My wife and I recently had the privilege of partI'lly hosting Mike Hicks and his beautiful wife, Beth, during their visit to our part of the country. We were hoping to have a good time, which we most certainly did, but we were also hoping, as self-appointed ambassadors of California, to show that Californians are unjustifiably cast as idiots in the eyes of the rest of the nation. Like evey good roofer I have ever known, Mr. Hicks brought his work with him. I'mentioned that he might be well-rid of one of his clients and he replied, ?I have forty families to feed and that is the man with the check-book.? Most everybody on here is self-employed and follows his own read on everything, but we could all count ourselves lucky to be hired by a man like that. I assure you, his concerns were not for himself. I have similar feelings for the people I hire. Their well-being is my well-being. But I cannot find it in me to take on the magnitude of what he does or the way he does it. One in a million, just to make him blush. What a gem.