A couple of days ago I stopped in for “happy hour” at a small local bar in Sonoma. This bar is one of those little bars where mostly “blue collar” folks stop off after work to meet friends before heading home for the evening. I consider it more of a saloon than a bar because it is a place of coming together, a meeting house, a place were hard working people share their day’s challenges and successes – and stories.

On this particular day the saloon was lightly attended, and quiet. I sat down next to a stranger, he was obviously not a stranger to the bar tender or the other customers. I assumed that he was of Mexican origin but didn’t really think much about that having grown up in the town that had such deep Spanish/Mexican roots that had no special distinction for me – just another person. He was half-way through his drink, reminding the bar tender that he is a “one and done” sort of customer, letting me know that he would be on his way home shortly. I ordered a glass of wine and opened the conversations with a highly creative lead-in question, “How is your day going?”

He was open to a bit of conversation and took the lead, telling me a bit about his background of having come to the States as a young boy to live with his grandfather after his dad had passed away. He told me he had dual citizenship, and was proud of it. He then went on to explain to me that he is a contractor (I suppose meaning he isn’t just a laborer). The discussion started by his offering his “credentials.” I suppose he feels he has to do that, not knowing that I didn’t require credentials since he is a fellow human and that is more than sufficient. After a little chit chat he asked if I was interested in cars and brought out some photos of his really beautiful Chevy Impala, some other cars and various things that we could share a bit. We discussed older cars for a bit.

As the conversation unfolded he shared his experience of picking grapes with his grandfather at the age of 11, getting up at 3:30am to get to the fields to work all day. I shared that I used to pick graphs for Gallo with my mother at about the same age, filling the lug boxes with grapes but not being strong enough to pick them up. We shared laughter over that – he had the same problem. I never worked as hard or as long as he did, but we started to find a few things in common.

He then changed gears a tiny bit and told me about some of his wonderful experiences growing up under the care of his grandfather. I expressed disappointment in not meeting my grandfathers because they died before I was born.

He told me about when his grandfather finally became very ill and he sat by his grandfather’s side for days while the old man prepared for death. At the moment of passing his grandfather acknowledged him and shed a little tear. My wife did the same when she died; she told me she was dying, told me to “have fun”, she shed a little tear and then was gone.

By this time both my new friend and myself had faces streaked with our own tears. We were both transported to those special moments, feeling the pain and loss of the moment, feeling lost to the world. He looked up with his teary red eyes and gently smiled – acknowledging that here we both were, sharing in something that went far beyond our differences and didn’t require any sort of credentials at all. I realized how lucky I was to be allowed to share of brief moment of our deeper humanity with a total stranger, sitting at the bar with half filled glasses, transported to something very painful and very beautiful at the same time.

We both relaxed, finished our drinks – and this time he was not “one and done”, we each ordered another so we could honor our experience together.

It was a beautiful day.