fawlty Towers was playing.
My recollection is that the hotel comprised eight or ten nondescript rooms.We found ours and unpacked. We were both tired, but adrenaline overpowered the jet lag.
The person at the desk told us where we could catch a double-decker bus. We left our oversized key at the desk, walked to the location described to us, mounted to the second level of a bus, and took the tour. It was, as our driver had promised, a good way to get a feel for the city.
I don’t remember where we ate lunch, but afterwards we took a stroll in Hyde Park. It was very relaxing. I was surprised to see that people still used the Speaker’s Corner as a public pulpit. At some point an interesting thought popped into my head. I looked at my watch and then remarked to Sue, “Do you remember that guy on the train to Milwaukee that I told you about? I just realized that he is still on that same train.”3
That evening we walked a few blocks over to Baker St. I don’t remember what our motivation was originally, but when we arrived there we naturally tried to locate 221B. It didn’t exist. Moreover, there was no 221 at all.
We did find a steakhouse near that location, and, although we knew that the English were not famous for their cuisine, we gave it a try. The restaurant had a sound system that played pop tunes. The one that was playing as we walked through the door was “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty, which had been released twelve years earlier. The coincidences on that day were truly unbelievable. The food was OK, and Sue and I had fun trying to name the other songs. “Baker Street” never came up on the sound system again.
I only remember one other restaurant that we patronized in London. It was a Greek restaurant4 that was a block or two from the hotel. My recollection is that it was in the basement of some building, but I may be wrong. I distinctly remember that the food was absolutely delicious, by far the best of any of the food that we ate in England. I also remember that there were only two other people in the restaurant. They were seated at a table as far from us as was possible. They seemed to be just chain-smoking, drinking coffee (or something in coffee cups), and speaking in Greek. I struggled to hear a familiar word or phrase, but since the only Greek I knew then was thousands of years out of date, the task was hopeless.
In London we walked and/or took the tube everywhere. I thought that London’s Underground system was wonderful. It was so easy to figure out. I was used to the mass transit systems in New York and Boston. They were both haphazard and uncomfortable by comparison. I even bought a tee shirt advertising the London Underground. Here are things that I remember Sue and me doing in London:
We definitely went to the British museum. I was thrilled to see the real Rosetta Stone there. It was right out where you could touch it. They had lots of other stuff, of course, but the most memorable for me were handwritten lyrics by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Those were definitely kept in cases where no one could touch them. I also remember the pigeons on the steps. There must have been a thousand of them.
We spent the better part of a day at the Tower of London. I was very impressed by the armory and the Yeoman Warders in their fancy dress. I had no use for the massive collection of shiny rocks, but others stood in line for a chance to adore them. One of the few souvenirs that we bought on the entire trip was the coaster shown on the right.
We walked to Buckingham Palace, but we did not watch the changing of the guard. It was chilly that day. While we were in the vicinity, we went to Westminster Abbey and were a little grossed out that so many people were entombed there. I guess that they have to put the cadavers somewhere. We also saw Parliament, #10 Downing Street, Big Ben, and the Thames.
Sue wanted to visit St. Catherine’s House in London to look up information about some of her ancestors on her mother’s side, the Lockes and Kings. I didn’t go in with her. I don’t remember what I did, but just looking in windows is quite entertaining in London. I think that I might have found a bookstore.
We were very impressed with the retail on Oxford St., which I found much more exciting and dynamic than the stores on Fifth Avenue in New York.
The ducks in the ponds in Hyde Park were very striking. They had complicated and beautiful markings. Neither of us had seen the like, not even in zoos. I also really liked the coots. Their oversized feet impressed me.
From Hyde Park we could see both Kensington Palace, which at the time was the home of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Royal Albert Hall. We didn’t visit either one. It probably would not be cool for someone from the Colonies just to drop in on Chuck and Di, and we already knew how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
We did not find that being a pedestrian in London was too difficult. At the enormous intersections there were usually pedestrian subways. The hardest part for us was remembering to look to our right first when attempting to cross a side street.
On our very last night in England we went to see Agatha Christie’s play, The Mousetrap, at St. Martins Theater. It was very enjoyable. Maybe we should have tried something a little more daring, but I am very happy to say that I viewed this play when it was only in the thirty-eighth year of its record run.
