Today, I drive away from the one place that has been a contiguous presence in my life since I was 20 years old.

Fortunately, relationships have endured over the years, but when calamity hit…when people left my life…when consequences found their way to my doorstep…when my heart was broken…

PDX was always there.

Work and opportunity to keep me busy, challenged, focused.

People who embraced, consoled, encouraged.

A place where every tee-ball victory, marriage, birth, graduation was celebrated. And where every heartache was consoled, life change supported, challenge met with care and a helping hand.

A place where I got to be a part of an amazing vision, to create a distinct and powerful voice to support that vision, to learn from the people around me.

A place where I encountered people who would bring out the best in me–sometimes in spite of my inclination to show my worst.

A place where a family would, in many ways, treat me as their very own–appreciating my talents, providing a path for me to grow, showing sternness when needed, loving my children, showing grace and gratitude.

The one place I always had to go to.

Hired as a wanna-be-but-didn’t quite-happen-pharmacist in 1988 (I was really 13??), this place became a home without ever taking me away from my own home and family.

I will forever be grateful to be a man of a certain age who can say he put in a quarter-century (!!) for one company, walked away with the watch (I didn’t know anyone did that anymore!), and was a better man because of his time there.

I suspect I will forever be a little “PDX” and bleed PDX blue.

And I am quite certain I will always be grateful for PDX, the people that comprise it, and its place in my life.

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