Loueese Savard

(Houston, TX) I have been in Houston all week at a meeting with about 25 or 30 fellow employees from our great company. This was not my normal group that I’m around most of the time. This was a different group who came in from all over the United States and Canada for this four day meeting.

In other words, I got to meet some new friends. And I just love having that opportunity.

We were divided into teams of six for the purpose of working through the agenda of the meeting. So I got to spend a whole lot of time with five other people. There was one female and five males in our breakout group.

We had two members in our small group from Canada. The others were from Maryland, Florida and Michigan

And there was one from Reynolds, Georgia.

That would be me.

I quickly discovered the team member from Michigan was my fraternity brother. Although he went to Michigan State and I went to Georgia, we got to discuss some secrets we share in common.

The group of six was also divided into pairs. My partner was a big jovial guy by the name of Louis Savard from Quebec. He is French speaking and speaks broken English.

I am Reynolds speaking and I speak South Georgia English.

As you can imagine, we made quite a team.

Louis (pronounced Loueese) may be the funniest man I ever met in my life. Since I have a knack for recognizing funny, it was a dangerous thing for the two of us to be sitting side by side for 10 – 11 hours a day for almost a week.

We celebrated Louis' 52nd birthday on Wednesday. Louis and I were born the same year and only a month apart. We both have 3 children.

In spite of all our cultural differences, we quickly hit it off.

If you could have heard him in his broken English-French accent last night telling the story about the presentation he recently made – you would have lost your breath laughing. I can tell you – I did.

Louis said he was very nervous as he began his very important financial presentation in front of a group of important people. He said he had purchased a brand new shirt for the occasion. Louis said he couldn’t believe how tight the collar felt on his neck. As he was speaking he was wondering if he had bought the wrong size shirt.

As he continued speaking he loosened his tie but it still felt uncomfortable. He said he finally reached to unbutton his collar. When he did, he pulled out a long piece of cardboard.

He threw it to the side and kept right on presenting, he said.

There is no way you could appreciate this story by reading this. But I can tell you, he had a group of people laughing last night after dinner as hard as any group I have ever seen. And I have seen a few.

I have come to the conclusion that humor just may be the universal language.

It really doesn’t matter if you live in Quebec City, Maryland or South Georgia, people come together when they laugh together.

Later today, I will shake hands with Louis and tell him how much I enjoyed getting to know him and wish him the best as we go our separate ways.

But I will leave with a better understanding of just how small our world really is.