Monday, October 6, 2008

DON'T JUDGE A BOOK.....

You know that saying "Don't Judge a Book By It's Cover", right? Well yesterday I had an experience that showed me just how true this can be. A good friend of mine, who I'll call Simeon (not his real name), called me up yesterday and asked me to come hang out with him for a couple hours. I had already come home from church and really had nothing planned so I said OK.

He told me were going to see a friend of his who owned a deli and that the guy was doing some refurbishing. So we drove over there and I met the guy who turned out to be in his late 30's I would say. He was clearly an intelligent man, black guy, fit looking, he had his 11yr old son with him and they had arrived in a pick up truck, albeit a nice one.

He had a French accent which was cool because I speak French and so we did a brief exchange in the language. Then he spoke to some of the workers who were inside the deli and switched smoothly over to Spanish and then back to English. Turns out he speaks five languages.

Anyway, so Simeon has known this guy for like 6yrs because the guy also owns a Mail Boxes etc. type business as well and Simeon rents a mailbox from him. So as he puts it, he only knew him and referred to him as the "stamp man", lol.

At some point, we ended up getting in the car to go to see this guy's "political advisor" over in Beverly Hills. I'm thinking, this guy is a blue collar guy, who owns a deli and mailbox place, what kind of advice could he possibly need and so I ask, "Why would you need a political advisor?"

He answers, "Because I'm running for the presidency of ...." Turns out this guy is about to run for and most likely will become President of a pretty well known country! I'm not saying the country name or anything because I'm not trying to put his business all out there. Not only that, he owns like 5 delis and 6 mail box stores and is a multi multi millionaire, lol!!!

I would've never guessed because even though he was clearly confident, he was quietly so...no swagger and self promotion there. So much so, that Simeon kept saying "Man why didn't you tell me all these years that you're not just the stamp guy?" to which he just replied, "there was no need to".

So the next time, you see some guy in blue jeans, with dirty hands painting the walls of some local deli down the street, be careful how you judge him. He just might be a nation's President or a King or a CEO or something. Remember the movie Coming to America, lol?? It reminded me of that!

14 comments:

eclectik said...

AND the next time you see a blogger that has shadowy pictures and type random stuff about nothing and is all single and stuff...dont assume he doesnt want Jackie to hook him up with one or a few of her friends

...no, wait.

:)


Good post

e.

Anonymous said...

wery nice

anonymousnupe said...

Or, speaking of church, he/she might be an angel, right (Hebrews 13: 2)?

So what was the message about on Sunday? I came away from ours dramatically affected, which rarely happens at my age; already put a change in place as a result of it.

Anonymous said...

I love books with a nice cover!

Anonymous said...

what a grand revelation! you truly can not judge anyone based solely on their appearance. some of the most unassuming people are also some of the brightest and/or the richest. i have always believed in getting to know someone before really drawing any conclusions on them.

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Kawana Aminata Oliver said...

I am a fan, I just wanted to say that ;-) Very good post.

Anonymous said...

Inquring minds want to know if you and david oliver are still an item. Someone in the last blog comment section made a reference to it

Anonymous said...

Appearance does not tell people who they are but mind and thought show what exactly they are.

Anonymous said...

I agree with it~

Unknown said...

Nice blog you have here. =)

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

good for u to recognize this, folks always judge me by my looks and think i sell drugs or play music (i do the latter0 but when the find out I a phd and that i am an infectious disease specialist they flip - go figure

dejanae said...

ooh
can u get me the hook up?


oh yeah
nice moral and all

did u say he's rich?
lol

Anonymous said...

Too often do we judge books by their cover. It was never a good thing to do, and it still isn't. You just never know who someone is.

Bruno said...

Thanks so much for the article, quite effective information.
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