Writers Tricks of the Trade January-February 2015 | Page 31

PRESS “CONTROL” THEN CLICK BUY TO PURCHASE THE BOOK THE BOSS ALWAYS SITS IN THE BACK (Cont’d) A couple of them had to leave the area and can’t/shouldn’t/don’t want to come back. Some are in State and Federal penitentiaries…and will be for years. A few of them were able to survive. I run across a couple of the survivors from time to time. And then there’s my family... Round 1 Christ, I hate flying! Especially after all the time I spent in the air since the early 1970s. It was Friday, October 9, 1998. It would have been John Lennon’s fiftyeighth birthday. There I was, sitting alone in the back of a nine passenger stretch, clad in jeans, a pair of sneakers and a knitted sweater that I picked up in Laguna Beach a few weeks earlier. I opened a rear window, slid on my sunglasses, looked outside and lit a joint as the limo headed down New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway to get me to Newark International Airport for my 9:35AM flight. I was never very good with alcohol, so an occasional joint always took off the edge when I was on my way to an airport. Besides, it was only eight in the morning. Much too early for a martini. And as part of my job, I had to fly. A lot. At the time, I was working for a very large New York insurance company. When I was hired, they wanted someone to work with a market that most corporations and conglomerates have problems relating to: Unions. This particular trip was to oversee the company’s presence at the largest Public Employee Benefits convention in the country. Over 6,000 representatives were attending, and I, as one of the guest speakers, would be spouting about the need that ultimately would be filled by using my company’s program. I was very good in front of large groups. I had lots of practice at that. My other function on this trip was to host an extravagant hospitality bash in my hotel suite for several officials from large national unions. I had lots of practice with that, too. --Cont’d… WRITERS TRICKS OF THE TRADE Page 23 JON D’AMORE will share tips and discuss writing his book when he is the guest on the WRITERS TRICKS OF THE TRADE show on BLOG TALK RADIO on January 28 – 6:00PM PST/9:00 EST—or listen to the archived program at your convenience. LINK:http://bitly.com/ WTTshow5 Visit the site now and click REMINDER. Blog Talk Radio will send you an email rem