The worst part of our entire trip began when we picked up the rental car. I think that the travel agency provided us with transportation to the car rental agency. It was only then that Sue revealed that she had specified a standard transmission car, and she was afraid to try to drive it. So, I needed to learn how to shift with my left hand on a perilous journey from the very heart of London to the M4 during the morning rush hour.
I made many mistakes. Other motorists even honked at us a few times, probably the only horns that I heard while we were in the U,K. The British seemed more reluctant than their American counterparts to draw attention to bad driving. Embarrassed and frustrated, I did manage to get the car onto the freeway without causing any accidents.
A little west of Reading Sue suddenly announced, “There he is! I just saw a bear!”
Intent on my driving, I dared not gawk. I took a quick peek in the direction that she pointed. I saw nothing. At the time I did not know that bears had been extinct in England for fifteen hundred years. It probably was just an ordinary Bigfoot.
We took the M4 almost all the way to Bristol. Driving on the M roads in England was no more challenging than driving on interstates in the U.S. However, when we exited from the M4, the rest of the drive was on the A roads, which were very narrow by American standards. I remember that when we drove through the outskirts of Bath I was fearful of scraping against the stone walls that formed the border of the road. Fortunately, we encountered very few cars coming in the opposite direction. When we finally reached our destination in Wells, I was happy that the trip was over and more than a little anxious about the next nine days on the road.
In Wells we stayed at the Red Lion Hotel, which is described here. I think that the building at some point was converted to other uses. I remember that our room had a four-poster bed. I had seen them in movies, but I don’t think that I had ever slept in one.
We spent the rest of that first day in Wells exploring the town. The focus of attention was definitely the huge Gothic cathedral that is dedicated to St. Andrew the apostle. Although it is now the see of the Anglican Bishop of Bath and Wells, it was constructed in the late middle ages when England was a Catholic country. It seemed totally out of place. Wells is little more than a village, and the cathedral is actually set apart from the town. I would have expected the town to have grown up around it.
The Bishop’s Palace was equally awesome or perhaps even more so. His Lordship George Carey5 evidently was not apprised of the arrival of the esteemed visitors from across the pond. We saw his home from a distance, and we were even treated to the sight of some episcopal long-johns hanging out to dry. However, we were not invited into the palace grounds where, according to Wikipedia, croquet games are rather common. I would have loved to hear someone explain the rules of the English version of the game.
Rand’s jump.
A word about the weather: Although all of England is well north of New England, the weather in late February and early March was much nicer than what New Englanders would expect. It seemed more like mid-April. Flowers were out, and the grass was green. We wore jackets every day, but we were seldom cold. We also were lucky not to encounter much rain.
For me the most interesting feature in the town of Wells was the memorial on the sidewalk to Mary Rand, a resident of Wells who won the gold medal in the women’s long jump in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. The plaque measured out the exact distance that she jumped.
What I remember most about those days was the driving. No matter which of us was at the wheel, both of us became irritable. For some reason the roundabouts gave us the most difficulty. It was bad enough to have to remember to go clockwise. The big problem, however, was the signage. The highway numbers were seldom provided at the exits. Instead a sign displayed the name a town that was somewhere on that section of road. This was, I am sure, useful for people who knew where all of those towns were, but they did not help us at all. Furthermore, it seemed as if at least half the time the name on the sign was “Taunton”, and visiting Taunton was not on our agenda
I am not sure where we went on which days, but I am sure that we went to all of the following places:
Our guidebook described a place called “Cadbury Castle”. It was supposedly someone’s idea of where Camelot (or maybe Camalet) was. We had a lot of trouble finding it. Finally we came upon the village of North Cadbury. We asked someone at a pub where Cadbury Castle was, and they directed us down a one-lane road that was actually just two tracks. Those were the last humans that we encountered on this adventure.
We went as far as we could by car. We stopped the vehicle, locked it, and set off on foot.
Ahead of us were two troughs, a lot of thick underbrush, and a formidable grassy mound. We made our way through the underbrush for thirty or forty yards. Sue got attacked by stinging nettles and was forced to retreat in agony.
In those days if there was a hill in front of me, I climbed it. I made it to the top of this so-called “hillfort”, but I saw no trace of a fort. On the top of the hill a dozen or so cows were peacefully grazing. They ignored me. I could also see Glastonbury Tor in the distance. That was something, I guess.
Nettle.
