I had a crush on a girl in college. If I had had the lack of shyness to tell her how much I liked her, and if one thing led to another, we might have dated, and I would have married her, assuming that she would of had me.
But then, everything would have been different, I would never have moved to D.C. after college, and my brother would never have followed me there, and he would never have met his future wife, and they would never have had kids, and don’t get me started on how I pushed my brother to go and ask his future wife to dance.
All I’m saying is that small things that happen in everyone’s life have certain implications.
In a nutshell, life is completely random.
Is that it, or did you want to hear stories about other small occurrences that led to big events?
I assume this is some new sense of the word “random” that I’m not familiar with. A hazard of growing old, I guess.
“I Would Not Be Here”
—John Hartford—
Well, I would not be here if I hadn’t been there
and I wouldn’t ‘a been there if I hadn’t just turned
on Wednesday the third in the late afternoon
got to talking with George who works out in the back
and only because he was getting off early
to go see a man at a Baker Street bookstore
with a rare first edition of Steamboats and Cotton
a book he would never have sought in the first place
had he not been inspired by a fifth grade replacement
school teacher in Kirkwood who was picked just at random
by some man on a school board that couldn’t care less
and she wouldn’t a been a-working if not for her husband
who moved two months prior, to work in the office
of a man he had met while he served in the army
and only because they were in the same barracks
an accident caused by a poorly-made roster
mixed up on the desk of a sergeant from Denver
who wouldn’t been in but for being in back
of a car he was riding before he enlisted
that hit a cement truck and killed both his buddies
but a back seat flew up there and spared him from dying
and only because of the fault of a workman
who forgot to turn screws on a line up in Detroit
cause he hollered at Sam who was hateful that morning
hung over from drinking alone at a tavern
be cause of a woman who he wished he’d not married
he’d met long ago at a Jewish Bar Mitzvah
for the son of man who had moved there from Jersey
who managed the drug store that sold the prescription
that cured up the sunburn, he caught way last summer.
I had a college relationship with a woman I almost married. Things didn’t work out, it ended badly right after we graduated, and I suddenly found myself at loose ends with a life that seemed to have run its course and lost any former relevance with the present day.
I ditched my plans and joined the army just to get the hell out of my farm town. I wound up finding not only a new direction, but the woman I would marry. I joined the army for a new life, and boy did I get one. I joined almost 18 years ago, and I’ve been married to that funny geeky chick I met all those years ago in Korea since a month after I left.
You know, the hell of it is that if I hadn’t had a dysfunctionally fucked-up relationship with that emotionally unstable coed–I mean if we’d never met–I’d probably still be somewhere in rural PA working as either a miserable doctor or miserable biology teacher and wondering where I went wrong. The number one positive influence on my life is and always will be Mrs. Fresh, but I’ll be damned if that weirdo chick wasn’t in second place. That’s my random story.
So thanks a lot, Ellie, and stay the fuck away from my apartment!
Had I been a few months older I probably would have joined the factory that my brother worked at and spent my life working a factory job - at less than a 1/3 of what I make now and considerably less enjoyment.
Yes, I think life is really random (or contingent, if you object to this use of the word–I don’t). When I finished HS, had not gotten a scholarship or had any other way to go to college, I was just looking for a summer job in the classifieds of the local paper. There was a “boy wanted” ad that looked interesting. I called and it turned out to be a lab at a local university. I arranged an interview and when I got there it turned out they weren’t really offering a summer job, but had a full work-study program that involved full-time work and part-time university that, over five years including summer school, led to a degree. It certainly changed my life entirely. I have no idea what I would have done otherwise.
I met my wife (and the love of my life) by a real fluke. Another life-changing experience. Then there was the time, I was working hard with a colleague on a mathematical problem. The problem looked hermetic; we just had no way of attacking it. Then over Christmas vacation he accientally ran into a grad school friend that he explained the problem to. The friend had just finished a PhD thesis on a topic called “acyclic models” (don’t ask) and suggested we try that method. We did and the problem fell apart in five minutes (literally). That was my first important result as a mathematician.
Of course, the most contingent event of my life was the egg and sperm that came to together to produce ME. An event much less likely than winning any lottery in existence.
I went right from high school to college as everyone seemed to expect of me. I was going to be a teacher. But after the first part of the first semester, I discovered I hated college. I had been working part time at my dad’s office for 3 summers, and I figured I could do worse than go to work there full time.
Except he would only pay me what they’d pay any new hire off the street. I wanted $5 more a week (back in 1973, $5 was like real money) but he wouldn’t budge. Guess he didn’t want to be accused of favoritism or something. But it pissed me off, and I explored other alternatives. I ended up enlisting in the Navy.
All because of that $5/week, I learned electronics, got my pilot’s license, returned to college and got an engineering degree, bought a house, took sailing lessons and married my instructor, and I’m now making about twice what my dad made when he was a company VP (OK, not counting bonuses, which were significant.)
I never did thank my dad for that…