The Big Important Lunch

I learned a lot from so many people in my life, not all of which was good stuff. I may have passed this one on before, but I can’t find it so I may assume it’s never surfaced. It’s a learning experience but I’m not sure what the lessons was, or if I care to even ponder it. But the exception to this is that the stereotype is often quite close to the reality.


I had a lunch arranged with a very important man. He was the International Vice President of a major corporation. There were a bunch of people going to this lunch, in Detroit, in about 1980.

A reporter from the Detroit News business section called me and begged a spot at lunch so he could get to interview this important gentleman. This was the “big leagues”.

His driver brought him, and he was quite “nattily attired”. I seem to remember a very high stiff starched collar on his shirt and quite an expensive tie to boot. The rest of us seemed like peons, but we had business to attend to, and money was at the root of this event.

This particular restaurant had a salad bar (this was the 80’s) and the guest of honor would have no part of such a proletariat action, so he had the waitress prepare his salad. I was next to him at lunch so I watched the action.

The waitresses in those days were dolled up in short skirt costumes with frilly bodices to match. As he explained his salad order to her, he grabbed her ass! I was stunned! She quickly moved away from his grasp and continued taking orders having had such an experience, I guess, before.

The rest of the lunch and the conversation is a blur. The staying power is this story. How this was possible is beyond me, but I was, as usual, a “babe in the woods”.