Mark P. was my best buddy. We grew up in Chicago but were both from the deep south. We were preachers' kids (PKs). I met Mark in first grade at six years old—and we are still close today. We went to the same elementary school and then split up for a while until high school. When we were seven, we ran away from home together, but were caught and returned to our parents. Mark saved my life when I was eight, and I returned the favor a few years later.
In ninth grade, while the Vietnam war raged nearby, we spent a year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia without our parents. We got into so much trouble that we were ordered back to the States the next year. But it was a time of cultural and political awakening for both of us. We traveled to Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan and the Philippines by ourselves. We grew up a lot that year.
Mark and I were in different cities after that, until he visited me in San Francisco soon after I finished college in 1979. I was selling high fashion women's shoes at the time and invited him to join me in a Saturday blow-out sale at the Stonestown shopping center. The rest is history. Mark went on to became a great salesman, moving from shoes to TVs and stereos, and then from microcomputers to enterprise software. We worked at six companies together during our careers. Now he sells mortgages in Atlanta. Quite successfully. I remind him that he owes it all to me and those high fashion pumps.
I'm so glad to still have a close friend today who goes almost all the way back to the beginning of my life. He knows me like few others do—the good, the bad, and the ugly. And the trust runs deep.
