I've been on a search for this picture, now found, for months. I enlisted daughter Amanda in the search too. And after several weeks, she found it!
I don't know why I became so fixated on it. It only serves to make me look foolish, but then, maybe it's good to have a reality check from time to time.
The picture was snapped in 2003 when our family was on our first-ever California vacation. We were in the Sonoma Valley, touring wineries and sampling their wines.
At Foppiano Vineyards, I let the rest of the gang go up to the sampling bar, and I hung around back. I was driving.
That's when I noticed this old codger, sitting alone in a chair in a corner in the back. I felt a little sorry for him. To me, he looked kind of lonely and out of place. So, jumping to conclusions, I thought I would do him a favor and strike up a conversation. We pastors usually know how to do that. I gave him my very best pastor chit-chat. Wasn't that nice of me to do that.
Eventually, I asked him what he did for a living before he retired. He said, "Did you ever hear of something called Continental Airlines?" "Sure, " I said. He came back, "Well, I helped found it." Whoa....What? ... Reality-check!!! I surely underestimated this man!
Since that moment, my research tells me that this man, Louis J Foppiano, was indeed best friends with the man usually credited with starting Continental Airlines. What he didn't mention that day was that, when he was 14 years old, his father died, and from that time on, he and his mother managed and grew the Foppiano Winery. He continued to oversee the winery into his nineties. He died in 2012 at age 101. He was afforded much acclaim at his passing.
We did wise up enough to ask if we could have a picture with him. He was very gracious. I haven't been that off base on someone since the time, early in my ministry, when I spent 15 minutes chatting with an "ordinary" man without realizing I was talking with the president of General Motors.
No, I take it back. I'm sure I have missed the mark most by missing the treasure of the truly ordinary people we meet every day who are really the greatest treasures in disguise, people like Jesus noted: the widow adding her 2 coins in the treasury box, or the children trying to make their way to Jesus. I am thankful whenever Jesus gives me new eyes! Treasures abound!
