Session: 1234567891011121314151617         Page 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546 of 755

I went off to Europe and visited some of the top designers and studios that he had suggested I look in on. And that, again, was not only interesting but very stimulating as far as I was concerned. So I said, “Well, that's for me.” And came back in the fall -- late summer, early fall of '29 -- and stayed at the Statler Hotel which is now, I guess the Hilton down by Penn Station. Or whatever it's called now. That's where I stayed.

And I called Coynier to tell him “Boy, I'm back, and I'm just about to come tomorrow to start to work.” And his voice was less than enthusiastic. And he said that business had soured. They'd lost some of their big accounts, and while he would respect the commitment, he wanted me to know before I came that I would be the first one to be laid off as business continued to slide. Now this was like maybe September, I'm not sure, but certainly early fall.

And it gave me some pause because I thought, “Gee, if I get to Philadelphia and I lose my job, what am I going to do in Philadelphia?” So I said to myself -- and Coynier said it too -- he knew that I was leaving school in order to get the job -- he made the passing reference to the fact -- maybe it would be smart for me to go back and finish my undergraduate work. And I think he even suggested that I go to Pratt or someplace else rather than to that cow college out there in Ohio. Nobody back here had ever heard of Ohio Wesleyan.

So I hightailed it back to Dayton and announced that I would go back and finish my senior year. Pleased my parents. The question was what courses I would take. I should have taken different courses than I took but I had done some reading that encouraged me to show interest at least in the Psychology Department. I had taken no courses.