I once went to Italy to break ground with the largest Italian toy company, a company that not only makes and markets toys, but also controls toy retailing in that country and has become a significant player in all of Europe. This is a company with reputed . . . ties. Know what I mean, Vern? Hey, it’s Italy after all.

            

I flew to Milan, where I thought they were based, grabbed a taxi with a driver that spoke no English, and we drove and we drove and we drove, out of the city, through small towns, and way out into the countryside. I began to think I was not going to visit this toy company after all because I was being kidnapped.  

 

 

 

Crazy, but maybe. I was a long way from home. 

            

We did finally make it to their factory, far north of Milan. I was coming back to Milan afterwards for one more meeting, loaded down with my giant suitcase filled with toy samples, like a Himalayan sherpa, or a human llama, (I had brought with me as much as I could humanly carry, drag, and wheel around) when a wheel on one of my large cases broke. I was stunned, and almost ready to give up. “For the loss of a nail the shoe was lost, for the loss of a shoe the horse was lost . . .” as my mother used to say. For the loss of one wheel, I ground to a halt.  

 

 

 

I did finally get back home to Chicago, somehow. 

           

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