You Never Know

Sometimes you just need to get the cobwebs out. It has to be a good thing when two men who started life together and grew up together get away from the rat race of the pressure of running businesses and making decisions and giving speeches to relax and catch up on 36 years of living. It’s hard to believe one can come to New York City, the rat race capital of the world, to get away from the rat race.

But trust me we did.

The last two days, under the auspices of leisurely sightseeing, we have laughed way too much but have also discussed every subject under the sun. Besides Yankees Stadium which was the real excuse for the trip, we have had some rather long meals where the conversation went from childhood memories to politics to theology to education to life stories to frivolous discussions.


We spent about an hour in the fabulous Waldorp Astoria Hotel yesterday morning and were reminded of the history of that great hotel and people who have stayed there. Afterwards we spent another hour at the Mercedes Dealership on Park Avenue which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the most prolific and influential architect of the 20th century. Amazingly we discovered they deliver about 150 new Mercedes per month at this store. We also found out they sell about 25 Maybach’s per year, which I couldn’t help but notice listed for about $370K.

We spent about 2 ½ hours having lunch at the Boathouse Restaurant overlooking the lake in Central Park. I can’t think of many places where the atmosphere could be better for conversation. We had dinner the night before at the famous Tavern on the Green. Tonight, after another Broadway show, we ended up in the old Paramount Theater which is now the Hard Rock Café and had late night burgers and enjoyed the rock and roll history and memorabilia of NYC.

There were no schedules to keep and no place to be at a certain time. But we now are about to head back to where there are schedules to keep and places we have to be at certain times and we are not complaining.

Jimmy Childre and I both will be 54 in a few weeks. We grew up together, went our separate ways, and met in NYC for an evaluation. We both agreed in some areas we got it right and some areas we got it wrong. But hopefully we both have a lot of living to do before we get to the end of the journey.

But you never know.

Here’s hoping we meet here again when we are 80 so we can discuss how it all turned out.