Dennis came to work for one of my companies in 1994. I owned a chain of fried chicken and biscuit restaurants and needed someone to run them. I sure as hell didn’t know how to. Dennis had worked for Chick-Fil-A. He moved from Atlanta to Richmond. We became fast friends and I handed him the keys and trusted his judgment. Dennis was a regular guy, interested in guy things, like college football and the Braves. Real men like to dis each other and play stupid childish tricks on one another. Dennis had these skills in spades. One day I was back in my office and one of my secretaries knocked on my door and said that the “Sheriff” was here to see me. I didn’t know Earl, but Dennis did. Our policy was that law enforcement ate free at our restaurants, and Earl (who never met a chicken biscuit he didn’t like) took advantage of this policy. Earl asked me to come out into the hallway. By this time, all of my employees had gathered around to see what the commotion was. In front of everyone, Earl slapped the handcuffs on me and in a very audible voice said that I “was under arrest.” As I walked with Earl down to the lobby of my building, Earl busted out laughing and so did everyone else. Dennis was the mastermind, but they were all in on it. It was April Fool’s Day. I had gotten punked. It was a good punk.
Dennis went on to help me in a number of other businesses I owned or subsequently acquired. He was awesome in these roles because he could crawl under a piece of heavy machinery and fix a broken hydraulic system or get cleaned up and meet with a bank president.
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