The Flog – The Fabry Log

Last Thursday I was in my office, working on the upcoming program, or playing minesweeper--I can't remember which, and only a few feet from my desk were about 60 women with coffee mugs in hand, talking about the kids getting back to school. Cars lined the street outside the house. Smiling women, laughing women, crying women, hungry women, they were all gathered at our home.

It was the first day of school and Andrea had sent a few emails out to some friends who show up each year at this time. I took a recorder out and placed it on the kitchen table. I dare you to listen to more than 30 seconds without citing Geneva Convention rules of engagement. The noise is unbelievable.

Ironically, a friend of mine from down the street called in the middle of this event and I sat in my office listening to the din coming from the kitchen window. "Chris, what are all those cars doing outside your house? Did somebody die?"

Jim is from Arkansas and still talks with the hint of a twang. He can turn it off if he wants to, but when we're speaking, he feels free, probably because he knows I'm from WV. "No, it's just Andrea's back to school coffee thing."

"You ought to go out there and sell books!" he said, and for the first time I realized I was missing a marketing opportunity.

However, Andrea does not include any kinds of sales in these get-togethers. The people who come know they're not going to be bombarded by jewelry, candles, Tupperware, or cosmetics. This is a get-to-know-you kind of event. There are no strings attached.

"What are you doing today, buddy?" Jim asked.

I told him. "What are you doing?"

He told me. "Hey, I went fishing Saturday at 11-mile canyon. I caught the most beautiful rainbow trout you've ever seen."

"What kind of fly did you use?"

He told me.

"Did he taste good?"

"Naw, that's a catch and release area. I just kissed him and let him go. You ought to go up there with me. It's the most beautiful spot in Colorado. We'll take the kids up there and let them get a line wet."

We talked for maybe 8 minutes. I went back to the kitchen and found the same women standing around the table, still talking after 20 minutes. I shut the recorder off, thinking about the differences between the my conversation with Jim and the conversations going on in there. I felt smug in my belief that my conversation with Jim was vastly superior to the chit-chat going on in the rest of the house.

That was, until I spoke with my wife. "There were so many who met someone new. And there were so many conversations about how hard it is to let go of the kids and women crying about the struggles they're having getting older and watching their kids move to high school."

I didn't have the heart to tell her about the rainbow trout. Nor could I tell her that my conversation with Jim lasted only a few minutes and we covered just about every base on the field of our relationship. I thought we had really gone deep. I couldn't wait to take her and the kids to 11-mile canyon. She was in a canyon of her own, with the waters of friends still rippling around her, her wading boots on, her heart open.