As my time with Harper & Row’s textbook sales division was winding down in 1973, I faced a tricky decision. The annual sales meeting was scheduled for September in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, my wife was due to deliver our second child, also in September. I asked my former Canfield Press boss, Jack Jennings, if he thought I should risk being away on a tropical island when my wife was giving birth. “Well,” he replied, “I was out of town on business when one of my children was born, and it came out during the divorce that it was {pause} the source of some resentment.” So I passed on Puerto Rico, and sure enough, Sean Michael Finn arrived on September 27, the second day of the Harper & Row sales meeting.
All the while, I kept a close eye on the help-wanted classifieds in the Washington Post. D.C. was then, and remains today, the center of the association universe. These organizations represent more industries and professions than you can shake a stick at, from the people who bring you into this world (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) to the ones who usher you out (National Funeral Directors Association). Thousands of these groups cluster in and around the Nation’s Capital so they have convenient access to Congress and the federal government, the better to lobby on behalf of their members. And almost every one publishes a magazine or journal.
One Sunday morning that fall, I found a classified in the Post for Manager of Communications for the National Builders Hardware Association. What would this Manager of Communications be doing? One item in the list of duties stood out: Help edit Doors & Hardware magazine. Thinking this could be the start of a career in magazine publishing, I fired off my resume.
Soon enough, I was sitting in the office of NBHA’s executive director, Dick Hornaday, as he explained what he was looking for in a candidate. “Our editor, Bob Ryan, has many years of experience,” he said. “But I sometimes wonder whether they are the same year repeated over and over again. We’d like someone to bring fresh energy to the magazine.”
Next I met with Bob Ryan himself, a balding, burly Philadelphia native. As he talked, a lit cigarette dangled from his lips and beads of sweat dotted his brow. I learned that he had been a reporter for the Stars and Stripes, a newspaper the U.S. military has published since World War I. Bob was also a proud member of Notre Dame’s “Subway Alumni,” avid fans of the Fighting Irish with an affinity for the Catholic university, but no diploma.
Ryan did not conduct a tough interview. He seemed satisfied that my experience editing William & Mary’s literary magazine and working at Harper & Row had prepared me for the job. Clearly my chief qualification, in his eyes, was my name: F-I-N-N. As the nuns at my parochial school used to say, I had the map of Ireland written on my face. And we Irish have to stick together.
In short order, I got the job offer and didn’t hesitate to close the door on my textbook sales career. I reported to work in the Spring of 1974 at NBHA’s offices in a Rosslyn, Virginia high-rise. It was a gaudy blue building on Fort Myer Drive, next to a large hole in the ground that would eventually become a Metro station. I had a good view of the construction through my office window.
Straightaway, I was writing short news items about the goings-on at NBHA, doing my best to give them the “fresh energy” Dick Hornaday was looking for. Early on, Ryan gave me the details about an upcoming meeting of the association’s leadership in Colorado Springs. I sat at my typewriter, gazing out the window into the Metro abyss below as I tried to compose a snappy lead. Leaders . . . Colorado . . . mountains. Then, a flash of inspiration struck:
“The eagles of the industry will convene March 23-27 in Colorado Springs, Colo.” Proud of myself, I finished the three-paragraph item and delivered it to Ryan’s in box. It wasn’t long before he came in my office, red in the face and blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“‘Iggles?!'” he exclaimed in his Philly accent. “What’s this about ‘iggles’?” Clearly, my lofty metaphor had fallen flat. I’m sure it didn’t help that his hometown NFL team was the Philadelphia “Iggles.”
Despite our shared cultural heritage, Ryan was never entirely comfortable with me. He was forever coming into to my office, telling stories about I-don’t-remember-what. When it came time in the conversation for me to respond, all I could think to say was, “Interesting.” Finally, one day when he told yet another story that I once again said was “interesting,” he blew up.
“Inneresting! Inneresting! That’s all you ever say is ‘Inneresting’!” (That’s how people from Philly pronounce it.) I couldn’t come up with anything else to say.
Soon I was scanning the Post classifieds again in search of greener pastures. And sure enough, an editing job with a bigger, better-funded association popped up. After barely a year at Doors & Hardware, I took another leap.
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