The more elderly among you remember Ed Zern, who wrote a humor column
"Exit Laughing" on the last page of Field & Stream for many years, and
later collected them into a number of books with titles like To Hell
with Fishing, Are Fishermen People, A Fine Kettle of Fish Stories,
etc.

That's what he did for fun.

In his day job, Ed was Creative Director of a big-time Madison Avenue
ad agency, Geyer, Morey, Madden and Ballard. You may recall the Nash
Ambassador ads Ed wrote and illustrated.

We were fortunate to have Ed here at Penn State for a year (ca. 1966)
as a Distinguished Visiting Professor. I made the arrangements, so I
arranged to share an office with Ed for the year. A great year! We
did a lot of fishing and hunting.

The recent introduction of Budweiser "Select" beer reminds me of
something he told me while he was here.

At some kind of company party, he was chatting with the owner of a
distillery he didn't name. He said the distiller's ads claimed that
his brand was made from "select grains," so I asked him what that
meant.

Ed said the distiller replied, "It means I select the cheapest ones I
can find."

I trust 40 will forgive me for telling that.

vince norris