“Well if it’s not the Prodigal Son,” said Ben Barnes into the phone after his wife Betty had told him that it was me calling.
“Hi Prodigal Pop,” I replied.
Ben is 92 years old, the former Chairman of the Board of Union Mission, my partner in starting the Employment & Training Center, J. C. Lewis Health Center and the Starfish Café, and a dear friend. He is a long retired banking God (First Atlanta, Bank of England and started the now Wells Fargo Bank in Savannah for fun in his retirement).
We would travel together bringing money from other places to Savannah. At 5:00 every afternoon I would go to his hotel room and he would open his briefcase and pull out a bottle of triple malt scotch.
“Nectar of the Gods,” he would say while pouring.
It’s hard not to love Ben. We would sit in his room processing the day and making plans for tomorrow.
“What are you doing?” he demanded into the phone.
So I told him. We’re meeting for lunch at the Starfish Café next week so that he can advise me on things. Ben is a mentor and member of my kitchen cabinet.
Back when Andrew Jackson was President he got sick of the bad advice from people he worked with so he fired them all. In their place he collected people he trusted to give him advice. They were dubbed the Kitchen Cabinet.
Throughout my career I’ve had a Kitchen Cabinet. They have guided me well. Those last years at Union Mission the work got so messy and complicated and I stopped convening them.
I had a small minded person who never met anything that he didn’t like to rape asking me to justify everything that I was doing. Plus the agenda was suddenly daunting though … very manageable but he zapped my time and energy with minutia and small minded matters. At the same time I’d fired those who proved untrustworthy. It was emotional and taxing. Then my wife left and it got worse and I stopped calling on the Kitchen Cabinet.
That was a mistake!
Now it’s time to do things again. So I’m reconvening the Kitchen Cabinet.
After Ben I called his daughter Carole Beeson, also a former Board Chair of Union Mission. She was the first woman to ever chair the Board and is a fireball. “Well, my brother is finally back from the dead,” she exclaimed into the phone.
After catching one another up on personal stuff she told that it was time to straighten things out.
“You mean rearrange the past?” I asked.
“Yep,” she said with utmost confidence.
Then Philip and I had an email conversation. Joe Daniel and I have been going back and forth. Herb will be back soon. Mary Ann Beil and I are getting together next week after I meet with Ben. Terry Ball will be in town soon. I still have to track Thurmond Tillman down but he’s a minister and damn near impossible to get hold of. I’m thinking about adding Tony and DaVena Jordon because they make it all younger. And youth is the secret to creativity!
For the first time in a long time, I sit at a table and roll my fingers across the top. My leg shakes under the table full of energy and vigor. My senses are exploding. It’s time to create!
When I was at Union Mission I would end every meeting with every staff person with the mantra “Go create something.”
And we did.
The likes of which have never been created before.
It was the youthfulness of the people I worked with coupled with the wisdom of the Kitchen Cabinet that made it so.
Today, I’m young again after a couple of years of being old. I’ve surrounded myself with the youthful thinking of creative people regardless of their age.
It’s time to kick ass.
And I need my Kitchen Cabinet again.
Everybody else … needs to get out of the way.
