HOME AGAIN.... to some surprises (Part 157g)

HOME AGAIN… to some surprises. (Part 157g)

It wasn’t planned but when Gertrude walked through the front door and went up to Trish, Jerry was talking with her. I don’t know what they were discussing but as soon as Jerry saw he he walked away and into the work area. The smirky smile was still on my face when Gertrude approached my desk. I’m sure she thought it was for her. In any case, I opened the account for her without a word mentioned about Jerry. As she got up to leave she did make a comment about me coming to her agency “just to look around. As soon as she was through the gate I was calling the telephone company about the switchboard. I didn’t know if there was a problem or not but with equipment almost 30 years old it was worth a service call.

With less than two months until the opening of the new branch things were starting to pile up on me. Ordering the teller machines was one that I’d overlooked until the visit to the branch earlier in the day. So, in my call to the data center about the data packs being installed I took care of that as well. I’d been in Florida for the April Board meeting when the branch committee asked about the premiums (gifts) for the new account campaign to go along with the grand opening. Hobie had put them off telling them I’d have some selections for them by May 1st. However, I didn’t even have a meeting set up with any of the distributors and I was getting a bit stressed about it. Knowing I’d be in the city for the Bank Protection Act seminar I started trying to figure out a way to squeeze that in as well… but I didn’t know how. Any trip to the city was a whole day lost and I really didn’t want to make two trips.

To complicate matters, Hobie called in sick on Wednesday which meant I had to sit in for him at the mortgage committee meeting. I spent most of the day trying to gather information about the seminar I was to attend on Thursday and Friday. By the time I got home that night I was pretty up-tight. The last thing I needed was a call from Cliffy to find out if I’d be at the shop to work on the race car that night. I know he was upset with me when I told him I couldn’t but I calmed him down a bit when I told him I thought it might be possible to come up with some sponsorship money. It was nothing concrete and only an aside I’d heard from Bret. However, it bought me some time.

To get to the city by 9:30am I had to be up at 5:30am and to the bus stop at 6:10am. It always made for a long day. The bus took me to the only train to the city that arrived in time for the meeting. The conference started at 9:30am which didn’t give me any time to check in to my room. The materials concerning the day’s offering stressed the importance of being there for the opening and that’s what I did, dragging my travel bag with me. They were right because right after the opening remarks all the participants were handed materials that turned out to be the keystone for adhering to the proposed requirements. The materials were explained and we were, point by point, guided on how to proceed with them. When they called a for a recess I headed down to the lobby to check in to the hotel only to find they didn’t have a reservation for me. I insisted that they did and while I was starting to rant I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I turned around and saw a somewhat familiar face but couldn’t put a name to it. He, obviously, saw my distress and blurted out “It’s Bull… from college!”. I think I probably shook my head when I heard it. A whole flood of thoughts came roaring to mind. It had been nine years since I graduated but he didn’t look much like the guy I remembered as “Bull”. He’d been a fraternity brother but was a year behind me. We were never really friends. Actually, when he pledged the fraternity I’d been pretty hard on him. He was a varsity hockey player and thought his s__t didn’t stink. He’d earned the nickname of “Bull” because when a puck went into a corner he’d go crashing in like a “mad bull’ to dig it out. We did share one thing in common though… we were both married for our senior years. I’d only seen him once after I graduated. It was right after the fall semester of his senior year started. I was still working with the race horses just 20 miles away and before we shipped out I took a trip back to campus to see some of my returning friends.

Of course, I had to ask what he was doing there. He was working for a small upstate bank and was sent, like me, to get the ’scoop’ on the pending law. It only took a few minutes for us to get that bit of information shared and then he asked what the problem was about my reservation. I didn’t exactly know other than they didn’t have a room for me. Then he offered to let my stay in his room. Hearing that was almost as big a shock as seeing him a few minutes earlier.

We had to get back to the conference and agreed to work something out during lunch. The content of the conference continued to be enlightening and I was actually looking forward to developing the required plan for the bank. During the lunch break “Bull” explained that he’d taken his room through Sunday as his wife was arriving by train Friday afternoon and they had tickets to a couple of plays over the weekend. He stressed it wasn’t a problem as there were two beds in his room. He closed the deal saying we could get caught up on our lives at dinner that night. It sounded good to me. I was hungry!

To be continued…