A few of us came earlier in the day to get ready for our Board meetings in Tampa. Tampa is also the place – strictly speaking St. Pete – that our business and personal friend Amar calls home. Amar’s company and we often compete with each other and then in many other cases, we partner together. He is acknowledged to be one of the industry leaders in our segment. Therefore, as you must have guessed, it is always great to sit down with him and get his perspectives on market, technology and customers. Specially for me who came from outside the industry.

Last evening, three of us from our team – Mark, Bob and myself sat down with Amar for dinner and drinks. We even called his wife – Aparna – to join us. Which was a good thing – since we are always up for one extra person to gang up on poor Amar!!

It was a great evening – and we even got to do business before Aparna came along!!!

Having stepped out of the flight at Tampa, I was weaving thru all those folks at the gate waiting to get into the plane for the outbound flight, when I thought I saw somebody that looked very much like me. Clearly somebody of Indian origin, he was also bespectacled and sported a clean shaven head.

What is more, I thought I might actually know him. He was peering into his iPhone busy doing whatever it is that busy people do with their iPhones at airports. To make sure I was not mistaking a stranger for somebody I knew, I went and just stood next to him. Eventually, he lifted his head and sure enough – it was an old colleague from the past – Gautam Vyas!

Neither of us work in our old company any more – so it gave me a chance to catch up with his exciting moves in career as well as get updates on some of the old colleagues. Funny part is that we do not live that far apart from each other (by Atlanta standards at least) but we actually saw each other first time after I left that job in of all places – Tampa airport!!

The normal routine after checking into my hotel room at 9PM any day would be to fish out my laptop or iPad out, go downstairs, get a seat and a drink and finish up some of the office emails. Last Monday, I checked into the Courtyard in Waukegan, went to my room and suddenly told myself – “Break up the routine”.

But how? Maybe not take any digital device with me? Well, I had to keep the phone in my pocket in case of emergency calls from home or family. But not before I had quickly glanced for any urgent emails. There being none, I slipped it in to my pocket and went to the bar.

The idea was to grab a drink and then just sit at an empty table. And just watch what goes on. That hurried guest who would stroll in and check in to the hotel. Those folks at the table making the last minute changes to their sales presentation. And all that.

Well, that was the plan.

In reality, what happened was in about five minutes, I was sitting at the empty bar surrounded by four staff members of the hotel. And it was like I was holding court there. Asked everybody about their origins and life in general. There was the lady who had lived most of her life in the locality and was making small packets with chocolates for her guests for the next day (it was Valentine’s day next day). There was the gentleman from Mexico who missed his parents.

But this story is about the 20 year old young gentleman who not only stood there and talked to me… he eventually came back to me to talk to me more when everybody had left.

“I have a daughter nearly your age”, I tried to make a connection with him.
“She is in college?”
“Yes”
“Where”
“NYU”
“Wow! She is fortunate”

Not sure how to take this forward, I tried a different tack…
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Law Enforcement, Sir!”
That took me a few seconds to absorb. I cannot remember any young kid ever having said that to me before.
“Local, State or Federal?”, I fished.
“Local and then Federal”
“Why Law Enforcement?”, I asked.

That is when I started to put this young man’s story together. His grandfather was in the Navy. As was his dad. At some level, it is in his DNA to be in a similar line. But what is not DNA – just him – is his sheer drive and single mindedness.

He is in his second year in Community College. But he spends an enormous amount of time in community activities. He evens pays thru his college by working with different local enforcement agencies – sometimes doing as mundane jobs as writing reports and sometimes patrolling the beaches. (BTW, he gave me the tips to find the beach to run on the next day).

The more I talked to him, the more I was impressed in his clarity of what he wanted in life. At that age, if you had asked me the same question, you could not have gotten a blanker stare. I was totally taken in by his enthusiasm of his beliefs in how people are usually great and by organizing them into communities you can do what cannot be individually achieved.

About half an hour later, I had to ask him “So, what is your name?”
“Justice, Sir”.
“Justice?”
“Justice Morgan”
I could not help. “Justice wanting to be in Law Enforcement. The jokes just roll off the tongue, don’t they?”
“You cannot even imagine, Sir”.

Maybe not. But here is something I can imagine, Justice. With a young guy as driven and as focused as you, I cannot think of a single force that is big enough to stop you. Your world, as you desire, shall be yours.

Certainly, as somebody more than thirty years older to you, I want to believe that – that is the world we built and left for you.

Now, make it so!!

Remember how I went to see Lavern at Phoenix – missed her – but landed up meeting Mikey after so many years? A somewhat similar thing happened again before I wrapped up my business trip last week.

The last meeting for the last day was over around 5PM. Dinner with office folks were set around 7PM. I had 2 hours. Of course, the first instinct was to check out another Gin distillery. The one that I had my mind on was Aviation. It is one of the original gin distilleries in Portland and is a pioneer of what is called American style gin. This style is lower on the juniper side and higher on the citrus front.

Google maps said they were open till 6 PM. Managed to convince Anand to drive us there. We probably reached around 5:20 or so. And they were closed!! With a big “Private Party” sign on it! I could see that there was nobody inside but there was no way to go in.

Totally disheartened, I was wondering what to do. I still had time. Anand suggested that we check out some other distillery. Instead, I suddenly remembered something. I asked him – “Isn’t the Doubletree nearby here?”. He confirmed that it was. (He has moved to Portland a few months back). “Let’s go. I will introduce you to a friend there”.

And that friend is somebody I had met about three years back. Joel was the bartender at The Den in the Marriott downtown hotel. One lonely evening when virtually no one was there, we got to know each other. I wrote up about him back in 2014. I still remember he teaching me a few new cocktails and I winning the contest of who could name the strangest vodka. (I said Sriracha vodka. Yes, there exists such a thing).

Presently, both Anand and I walked up into the Doubletree bar which was extremely crowded but we managed to get near the bar. The barman looked at us and asked “How can I help you?”. And the next thing he said was “Hey, it is you”!! He recognized me in one shot.

He even managed to get us two empty chairs at the bar. In between all the running around he was doing, we managed to catch up on each others’ lives. I had gotten to know his story about early childhood before. Now I found out that he has gotten married a few months back and more excitedly, is looking forward to his first European trip ever in a few more weeks.

I told him about my research on gins. In the meanwhile, he had my favorite evening drink made for me and Anand – an Old Fashioned. He taught me a different way of making it that he had learnt from two famous bartenders. Basically, you do not muddle the orange peel or the cherry – you just add them as garnish. The syrup and bittesr were in perfect proportions. Anand declared that it was the best old fashioned he ever had. It was certainly one of the best I have had.

In the end, he was getting busy and I had a dinner to go to. Joel lined up all the gin bottles he had to mark my research on gins and then Anand took a picture of both of us!!

That was a great time had meeting a person I had accidentally met and made friends with three years back. This meeting was far more deliberate (although luck was involved) and renewed our friendship!!