Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

by Thomas L. Friedman

Kofi was the second black man Susan’s brother Paul Linnee ever met. In 1962, he recalled: I was pumping gas at Norm’s Texaco at 5125 Minnetonka Blvd., when a dingy ’62 Chevy Bel Air with Kansas plates pulled in for a tank of Fire Chief gasoline. While I was using my whisk broom to sweep out the passenger compartment, the rather large black man—who was, literally, the first black person I had ever spoken to in my life—who was driving, asked me if there was a pet hospital in town. I pointed him towards Fitch’s Pet Hospital up behind the Pastime Arena. Not too long after that I heard that he had bought the pet hospital from Dr. Fitch, opened up his practice there, and became quite successful. That man was Dr. B. Robert Lewis, a veterinarian, who went on to run for and serve on the St. Louis Park School Board and then became the first African American elected to the Minnesota State Senate.