This one was different, though. There was no way they were going under. The competitor had a rich uncle, you see, who just kept funding whatever operation deficit they ran up. A very, very rich uncle. Uncle Sam, to be precise.

Our competitor, you see, was the General Services Administration, a branch of the U.S. government. The bureaucrats there had been charged with putting out a directory similar to ours. This they had done for years. Hundreds of people were involved in the production. They got paid well, traveled a lot, and had a great benefits package. The fact that people never used the directory was never a matter of great concern. I mean, the less copies printed and given away, the less money needed for staff. If anyone wanted a copy, they could buy it.

Suddenly, though, their directory was not only poorly circulated, it had become completely obsolete. Our directory had replaced it entirely. Many bases didn’t even bother keeping a reference copy of the “official” directory anymore. Word started getting around that the army and navy guys didn’t need the old directory, and suddenly the bureaucrats realized their jobs were in danger.

Official letters started going from the GSA informing our advertisers and prospective advertisers not to use our book. It was unauthorized, they said. It was not the official U.S. government directory, they said. It might be banned from government offices, they said. Many prospects decided, on the basis of these official communiqués, that we were a scam and wouldn’t sign up. Even some of our current advertisers, whose businesses were literally packed with uniformed personnel thanks to our ads, refused to pay their bills on the basis of the GSA letters.

Many prospects, on reading the letters of praise from hundreds of base officials, signed with us anyway or renewed. No doubt about it, the GSA was hurting us, but we were growing anyway. Better, we thought, not to start a head-on legal fight with them. They had unlimited resources. Who knew what might happen? Anyway, it still seemed we had the keys to the mint. The presses that were running off the dollar bills might have been slowed, but our books, which produced our currency, still looked mighty good to us.

When the GSA examined our books they looked pretty good to them, too. In fact, they looked so good the next thing we knew the GSA was accusing us of counterfeiting. We’d reprinted the great seal of the United States without permission. This was a felony. Same as printing money. Treasury would have to be called. Jail time and big fines for everybody. Of course, if we agreed to just stop printing the books, everything might be forgotten. I could stay free with my family instead of being thrown in with the other inmates.