When was a demotion the best thing that happened to me?
I wanted to earn money for college in a new environment at the beginning of June 1967. The previous summer I had worked at the luxurious Broadmoor Hotel earning about $5/hr, 5x the min wage. But I thought it was time for a change, so I started that summer stripping brand new cars of their fresh plastic liners before washing and waxing each by hand.
Tough work for less $ than I made at the Broadmoor.
With “hat in hand”, I asked the Maître_d’hôtel for my job back…but he had just filled it with a guy who had been a bus boy the previous summer. Now it was my turn to serve as a “bus boy” and eat humble pie. What humiliation!
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6
Did I pray? I must have because on the first day I spotted an attractive rookie young waitress, Lynn Gentle, trying to set her first formal dinner table near the famous double plate glass mirrors overlooking the Broadmoor lake. What glory! Not the lake you idiot: I saw the beauty of my wife to be. I came to her rescue to show her how to set a formal table. One look at her and she set my appetite to dine with her the rest of my life. 49 years later, that same gentle smile cuts deep into my heart.
