Familiar Strangers

All the advice I have read on blogging has demanded that I post at least once every week day. I had the best intentions of posting yesterday, had a whole post written and then my computer crashed (apparently that still happens) and I lost everything. So here I go, starting over.

FLAWLESS TRANSITION

SO I've been traveling three out of the last four weeks with a bunch of different people. Some who I am familiar with (first name basis) and some who I've never met before. Honestly, I was not looking forward to coming on any of these trips (except for Washington because...well...it's Washington).

I thought that I wouldn't have anything to talk about with these people, we are from very different walks of life (age, job, ethnicity, gender, etc.) and that just shows you how STUPID I AM. Here are some things I learned about people these last few weeks.

Senior:
Senior is a sixty-something Hispanic man (that speaks broken English) who is one of my employees in a factory. He used to be a chef in Las Vegas (until his wife got addicted to gambling, then they moved). And now he works in a factory, and runs a boxing gym for little kids out of his house 4 days a week. He is one of the kinder people I've ever met. Also, he told me "Eric is the special name that lives in your heart." And I couldn't have said it better myself.

Junior:
Junior is Senior's son. He is in his thirties. This post is not all about how great people are and how everyone is a good person once you get to know them. I got to know Junior. And he's a ------. BUT, he's an interesting ------, this ------ used to be a pro boxer. Although, it should be noted that this is less of an interesting fact about Junior and more interesting about Senior, because Senior trained the little ------ to be a boxer in the first place and traveled around the country supporting him.

Gomez:
Gomez has been a lot of places. He told me about being a dealer in a casino, being a crab fisherman in Maine, and now he works in my factory. And, after learning I'm from he said:
Gomez: I been to Burlington Iowa. You know Burlington?
Me: I'm from Burlington! Are you serious? Why were you there?!
Gomez: I come with group to pull fuzz from corn.
Me: I used to detassel too!

Not super interesting, but that's the first time I've ever run into anyone from Iowa, let alone Burlington, down here (Arkansas).

So moral of the story is don't be a Judgy McJudgerson, it's pointless, no one is really what you expect and, honestly, it's pretty rude. But I'm working on it.