Sylvester Stallone: Voted “most likely to end up in the electric chair” by his teachers.
One of my best friends growing up was Brian Griset.
We were classmates in second grade and then one day when my parents tried out a new church, I realized he was also part of my new Sunday school class.
Brian’s dad was an important man. He was the mayor of Santa Ana, CA, and a well-respected member of the church. He was also significantly older than my father, likely in his early 50s. Brian had five older siblings, the oldest of which were already living on their own. By then his parents were exhausted and the high energy that Brian brought was a point of frustration.
But they liked me because I was able to keep him calm and even though Brian managed to get us in tons of trouble, he was a wonderful friend.
It was his knack for getting in trouble that really defined what most people thought of him. As I think back on it, none of the trouble Brian caused was outright malicious. He just loved attention and making people laugh. More like the cartoon character Dennis the Menace. But he wasn’t like the “good” kids, and he was definitely not going to be anything like his father.
I could go on for hours with Brian’s stories but there’s a few that really describe him. Very early in our friendship, his family pulled into the church parking lot shortly after we did. When he got out of the car, Brian shouted out at the top of his lungs, “you made us late you big fat man!” within earshot of everybody in the parking lot. Let’s not forget his dad was a leader in the church. And the city’s Mayor. Thank God there were no iPhones back then.
A few years later, after church, Brian’s dad used to love to hang around and talk to everybody and so Brian would manage to get his dad’s car keys and drive around the parking lot. He was about 10 years old. I think it was a year or so later he took it to the next level and joy rode his dad’s car around the neighborhood until he lost control and crashed into the side of somebody’s garage.
But the signature Brian story happened at a summer middle school church camp. It was at a place called Forest Home in the San Bernardino mountains. When we got off the bus the head of the camp rounded us up to give us the rules of the camp.
“The MOST IMPORTANT rule of camp IS,” he said, “under no circumstances do you ever pull the fire alarm unless there’s a real fire. If there is a fire alarm and it’s a false alarm somebody down in the city could be in trouble.”
Those were the magic words for Brian. As we walked to our cabins with our sleeping bags and little suitcases, I looked for Brian because I knew exactly where he was headed. He found the first fire alarm he could, dropped his bag, turned around to look at all of us, and pulled the alarm. He just couldn’t help himself. As we got through high school, we drifted apart and after graduation I didn’t see him for many years. In early 2001 we had a high school reunion and that’s where I reconnected with him.
As we filled in the gaps of the years, I was amazed at how successful he was. Not to mention he still had the same charm and drew crowds of people around him. We managed to stay in touch after that and he would call me every year on my birthday.
When I found out he passed away in 2010 it was a real surprise. Then as I looked at his obituary, I realized that he had become one of the most important people I knew. I didn’t know he had such a passion for caring for folks doing charity rides up and down the West Coast raising money for AIDS treatment. He was a successful recruiter and salesperson but when I found him on Facebook I couldn’t believe the amount of friends that he had.
Out of curiosity I did a quick Google search for the obituary of Brian’s dad. The man that I thought was so important and I think himself thought was important had a paragraph or so. And I’m sure he inspired a lot of people but I’m not sure that they felt the same joy that those who encountered Brian felt.
The bottom line is it’s really not how you begin, it’s how you manage to get caught up and finish that matters. Brian was somebody that nobody thought would amount to anything. Turns out, for some folks, Brian amounted to everything.
I wonder if you know anybody who defied the expected odds and became the person nobody thought possible?
I wonder if maybe you’re that person?
