I still exchange emails occasionally with friends that I had while working in Ontario.  I am pretty much down to one guy Richard on a regular basis and a few others for for emails.  It is almost 10 years.

 

I was one of the people interviewing Richard when he was hired.  A young guy with a Phd in Chemistry that Dr. Stephen Cohen and I were looking for to develop new products.  Guys that thought out of the box because we were trying to launch a group of new applications for the base stocks produced by our refinery that were unique. Stephen and I ended up agreeing with two guys, Richard and Joe.   This was during my marketing career.  We used to describe the team we had as Star Trek, going out and seeking new worlds.  Wonderful time.

Anyway, Richard and Joe  joined our team and we did develop many new applications, some successful, mostly not.  The successful ones are still big profit products for PC Lubricants.

Years passed and I moved on to managing a group selling factory fill lubricants to the big car companies around the world.  Joe is now an executive VP for refinery operations and Richard is the Director of Research and Development for the Lubricant group (that has long since been sold to an American company) (Stephen and I obviously did a good job)

Richard still keeps in contact with me as he manages the baseball dream team contest that we have been playing for 15 years.

Okay you are wondering where this is going.  Richard is much younger than I am but coming closer to retirement.  He asked how is my life going on.  How is retirement?

I told him that this is what today was going to be like.  While I have many connections to the Miata club on the Island I have also been invited to a sports car group.  Today is a wonderful sunny day, granted only 16.  Pat and I joined the group for a run that drove through the country roads and ended up at a pub (Salmon Point) on the ocean.  A typical Thursday for a retired person…..or so I told him.

Richard replied…. damn I cannot wait until I retire.