📓Monday December 29, 2025 — 3:10 p.m.
It’s 3:10 p.m.
I pulled up to a liquor store in Huntington Park—Young’s Liquor—to sell some cases, and I saw Sam.
Sam is a very, very good guy.
When you look at him, he’s Armenian—slender build, beard with pepper in it, hair combed to the side with pepper in it too. He’s suave when he talks. Almost like… if Zorro was Armenian. That’s the vibe. Calm. Sharp. Smooth.
So I’m talking to him and I ask him about the store. Like—does he really enjoy this? Does he like being here like that?
And he goes, “Oh yes.”
Then he says something that stayed with me:
“This is not business. This is family.”
He explains it like this:
“I know the kids, then I know their parents, then I know their grandparents. I’ve been here 25 years. I know generations of people—not one group.”
And I’m watching it happen in real time.
A guy walks in and goes, “Hey Sam… let me pay this tomorrow when I get paid.”
He only had one can of beer.
Sam doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t act tough. Doesn’t act like he’s better than him. He just says, “Yeah, sure.”
And that’s when I realized—Sam isn’t just running a store. He’s holding a neighborhood together with quiet trust.
Today he was wearing a black jacket. At one point, he touched his heart—like he was trying to keep himself steady—and he said it hurts.
Then he told me:
“On the 24th of December, I lost my mother.”
And he goes,
“Every day I think of her. There’s not one day I don’t think of her.”
But it wasn’t only pain.
It was something deeper.
You could feel reverence in it. Like this wasn’t just, “I lost someone.”
It was: “This person gave me a feeling I’ll never get anywhere else.”
And when he said that… I got emotional.
Because I know exactly that feeling.
My brain instantly went to my mom.
I threw away my New Balance shoes because I couldn’t really wash them. I thought they were done. My sister even got me new ones for Christmas, so I was like, “Whatever—I’ll just replace them.”
Then yesterday I went to take the trash out…
…and my mom had pulled the shoes out of the garbage.
She washed them.
Like washed-them washed-them.
They looked new.
She put them in the car to air dry.
I told her, “Ma… why’d you do that?”
And she goes,
“Yeah, I saw them in the garbage. They’re still good. You spend a lot of money. So I washed them for you.”
Then I told her, “Show me how to wash them so I can do it right next time.”
And she said, “Yes—come on.”
That “come on”—that’s a mom thing.
That’s love with hands.
That’s fuel.
So when Sam told me about his mother, all of that replayed in my head. And I’m driving right now and I’m still a little teary-eyed.
Because he lost his mom… and I don’t even know her… but I know what it feels like when a man had a great one.
And I feel like Sam had a great mom.
Plástico Man moveth now… on to the next episode.
Question: Who’s someone outside your family who quietly held you together—without even trying?
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