Jacob's Ladder!

After a three week transatlantic holiday, Ira returned to a new boss at Leo Burnett. The 23 year old son of the branch's Vice President and General Manager. Now at the age of 31, Ira found himself to be antiquated by this young kid who was still wet behind the ears. And yet, his employment was terminated in the middle of promoting Huey Lewis' hit title, "Jacob's Ladder."

Michael knew something was wrong when he came home that Friday. He found Ira stuffing his face with 2 McDonald's Quarter Pounders, french fries and a chocolate shake. "Are you okay?" "Sure, I'm doing research for my new job!"

Once Ira got past the hurt and anger, he realized that his job was extremely stressful and it just wasn't fun anymore. Michael encouraged him to start freelancing. "With your talent, you will find lots of work." And he was right. Over the weekend, they took the front bedroom and transformed it into an office, complete with desks, files, computers, printers, copiers, faxes, phones and supplies. On Monday, Ira called an agency to find an assistant and he was off and running.

Before the end of the week, he had picked up Jons Market, a local grocery store chain. This was right up Ira's alley, marketing, advertising and a fifteen percent discount on groceries to sweeten the pie (no pun intended).

Slowly, Ira picked up more retail merchants and this made Michael happy too. There was much less travel for Ira and more quality time together. Ira was no longer full of stress, and usually would have dinner waiting for him when he came home from the hospital.

On one particular evening the lights were off and a bunch of candles lit the dining room. There were two wine glasses and a bottle of their favorite Merlot. Ira comes out with a beautiful rack of lamb, roasted baby red potatoes, creamed spinach, and a home made carrot cake. "What's the occasion?" "Leo Burnett just offered me my job back." "What did you tell them?" "Thanks, but no thanks." Michael ran up and squeezed all the air out of Ira. "I love you." Ira smiled and replied "So I guess that was the right answer to give them, huh?" "You did good Babe!"