My Lunch with Andre
My younger brother and I are cut from the same cloth … and I can say with some degree of certainty it wasn’t fine linen or rare silk. We took very different career paths, if you can call mine a career path at all, but he went into pharmacy then took a degree in law. Nice combination if you want to maximize fiscal returns, which is exactly what he had in mind. The fact that he’s a millionaire a few times over is short testament to the wisdom he had vs., oh, say, mine.
One of the first jobs he had once he passed the bar was working for a corporate law firm in Madison, Wisconsin, the kind of firm you really needed to buy a custom leather attache case for what I paid for my cars at the time. He was young and eager to please back then, something that would change over time and eventually lead him to start his own firm so he wouldn’t have to carry bags for others, expensive calfskin or not.
He tells the story of the first lunch he attended with the firm’s Milwaukee office, what he calls a roomful of ‘big swinging dicks,’ boys with swagger and ego’s as big as they could fit under a million dollar tort. To break the ice, the head partner suggested they go around the table while they were munching on horsdoerves and say who, if they could sit with one other person for a luncheon, they would invite. Anyone from history, anyone at all.
Well, of course, the Big Boys invited Albert Einstein and Tom Jefferson, George Washington and Shakespeare, Galileo and Jesus Christ, Buddha and Michaelangelo, all the big hitters and big thinkers, molders of men and inspirational dreamers. They’d pretty much gone around the table when they finally got to my brother who’d had plenty of time to ruminate on his fantasy lunch guest. All eyes turned to the new guy.
“Well, this one is easy,” he said. “I’d invite Willie Mosconi.” Lawyers held forks mid-launch, glasses got set back down, napkins were folded and placed beside their plates. Finally the lead prinicipal asked, after a long pause, “Who the hell is Willie Mosconi?”
“The greatest position player to ever pick up a pool cue. The man who won the World Championship Straight Pool Tournament 15 times, the most ever,” my brother said, maybe surprised no one else had chosen Willie to dine with them. “Over George Washington or Albert Einstein?” someone asked, incredulous. “Maybe you never saw him run a table,” my brother responded. “Beautiful to watch. Made every shot look easy. Almost perfection. Course, Minnesota Fats would be a good choice too. But I’ll take Willie.”
99% of us would have picked what these folks expected us to pick. Even if we thought a ham and rye with Albert might be the longest lunch we ever ate, relatively speaking of course. But not many of us would risk looking like an imbecile, a bar room hustler, to answer honestly. Which is why, if I’m ever asked who I’d like to invite to lunch, one person in all the world, through all of history, I’d probably pick my brother.
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