18th March 2025
It was a beautiful morning, a time I feel that’s it’s great to be alive. I see how the sun has been called the life giver, I opened my eyes wide and took a deep breath, it was going to be a good day.
As the dogs were exploring and sniffing at everything, I contemplated my life, as I do regularly. I found some video tapes, from an old format that I had forgotten about. Fortunately I still had the player that worked, so I slipped in a tape and waited to see what was on it.
The screen flickered into life, I saw images of my visit to Hong Kong from December 1999. It reminded me of all the great opportunities given to me working for Herman Miller.
I went there with Tim Wallace, where we were developing a desk solution for China.
I think we spent ten day travelling around, the industrial areas of China looking at venders who could manufacture product, little did we know years later that we would have a manufacturing plant there.
It was fun watching all the scenes that I had captured, I expect the landscape has changed drastically since then.
I reminded me of things that we have lost, and didn’t realise it. The paper boy deliveries, the milkman making his deliveries at seven in the morning, this was part of the world when “making a living” was more important that making vast profits, or so it seemed.
It was a time when deliveries were made without charge, unlike now when that charge cost more than the item you want delivered.
But we accept the changes, moan about them, but carry on our lives.
My friend Dave from the studio days came over, almost immediately he starts talking. Like my time with Martin forgetting names was the common thread. We spent a lot of time Googling to complete our conversation.
We talked about humour, and how it’s used to defuse situations, we both shared the belief that there is humour in every situation, including grief. He was alway accused of being insensitive, like the time he told the joke about two men in a pub, one said “My wife told her father to go into the garden and pick some peas for dinner. Whilst he was doing it, he had a heart attack”
The other man replied “ That is terrible, what did you do?”, the first man replied, “open a tin”.
Unfortunately he was telling it to a person whose father had just died of a heart attack.
It was like the time when Kelli’s dad, Dave, died. I was one of the pole bearers. When the casket was slid out of the hurst and I took the full weight, which was considerable, I asked the question, “ Did he have to be buried with all his tools?” I thought it was funny.
I hope that when I go, someone will make a joke about me, lord knows there must be a lot to choose from.
Another Lifetime to go 