“I was born in Tijuana. I grew up In San Diego. I moved to San Jose and then San Francisco. Now I’m in Oregon. I guess I’ll get to Canada eventually.”

“Always a barman?” I asked.

“Always a barman.”

“Never thought about doing more? Management? Your own place?”

“Nah." He said. “Increase my hours, increase my responsibilities, increase my workload, reduce my interaction with my customers and slash my earnings? I might be a barman, but I’m not stupid!”

“I recently asked a room full of 100 managers, ‘If you could keep your current pay but go back to your old role as an individual contributor, would you do it?’” Wellins says. “About 90 people raised their hands. It startled me. I see it as an indication that lots of managers accepted promotions for the wrong reasons.”

Richard Wellins

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Cynthia was brought up about 50 miles away, moved here in her teens, and ‘worked the tables’ for longer than she meant to. On ‘the way through’ she fell into a job that she had for 38 years and had just retired from, not because she had to but really because the market had fallen through the floor.

Cynthia traveled the world working for a single company for every one of those 38 years. She loved it.

Before she got into it, she didn’t even know it was a job to be done. Have to say - 38 years later, neither did I.

Ever wondered what happened to those gold fillings when grandma passed? Cynthia knows. In Cynthia’s words; “Whoever saw grandma last, just before she was ‘planted’ …. that’s who knows where the gold went. And it wasn’t buried with her.”

Bottom line, Cynthia worked for a gold refinery business - ‘recycling’ division. It was ‘big business’ and kept Cynthia in a really good job for most of her working life.

In case you don’t think that there was money to be made, Cynthia assured me that just one old dentist carpet that was going to be thrown away delivered thousands of dollars in gold.

“Gold," I said. “I thought that market was very much alive and well?”

“It is,” she said, “but not at the dentists. People haven’t been doing gold fillings for years now - and if they aren’t filling their mouths with gold, we have nothing to buy and recycle.”

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

Orson Welles

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The conversation started simply enough. He lived just up the road, had a little farm … “just as a hobby you know”.

Yes, he’s been in farming the whole of his life, always in ‘these parts’.

His son runs the ‘family farms’. We’ve mainly got grain, orchards and nuts.

“Oh. All over” … the answer to where the farms are located.… “and we have patents."

Which raised my eyebrows … how many farmers do you know that have patents? No, me neither.

Turns out the patents are in water - wastewater specifically.

Turns out that there are many customers from all over the world already using his technology. Paying customers. A global business that emerged from the farming. And you would never know without talking to him. Exploring the conversation. Doing the journey with him.

Without all of that, he was just 'another' elderly gentleman, keeping himself to himself, watching 'the game', having a glass of wine at the end of the day - like he does every day BTW.

Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different.

C.S. Lewis

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“I trained as a Psychologist.”

“I became a Winemaker.”

“I run a Bar.”

“It’s all the same really.”

“I’m descended from a Scotsman who married a Dakotan Indian. That’s how I came to be in the Crystal business.”

James never explained how that particular logic worked. I think that is part of his charm … and, of course was proud of his lineage.

“But I am Gay - who KNOWS where that came from,” he then proclaimed … in that wonderfully affirmative, standing proud way that some people have.

James. Lovely. Outgoing. Humorous. Positive. Self-Effacing.

Is it because I’m English that I value that trait?

Then again, a six foot, loud, witty, dyed blonde, gay guy selling crystals in a town of less than 30,000 - can you be self-effacing?