Lunch with Friends is more than a modern version of a Horatio Alger story. A young man from a small town in Illinois graduated from a little known college in the Midwest, left for the big city to seek his fortune, and fell in love with a young woman from a socially prominent family from St. Louis. According to a member of the Jays, he “married up.” His career began by going door-to-door peddling pots and pans on the streets of Galesburg, Illinois, to selling bonds, first in Milwaukee and later in New York, to those with fortunes to invest.