It has been about a month since I started my quest to be a world-famous author. Well actually, since I started writing more than 60 years ago, that must have been when the quest started, I just didn't know it at the time.

I just want to mention again how grateful I am for all those who have grabbed a copy of the new book Observations at the Speed of Life from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. I am thankful for your belief in me. I am also grateful to 30 or so people who took the time to write a review on Amazon.

What's next? The publisher is finalizing the e-Book this month, and once that is done, I am expecting a marketing campaign that will include some podcast interviews, some retail distributions, and of course, some e-Book efforts.

Eventually my plan is to do an audio book and to record it myself. We'll see. In the meantime, thanks again for all your support on this project.

Appreciatively,

Ed

Many years ago, I signed on with a national restaurant company to be a Regional Marketing Manager. They were based near Santa Barbara, and I was excited to visit California for the first time to go through training. 

To say I was naïve about a lot of things at 30 years old would be an understatement that everyone older than that age agrees with, and everyone under that age says to themselves: “I’m not naïve at all.” Just wait, you’ll find out. Most of the time we're naive, we don't know we are.

This is more or less a story where I was in the right place at the right time but had to do the right things in the right way to thrive, and I had to do so with surprise after surprise (some good, some not so good). You might call this story 'the Deep End of the Pool" because that's where I was thrown.

Anyway, naïve Ed hopped on a plane at Logan, headed for LA. The company’s policy was that if you traveled across three or more time zones, you were booked in first class.

• First trip to California? Check.
• First experience in First Class? Check.

Not being an experienced traveler at the time, I didn’t realize that California geography was a little different than Massachusetts. 

• It never occurred to naïve Ed that getting to Santa Barbara would involve a second plane from LAX. 
• It never occurred to naïve Ed that the second plane would be a Golden West Airlines 8-seater. 

That’s right, the second leg of the trip was a classic ‘puddle jumper’ that touched down after a 45-minute flight to the prettiest airport in the world: a fully Spanish stucco terminal, nestled between the mountains and the ocean.

I was picked up by an administrative assistant and we hopped on the 101 Freeway and headed a short distance south to the Motel 6 where I would be staying. The shocking part of the trip for me was that the beautiful Pacific Ocean was on the wrong side of the road. 

We were headed south, and the ocean was on the right side of the road, instead of the left side. I’m not sure why this fascinated me so much, but to be honest, in the almost five years I lived in California, I didn’t get over the juxtaposition (another word that writers love to use). After a lifetime of living on the East Coast, it was ingrained in me that when heading south, the ocean should be on the left.

We arrived at the Motel 6, I was dropped off and went into the office. The plan was for me to stay there for ten nights while I was in training. 

If you don’t know, Motel 6 was named Motel 6 because it was $6 per night when founded in Santa Barbara in 1962. That's right I was staying at the original. 

At the time I stayed there it was $9 per night. Inflation happened back then, too. But the $9 was a little misleading. You see, to watch television in the room required a key to unlock the TV and that key was 75 cents per day. So, the grand total for a room and the key to a 19” Black and White TV was $9.75.

Naïve Ed assumed that the hotel bill would be picked up by the company. Not only was he wrong, but believe it or not, Motel 6 did not take credit cards, only cash. So that brand new American Express Card in his wallet was useless, at least for hotel expenses. 

Since I had brought $120 in cash with me, when they announced, that with tax, my stay would cost me $105, I was still flush with $15 for the ten days.  Oh well, at least I was in California starting a new adventure, right?

During my first day of training, one of the VPs came to me and apologized for bringing me in the week before Easter and asked me if I’d like to go home for the weekend. Hmm. Sure.

So, after four days of training and orientation at the home office, but not wanting to puddle jump again, I caught a shuttle bus to LAX and flew across the country, again, in First Class to spend Easter with my wife. On Monday, I headed back to California, again, in First Class, to head back to the Motel 6, but this time with a little more cash and authorization to rent a car, and my world was about to change when I touched down for the second time that April.

That second week in California there were two things that happened that changed my perspective. 

First, the Boston Celtics were in the NBA Finals. However, the Los Angeles Lakers were not. Why mention those facts in back-to-back sentences? 

The NBA Finals, THE NBA Finals, were not on television in California. Or at least it wasn’t on the 75 cent per day black and white TV in my room. True story. 

The only place to get an update on the first game was on the radio in the rental car. The reception was better when the car was moving, so for the first game, I literally drove around the motel parking lot so I could listen. 

Well, I drove around the parking lot until someone called the police on me. I stopped and spent the next couple of days calling bars in the area to find one that would carry the games. Eventually I found a hole in the wall in a shopping center close by and was able to enjoy the Celtics 14th Championship from afar.

Second, when I signed on with the company, I had to agree to go anywhere in the US they needed me. 

I was up for an adventure, no kids, let’s do it. Early on it was rumored I was headed to Cleveland, but not confirmed. 

While I was back in Massachusetts, the guy who was running the Southern California market for the company got fired. Not sure why, but they asked me if I’d be ok with being placed in charge of Los Angeles and Orange County. Gulp. Sure. 

My wife had been a little jealous of my California experience, and I had promised her we’d both get there someday. I called her to tell her the news that the promise was going to be a reality.

I had signed up for the Marketing Manager role, but the Operations Director role paid considerably more, and I was naively game for the assignment. All I had to do was figure out how to run 56 poorly staffed, poorly managed, and poorly cleaned 24-hour restaurants in Southern California.

At the conclusion of training, I flew back to Boston to handle the relocation. I took my fourth cross-country first-class airline trip in less than a month. And less than a month later, my wife and I flew first class to California, my fifth first class trip, to start our new life together on the West Coast. First class was so cool then, they provided menus with seashell prints on the covers that we eventually framed and had hanging in our house for decades. 

The best part of the trip, however, was that we moved into our beachfront condo instead of another Motel 6. Plus, the ocean wasn’t on the wrong side anymore, it was all around us.

Since many of my locations were about 60-90 minutes from our home, I spent a lot of time in the car, and a lot of time on the Pacific Coast Highway, pictured here, where the ocean was still on the wrong side, but I got used to the view.

'From the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam' was one of my theme songs because the stores were located in all those places. I did not meet any real housewives in Orange County that resembled those of the show, but I did have a store on the Rose Bowl Parade route, and more than one across from the beach, plus one next to the Santa Monica Pier, and several in the mountains.

Because I generally spent time in a single store or with an individual Regional Manager, I could actually bring my wife to work. We'd ride down, she'd drop me off and explore and shop. Nice perk.

Two years of this lifestyle, in which I worked in California and my wife lived in California, was more than enough to eliminate tons of naivete from my world. I did well enough to get promoted to a position in Northern California with even more responsibilities.

If you asked me for the three reasons that the 'Marketing Manager' who may have been originally destined for Cleveland was able to make it in Southern California I would say that:

1. Naivete worked in my favor. What you don't know can't scare you. If I had truly known what I was getting into, I might not have gotten into it.
2. I could read a map. In the pre-GPS era, that was a very valuable skill. Remember, I had to find 56 different locations in a world where 10-12 lane freeways were common.
3. I adjusted nicely to the ocean being on the wrong side of the road.