Bob Mann told me about an exchange he recently had with Willie Dean.
Bob noted that when they had finished their conversation, and he said goodbye to Willie, he was a little surprised when Willie responded “OK Cap’n Bob, see you next time.”
Bob noted that Willie calling him “Cap’n” made him feel like he had made it in terms of being accepted. I told Bob that all his years of working the water with Tommy Courtney had earned him some well deserved respect.
Following this conversation with Bob, I too had what I will call a “made it moment” the other day involving a wine order.
Several years ago I ordered some very expensive wines for one of my Buzzy friends. When the driver of the delivery truck arrived, he came into the Store with the invoice to verify that what he was about to deliver was indeed supposed to come to Buzzy’s. He said “I know you guys don’t order high priced wine like this so I figured there must be some kind of mistake. I wanted to check first before I brought it all in here.” After I confirmed the order to the driver, he then brought the wine delivery into the Store.
However, just the other day, I placed a similar order and the driver delivered it with no questions asked. I took that as a sign that the driver assumed the order was accurate, and didn’t question Buzzy’s ordering cases of fine wines – even if it is only very occasionally.
Like Bob, I felt like Buzzy’s had “made it.”
Note that while this is not my favorite of songs, the following video does have some nice photo’s and seems appropriate for my examples above.