I stood in line at a pharmacy today, waiting to check out. The self-checkout machines were down again, and the CVS pharmacy attendant was the only one working in the building. The poor woman had 1 person asking for the restroom code, 2 people frustrated because the red light was blinking above their checkout machine, several people asking for access to a locked-down product, and 10 people, including me, waiting patiently in line to check out. Although this is not the point of this article, if you ever want to know the state of affairs in your community, the impact of cost-cutting measures in large corporations, and the degree to which petty crimes are impacting your neighborhood, then look no further than your neighborhood CVS. The fact that this place remains open is nothing short of a miracle.
Needless to say, I had some time to myself while I waited in line. Nancy was absolutely earning her $20 bucks an hour this morning. She made one of the patrons realize that the order he was having trouble placing was worth more than she would make all day. I think she should be excused for her indiscretion; she at least showed up to work this morning. While standing in line, I was eye level with a large cooler reserved for energy drinks. Most of them had been purchased, or perhaps stolen. The young man in front of me had some rather bulging pockets, and I was suspicious. Anyone, one of the remaining energy drinks was the brand Lucky.
On the back of the can is a message about the founders’ narrow escape from a plane crash in 1985, just outside the Dallas/ Fort Worth Airfield (Delta Flight 191). I have never read this story before, but I had a minute to scan the QR code and read how Richard Laver decided to name the company after a bracelet his son gave him that said, "Lucky F&ck!" Apparently, Richard had not only been one of the few survivors of this plane crash, but his daughter had also barely survived being born with cerebral palsy. I thought about this experience and started asking myself: can or should an event like this define you? I suppose if you were a survivor, the answer would be an absolute yes, but if you were not, maybe not so much.
A few things about this plane crash that interested me. First, I was about the same age as Richard at the time. I believe I was getting ready to start high school, and there was discussion of me traveling back and forth from Colorado to California. I remember the discussion of this plane crash, and although I cannot say this is exactly why, I ended up taking the bus instead of flying. I was reminded of this recently when a plane I was supposed to board in Texas was grounded because of a thunderstorm. When I asked, they said it was because of concerns about microbursts, which apparently became a primary concern after this particular plane crash. As I read the back of this energy soda, I was reminded that this event sparked much more than a great story of one founder’s journey.
My parents had bought me a personal computer later that year. I didn’t realize then how significant a purchase it was, but it was. A lot had happened that year that would impact my entire career. In 1985, Well Online would start. This San Francisco-based user group would gain rapid popularity. I joined the group in 1987, and by then, it had already become famous for many "first on the Internet" claims. Ironically, and tragically, one of the creators of the original IBM PC was on this fateful plane when it crashed. He, his wife, and several other IBM employees died during that accident. That was Philip Estridge, and that same year, also in the Dallas area, a young man named Michael Dell started selling and assembling his "Turbo PC" out of his dorm room at the University of Texas. To cap off what a pivotal year this was, the National Science Foundation used TCP/IP to launch the first major connection between several Universities and called it the NSFNET.
Have you ever been talking to people about where to sit on a plane and they tell you to sit in the tail because it is safer? Not sure if that is true or not, but the reason they say this is because several of the 27 survivors of this particular plane crash were in the tail part of the plane when it broke apart in the failed landing. I am pretty sure that’s where the story comes from, because it was such a big deal in the news at the time. You could call Richard lucky, because I do not believe his father and he were seated in the tail section of the plane. He survived, but with several significant injuries. Sadly, his father did not make it. After that incident, there were no other major fatal airline crashes involving a commercial passenger plane for 16 years. Flight 3407 in 2009, and the next was that accident last year, when Flight 5342 collided with a Black Hawk helicopter out of Washington National. If we exclude acts of terrorism and what the NTSB calls Part 121 accidents, then Richard Laver survived at the beginning of a massive transformation in airline safety.
So I have to conclude that an event can be transformative in our lives. A lucky day can impact many lives at once and create a ripple effect that begins with one person. Will this moment, reading a story on the back of a can while waiting for Nancy to get through her line this morning, change me? Perhaps it will. Perhaps today will be my lucky day.
