I still haven’t figured out why things happen to us in unexpected ways. One second you are gliding along minding your own business and the next second your life is changed forever. We hear that a lot on the bad side of life when there is a car accident or a surprised diagnosis that pins you down in ways that alter how you live.
But what about the classic example that I experienced when I was 15? I was in the normal transition stage between a goofy kid who liked to play sports, and when I wasn’t doing that I was walking through woods and experiencing nature at its basic core.
Girls were not on my mind. I would rather do anything else than be associated with them. Bat a ball? Sure. Shoot baskets? Let’s go. Play tackle football? I’m all in. But go looking for girls? Not me. I’m too busy doing other things.
So in the summer of 1955 when our family went back east to our old homestead in New York, traveling by car over 3,000 miles in around 3 and half days, as I recall, with my dad doing all the driving, I couldn’t wait to get there and maybe hit the ball around some with my old classmates.
And I did.
First thing, I walked up to our little town and walked around until I found a bunch of them playing softball in a little field squeezed in between houses and the dike that held back Dodge Creek. As I approached, somebody said I was on the other team, the one that was up-to-bat. The ground rule was you weren’t supposed to hit the ball over the dike and into Dodge Creek.
Grab a bat, somebody said. So after a mile or so walk, and without a warm-up, I was at-bat. First pitch I hammered and the ball sailed and sailed, roaring over the head of the centerfield who was stationed on top of the dike to prevent a ball from being mistakeningly hit that far, and against the rules.
But there it was, the ball disappearing over the dike. The centerfielder was dispatched to get the ball while I rounded the bases with an illegal home run. As I touched home plate several of the girls sitting on the bench said in unison, “showoff.” They were not pleased. And I was their teammate! Granted a teammate who had been gone for a year and had just now suddenly appeared after a 3,000-plus miles trip.
But their displeasure only reinforced my thought process about girls: they were not to be tolerated and certainly should not be part of anything I was doing. Why were they here, anyway?
Later that day, a couple of friends discovered I had $600 in cash in my pocket, which I accumulated by working most of the summer and storing it up for this trip back east. They had never seen that much money in their life. In fact, never had I.
The two of them proposed that we go out on a triple-date. I was no fool. I knew what they had in mind. I was to be the banker. They already had two girls lined up for them, so it was just a matter of lining one of for me, much to my disgust.
They persisted that I had to have a girl date, and walked me back a half-mile to downtown where the fire hall was. Upstairs was a recreational area where firemen and kids from around town hung out, shooting pool and playing cards when there was little else to do in town.
The two friends pushed me up the long stairwell to the upstairs. They were sure there was a girl there what would go out with me. I didn’t want to go out. I just wanted to go back to my sister’s house, where we were staying for the next week before heading back West in another three-and-half day rush trip.
Once we got to the top of the stairwell, one of my buddies pointed to a girl playing pool. That’s her, they said. I quickly said, “No way, I’m outta of here” and started back down the stairs.
“Get back up here,” one of my friends shouted after me.
“No, I’m leaving,” I said as I turned around.
As I turned there suddenly appeared between my two friends at the top of the stairs a girl. I don’t know what happened to me, but suddenly I was not me. I started to feel such peace and love and calm all rolled into one giant emotion. It was overwhelming, and something I had never experienced, and never would experience again.
I can’t accurately explain it in words. You have to experience it to know what I mean. But it was something I have never forgotten and can still feel, and it’s been 58 years since it happened.
Then this thing, whatever it was, started at the top of my head, and slowly went down my body to the tips of my toes. I say slowly, but this all happened in a couple seconds. But it was like time was frozen while all this was happening.
It was like filling a water glass, only instead of the water moving from the bottom of the glass to the top, this was moving from the top to the bottom. And as this was going on, I involuntarily blurted out, “I want to go out with her” and pointed to her.
Now, you must understand that girls were so far from my truth, so far from my world, that they might as well not exist. In fact, most of the time I wished they didn’t.
But suddenly I was not only acknowledging a girl, I was suddenly excited to do so. And it happened, like I said, in maybe two seconds, tops.
So explain to me how such a thing could happen? One minute I’m a goofy kid who wants nothing to do with the opposite sex and before you can snap your fingers, I’m in love. If that isn’t a mystery that isn’t worth exploring, then nothing is.
For the next week, I was smitten with this girl. And it continued long-distance for the next year, and picked up some heat the following summer when I bussed back to New York, and continued on another year and another summer back east.
It ended on a fall day in 1957 with a Dear John letter, and she went on to marry the guy who took my place, creating a happy life for herself and family. But I can’t forget how I was jerked from one planet to another planet in one quick and bloodless coup. One second I’m this way and a second later I’m completely different.
So how does that happen?
You got the answer to that and you can bottle it and make a fortune.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.
