CASE PREP START:  12/2/2023 8:08 PM. Little did I know it at the time, but this would set me off on a set of adventures which is continuing to unfold with increasing positivity.

First, it might be worth to note that my legal business – one that I thought I wanted to shake off but hadn’t – is extremely seasonal. This fact which results in too much time and extremely slight income, coupled with the typical winter weather conditions in Seattle and lack of sun, had me in a pretty deep funk.

Yet, when I took the call not long afterward, I learned of a bicycle manufacturer who was considering dissolving the company. Alright, that’s easy enough, I provided some information about the business dissolution process and thought not much more of it, UNTIL …

I walked out got the mail. In it was a business credit card application from Chase Bank which used a bike manufacturer as the contextual theme. Hmm? This is interesting. Was this a serendipity to which I should pay attention?

Was the Universe seeking to tell me something?

I had always loved bikes as a kid. Another time, I may share a story from when I was young, but what is important to note is that even though I loved bikes, it had been decades since I had owned and ridden one. Sometimes life ends up that way.

We don’t realize it, but there still is that kid within each of us who had something for which they were passionate and except for the very rare few, that kid’s passions were at best abandoned. Unfortunately for some, their passion is actually trampled.

Hopefully, what this story will impart is that you can – and arguably perhaps – you must honor that kid. This is the story of how I did.

Returning, upon seeing this Chase business credit card advert, I felt an intuitive nudge to call the bike manufacturer back to advise what had happened. Yes, that’s kind of zany. Yes, there are some – perhaps most – who would never think to honor that intuitive nudge simply because it is not rational. However, I experienced something very different.

The conversation with this client went fine and we arranged for me to come down and visit his shop.

I was really impressed, but neither my client, nor was I in a position for me to just go ahead and purchase his bike company. There was simply too much of a gap in the resources of time, money, experience, and even workspace to take the business over. But, from the conversation I started to learn about the fact that there are micro bike manufacturers … and in fact there was one that created wooden bikes in Gig Harbor – Renovo Bikes!

Oh!!! Wood. Here again we are touching on a passion from the halcyon days of middle school during a time well before our current age of “we must smote all risk” for children when there was shop class.

I really enjoyed working with wood. My biggest project was a canoe paddle. But perhaps my best was the creation of a model hull of an MC scow sailboat. Mr. Smith, my shop teacher, liked that so much that he placed it in what amounted to the woodworking trophy case.

Interestingly, I abandoned it there. Now, the shop classroom has been converted for standard instruction and unless mistaken, I have heard that Mr. Smith has passed away.

Returning to Renovo, the opportunity to unite my loves of bikes and wood … WOW! That would be awesome!

But, did I act on in right away? … Of course not.

Pretty soon another business credit card advert came in again from Chase. Oh, that’s right … I should really follow up on that. Did I? No! Life was getting a bit busier, and my audacious vision for escape to a life of being a bike manufacturer had been summarily quashed by my ever-practical father.

And he is right, why the hell is an attorney thinking he should go into bike manufacturing?

Nevertheless, the Chase adverts persisted to come in. I kept them all – a total of 5!

I don’t recollect if I had to wait until all 5 of them came in before I made the call, but I did and I set up a meeting.

How about this? I’ll go back through my journals and pick up the trail to figure out what happened next and report the same tomorrow.

So, to be continued …

Cheers! BZ/JUSTICE SMILES, pllc