A Life Wasted

Outside Trip

After a winter of losing most of our money trying to fish I made some calls and located a contract programming job in San Jose, California. I could have taken a commercial flight, but opted to drive instead. I'd done work in San Jose before and knew first hand the city had the most expensive hotels I'd ever seen. My own car would be cheaper than a rental and it would be easier for me to drive far from San Jose to get a reasonably priced room. Driving would take an extra four days each way and would be a grueling trip, but I had more time than money.

I reached San Jose proper January 11, 1991, Friday morning. This had been my plan as it would give me a few days to recover from the trip so I could start the job fresh. I was worried about being rusty, so wanted to have a rested brain when I sat down in front of the customer's computer. Since I'd left Atlanta I'd touched two computers: The first was the broken PC at the remote lodge I mentioned earlier, the second at one of the Japanese owned canneries. We'd sold our fish to a cannery in Kodiak Village but in the office I was told we couldn't get paid until their computer was fixed. A guy would be up from Seattle in a few days, so no big deal. To me it was a big deal because I had to pay my crew. So with a week's worth of fish stink on me I went behind the counter and sat down at the computer. The lady behind the counter tried to make me leave but I ignored her. It was a simple fix. It took me ten minutes to convince her to find the computer's operating system CD then about two minutes to fix the thing. Both jobs were so easy I felt like I hadn't done anything on a computer since leaving Atlanta.

Arriving in San Jose early I decided to go to the airport. Lance and I had visited the Wyse computer facility near there a few years earlier so I was familiar with the FBO facilities there. It was a nice place, well appointed with great pilot facilities. Most medium size FBO's had free sleeping or bunk rooms for pilots, so I checked their's out to see if I might pull off a free night's sleep there. Sure enough, they had the rooms and they were open and easily accessed. All I had to do was grab one after a few planes had arrived and stay out of the way.

As I was considering this two nice private jets pulled up to the FBO. The FBO employees rolled out a red carpet to both jets. I'd heard the term "roll out the red carpet" all my life, but this was the first time I'd seen it happen. So I was curious about who had arrived. I was not the only one. A crowd had gathered and were lining both sides of the red carpet. It looked like every employee of the FBO had lined up to greet the arriving VIP, as had whoever else was standing around. Like me.

It was clear who the VIP was since he was leading a large entourage, but I had no idea who he was. As he walked down the line he handed an envelope to everyone he passed. Before I realized what happened I had an envelope in my hand and the guy was gone. "Who was that," I asked a young fuel guy next to me. "Eddie DeBartolo, Jr.," he said. That was actually a name I knew because the DeBartolo family business was headquartered in Youngstown. Eddie DeBartolo, senior's large home and estate was on the same country road as my in-laws, so I had heard all about them.

The kid next to me had pulled a crisp new hundred dollar bill out of his envelope. "Why is DeBartolo here," I asked as I opened my own envelope. "He owns the San Franscio 49er's," the kid said. In my envelope were two tickets to a 49er Redskin game the next day, Saturday January 12th, 1991. I hadn't followed football all year so I had no idea the two teams were about to meet in a big post-season playoff game. After a brief discussion with the young fuel guy I gave him one of the tickets.

It was the first and only NFL game I had ever attended. The seats were amazing. They were three rows from the field, on the fifty yard line, directly behind the 49er's bench. The kind of seats you'd expect a team owner to have for give-away. The fuel guy didn't show. I would have offered the seat to someone in the nose bleed section but you couldn't get down this low without a ticket stub, so the seat next to me was empty for the entire game. I had brought most of my camera gear so I started taking photos like a pro. The games stars were future hall-of-famers, quarterback Joe Montana and wide receiver Jerry Rice. I was a long time Steelers fan (still am) so I didn't care for either team, but since I had an awesome seat from the team owner I pulled for the 49er's.