We Are Surrounded By Stories
While in Minnesota speaking at an event, a friend and fellow speaker Sara Kain Meaney said she was (as always) hungry. I, very reluctantly and for moral support only of course, agreed to join. We debated the merits of eating various food types at this odd time of day. In the end, pizza was decided on as the safest option.
Sara found a nearby pizza place that looked good and that she had seen before, then brought up Uber, typed in the name, and pressed the first one that appeared. We hopped in the car, went a couple of miles, hopped out and only then realized that a) This was definitely not the place she had seen before and b) we were in the parking lot of a VFW with giant military equipment and a bunch of lounging dogs enjoying the shade they provided.
To most people, this might be disappointing. To us, it was ADVENTURE TIME!
To get the food part of this story out of the way, it turns out that the same pizza place serves as the food provider inside of the VFW. And the pizza was great. (It was Fat Lorenzo’s for those wondering)
We sat at the bar, I’m not really sure there were any other options now that I think about it. At the end of the bar was an older woman holding court, while breathing her fresh oxygen through her attached hoses. The place was full of older people, and it was the day after Memorial Day, so she would normally have just been one more person that I overlooked. But the bartender came up to us, and whispered conspiratorially
“I’m not telling tales out of school, because she wrote a book about it, but you see that woman right there? She was a call girl for the Rat Pack back in their heyday as well as a lot of other famous people.”
I turn to Sara so that we can gawk at each other about this astounding nugget of information, but she’s already buried in her iPhone trying to find the woman (let’s be honest, sometimes what people *say* they did isn’t always true). Within seconds (Sara is a google machine) she’s turned the phone towards me showing me pictures of the woman both as a young call girl and as the older adult sitting down the bar from us.
If you’re so inclined you can look her up here yourself http://www.breakingmysilence.net/ , she now spends her time trying to keep women from making the same mistakes she did and fighting the sex trade. (Also, in the header photo of the rat pack, that’s Jane on the left holding up a cue card for them)
We all have our stories, some more interesting than others, but stories nonetheless. It was a good reminder about a lot of things. ALWAYS find adventure wherever you are. ALWAYS have people like Sara around who will charge right up to the door of unknowns and knock as loud as possible. ALWAYS tip your bartender. And ALWAYS know that the person you are dismissing in your mind has some incredible stories to tell if you’ll just seek them out.
Thanks for the reminder Jane.
Jane McCormick
