She sold the ads, smoked the Camels, and stayed out of our way, which had to be hard.

How hard? Once I produced a 12-page special section in the paper, just on where to get fucked up on campus and in IV. It was mostly about shrooms and LSD. Fryday Magazine. She didn’t bat an eye. She sold the ads for it.

And that was just me! There were literally hundreds of us who passed through those doors during her decades there trying to push the limits to see if the sky would fall. It never fell.

Just the opposite.

Only once did Tybie, pictured, take me aside. I used the phrase “sorority tart” once in a column and she said, “you’re better than that Tony.”

I asked “’tart’ bothers you? I began a piece ‘Fuck fuck fuck’ the other day and ‘tart’ bothers you?”

She said, “that other piece was art. It was poetry. ‘Tart’ is something any Bozo would type. You’re special.”

I’m misting up thinking about her. She gave us all the freedom. The most valuable gift you could bestow a young person.

Without her finding creative ways to finance our paper – a freaking daily paper with no adult supervision – we would have had to study or some shit.

St Peter is hearing some great stories tonight.

-30-