To be fair, I should add that the sun was out. The legend is that on a misty day you can see the Once and Future King and his famous knights.
Dock.
When we arrived back at the hotel, Sue asked someone what to take for stinging nettles. They informed us that the best treatment was a plant called “dock”, which always grew near the nettles. That was not in our guidebook.
We also drove to Glastonbury Tor, another ancient hill in Somerset. A lot of people think that this is a magical place. it certainly has an unusual shape. Evidently in the middle ages a monastery was there. Legends abound about it being associated with King Arthur, but there is a dearth of evidence.
A paved path now leads to the tower atop the tor. I don’t think that it existed in 1990.
I don’t remember a lot about our visit here. I don’t clearly recall the tower at the top of the hill at all. Therefore, I was skeptical as to whether I climbed to the top. Sue, however, has told me that I did. Evidently I don’t remember the tower because no one was allowed to enter it. Therefore, its distinguishing feature—no roof!—was not visible to me.
Sue also reported that a dozen or so New Agers were busy absorbing Glastonbury’s vibes.
The good thing about it was that the town of Glastonbury was actually fairly easy to find. I can’t say that about most of the other sights in Somerset. We had a devil of a time finding Stonehenge. Surely, there must have been a lot of tourists who wanted to see these big old rocks. Nevertheless, there was precious little signage to indicate their location.
We were not allowed as close to the stones as the people in this photo are.
We did find it, but it was probably the biggest disappointment of the entire trip. At the time no one was allowed to approach, much less touch the stones. I don’t recall that we ever were within one hundred feet of them. I honestly think that we would have gotten more out of a film about the place.
By this time we were getting rather tired of driving around Somerset searching for legendary hills and ancient inanimate objects.
Our last stop in Somerset, however, was delightful. Wookey Hole is a set of caves that are located just a few miles to the northwest of Wells. We knew about the caves from the guidebook, but we were surprised by the fact that there were actually other really enjoyable things to see and do nearby.
The caves were quite interesting. We took a little tour with a local guide. The best part of it was the way that she pronounced Wookey Hole. The first syllable was at least a fifth higher than the rest of the name. Since we had heard no human speech anywhere near any of the other attractions in Somerset, it was nice to have someone explain the geology of the caves.
In addition to the natural formations, someone had constructed a small museum6 that emphasized a few diverse elements of the culture in and around Wookey Hole.
Cheddar Gorge.
The paper-making demonstration was the most educational. Until then I had absolutely no idea how trees and rags were turned into paper. The penny arcade machines were also something that I had never seen before. Visitors could even play the games using old-school pennies that they could buy there. The carousel section had complete carousels (going clockwise, of course), as well as stunning individual statues. I remember seeing a beautiful lion, but I was unable to find a picture of it on the Internet.
Sue and I found our visit to Wookey Hole both fun and relaxing. We then undertook the drive up to Cheddar Gorge. I am not sure why we did not stop here. Sue absolutely loves cheese. In retrospect I have trouble understanding how she could have resisted the temptation to stop and sample one of her favorite cheeses.
Our next destination was Plymouth, which is a genuine city on the south coast. On the way there we took a slight detour to drive through Exmoor, which includes some really diverse and beautiful areas.
Our hotel in Plymouth was not as memorable as the first two. I have a vague recollection that it also had a restaurant. We took a short pedestrian tour of the city, mostly so we could say that we had seen the spot from which the Pilgrims departed.
I remember that at the restaurant I was served some Devon Cream. I had never had this before and remarked about it to Sue. My face must have registered disgust because the waiter rushed over to ask me if there was something wrong. This, by the way, never happens to me in the U.S.
The main reason that Sue and I bothered to come this far west was to have somewhere to stay while we ventured to Tintagel, the ruins of a real castle in Cornwall on the Atlantic coast.
Tintagel ruins.
A different angle.
Merlin’s Cave.
Tintagel7 was definitely worth visiting. However, it was a difficult drive from any direction. Furthermore, a fairly long walk was (and evidently still is) required to reach the ruins from the parking lot. We went there in February, and a very cold wind was blowing in off the Atlantic. We did not get as much out of this experience as we might have if the weather had been nicer or we (i.e., Sue) had been in better condition. We did get a look at the castle ruins and Merlin’s cave. The view of the ocean was stunning.
