lunch hour on the spot and head down to the waterfront, hoping for the appearance of a happenstance encounter to ignite conversation.
Sometimes he had been successful in achieving the âhappenstanceâ encounters. At least all the southern belles he happened to bump into thought they were happenstance.
On one occasion, he wound up accompanying the attractive wandering damsel around Savannah all weekend. Her name was Leslie, a ravishing blonde from Charleston who looked splendid in the assortment of yellow, blue, and white sundresses she wore. Their weekend proved to be fabulous. Almost too fabulous, in fact.
He smiled as he thought of her. For a lesser man with not so much on his plate, she would have been the ultimate catch. But for a man with tremendous demands upon his time, making decisions in business that could mean billions in profits and change the landscape of the country, maintaining any kind of committed relationship simply wasnât feasible.
Even if their weekend had been three days sprinkled with the unexpected magic of a fairy tale, Richardson could not thrive in a fairy tale, where all was bliss and giddiness and harmonyâeven if his fairytale mate, the smashing Charlestonian Leslie Grimes, could have given Christie Brinkley a run for her money even at her mouthwatering best.
Leslie had tried contacting him on numerous occasions after their weekend, but he hadnât responded. The temptation to respond had been enticing, but his business-oriented brain had sifted the pros and cons like a preprogrammed computer, determining that the type of discipline needed to accomplish his goals left little room for play.
In the end, he had no time for feelings, no time for ambiguous nuances, and no time for relearning woman-speak, where one had to understand that what they say is not what they mean.
Despite strong temptations, he just didnât have enough time for all that.
Heâd been through it all before, leading up to his nasty divorce after twenty-three years of marriage.
Never again.
Still, he enjoyed people-watching through his binoculars from his balcony off the CEO offices at AirFlite headquarters, preferably with a glass of brandy.
He always thought he might see Leslie down by the waterfront again someday. If he did, he wasnât sure what heâd do. And today he saw nothing else worthy of freezing the sweep of his binoculars. Only a sea of humanity milling about, stepping into waterfront shops, moving in and out of restaurants, holding hands along the dockside, all hoping to discover and become enraptured in that mystic, romantic aura of Savannah, made so famous in southern lore and history, and captured by great works of literature like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Savannah, he concludedâin part because it reminded him of his native South Africa in that it had its own history of apartheid, which southerners called âsegregationââhad become the perfect spot for both his personal repatriation and the repatriation of his great international business empire. AirFlite was once a South African hot-air balloon company, focusing on small commercial dirigibles designed for aerial photography marketed to residential and commercial real estate companies. But Richardson was among the first to understand the explosive potential of the drone industry. He knew that to make a fortune as a dronesman, one would need to juxtapose oneâs surfboard on the first large wave crashing onto the beach. For beyond that, the beach would become overcrowded, with the waves receding into the sea.
Although he loved the peaceful waves of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans lapping upon the gorgeous beaches of his native South Africa, he understood that the financial waves for the drone industry would be found rolling in toward the military-industrial complex in the United States.
As a naturally astute businessman, he purposed to position himself to be in the right place at the
Sometimes he had been successful in achieving the âhappenstanceâ encounters. At least all the southern belles he happened to bump into thought they were happenstance.
On one occasion, he wound up accompanying the attractive wandering damsel around Savannah all weekend. Her name was Leslie, a ravishing blonde from Charleston who looked splendid in the assortment of yellow, blue, and white sundresses she wore. Their weekend proved to be fabulous. Almost too fabulous, in fact.
He smiled as he thought of her. For a lesser man with not so much on his plate, she would have been the ultimate catch. But for a man with tremendous demands upon his time, making decisions in business that could mean billions in profits and change the landscape of the country, maintaining any kind of committed relationship simply wasnât feasible.
Even if their weekend had been three days sprinkled with the unexpected magic of a fairy tale, Richardson could not thrive in a fairy tale, where all was bliss and giddiness and harmonyâeven if his fairytale mate, the smashing Charlestonian Leslie Grimes, could have given Christie Brinkley a run for her money even at her mouthwatering best.
Leslie had tried contacting him on numerous occasions after their weekend, but he hadnât responded. The temptation to respond had been enticing, but his business-oriented brain had sifted the pros and cons like a preprogrammed computer, determining that the type of discipline needed to accomplish his goals left little room for play.
In the end, he had no time for feelings, no time for ambiguous nuances, and no time for relearning woman-speak, where one had to understand that what they say is not what they mean.
Despite strong temptations, he just didnât have enough time for all that.
Heâd been through it all before, leading up to his nasty divorce after twenty-three years of marriage.
Never again.
Still, he enjoyed people-watching through his binoculars from his balcony off the CEO offices at AirFlite headquarters, preferably with a glass of brandy.
He always thought he might see Leslie down by the waterfront again someday. If he did, he wasnât sure what heâd do. And today he saw nothing else worthy of freezing the sweep of his binoculars. Only a sea of humanity milling about, stepping into waterfront shops, moving in and out of restaurants, holding hands along the dockside, all hoping to discover and become enraptured in that mystic, romantic aura of Savannah, made so famous in southern lore and history, and captured by great works of literature like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Savannah, he concludedâin part because it reminded him of his native South Africa in that it had its own history of apartheid, which southerners called âsegregationââhad become the perfect spot for both his personal repatriation and the repatriation of his great international business empire. AirFlite was once a South African hot-air balloon company, focusing on small commercial dirigibles designed for aerial photography marketed to residential and commercial real estate companies. But Richardson was among the first to understand the explosive potential of the drone industry. He knew that to make a fortune as a dronesman, one would need to juxtapose oneâs surfboard on the first large wave crashing onto the beach. For beyond that, the beach would become overcrowded, with the waves receding into the sea.
Although he loved the peaceful waves of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans lapping upon the gorgeous beaches of his native South Africa, he understood that the financial waves for the drone industry would be found rolling in toward the military-industrial complex in the United States.
As a naturally astute businessman, he purposed to position himself to be in the right place at the
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