Reflecting on the significance of the Juice

 

Back in 95 I was working for a startup in Pleasanton California. The Soviet Union had broken up and we had an engineering department that had a few Jewish Russian-Ukrainian ex rocket scientists who had immigrated and were working as software engineers. New to America they were still making cultural adjustments. During a meeting once, they told me back in the USSR it was quite common for the local party officials to stop all work on their space program and say, “Tomatoes are ripe, this week we pick tomatoes.”  They would all be bussed to the tomato fields for a period. Other crops often produced similar temporary assignments. Being an ex-satellite engineer from Lockheed Missiles and Space company we had a lot of common rapport. Besides rocket science, I too had picked tomatoes from my grandmother’s garden and canned them. Though for less bureaucratic reasons.  

At some point during that  summer, three of the ex-rocket scientists stood outside my office door, looking a little perplexed. Alex, the most senior and my kind of sort of boss, said, “Stan perhaps we could go to lunch today?”

The request was a bit ominous, we had never lunched. The week before I had discovered the company, Positive Communications,  had less than $6000 in checking while working on the accounting software. We were losing about $1 million a month. Perhaps they feared we’d be trucked off to the central valley grape fields for the harvest. Fortunately, we got new venture capital right before payroll was due.  I assumed they wanted to talk about the state of the company outside the office setting.

We ended up at Sweet Tomatoes, and all stuffed our plates and set down at a common table.  I waited for them to start the conversation. They each exchanged looks, starting down at the far end and passing the eyebrow perk baton to the next to see who  would broach the subject of discussion.  Perked eyebrows were passed up and down the line a few times. Finally, Alex leaned forward, across the table, and said quietly, “Stan, we were wondering, who is O.J. Simpson? And why is he so important?”

I had not anticipated that and just blurted out, “He was the first running back ever to rush a thousand yards in a single season.” 

Eyebrow perks went up and down the Russian line. Alex spoke again, “And this is important why?”  He smiled and then looked to his comrades.

The one on the end finally said, “Why is he called Orange Juice?”

It was a long lunch.