I am not sure about this, but I think that we decided not to drive directly back to Plymouth. Instead we headed to Barnstaple, a city with which we were familiar from playing the British Rails game. All of the cities in this section are at the base of a very high cliff. This accounts for the peculiar fact that all of the rivers flow to the south.
On Sue’s birthday we left from Plymouth with the intention of reaching York by supper time. I asked Sue what she wanted for her birthday. She said that she wanted to shop for miniatures at a store she knew about in Bristol. So, that is what we decided to do.
Somehow we came up with an unusual plan. We drove to a location on the outskirts of Bristol, which in 1990 had about 400,000 inhabitants. We parked the car and took a city bus downtown. Sue somehow knew which bus to take and the stop at which we needed to exit. When we got off of the bus, Sue looked around but could not see any familiar buildings or street names.
She did find a Dr. Who-type phone box (not booth in England). Somehow she figured out how to make it work. She called the store. The woman who answered asked her what she could see from the phone box. Sue told her. The woman merely said two words: “Turn around.”
Sure enough, Sue found herself looking at the miniatures store. She went in; I did not. I had enough trouble—even at that age—dealing with full-sized objects. While Sue was shopping for tiny things, I walked around and looked in windows. If I discovered a store that sold books or games, I probably went inside. I don’t think that I bought anything, but Sue definitely did. Good! It was her birthday.
We somehow caught another bus that brought us back to the car park. We fired up our vehicle and easily found our way back to the M5. Sue received one more present. We got off of the throughway at Cheltenham and drove through the Cotswold country to Bourton-on-the-Water the home of the Model Village. It took about half an hour.
I think that this is the model, not the real village.
I probably would not have made this side trip if I had been by myself. However, Sue has always felt a special attachment to the Cotswolds and particularly its thatched roofs. The Model Village itself is definitely worth seeing once. It was a nearly exact replica of the real Bourton-on-the-Water within which it resides. What I found the most interesting was that the model itself is indeed modeled at the same one-ninth scale. I naturally wondered if that model included a one-eighty-first model of the model and so on. I mean, some people write on grains of rice; what is the limit?
My attitude might help explain why, although everyone likes working with me, nobody ever asks me to go anywhere with them.
Royal York Hotel.
The remainder of the trip to York was uneventful. We stayed for three nights at the Royal York Hotel, a huge very old hotel near the train station. In one way I was glad that we did not go any further north. The people in the north spoke perfect English, of course, but the accent was so strong that it was difficult to understand.
National Railway Museum.
The other memorable supper that we ate might have been our first night in York. I don’t remember the rest of my order, but the vegetable was broccoli. It had been cooked so long that it had turned grey. The waiter, who had emigrated from Greece, noticed my horror. He told me that the English always overcooked the vegetables. I conversed with him a little. I told him that I had taken ten semesters of Homeric and Attic Greek in high school and college. He did not seem too impressed. He probably knew that these classes would not have helped me understand him. I later learned that while modern Greek grammar has not changed much through the millennia, the vocabulary and pronunciation had evolved drastically.
The view from the central tower.
I think that Sue let me do most of my exploring of York on my own. While I was out walking around the city I think that she visited the Railway Museum, which was very near the hotel.
I never pass up a chance to walk the walls of a city. York’s were probably the best.
I remember visiting the stunning York Minster, which was awesome both inside and out. It must surely be the most impressive church in England. I am quite certain that I climbed as high as they allowed in the ancient cathedral. The view of the city and the countryside was breathtaking.
I also walked around atop the ancient stone walls of the city. I cannot remember whether I made it all the way around, but I recall thoroughly enjoying this experience.
York was such a delightful old city. It was very pleasant to experience it both from street-level and from above.
Sue and I definitely visited the Jorvik Viking Center8 together. This museum emphasized the history of the area before the arrival of the Normans in the eleventh century. Many lifelike displays depicted the lifestyles of the Vikings who inhabited the area. The details were based on archeological excavations that produced thousands of objects.
We watched ACG&S the first time around.
We also went for a drive in the Yorkshire Dales that we knew from the television series All Creatures Great and Small. We stopped at a house or store for some reason. We talked with a lady there who used the word “fortnight”. I told her that no one in America ever used the word. She asked me what Americans said instead. She seemed mildly surprised when I replied “two weeks”.
Joseph Locke’s statue.
