The World is Shaped Like a Ball

By Al Horn

If you roam the whole world over, you may find many interesting things. On the other hand, if you look closely in your own back yard, you may stumble on to something interesting there. A good example is a discovery I made last week. I have been working for an electronics firm for over twenty-four years. I have moved from department to department and meet people that have interesting past. One of them hit closer to home than I would have expected.

As people retire or quit to go to another job their positions are backfilled with other people within the plant or temps are hired to fill the jobs with a less desirable shift schedule. This shuffling of personnel means that some people leave my department while others move in. Such was the case recently.

First, let me begin with the fact that I work next to a man that I have always looked up to. Really. He stands about six and a half feet tall and is considered the tallest man in the area. Well, he used to be the tallest. A temp that worked his time on the off-shift was made a permanent employee and sent to our department to backfill an opening. Put some good heeled shoes and a hat on his head and you would have to jump seven feet in the air to get over him. As remarkable as that fact is what was more startling for me was that he grew up in my hometown and his older brother was just a few years behind me in school.

His name is Bobby Wallace and he was on the first team at our school to ever make it to the state playoffs. From there he attended college in the United States and went on to play pro ball on three  continents. He spent time in Spain, Belgium, and France. He spent ten years in Israel. That is where his wife is from. They have a daughter that he speaks to in her native language. He learned several languages along the way.

We discovered that there were several people that we both knew from school. Some of them were older brothers that I had played ball with or had been involved in coaching. I didn't have a lot of time to ask about all the places he has been to or the people he has meet along the way. I didn't ask if he had got tired of basketball or if it got tired of him. I figure he is going to be around awhile and I will learn more. The way things are setup at work; he won't have to worry about being bounced around.