Thank you, Mr. President

It was in 1975, and I'd recently been promoted to the editorial board of the Sun-Times, in Chicago.

One thing I'd learned in my earlier years there is that if Ann Landers -- Eppie Lederer in real life -- wanted a favor from you, you gave it to her. Quickly. She brought millions of dollars to the paper every year, and her whim of iron was not to be dismissed.

So when she showed up at my office door around lunchtime one day and said in her strange side-of-mouth way, "Get your coat -- quick," I didn't ask questions. I knew she always demanded a "walker" for public appearances, though she usually drafted her guys from senior management. At 26, I was definitely junior.

Her hand on my wrist like a vise, she pulled me downstairs, into her limo ("AL 1955" -- the year she started the advice column). "Palmer House, Bill," she said to her driver of all that time.

Bill swung the big Fleetwood around and down Wabash, through increasingly thick traffic. The street was closed past Randolph, but Bill pressed on around the barricade, through pedestrians wandering in the streets. Up to the packed curb, and then the vise on the wrist again as Eppie pulled me through doors and hallways and past large men with earpieces who nodded at her and looked me up and down and then we went through a plain door behind the Grand Ballroom.

In the little room was a man in shirt and tie starting his lunch of sliced tomatoes and cottage cheese by himself. "Hello, Eppie," he said, rising and coming over to hug her. "Who's your date?"

She turned and said, "John . . . umm?" I was new, after all. I introduced myself.

"Really nice to meet you," President Ford said with a great handshake and smile, and then he pulled out the chair to seat Eppie -- and then did the same for me. "What would you like for lunch, John?"

During the whole meal he was paying court to a woman who had 50 million readers a day, but he made a point of including me in every topic, every minute. Smart and charming.

I would have stayed for his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, but I'd heard the interesting stuff already -- besides, Eppie had to get back to the office to work on her column, and she needed company on her ride back.