N Lee Gray:  

Can you believe we are in our 50's?! What a long stange trip it's been. After graduation, I tended bar at Annie Tiques for the summer, then I went off to Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and wasn't really sure that I wanted to be in school. It showed in my grades (1.6 GPA), so I came back to Jacksonville and continued to work at Tiques. I got married in 1979 to Carolyn Wickham. Bartending was a sore spot with my wife, so I took a sales job in Stuart, Florida. It was not what I expected and, after 5 years, I took a job with Publix. By this time, we had a four year old daughter (Carly) and we had another daughter on the way (Haley). I took a transfer back to Jacksonville so we could be near her family in 1989. I missed the bar business and Publix was not my passion, so I re-entered the restaurant business with TGI Fridays. As a corporate trainer, I got to travel and made...Expand for more