December 31st, 1999 was a Friday. Putin took the reins in Russia. The US relinquished control of the Panama Canal, making good on a deal struck in the ’70s by the second-worst president in American history.
That night, while most of you were partying like it was 1999 (’cause it was), welcoming not only a new year but a new millennium, I was at work.
It’s been 25 years now since that New Year’s Eve, when Americans crossed their fingers and hoped that thousands of IT geeks had re-programmed systems correctly to avoid the dreaded “Y2K Bug.” I was a PR guy, not a tech nerd, and for 48 tense hours I was in charge of crisis communications for my employer, a Fortune 50 company.
Of the 2,500 people who came to work in that building every day, fewer than 50 of us were on duty that night, most (naturally) in IT. I was poised to issue one of two prepared statements the morning of January 1st — which button I pushed depended entirely on how the first test cycles went.
Whatever happened, I was prepared to answer calls from the news media.
The stakes for this publicly traded company, with billions in assets under management, were higher than you can imagine. I felt the pressure, certainly. It was pretty heady stuff for a corn-fed Country boy from Ohio.
The assignment wasn’t without perks. I was provided with a comfortable hotel room in the corporation’s conference facility at the other end of the block, so I could catch cat naps. The company food service — an award-winning restaurant, actually — was open for 36 hours straight and would serve my colleagues and me anything we asked for. Anything. No charge.
The financial-services division president had given me the key to his lavish office, suggesting that I greet the new year at his desk. When I sat down in his leather chair around 11:45pm, I found an unopened bottle of single-malt Scotch waiting for me. At midnight, alone, I sipped on that, watching through the floor-to-ceiling windows as fireworks lit up the sky over the state capitol.
A memorable night, for sure.
Oh, and everything went fine in IT. I released the we-rock statement at 4am and archived the we-suck statement. There were no calls from the press.
Incidentally, I got that assignment because my boss, the division’s head of PR, didn’t want it. He considered task-force roles, for whatever reason, to be beneath him, and he dumped this one on me.
I ran with it. I had a great time. I learned a lot and scored points with senior management.
Later in January, after the Y2K smoke cleared, the company threw a private shindig to recognize the team. A hot topic of conversation that evening was the generous bonuses everyone had received for their efforts.
Thing is, I didn’t get a bonus.
The next business day, I stopped by the office of the woman who’d led the Y2K project and asked her why I’d been stiffed. She looked into it and discovered an oversight — the communications person originally assigned to the task force was still “on the books,” so to speak, and that person got my bonus in error.
That would’ve been my boss. He pocketed the money and said not a word.
It was famously difficult to be fired from that company. He was fired that afternoon.
And that’s how I became head of PR.
(PS: I got my bonus.)
I don’t have words to describe how foreign that all feels to me now. Sure, a lot can change in 25 years, and a lot has, but very little about the man I am today resembles the man I was then.
Though I can tell you stories and relate the facts, I’ve left that part of my life so far behind that the telling doesn’t spark any memories that I can feel.
I’ve succeeded, apparently, in severing emotional ties to the past. I am, with few exceptions, present in this moment, consumed with the living of this Life.
I’m here and I’m now. I was made for this.
Between publishing a blog post yesterday morning and driving Deb to a dentist appointment in Marshall later in the day, I had a few hours to fill. I checked the oil in our vehicles (my Silverado is in dire need of an oil change, I found) and peeked at the electrolyte level in the camper’s batteries (A-OK).
Then I fetched our Gorilla ladder, set it up outside next to the woodstove chimney, and addressed a small gap around the double-wall stovepipe that passes through the thimble.
I’d sealed it once before, using what I had on-hand — furnace cement. That proved to be a dumb choice, washing away not long after it was applied. This time I went with moldable silicone putty, which appeared to be similar to what the manufacturer used on the adjacent tee fitting.
Whatever I chose didn’t have to be flameproof or especially heat-resistant, since double-wall pipe gets warm but not hot. I figured that the silicone putty would be worth a try.
Using steel wool, I scrubbed the surface as clean as I could. Then I pinched-off a short chunk of putty, rolled it into a rope, and pressed it into the gap. I made my way around the pipe two or three inches at a time, making sure to overlap each piece with the previous one.
Working with the soft material was easy, kinda like Play-Doh with a purpose. It turned out well, I think. We’ll see how it holds up.
The trip to Marshall yesterday afternoon took us down Arkansas Route 14, which has become one of my all-time favorite roads. It bends and twists relentlessly, a thrilling ride even though we were on a mission.
I waited out in the truck while Deb was inside the dentist’s office. She emerged sooner than expected, and with good news — her troublesome tooth didn’t require extraction after all, only a new crown. We quickly made tracks for Home, racing the setting sun.
But we didn’t retrace our steps. Neither of us wanted to challenge the Route 14 corkscrew after dark, so we turned north on US 65 toward Harrison, caught US 62/US 412 east in Bellefonte, and ran that back to Yellville.
Longer, but safer.
I got us as far as Western Grove before handing over the driving to Deb. (My night vision has left me for good.) We had burgers at Carolyn’s Razorback Ribs before returning to The Mountain.
. . .
We’ve traded last week’s Fog Machine for a Wind Machine — overnight we got a steady 15mph NNW blow, gusting regularly to over 40mph. Those conditions are predicted to persist throughout daylight hours and ease some around dusk.
Temps are tolerable, at least.
Deb and I will observe New Year’s with the same fanfare and extravagance that marked our Christmas — that is, none at all. I believe I heard her say that we’re having grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner tonight.
We might uncork the Martinelli’s sparkling apple-grape juice I snagged at Big Lots! the other day, put up in tiny bottles to resemble champagne. Bourbon may happen at some point.
I seriously doubt we’ll see midnight.
Tomorrow we’ll prepare our traditional New Year’s meal. Gumbo, I think. Other than that, I don’t have a clue about what New Year’s Day will bring.
By choice, we’re not the party animals we used to be. We don’t celebrate in conventional ways, because we celebrate Life daily, constantly.
We feel no need to mark special occasions when every day is a gift.
Think about that.
And Happy New Year.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB