‘Newspaper tiger’ roars again

With only $50 (Canadian) in his bank account and less than $5 in his pocket, Warren, a McGill University graduate, was scared and feeling like a failure. Nothing like a University of the World business education to rock your universe and pummel your ego into submission.

But somehow the letters from former Weekly Herald reader Eva-Maria Wallner and Washington Post Publisher Don Graham engendered in Warren a pride that, despite his financial failure, he had accomplished something that few journalists ever do in a lifetime —creating a quality publication to critical acclaim from readers and journalists alike, despite limited financial resources.

And so when Bonnie Billick, a retired teacher who had been a loyal Weekly Herald reader, invited Warren to breakfast, he blurted out the story of the letters from Don Graham and Eva-Maria Wallner.

Bonnie, who lives in the Montreal suburb of Town of Mount Royal, told Warren that she was convinced his place was in Montreal and that he should start a new business, possibly something connected to media. She whipped out her chequebook and over Warren’s protestations, wrote him a cheque for $1200.

The next day, Warren received a call from Gerry Weinstein, a Cote St. Luc businessman who had been an avid Weekly Herald reader, as well. When he asked Warren about his future plans, Warren mentioned the possibility of The Washington Post and the fact that Bonnie Billick had given him $1200, but that he planned to return the money to her.

Gerry, an experienced businessman, said he agreed with Bonnie that Warren should stay in Montreal and try to build a new business. Within hours, Gerry had couriered a cheque for $1200 to Warren to add to Bonnie’s startup fund of $1200. Warren sensed he was losing the battle of wills with his former readers.

When Warren phoned Rodney, who had worked with him at The Weekly Herald, to share with him the generous gestures of Bonnie and Gerry, Rodney’s first thoughts, as usual, turned to food, suggesting they meet at a local souvlaki joint for supper. Warren pointed out that he had no money to eat out, but Rodney pointed out that he had just received his first Unemployment Insurance Commission (as it was known in those days) cheque.

Rodney showed up with his graphic designer buddy Patrick Bermingham, who had also worked at The Weekly Herald. Nothing like a full belly to stoke the creative and gastric juices. Within 20 minutes of gormandizing their meal, the three men had settled on a name for a new graphic design company — Ponctuation Grafix Inc.

The idea to start a graphic design company was Rodney’s. The name selection was Patrick’s stroke of genius. Warren, who had been starving due to his impecunious state of affairs, just kept stuffing his face and nodding his head, all the while hoping that the other two would agree with him that they should go back into some sort of journalistic endeavour.

But, as Patrick pointed out, the name of the new company would reflect the marriage of two genres of business expertise — writing/editing (as in Ponctuation) and graphic design (as in Grafix). How to argue against such logic? At that moment, Warren felt his newspaper tiger persona taking command of his souvlaki-engorged body.