Doreen

Last month I was assigned a big feature by my editor at HOUR Detroit magazine, a profile of a southeast Michigan woman named Doreen Hermelin. I had heard her name before, but I think it's fair to say, especially since I now reside at the end of a road in Decatur, Ill., that we don't travel in the same circles.

I had other stories to finish before turning my attention to her article, and I knew I would need to sit down across from her in person, like Mike Wallace used to do on 60 Minutes, if I really wanted to capture the essence of the woman in our brief time together and embellish the story with detail. So, I figured, I would track down Ms. Hermelin this week, solicit her interest in doing the feature, then drive to Detroit sometime next week to meet with her.

Should be more than enough time, right? After all, I'm clearing an entire week on my schedule to meet with her for less than an hour. How busy can any one person be?

Well, did I ever find out the answer to that question! After finally locating Ms. Hermelin and getting her on the phone (no simple task in itself, let me tell you), the cooperative and very gracious lady explained that she was getting on a plane Monday morning to fly to Argentina on business, will travel from there to New York, and doesn't expect to be back in Detroit until a day or so before Thanksgiving.

Hokey Pete! I thought. It turns out, as you may know, that Doreen Hermelin is an internationally renowned professional fundraiser, national president of the educational organization ORT America, former U.S. ambassador to Norway and probably a dozen other things I don't know about yet.

After several minutes on cellphone negotiations, it was decided that she could squeeze in 45 minutes to talk to me while she was packing for her trip to Argentina – and after her grandson's soccer match on Sunday afternoon.

Nobody should be that busy, I thought to myself. Then again, every time we think our lives are too jam-packed and hectic, we run into someone like Doreen Hermelin and realize that by comparison, we're nearly in semi-retirement.

Yet with all that, she makes time for a grandchild's soccer game. I think I'm going to like her.