A long-time Conservative friend is a man who donates as much if not more money to Conservative causes in this region than anyone else. We have known each other for over 25 years, and for almost that many years have had breakfast once a week. I told him once to ask Bush for an ambassadorship. He said he had given enough.

(Years ago the local paper printed the names and holdings of the ten wealthiest people in the area. The following Sunday he asked if I saw the article. I had, it was front page. He became very incensed, said that the paper always got it wrong. Always. I'm worth that much, he said, but it's not where they say it is. For instance, I only have voting rights to a lot of the stock in the foundation, it's not mine! This guy has always driven a Subaru, lives in a reasonable but not lavish apartment.)

We met when I was a Union rep working to shut down one of the biggest factories behind his fortune. While a Union factory, they were using non-Union people for maintenance during their annual shut-down and I represented the trade most affected. I did a lot of homework, had all the various labor parties lined up, I had the community behind it and had gone from being regarded as a pest by the company to being taken very, very seriously. I had some details left, mostly getting the VIPs of some marginally involved Unions to official sign off, and was a couple of days away from pulling the trigger and shutting down the plant, a move which could have created a lot of turmoil in the area. I did not want to do anything but shut the place down, and was stressing to all in my "coalition" that we wanted to be able to go back to work without any animosity after we got our way. As a way of emphasizing that I insisted there be no foul language on the lines, in the letters or on the signs. I thought if I could control that I could control most things.

I introduced myself to him suggesting that this would all be over sometime, their company was a great company, and my hope is that we could keep matters on an impersonal basis. If we could beat 'em, fine, and if we couldn't they had my respect. There weren't any badguys, there were only conflicting interests. And we needed to stay in touch in order to keep matters low-key. He pointed out that mine was a small, local matter and that I couldn't hurt the company enough to change anything.

I brought up the idea of a national boycott of their materials through the actions of my members who were supervisors and could easily specify competitors products and showed him my first letter on the subject which would go out to all local unions in the country. That may only be 8 to 10% effective, I said, pulling those numbers out of my rear, which would be significant. That, he said, could hurt.

Time was running short, so we decided to have breakfast on Sunday, and shortly after that started having breakfast on every Sunday. Since then we've climbed mountains, backpacked, we've done a lot together. I was the only male at his small 80th birthday party recently who didn't have a local building named after him.

That company is an international affair, with plants all over the world. The head of it contacted the head of my International Union who contacted the regional VP who contacted me and the VPs of the other Unions involved and shut down my program. They later apologized to me, said it would have been a good idea. I'd forgotten about all of that until I started writing, and I guess I just didn't stop.

The last time we had a political discussion it almost came to fisticuffs even though we were driving down a freeway. That discussion lasted about 10 seconds before deteriorating. Maybe 8.

We do not discuss political matters. And get along just fine. He knows where I stand, and I know where he does, and that's enough. We really just don't dare.