Partners

I often come up with my best topics or stories while killing mental time as my body goes through the mundane mechanics of commuting, working on a bike, raking, mowing, any number of activities that do not lend themselves to me stopping whatever it is I am doing to write the notion or great idea down.  I tell myself to remember this grand thought I just came up with.  I assure myself I will.  I promise.  More often than not, I let myself down once I have sat down with a few minutes to spare.  The grand thought is lost in the toxic mists wafting around my mind.  Usually there is a nothing but a blank stare after the initial thought, "What was it I wanted to write about?"  Damn, that pisses me off.

So I figured I would find and use the small cassette recorder I used back in the day when I owned another bike shop.  Another time when I thought I needed some help in organizing my life.  Of course, the self inflicted chaos I live with day in, day out proved too much for my desire to organize my life.  I could not remember where I had put that damn cassette recorder.  So I forgot about it.  Moved on.

Last weekend I was poking around one of my many piles looking for something else and there it was.  The small cassette recorder covered with dust was tucked in a box marked, "Old Bike Shop Shit".  Imagine my surprise and pleasure at discovering I actually could organize things, if only so I could misplace them again. 

The recorder had not been used in 15 years at the least.  Yet the batteries still had juice and the tape still had words dictated over 15 years ago.  Apparently, mixed in with this verbal list of things to do, people to call, bills to pay were threaded many snide and nasty comments about my partner at the time.  I began to relive the unpleasant process of a partnership falling apart.  Each snarky comment illicited supporting memories.  I was suddenly back in 1993 and hating Life at my bike shop. 

Here I had a small piece of a time in my life I would just as soon have forgotten.  I could toss out the tape and put a new tape in and move along little doggie.  Being the glutton for punishment I tend to be on occasion, I could not resist reliving the acrimony that existed between me and a former friend as we ruined our bikeshop and our friendship with our stupid bickering.  Listening to myself back then reinforced my reasoning to open my current operation without a partner, that's fershur.

Parnerships are tough to pull off.  Just look at the divorce rate in this country.  It is no better in the business world.  It often does not matter either whether the business is profitable or not.  Our bike shop did not fail because of lack of business, it failed because we were too busy nitpicking each other when we shoulld have been pulling together. 

When we went belly up, my ex-partner moved on to other things.  He became a car salesmen, then a realtor, and then I guess he got divorced and found a new wife (his third) who could supply him with the baubles and comfort he felt he deserved.  He moved to Cape Cod and is a happy camper I guess.  All of this is conjecture on my part as I have not spoken to him since 1995.  My vision of where and what he is doing comes from second hand information passed to me by people who may or may not know what they are talking about.  I do know though his current wife lost a daughter on one of the planes that went down in 9/11.  Anyway, I still have hard feelings, but wish him no ill will.

Sometimes it is not a good idea to get to know someone too well. 

Later...................................................