Hanging With the Big Fish

The quality of conversations I’m privileged to hear and sometimes participate in amazes me sometimes. I often find myself in meetings or pseudo-social professional gatherings with physicians, attorneys and the like. The tone, scope and depth of these interchanges continually impress me.
Just this week, I was along for the ride while two physicians and a physicist interviewed a job candidate. They were talking vectors, intensity modulation and image guidance among other topics which would make an average person’s brain frost over. In these contexts, I’m the “community” guy. In other words, if a job candidate has questions about the city or the region, I’m the guy to answer them or show him around.
I offer that simply as an example. The level of commitment many of these people have with respect to making the world a better place also is noteworthy. This week, I was having lunch with a senior member of management and a cardiologist. To get the conversation down to my level, we started talking about sports and the weather. I said that it seemed to be getting hot early this year. The doctor said “I’ll never complain about the heat again since my last mission trip.” He went on to talk about spending several weeks in central Mexico in mid summer. He was bivouacked on the second floor of a structure with no air conditioning and only a rickety fan to force air to circulate. He regaled us with tales of dealing with such discomfort. Then, our companion asked this question: “So, did you catch many fish?”
We stared at him for a moment. Then, the doctor got a look on his face not unlike the one a dog gets when it hears a distant sound it can’t identify. Then, the doctor said, “I’m sorry. I don’t get it.” I thought about it for a second, and then it hit me. I looked at the guy who had asked the question and said, “It was a MISSION trip, not a fishin’ trip.”
That’s when I realized I might be able to hang with these guys, after all.

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