Remembering

I ran into Jim Kirk yesterday at a Bar Association function. We've known each other for over 30 years, but we don't see one another very often. When I joined Dravo as Manager of International Taxes, he was working in company's Law Department, doing a lot of contract work. Those were exciting times for Dravo. We were pursuing work overseas in a big way, learning how to do it on the run. We were the successful bidder on big industrial construction projects in Venezuela and Brazil and needed to get quickly up to speed on the nuts and bolts of conducting business in those countries. Together with Bill McDonough, who was responsible for finance and accounting, Jim and I made a number of trips to South America to set up the local companies and establish the checks and balances for executing the projects. Later, we made periodic visits to oversee legal and financial matters and to deal with the periodic fire drills that these kinds of projects create. We worked hard, but we had ample opportunity to play hard.
Caracas is near the equator, but sits at about 7,000 feet elevation. The weather was always pleasant any time of the year. But the real fun was in Brazil. We tried to schedule our trips there in January or February when the Pittsburgh weather was at its worst and Brazil, which was in the middle of summer and seemed always to be in a party mood, was gearing up for Carnival. The beaches were crowed with women in string bikinis. We often joke that we must have equity in a couple of bars in Rio.
Bill McDonough is dead, and I don't often think about those days. But yesterday, with the melancholy of the holidays approaching, and with both of us on the dark side of medicare eligibility, Jim and I reminisced about the days when we were young and adventurous, and maybe just a bit foolish.