Way back in 2000 I had started an IT business. I was just 22 years old, had just bought my first home, and had a newborn and a toddler. I started my business in a tiny home office in the corner of my bedroom, and got my own business phone line.
Mere days after I got the phone line, it rang. For the first time ever. It felt like that Ghostbusters moment where Janine slams her hand down on the buzzer and yells "WE GOT ONE!"
On the other end was a man named Randy. When I answered the phone he seemed a bit confused, and said "I am looking to buy a copy of Adobe Photoshop, do you have any in stock?"
Now, mind you this was back when software came on disks and in boxes and you bought them at authorized resellers. Days before this phone call, I had registered as an Adobe software implementation consultancy and signed up for their authorized reseller program. I never even got any sort of acceptance. The phone just rang, and there was Randy who had found me as the closest business to him that could sell him Photoshop.
I put on my big man business voice and said yes I would be happy to get him Adobe Photoshop. We made the deal on the phone and I told him when it would arrive.
It showed up two days later. It was my first sale ever. I paid the wholesale price for Photoshop and then was able to sell it to him at the MSRP, a considerable profit. I called Randy and said it was in, and if he wanted to I could just bring it to him since he was just a few blocks away from me. He was shocked, because he was not expecting personal delivery service. I brought the box to him, he wrote me a check, and we became friends for life.
Randy has always been a man with a huge love of life. He is loud, laughs often and easily, and radiates joy everywhere he goes.
Randy is a musician, and a very talented one. He has played piano most of his life, and can play dozens of instruments. For years he owned a recording studio, and then 'retired' as a private music tutor for kids, where he could impart his love of music to future generations. He has recorded albums, played countless live gigs, and accomplished so much over his life through his music.
I have so many stories with Randy but I'll save those for another day. As life goes, our friendship entered its twilight era as life happened. We stopped speaking years ago (for no good reason).
Today my daughter and I were out to dinner. She looked up at me and asked "Do you ever talk to Randy?" and I clarified who she meant. I was kind of surprised she even remembered him, and said so. She said, "I don't remember what he looks like but I remember his voice..." his big, booming, deep, melodic, musical voice.
So I picked up my phone and fired off a quick email to the last known email address I had for him. I haven't spoken to him in at least 7 years, and even then only briefly. In my email I mentioned the circumstances and told him that my daughter, who he used to know as my son, had grown up and changed her name.
Not ten minutes later, I received a reply. He was so excited to hear from me, and said "I left an audio note for Persephone, please pass it on to her!" and attached was an MP3 file named "Persephone.mp3"
Believe me when I tell you that it was a whole ditty, I mean an actual song that he wrote, played, sang, and recorded in under 10 minutes. I couldn't believe my ears.
To me, this represents a level of mastery of a skill that most will never achieve. I immediately thought of Jiro and his 70 years of sushi making "and still can't make a perfect piece", his "10,000 hours to master a skill" story.
The joy of a friendship that spans most of one's life is something that I hope everyone gets to experience. I'm so grateful to have several, and even more grateful that my friendship with Randy is one of them, because tonight he put a huge smile on my daughter's face, and that's all any dad can ever hope for.