You may know you’re basically honorable, but it’s nice, every once in a while, to get a chance to prove it. Back in my musician days, I worked as a driver for a smart, successful, Neo-Orthodox Jew, very active in the community. One day, “Elie Wiesel” (someone important, I gathered) came to LA, and I was loaned out to drive him somewhere… Big Bear, I believe. On the way back, he became concerned about the sound of the tires, pup-pupping over seams in the road. “Is ziss a flat tire?” he asked politely. “No, no, it’s just, y’know… The road. Heh.”

Pup-pup. Pup-pup. “Are you, eh, sure?” he insisted. Vaguely annoyed, I repeated that it was nothing, did my best to be reassuring, and got him back safely, without incident. Later, I read about who this guy was. Elie Wiesel had survived Auschwitz, and Buchenwald, and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Only to find himself that evening, alone on a mountain road, in the hands of a scruffy, and somewhat glib, goy.

Oy. It wasn’t the first time my boss had dropped the trust bomb on me. My very first day on the job, I was sent downtown, alone, to cash a check — for several thousand dollars. He later attended my first wedding, and cheered me on: mazel tov! Years passed, and when that marriage went belly-up, I remember feeling (amid the jumble) a distinct pang of guilt, at disappointing � of all people � my old boss. Whom I no longer even worked for. But who had given me the opportunity, in his small way, to prove that I could be counted on.