“I was about to leave you a love note.” I teased him.

The secretary giggled. Howard brushed. Having known him when he started a one person show fifteen years ago to running a company of three locations and thirty employees, from my managing a small firm to various corporate posts to temporary retirement, from his son a baby in the cradle to grow up to my height, how time flies!

I flipped through the returns and made a few comments. 

“You didn´t lose your edge after all these years. Sharper still.” He said after watching how the bottom line went down. 

“Unlikely considering corporate jobs are designed to create idiocracy. I often told my colleagues that we should have been compensated more for the loss of intelligence at work”  I smirked.

“It is painful, isn´t it?” He made a remark when I was writing the check, referring to the tax payment.

“Yes when I know it is going to be used to send another soldier to Iraq or to fund a CIA agent to stir up a riot in Tibet .” I sighed. The feeling of helpless and no control frustrated me often.

“Don´t you support the independence of Tibet ?” He contested me for argument sake. 

Many have expressed quite different opinion on this matter. I personally don´t like to comment on a current event in which in-depth information are not available and everything is not what it appears to be on the surface. Yet, I have to prepare an answer sensing that I will be questioned by others, Americans especially. 

“I will support Tibet´s freedom if Tibet is capable of being independent without the manipulation and exploitation of super powers, which is impossible.” I threw him my one liner and did not bother to explain further. Anyone with an IQ of 100 and a basic understanding of Tibet´s history and geography should know exactly what I meant.

“Precisely.”  He nodded. 

“Rather than fend off the Western media on Tibet issue, maybe what China should do is to start a movement in Alaska among the Eskimos. How does Return Alaska sound?” I improvised a solution, jokingly. 

“Sounds better than Free Tibet for sure.”  We both laughed out loud at the idea.