Rogue

 

I started to write about something else entirely, but got sidetracked.  

I was going to share a story told to me in 1966 by Bruce Glassner, a fellow soldier at Ft. Hood. Then I realized that he was easily worth a post of his own.

Of the many interesting young men in the 502nd Admin Company back then, Bruce stands out for several reasons.  

First of all, he never should have been drafted in the first place - he had suffered a brain injury in an accident and took phenobarbital to prevent seizures.  That eventually went to court and he was released from the military after about six months of service.

Prior to being drafted, Bruce was an associate editor at Rogue Magazine in Chicago.  Rogue was a very successful men's magazine, second only to Playboy. A check of Rogue on Wikipedia shows that he worked alongside a sort of "who's who" of current American fiction, and he was hired there at the age of twenty.

His next door neighbor in Chicago was John Sebastian of the Lovin Spoonful who gave the Glassners a mouton bedspread for a wedding present.

Shortly before he left the service, his wife came down for a visit.  I let her borrow my car and when she picked us up that evening the entire back of the little Valiant station wagon was filled with boxes of lime Jello. When I asked, she explained that they were going to mix it up in the hotel bathtub and "f--- in it."

I tried looking him up on line, and it appears he went on to a highly successful career in advertising.  He is apparently still around and I reached out to him this morning.  I hope he replies.