“He literally gave us the clock off his wall.”

“Has there ever been someone who’s been overly generous to me?” And absolutely there has. Probably around five years ago, I found out that there is a very old family business on the west coast in Oregon that shares my last name, and it’s the oldest family-run business in the state. And so during one of our road trips, my girlfriend and I decided to stop by this family-owned business that shares our name, just to say hello. I don’t have an extremely common last name. And so when I find things that bear my last name, it feels really special and unique. And, you know, when I’m on the road, I have I think more courage to put myself out there. I don’t think I would stop by a random place in which I don’t know anyone locally, very often, to just pop in and say hello on my own behalf, but that’s what I did here. And my expectation would be that the people at this business would be like, “Oh, that’s an interesting coincidence, same last name. Pretty neat man. Oh, well, okay. Thanks for coming in. Feel free to take a picture of our sign on the way out if you want.” But as it turns out the owner of this business, he was this amazing human being, the most – one of the most affable people I’ve ever met in my life. He embraced me like I was family from day one, and really if we’re being technical, as I’ve discovered, everyone with my last name traces back to the original man with our last name who arrived in New Amsterdam, essentially close to the start of America as we know it. So, he, the owner of this business, immediately adopted me as family, informally speaking, and he took the time out of his day to give me a full tour of the business to, you know, sit us down in the office and just talk about life, like we had known each other for years. We talked basketball. He started just pulling things off of his wall to give us. He literally gave us the clock off his wall. And because he knew we had been on the road, we were road tripping across America, he took us to his warehouse and just said basically, “What do you want?” And we’re like, “We can’t” – We’re like “Hey man, like, we just wanted to meet you, like we just thought it’d be great to actually visit the business sharing my last name and to meet you guys, like we’re not here for handouts, of course.” And he’s like I – He’s like “Whatever.” He’s like, “I just – take whatever you want guys, like let’s not, let’s not do this whole thing, like I’m gonna give you stuff and that’s all there is to it.” So we could – to be honest at that time, we could use beverages, just because we’re traveling every day, and that was, that was cost, that was things we were paying for. So I said, “I don’t know maybe some like some Gatorade over there might be good. My girlfriend really likes glass bottled Pepsi.” And so he loaded us up with like five times as much as what we very shyly requested. He gave us some unreleased versions of Pepsi that he had hidden elsewhere. He gave us that clock off his wall. He found stickers bearing my last name and the company’s name, just on and on. Maybe the most generous human being I’ve ever met my life, and it was amazing.

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