After we left York we made two stops on our way back to the Camelot Hotel in London. The first was in Barnsley, where we searched for Locke Park, named after one of Sue’s relatives, a railroad magnate named Joseph Locke. We stopped to ask for directions. We were told that it was at the corner of Locke and Park. Where else? Sue is not a direct descendant, however. Joseph and his wife Phoebe had only one child, whom they adopted.
Our second stop was at the fabulous Warwick Castle. This stop was recommended by one of TSI’s clients, Mary Lee Pointe at Avon Old Farms School. I had mentioned to her that we were going to England and wanted to see at least one castle. She said that sh had visited several of them, and Warwick Castle was the most interesting.
The castle and its grounds made a fitting end to our motoring excursions. I cannot imagine a more awe-inspiring setting that was matched by the opulent displays in the interior. As I recall, we had a picnic lunch together on the grounds.
We made a memorable pit stop on the way to London. The facilities themselves were mediocre at best. What got my attention was a sign at the entrance demanding “NO FOOTBALL COACHES.” A “coach” to Brits was a tour bus. “Football” referred to the game called soccer in the states. So, the rest area actually prohibited busloads of soccer hooligans.
We managed to locate the car rental agency in London. I don’t remember how we got ourselves and our luggage to the hotel for the last two nights.
I don’t remember which of the activities that I listed in the first London section were actually performed on our last full day in London. I am pretty sure, however, that, as I mentioned, Sue and I attended the theater on our very last evening.
“Memorable” is definitely the right word for this”‘fortnight” in England. I can hardly believe how many things we did and how vividly they have remained in my memory and Sue’s—with no notes at all. How times have changed! It is now a titanic struggle for both Sue and me to recall what we did the day before yesterday.
One thing that I cannot remember clearly is what we did about the business. In the course of the two weeks, we must have called the office at least four or five times. I cannot recall needing to deal with any pressing problems.
1, Chick Comparetto was the father of Sue’s first husband. He lived less than a mile from us. He died in 2020. His obituary is here.
2. Alas, there is no longer a Camelot Hotel in London, and I was not able to identify any hotels that might be successors. Perhaps the building was converted to some other use.
3. This is my favorite shaggy-dog story of all time, and it is 100 percent true.
4. I think that this restaurant might still be in business in 2021. A restaurant called Halepi seems to be in the right location, and everything mentioned on its website, which can be visited here, rings true.
5. His Lordship George Carey became Archbishop of Canterbury, England’s ranking clergyman, in the following year. He retired in 2002. Like most bishops everywhere he got entangled in scandals about reporting clerical sexual abuse. In 2017 he resigned his last formal relationship with the church, which meant that he was no longer allowed to officiated at services.
6. Not many people were at Wookey Hole when we visited. I remember thinking in 1990 that this place needed some good old American marketing. Maybe Ambrose could have helped. Subsequently it has been Disneyfied into a real touristy place. Check out its website here.
7. Tintagel has changed in the three decades since we were there. A visitors’ center has been added, a footbridge has been constructed, and someone was allowed to carve a gigantic image of Merlin’s face on the side of the cliff.
8. The Jorvik Viking Center is still in operation. Its website is here.
In April 2021 Sue and I had two black male cats, Giacomo and Bob. Giacomo turned seventeen in November of 2020. Bob was much younger, but we don’t know his actual age. More information about both of them can be found here.
The growths on Bob’s back started as tufts of hair a few years ago.
Bob had always been Sue’s cat. We had him for months before he would even allow me to touch him. During our unexpected time together during the pandemic he grew much more friendly. He even allowed me to pick him up a couple of times.
On Thursday, April 1, 2021, Bob had been lying on the rug in my office for most of the afternoon. This was unusual. Giacomo often slept there, but Bob generally seemed wary of being trapped in the office. He always tried to keep himself between me and the door. Perhaps he associated the office with flea drops, which he did not like. It was indeed the place in which I occasionally had surprised him by applying the monthly flea drops in the summer.
On this occasion he was about ten feet from the door, not far from my feet as I sat at my desk. I was working on one of my blog entries when Bob, whose vocalizations theretofore had been limited to very soft purrs, groans, and meows, let loose with what could best be described as a roar of pain. I could see that Bob was trying to rise to his feet, but his right rear leg would not function. He somehow managed to get up on three feet by leaning against a file cabinet. Every time that he tried to put weight on the sore leg, he screamed in agony. He made it as far as the doorway, where he flopped down on his side.
