Photo entitled “Perspective” is courtesy of Katia Maglogianni on Pixabay.com

When I worked in the credit management field, I met with my peers from our company’s competitors for a monthly lunch meeting. That may sound counterintuitive, but for credit management in the foodservice sector, it was not only a good idea but a long-standing tradition.

Don’t worry; no secrets were exposed and no customer tampering went on. The meeting was, after all, conducted by an attorney named Paul Pascal.

Mr. Pascal died earlier this month of pancreatic cancer at the age of 80. Although he was never a chef nor did he own a restaurant, he could have been known as the “food guy” lawyer.

Not only did he run our foodservice credit association, but he was also instrumental in preserving a historical food emporium in Northeast Washington, DC, that is now known as Union Market. According to Mr. Pascal’s obituary in the Washington Post, “In June 2013, Bon Appétit magazine named it (Union Market) one of the best five food halls in the country.”

Paul worked tirelessly for ideas he believed in. He was not above poking gentle fun at himself, the legal profession, or his Jewish ethnicity. Paul collected antique toys, played the bassoon in the Air Force, and held a fierce admiration of Abraham Lincoln. He possessed a broad smile and a unique laugh.

Our credit group knew him best as a great story teller. We didn’t even mind when he’d repeat his stories over the years.

Here is a story I heard him tell just once:

In 1945, at the end of World War II, Paul was in the third grade. His elementary teacher, for reasons unknown, made the decision to segregate the Jewish children from the rest. She moved their places to the back of the room. Obviously, when the parents learned of this, a firestorm broke out. The teacher was told to undo the action immediately. Paul said he decided he wasn’t moving back to his regular seat. “That’s where she put me, so that’s where I was staying for the rest of the school year,” he told us. He absolutely refused to move. This was a daily thorn in the teacher’s side, a reminder of her ill-considered action. Paul was an excellent student so the teacher couldn’t get even with him through that avenue. Her final retaliation at this spunky Jewish kid? She failed him at hand-writing.

Since Paul shared that story at the last meeting I attended in May 2016, I asked him if I could someday later call to interview him to flesh out the story.

I never did call him. As I would periodically leaf through my blog idea book and see that entry of brief notes regarding third grader Paul, I’d think, “Someday I will definitely call him about that story.”

That opportunity is forever lost. You now know as much as I do.

I meant to call him; really I did. Someday.

So it’s finally time to place a blue highlighter checkmark through my notes on Paul’s story in my blog idea book. What would have been a story about a spirited eight-year-old Jewish boy is instead a gentle reminder to us all that someday (defined as an indefinite future time) had better be today.

I’m certain that Paul would be just fine with that.