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Charles Peters

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What was your scariest moment with Charlie?

Paul Glastris
The time he said "Paul, I love you but I'm going to have to fire you."

He didn't, but still...
Walter Shapiro
In 1974, somewhere around 6:00 pm, very close to the Monthly's printer deadlines, I was fired by Charlie for not getting in my article. I worked all night in the office (since Human Relations had not taken my keys or banned me from the typewriters) and had the article waiting for Charlie at 9:00 am. By 9:30 I was un-fired or reinstated or re-hired.
Haley Edwards
When I first started at the Monthly, I didn't know that Charlie had gotten in the habit of dictating Tilting over the phone to the editors. So when he called me up one day and talked for about 30 minutes, without pause, I just listed, laughing and uh-huh-ing. I wasn't until the very end, when he said, "So you'll send that to me tomorrow?" that I realized my mistake. The subsequent ten seconds of total silence felt like a lifetime. I thought for sure he was collecting himself to fire me immediately, to throw me to the wolves. Instead, thankfully, he cracked up.
Michelle Cottle
At some point during my first year, the Monthly's publisher instructed our printing house to throw out a bunch of "extra" copies of the magazine that were supposed to have been used for an upcoming direct mail. When Charlie found out, he turned a color not found in nature, and I was seriously concerned that he was about to have a heart attack right there in the office.