Bob lay nearly motionless in this position throughout Friday and Saturday.
I called to Sue. She came in to try to give him some comfort. We did not know what to do. By then it was time for supper. We let him lie there all evening. He did not seem to move a muscle.
Of course, we thought about what could have caused such a sudden problem in his leg. Our first thought was that those growths on his back had caused paralysis. I thought that he might have been hit by a car. However, he had no visible wounds. In any case, it was too late to do anything about it.
When I woke up at about four o’clock on Friday morning, my first thought was of poor Bob. I found him in exactly the same spot as he had occupied when I went to bed. He seemed to have no interest in food or water, which was very unusual for him. At one point Giacomo came over to see what the fuss was about. Bob let out a roar, which Giacomo correctly interpreted as a demand for privacy.
Sue arose from bed to take her medicine at 8:30. When she came in to see Bob, he got up on three legs and stumbled into the hallway. He lurched about ten feet to the end of the hall, where he once again lay on his side after giving voice to cries of pain once or twice.
I did not witness this part: Sue brought Bob a small bowl of water. She set it down near his head. He eagerly lapped up some water without getting to his feet. Almost immediately he gave out another plaintive cry and started to pee. He peed all over the floor, something that he had absolutely never done in all of the years that he had lived with us. He struggled his way to his feet again while we cleaned up the mess. He made it the few feet back to the doorway to the office, where he lay down again. He there in that position all day, neither eating nor drinking.
I was absolutely convinced that Bob would be dead when I awoke on Saturday morning. He was neither eating nor drinking. I wondered what we would do with his body. My knees were certainly no longer up to the task of digging graves for pets.
I was wrong, but not by much. Bob was still in the same place and physical position when I awoke on Saturday morning. He did not move his head when I carefully walked past him into the office. I offered him some water, but he was not interested, or he may have just been too weak.
Bob may have moved a little during the day or evening on Saturday, but I don’t think that he ever tried to get up. When I went to bed on Saturday night he was in the same position as he had been on Friday night. I knew that cats were very tough. I just wondered how long he would be able to hold on.
On Easter Sunday morning I was quite surprised to discover that Bob was no longer in the doorway. He had moved back to the position he had assumed on Thursday near my feet. I wondered how in the world he got there. With some trepidation I checked him. He was definitely still alive.
After I fixed my tea and sat down I was gobsmacked to see Bob walk past the file cabinet toward the door. He was moving slowly, and he was noticeably limping, but he was walking and he was not wailing or even whimpering. He gingerly put weight on his right rear paw. I followed him into the kitchen, where the food and water bowls for the cats were. He slurped a drink while I freshened up the Cat Chow.
I went down to the basement to bring the cats’ litter box1 upstairs. I placed it in the hallway near the door to the garages. I showed Giacomo where I had moved it. I had to hope that Bob could figure it out on his own. I did not want to disturb him any more than necessary.
Within a month Bob felt comfortable exploring the junk piled up in our back yard.
For a couple of days Bob took it easy. By Wednesday he and Giacomo were associating again. Bob was walking more slowly, but he was definitely using his right rear leg. When he arose from lying down—which he still did a great deal—he was a little shaky for a few steps. Sometimes he even dragged his right rear leg. However, he seemed to get a little better every day.
Back where it should be.
By the middle of May I had seen Bob go up and down the two steps on the deck. I wondered if he could manage the twelve stairs to and from the basement.
On June 4 I went downstairs to empty the water container of the dehumidifier. I found Bob sleeping placidly on a rug in the basement. I immediately deduced that he was capable of managing the stairs and moved the litter box downstairs to its original position. I carried Giacomo downstairs so that he could see that the litter box had been moved again.
Bob is not comfortable with me carrying him yet, but he figured out the location of the litter box on his own. Maybe Giacomo told him.
Was this a true Easter miracle, or did Bob merely use up one of his nine lives? Who knows?
1. I don’t like the idea of maintaining a litter box. The cats have their own door. For more than three decades our cats have cheerfully deposited their excrement outdoors. At some point in 2020 this pair decided to use part of the basement floor as a non-flushing toilet. I had to clean up a big smelly mess. I decided that putting a litter box there for them was the lesser of two evils. Don’t even ask about trying to train a seventeen-year old cat to change his habit.
