a toast

When I was a student at Michigan State, I had a friend named Arch who used to tease me by saying that I was only there to get my MRS. degree and if I ever did land a job he hoped I knew how to make coffee because that is what I would be doing. Though it would be several years after college before I would accomplish the first part of his prediction, I was in charge of making the coffee at my first job out of school as an executive assistant at a very small mortgage lending company in Denver.

The other thing Arch used to tell me was that someday I should write a column, call it "melba toast" since my nickname at the time was "Melba" and simply write about what happened on any given day. Since Arch lived in my co-ed dorm, he was one of the people I could tell my tales to over dinner or somewhere on the brother floor where I had been made an honorary member. It was a real conversation starter to show up and say, "You will never believe what just happened to me" and continue on with the telling of another strange set of circumstances. My life would be played out in vivid detail as the storytelling went on, allowing others to be entertained in spite of misfortune.

Although melba toast in its flat, dry and tasteless form is not anything to talk about, my life tends to be a bit more interesting. So here's to you, Arch, wherever you are.