You know you are a regular at a bar when after you settle down in a chair, nobody even bothers to ask you “The usual, sir?”. There are a few such bars in Atlanta for me. And I tend to go there on the days a particular bartender of that bar would be there. Over the years, I have narrowed down my field of favorite bartenders based on their ability to make my most favorite drink – An Old Fashioned. I usually won’t do more than one cocktail an evening – but that is usually my cocktail – after which I switch to very light red wine (mostly Pinot Noir).

Well, this week was the last day of such a favorite bartender of mine. Nicole is moving to a bar closer to her house to be able to take more care of their two small and cute kids. We will still go to The Crossing after office but we are going to miss her much.

Here is a twist to our last visit to the bar to say Goodbye to her… Instead of we giving her going away gifts, she had brought gifts for her regular customers!!!

It was Thursday morning – I usually am headed home around that time. This week though, I was leaving home for an overnight trip to Florida. As it so often happens, I finished up my calls just before hitting security and ran to the Delta Sky Club to grab something to eat – not knowing where my next meal will be – and run for the flight that was to leave in under thirty minutes.

Just as I was cramming down the two boiled eggs and some Yogurt, guess who called out my name? It was good old Tim Knezevich. I remember Tim for many many things. The spelling of his last name is one of them 🙂 His coffee mug was another – it looked exactly like a Nike Zoom lens!! (he is an avid photographer and that was a souvenir, I guess). And of course, I remember him as a professional who taught me a thing or two on how to attract and keep top executive talent. In his defense, I had joined the company where we met each other before he had joined. I do not think I had much of a chance otherwise 🙂

I had just a few minutes to catch up with Tim and our old friends from the prior workplace. But most importantly, I got to meet Kim – his wife. I had left them and just as I was stepping out of the Club, I remembered something. I ran hurriedly back to them. I was getting dangerously close to missing my flight but an important aspect of the meeting was forgotten – taking our picture on my iPhone so that I can permanently etch those moments in my blog!!!

In a complete coincidence, he was headed to Seattle! Are you wondering what was the big coincidence there? Well, before Tim joined, the lady who headed up that department was Andrea. And obviously she shares the blame for agreeing with the CEO to hire me as his direct report. You know what she did after I joined? She quit and went to Seattle 🙂 🙂

Again, always great to meet old friends on the road… After all, the road is where I get to make all the great friends…

One of the greatest benefits of living a life on the road is the opportunity I get to make so many new friends from all walks of life. Getting to hear those individual stories of people I meet on the road makes me appreciate everything around me so much more. It definitely makes those getting up at unGodly hours, irritating delays in flight, skipping dinner because I was too late to check in .. far more bearable. In reality, I look forward to them. I write them down and in then moments of personal crises I read them up to get little pick me ups.

Today’s story is about a really old lady – you can see her in the picture. And by “old” I mean the completely archaic way of counting the integral number of times the earth has gone around the sun after you were born. Outside of that sidereal definition, this was one of the youngest and most beautiful lady I have met yet.

Like it often happens, I found myself rushing out of the airport (this time it was Dulles) and scrambling to the Avis bus. It was less an impending office meeting and more of the old windy weather outside that made me walk as fast as I could. Once inside the bus, I was lost in my emails on my iPhone when I realized that the bus had started moving.

I looked up and realized that I was the only passenger. The driver – the old lady in question – noticed that I had taken my nose off my phone and asked if I had a reservation. The formalities done, I figured why not just make friends with her? So, I walked up to the front of the bus and started talking to her. I asked her how long she had been with Avis and then one thing led to the other.

Turns out, Janice has been driving with Avis for the last 5 years. She was proud to point out that she was the only female Avis driver in the Avis fleet in IAD and the oldest one by age! I was curious what got her to driving rental car buses five years back. I am glad I was curious – because I learnt the personal story of this fascinating lady.

Me: “You have been driving with Avis for 5 years. How did you get started with this?”
She: “I had not too many options”.
Expecting to hear a story of an old lady fighting her thru financial difficulties, I asked her “Tell me a little more. What were you doing before this?”
She: “Driving eighteen wheelers across the country”.
I recoiled like I got hit with something I had no idea would hit me. Actually, I did get hit with something I had no idea would hit me.
Me: “What do you mean you drove eighteen wheelers across the country?”

Turns out her first love as a child was always about driving big trucks. She did live to fulfill her dreams. And she has driven eighteen wheelers for nearly three decades!!! She has seen the country inside out and loved every moment of it.

And then one fine day, while trying to clean the front of her truck, she slipped and broke her leg. This was in Indiana. Apparently, that was the only time she had to ask for help from anybody. And that was her own son!!! Who apparently is always worried sick what might happen to his mom on the road.

