Making Amends

In 2008, my wife and I were visiting Providence, Rhode Island, where both of our daughters lived at the time. We actually stayed for two weeks in a place called Little Compton, a small town not far from Providence, on Narragansett Bay. It was an election year, and we read about a precinct walk exercise on behalf of Barack Obama that would be executed in Nashua, NH, about 90 miles north of Providence. The event kicked off at Hope High School in Providence, so my wife Jane dropped me off at 8 AM at the high school. All those gathered there listened to some rah-rah speeches by a few luminaries present — I stood next to RI's Attorney General, who spoke there. Anyway, when we were ready to go, the group split into car-size groups, and I climbed into the front seat of a car driven by a woman I'd never seen before. About the first thing she said was, "Where are you from, John?"

"California," I said, "Los Altos, near Palo Alto."

So the driver says, "Oh, my sister lives in Palo Alto!"

"What's her last name?" I asked.

"Vincent," said she.

"Is her husband an attorney?" was my next question.

"Yes!" she said.

"Is his first name Lester, by any chance?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"I know Lester Vincent. I worked (as a testifying expert) with him on a case in NYC/DC back in 1986!"

Interesting sequel: Lester worked for a senior lawyer named John Fogarty, both of them working for the Kenyon & Kenyon law firm. In the early '90s, I got a call from Lester (who now had evidently moved to Palo Alto), who said, "John Fogarty is coming to San Francisco next week, and he'd like to go to dinner with you and me if that would work."

"Sure," I said, "I'd love to see John again."

So the three of us dined at the Stanford Court restaurant on Nob Hill as planned. But when the bill came around, John said: "Damn, I left my wallet back in my room!" And Lester said the same thing. So these two high-priced lawyers stuck me with the bill for dinner!

Well, after the chance meetup with Lester's sister-in-law in Providence, I established new contact with Lester, and he became a regular customer of mine at the Apple Store, and took me out to lunch a couple of times to atone for his grievous past behavior.