Today I was at the Citrus Bowl, Orlando, watching Orlando City versus The Real Salt Lake Soccer team.
I really liked my subject today. I saw him from a distance, hunched over his mobile phone, the game still playing in the stadium.
There were so many people around, lots of crazy, unique, beautiful, diverse people but here was this ordinary guy, sitting on the concrete steps looking at his mobile phone, I just liked him, his round shoulders slumped as he typed and read his messages.
’Hi, I said, not watching the game?’
This is the sort of guy you need when you want someone to rely on, good, steady, hard worker, a family man.
Name: Willy
Occupation: Proprietor of a Retail Flooring Store
1.Where were you born and raised?
Chicago, Illinois, briefly raised in Columbia South America, then back again to Central Florida.
‘We lived in Columbia for a little under 10 years, he was (Willy’s Dad) trying out a business venture in Columbia, it didn’t work out so we ended back here’.
‘In the Latin culture we are very close, I have an extended family, with Cousins, Uncles and Aunts. There were probably 20 or 30 of us every time we got together.’
2.Tell me a childhood memory.
‘Like I was saying every time we got together, the kids would get together and play, there were never machines or anything for us to play with, so we would always get together and there was a group of anything from 8-15 of us all maybe 10 years apart and we would come up with a game, probably all fight every day but you know at the end of the day we would always look for each other to play together. It’s not a specific childhood memory but I just remember that.’
3.What is your favourite season and why?
‘We don’t have too many seasons, definitely Christmas, work for me tends to scale back and I have a little more off time. Time to be with a family.’
4.Tell me about someone you love.
‘My wife, I met her when I was about 19 years old, we got married when I was 22 and are going on about 16 years of marriage. Her name is Elizabeth, when you get along with someone it’s a little more than marriage, there is a friendship first, that’s the marriage. She kinda gets along with everybody, she doesn’t have any enemies, that I know off, she is outspoken. But for the most part the thing that most draws me most to her, is her personality.’
5.What words of wisdom do you have for the reader about life?
Willy dismissed that his thoughts on life would be valuable to anyone, I assured him to the contrary.
‘Enjoy life, you never know what the future holds. I have had some incidences in the family. Take every day and live it 100% or you could regret it down the road.’
6.Dreams for the future?
‘Work less in about 10 years, what I do right now is very stressful. I mean I am trying to, I turn 40 this year, so my goal is if I have another ten years, if I work hard now I won’t have to work so hard in my 50’s.’
We all know a guy just like Willy, don’t underestimate him. He is in control, knows what he wants from life and is quietly but confidently making it happen.
I’m smiling as I type this, imaging him with his wife and daughter tonight, two strong women both of them running his world and him doing everything he can to give them what they want, what they need.
We all know a guy like Willy, don’t forget to tell him what a great job he is doing next time you see him, its seldom he hears it, it’s just a given.
