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Aloha everyone:
Mory calls me yesterday just to check up. “What are you doin’?” he asks.
“Mory, I swear I’m not making this up, but I’m driving my wife in (former ISSFA President and BOD member) Michael Wilson-Souths Ford F-150 up a spectacular incline to a scenic overlook in Hawaii.”
“Damn, and you’re always crying about not having any work.” he says.
True enough, but we booked this trip back when I had money. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the incredible meals we’ve been served because one of the couples we came with has a daughter who is a line chef at Roy’s ($35.00 entres) on Maui. Fortunately, we got a lot of free appetizers. Or the hour-long helicoptor ride through the rain forest followed by the whale watch drinking cruise. Best Monday I’ve ever had. Anyway, I digress.
Michael returned my call right after I exited the copter and although I could barely hear him, we agreed that we would meet on Tuesday. I booked two twenty-nine dollar one-way flights from Maui to Oahu and he picked us up at the airport. I don’t know how much all of you know about Michael, but he is one of the nicest guys I know on the planet and a real renaissance man. He’s wearing jeans and a loose shirt, shoes without socks and his hair is wild. You’d never know this guy, who moved to Honalulu over thirty years ago, built a state-of-the-art 40-person solid surface and stone shop from nothing. He competes with Len Smith of Geeks fame for work on the military bases.
He’s late for a meeting with his Corian distributor by the time we get back to his shop. About time they wait on us. Lynn Anne and I go for a coffee down the street until Michael picks us up, takes us to lunch, shows us the stone shop and we visit a spectacular fountain of water-jet -cut and inlayed tile he fabricated in downtown Honalulu. I took a picture, but not with a digital camera. I’ll try to post it later. I got a picture of my wife in the shower, too. The seashell-shaped solid surface exterior shower Michael built for the Paul Mitchell heir that’s going into his twenty million dollar estate he’s building.
Michael’s got to get some work done, so back at the shop he hands me the key to his truck and tells us to do some sightseeing. We visit the famous North Shore where the surf is world class. I pay seven bucks for fresh sliced papaya, coconut and pineapple in baggies at a roadside stand. We drive by the place where we bought the shaved ice nine years ago when an ISSFA regional meeting was here. We had to throw it away after one taste, too sweet. The shaved ice, that is.
Back at the shop, but not before I put all the gas I ran out back in Michaels truck, we head for the office to make return flight arrangements before Michael picks up his wife and takes us all to dinner at a nice Italian place. While he’s typing, he’s telling us all the dirt on how Mike Duggan and ISSFA parted ways. Michael was President of ISSFA at the time. “He was a revolutionary.” Michael respectfully says of Duggan and goes on to explain how MD just couldn’t stand the treatment fabricators received from manufacturer’s and distributors. A man of my own heart. Michael was less charitable assessing MD’s bookeeping ability as related to his status as ISSFA Executive Director.I never knew MD’s brother started a trade association of snowmobiler’s. Maybe that’s where he got the idea for ISSFA. Apparently MD took all the computer/records on his way out the door and launched a lawsuit against ISSFA. ISSFA countersued, and according to Michael, MD got nothing. They tried a reconciliation in 2002, but it was unsuccessful.
I was a dues-paying ISSFA member at the ime all this transpired so I’ve bought and paid for this history. No one controls the story of Abe Lincoln’s presidency and nobody should surpress the birthing of our industry, painfull as it may be.
Michael’s wife April is a lawyer for the State Civil Rights Commission and is tall and beautiful. When we see them together at dinner, it looks like a runway model has picked up a homeless guy. I can hear Michael laughing when he reads this. My wife deals with worker’s compensation in her capacity as Corporate Saftey Director and Michael has his panties in a knot over the hundred and sixty grand a year he pays in premiums so they monopolize the conversation, but April and I dont seem to mind.
After dinner, Michael gives me another truck and directions to the airport. “Just leave it unlocked, the key and the ticket in the visor. Park in front of the baggage claim and I’ll pick it up in the morning.” That’s what we do, and we’re back on Maui in 35 minutes and in bed by eleven o’clock.
If you’re ever in Hawaii, I suggest you look up Michael. I’m sure you’ll get the same treatment.
I’ll be home on Friday,
Joe
Joe, I hear it’s real cool to go to the top of an active volcano and peek over the edge. Make sure you watch your step.
Joe,
Jealous doesn’t begin to describe it….
Anyway, if you see Michael again tell him Tom Mather sends his best.
It was Michael’s tenure as president that got another year out of me for state coordinator.
He was the guy I ultimately sent my notice to not comtinue to. Because it was him, it wasn’t easy.
Tom
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