On Friday, Henry Lambert invited me to lunch.

Not at a fancy restaurant. At the Lakeshore store across the street from head office, in the little café by the front doors. He bought two turkey sandwiches and two coffees and paid for them himself.

“I opened my first store in 1962,” he said. “In a town called Elmwood, Illinois. Two thousand people. My father and I built the shelves ourselves.”

He took a bite of his sandwich.

“Forty years later, the company was huge. And the people in the tall building in Chicago started forgetting about little towns like Elmwood. They looked at spreadsheets and saw numbers. Not people. Not Main Streets.”

He looked at me.

“You didn't forget,” he said. “You sat in a window at five in the morning and counted. That's what Lakeshore used to be. Somebody who actually went and looked.”

Then he slid an envelope across the table.

It was a job offer. Full time, starting the day after I graduated. Analyst, Rural Stores. Reporting directly to Linda Prescott.

And a handwritten note from Henry.

To be put in charge of the ten-town pilot. Because she's the only one who knows what time the trucks should come.