The commercial world of our fathers.

• Author: Glastris, Paul
• Position: Editor's Note - Editorial

Sometime in the mid-1970s my mother told my father that he should start bringing me to the office with him. I don't recall being consulted on the matter. Nevertheless, I spent my high school and college summers working--happily, for the most part--for the Glastris-Manning/Courtesy Checks Advertising and Public Relations Group. My two younger brothers were similarly dragooned.

Despite the complex title, Glastris-Manning/Courtesy Checks was not a big operation--just a few people working out of a 600-square-foot windowless office above a bowling alley, which Dad dubbed his "World Headquarters." Nor was it a big moneymaker. But it afforded my father the opportunity to be his own boss, to be with his sons, whom he adored, and to do work that fit his talents and temperament.

Dad was a very creative guy--among other things, he pioneered the field of "barter advertising," the trading of products and services for media time and space. He was also gregarious and ebullient, with a caustic wit and a generous heart, and much beloved around town. This I learned accompanying him on sales calls and to what he referred to as "executive lunches" with his various business cronies and Greek American buddies, nearly all of them, like him, small business owners. Libations were typically consumed.

One of my jobs was writing copy for radio spots for the firm's clients--hotels, car dealers, and the like. Dad could whip one of these out in about half an hour. It would take me all day. I'd bring him a draft, he'd mark it up, I'd go back and redo it. Over and over again.

Eventually I got the hang of it. I even started taking liberties with the genre. Once, borrowing a technique from a Donald Barthelme short story, I wrote a spot all in questions: "Is Schmeezings St. Louis's newest bar and grill? Is Schmeezings conveniently located two blocks from the Arena, home of the St. Louis Blues? If Schmeezings is located two blocks from the Arena, does it serve twenty great varieties of burgers?" My dad especially liked that one, not because of the Barthelme connection (he'd never heard of the guy), but because it repeated the name of the establishment a dozen times in thirty seconds. Commercials that were "clever" but didn't actually sell the client's product or service drove him nuts.

Another lesson I learned was the importance of a bold sound bite. For one client, my father came up with the tag line "One of St. Louis's ten best restaurants." When the client asked him, "Bill...