Fortune And Fate In New Orleans
We dodged a bullet
Or at least a hurricane.
There would be no Fresh Summit in New Orleans,
If it weren’t for luck.
After all, back in 2007,
We had to move to Houston
Because New Orleans had been crushed
By Katrina.
It is not just conventions…
We spend a life in business
Avoiding whirlwinds, floods and calamity.
Who was in the path of A & P when it spread across the nation?
Or Wal-Mart when it laid supercenters across the land?
And what whirlwind will convulse us next?
Will it be Hurricane Aldi? Or Lidl? Or Amazon? Or a name we do not know?
Yet, in one great respect, our situation in life is different than a convention.
The meeting place is chosen, fixed and inviolate,
And the association must wait.
We are free to create our fortune.
Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind to be sure,
But volatility is another name for opportunity
As change disrupts established patterns.
Rising waters need not mean despair,
For as it is written:
“There is tide in the affairs of men which,
Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
And so, we arrive in New Orleans, to seek our fortune.
By Jim Prevor