Jeremy, and I'm tempted to call him a young man but he's not so young now, works at the convention center where they hold these summer conferences. I first saw him nearly 22 years ago when the center was part of the Excelsior Hotel, then the Peabody, now the Marriott. He was 16 years old then. He'd catch your eye because he worked so hard, amidst all the confusion of attending to over a thousand attendees. His job wasn't one that usually entailed a long career.
But years passed and he showed up just as I did, like clockwork. Then one day I commented on the fact that he had been on the job a good while. We talked about it and this pleased him quite a bit. I don't think anyone else had ever noticed. Soon, we began to joke about it at each new conference. "Good to see you again. We made it another year. How's it going?" It was probably against the rules, talking to the guests, but we didn't care.
Now it's moved to a handshake and hug. We've each gotten older, maybe a little bigger. But greeting one another is sort of a milestone, a little continuity in a world in which instability is the only stable element which one can expect.
You don't find folks staying at the same job for 20 years these days. Moreover, you don't find people staying that long and seeming to enjoy it.
It's nice knowing Jeremy, just a person I see once a year, sometimes twice. It's nice knowing there are things in this world you can count on, even if it's only a friendly face. It's just nice, that's all.
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