Lizzy's Friend

At lunch at the magazine conference on Tuesday, Peter and I were sitting at a table enjoying our salads and talking to a woman who edits a Detroit business magazine owned by Crain Communications (publishers of Ad Age). In a pause in our conversation, Peter leaned over and whispered to me that people from the Church magazines had just joined our table. The serendipity of the meeting surprised both parties, and we soon delved into friendly chatter across the table about our respective magazines. After a few minutes I discovered that the quiet woman next to me also worked for the Church magazines; she is an editor for the Friend, the Church magazine targetted to children.

Lizzy absolutely loves the Friend, and I quickly told the woman of her publication's popularity around our home. When we stopped by a garage sale earlier this year, a cardboard box filled with Church magazines caught our eye, and Lizzy began gleefully pulling out old copies of the Friend that she had to have. We headed home that day with a dozen or so issues that predated our own subscription. Now those magazines sit in a pile by her bed, and she regularly reads and rereads them. When the new issue comes each month, she gets all excited about "her magazine" and can't wait to devour it. Bedtime stories frequently come from the Friend, and the magazine serves as a handy quiet book for Church meetings.

My new friend from the Friend was, of course, pleased to hear of her book's popularity, but she was not nearly so pleased about this chance meeting as someone else.

That evening I called home and talked to my family. When it was Lizzy's turn, I told her of my lunchtime meeting with an editor of the Friend. Without pause and with an extra burst of gusto, she exclaimed, "That's so cool!"