This tale is about a plethora of generosity that takes place between points ‘a’ and ‘b’ and the flow of a single coin through a subway car full of performers, solicitors, and the needy. Stuck in limbo, a sort of purgatory, These passengers rise to the occasion. Each was witness to and had a hand in an event all too rare in city life.

I share the non-controversial opinion that the arts are vital to the overall health of society at large. Yet I am often in a company of one when I tell a group of people that the most vital artist of them all is the creative who works in the field of advertising. At first, gentle laughter greets my response. People think I must be joking. But, upon seeing the expression on my face, their countenance soon hardens.

Advertising gets a bad wrap. It speaks generally, making grand claims to the power of its products. HG Wells called Advertising legalized lying. F Scott Fitzgerald called it, “a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business, [adding] you cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.” I would have liked to remind F Scott that rackets like these shape our shared experiences and understandings of what life can be. Advertising on today’s massive scale has great potential for constructive contribution, holding enormous influencing power on the constantly developing landscape of our culture. Culture mirrors advertising. Advertising is a vessel transporting trends to the mainstream.

“Drive safely,” he said. “Today we celebrate on the same day.” I left him with a smile on my face that remained once out the door and once in the car, and still as I drifted into the left lane, unfazed by those honks of the car behind me. The high beams of an oncoming car flashed as it came over the hill. I swerved off the road and into a telephone pole. I died happy that night, thankful that I hadn’t wasted the whole of summer and fall preparing for my one day of winter.