It was the summer of 1978. My brother and I printed out a bunch of flyers and put them in the mailboxes of people through our neighborhood. We got several customers for doing lawn cutting and yard work.
I did a bunch of work for Bill that summer at a couple properties he owned. Bill was a cool guy and I’ve always said he was the favorite boss I ever had. We were in touch a bit after I moved away but lost touch over the years. But things came full circle.
In 2010, my bookkeeper told me one of her other clients was having difficulty with their website and asked me if I could help.
The company owner’s son-in-law created the website for them, but he was too busy to take care of things. I assured her I would see what I could do. I just needed the information to log in to their site.
The username on the account spelled out the full name of Bill (I live in Colorado now). I started wondering if the son-in-law was the son of my old boss, Bill Jr.
I talked with my bookkeeper about this. She was good friends with her client and she confirmed that the son-in-law was indeed the son of Bill Jr. from long ago in Illinois. Wow!
Through this, I was able to reconnect with my old boss, Bill. We had lunch over Mexican grub when he was in town visiting his son.
He said I was the best lawn boy he’d ever had over the past 40 years. “Boy, could you work,” he told me. I squawked a bit about being called a lawn boy but took it as a compliment.