Wednesday

Last night on the driveway on Maplecrest with my pals Pete and Jake was a hoot.  We were able to re-tell one another the stories from years ago that have survived the onset of Alzheimer's.  2 made a good choice to head home with The W after our run.  There was certainly little new ground covered after the second bottle of Rodney Strong.

There was a notice in the local obituaries this week that struck a chord with me.  The attorney who cut me a sweet-heart lease shortly after I started my professional practice passed away.  Roy VDK.  He was 94.  His health had been on the serious decline for the last couple of years.  A Dutchman.  Born in Pella, Iowa.  He walked a very straight line.

I had initially worked out of an upstairs bedroom in our house on Scott Street in Davenport.  After 3-4 months, it was apparent that I needed a place to meet with new clients and to have routine office services more readily available.  The law firm in Rock Island had gone through a shake-up and several attorneys had moved to other locations.  However, the firm was stuck with a lease that still had years to go.  And there was a lot of unoccupied offices in their space as a result of the break-up.

When I was in their offices one day in early 1983 talking with this gentleman on a variety of things about my start-up practice, the discussion turned to my need to get space somewhere.  Before I knew it, we had a hand-shake agreement to sublet an office in their space, and pay piece-rate for copying, secretarial services and supplies.  We worked that way for nearly three years, during which time I expanded my space to three offices, never having a written lease. 

(I've always considered Roy VDK as one of my true benefactors, willing to extend help to another farm boy.  But I'm sure he could do the math, and getting a few dollars from a compatible sublet was probably an easy business decision for him at that time as well.)

This was the same attorney who hired my pal Pete in 1980 or so, bringing him to the Quad Cities from Omaha.  Two other attorneys from that office have remained good friends over the years.

Roy VDK would have been about my age now when he graciously extended his help back in 1983.  And I was a green-bean, naive 34 year old with a couple of kids.  With a thin plan for a CPA business starting from scratch.  Looking back, I thought he was an old guy, throttling back.  And now I'm him?  Hmmmm.

Switching gears...

I had a conversation a couple weeks ago with a long-time client and came away with another nugget of, "Its a Small World".  We were talking current events and comparing to the old days.  I asked him where he went to high school as I had never known where he called "home".  Turns out that he's from Cedar Rapids, and went to CR Jefferson for high school. 

My sole connection with CR Jefferson is that they won the big-school class state basketball tournament my senior year.  I know this because our team had court-side seats for the championship game that night after we had lost the third-place game in the small-school class earlier that day.  CR Jeff had  four D-1 players (including a guy who played QB at Iowa) and was the big favorite the win all season.  But the championship game was a thriller as Ames came out in a trick defense that Jeff had trouble with, and Ames had a 6'7" kid who lit it up all night.  Jeff won, but it wasn't easy.  That's probably one of only a couple of high school basketball games that I remember where I wasn't a player on the court.

So I'm relating this memory of CR Jeff to this client (whom I've known for 20+ years, played golf with numerous times, and partied with over the years), and he says, "Yeah, that center was my best friend, and I was on the bench as the back-up point guard!"  It is a small world.

For the record, 3 and 4 have made small additions recently to their blog.

OK.  My pal Jake is still in town and we have work to do. Make it a good Wednesday.

BCOT