She took six months off to recuperate and got herself the Avis job.
“What is the plan ahead?”, I asked, wondering how she will start tapering down.
“Oh! Once I am fully healed, I go back to driving eighteen wheelers”.

I was absolutely stunned!!

Here I am – worried about all the stuff I cannot control and there she was – determined to live life on her own terms. Here I am – chasing the ever elusive “financial security” line – and there she was – soaking up every moment on either side of every state line.

Since I was the only passenger, she drew the bus up all the way to B23 – where my rental car was parked. Before getting down, I asked her if it was okay for me to take a picture with me. She readily agreed. There being no one else, I had to make a vague attempt at a selfie.

Then I asked her “Would you mind sharing your email so I can share when I write about your life story?”.
She: “I do not do emails”.
Me: “You do not do emails? Facebook? Twitter?”
She: “I do not do computers”.
Me: “I have to ask you this – Why???”
She: “I told you already – I dreamt of driving eighteen wheelers. I never dreamt of computers.”

As I sat in the rental car, before even I could push that “Start” button, I had to take a few moments to gather myself.

“Wow”, I said to myself, “… to have lived the simple dreams of my childhood and not getting distracted by everything else…. “

It was June of 1975. We had just returned to our third grade after a five week summer vacation (those days, in India, for us, summer vacation was typically from early May to mid June). All of us came back except this really thin Punjabi girl with her signature two long hair plaits. (the Bengali word was “binuni”). Her name was Preeti Saini.

None of us knew what happened to her. To make matters worse, our teacher – Mrs. Bose was hospitalized with something. We had a substitute teacher who was equally in the dark. Over time, we all got busy with our studies and games on the field and forgot her.

And for years, it has bugged me no end to find out whatever happened to her. I am one of those guys that can never sleep well knowing that somebody who crossed my path in this life has gone completely dark on me. Years and years of search later, in a completely fortuitous way – and I mean this is serendipity heaped upon serendipity – I got to know that she lives not too far from where we are! You can read the details in this amazing story in http://www.rajibroy.com/?p=9648

Last week, my work took me to Minneapolis. A couple of calls before that and there I was with my friend who never showed up one fine day back in 1975. Fortunately, she showed up as scheduled forty one years later!!! Amazingly, she looked the same as I remembered her face from the first grade. (See the picture. The insets are from a picture in our first grade)

We had a great time catching up on our past, siblings, aging parents and the adoption of a new country as our own many many moons back…

Okay, he is a handsome looking, younger, Caucasian guy with a lot of hair on his head. And I am anything but! However, it is another of those great “intersections points” I had on the road.

This one does not involve any airport or distant places. It was in fact in Norcross (a suburb of Atlanta) where our office is located. A few days back, sometime late in the evening, I realized that I was the last person left in the office. I still had a few emails and documents to go thru. I packed up, locked the office and went to a favorite bar of mine near the office. It is actually a very old railway station converted to a bar and restaurant. (called The Crossing). Early in the week, usually the bar is not that crowded and it allows me to do all this email and document stuff I keep for the end of the day. The best part is the train going by every fifteen minutes or so (mostly freight trains and a few Amtrak trains) and rattling the whole place. Still get fascinated watching a train go by so near and close.

In any case, on this day, at some point I started to wind up all the office work and settled down on my second and last drink. I am not sure how it happened – I think I was talking to the barlady Nicole about Powerball – but I somehow managed to talk to a couple – who had come and settled down not too far from me sometime during the evening. At the end of half an hour of talking, I came away convinced that he is my (better) twin!!

Tim and Nanette were their names. Tim mentioned about being in a “gap year” (retiring for some time before going back to a new job). That was all the lead I needed. I am a big believer of that. I excitedly told him about all my “time off” years. We talked about the philosophy of breaking up retirement from “once and done” to multiple periods of retirements so as to enjoy life in the different decades we live thru. We also talked about the common challenges people have (and frankly, we had) around the prospect of taking time off. (Most of it is around a feeling of financial insecurity – which, in my personal opinion, is a false fear). We also talked about Bronnie Ware’s “Top Five Regrets of a Dying Man”.

What was absolutely weird were some of the common things we have done during our time offs. Turns out he is a mixologist too!! And a runner!!! And practices music! Knows somebody who plays the tabla (which is what I play)!! I tried to encourage him to write up his life story in a blog. Did not need any encouragement – he already has multiple blogs and FB pages. (As an aside, he wrote about our meeting too!! – http://www.myfirstretirement.com/2016/01/15/gap-year/).

The picture below will give you a great idea of how much fun I had that evening with two complete strangers at a bar! I hope to run into them and exchange our stories more often!!