Click on 2015 in the index on the right of this blog. Next, click on the title of my December 31st blog, "The Shot Must Choose You." All my blog titles for 2015 will appear in the index.
Laura Hillenbrand, the author of “Seabiscuit,” the New York Times Best Selling volume, tells a poignant story from her childhood. She recounts an experience which literally changed the entire course of her young life.
“As a child, I spent a
great deal of time at my neighborhood pool, as did most of my little friends in
the local community.
One day, as several of
my friends, and I frolicked in the pool, a thunderstorm came up, and the
lifeguard blew his whistle, and summoned us from the water. We didn’t have to
ask a reason, since lightning flashed in the distance, and the thunder boomed,
like a bass drummer at a half-time show.
We all crowded onto a
screened-in porch, and hoped the storm would move through our area quickly, so
that we could resume our revelry. But it was not to be.
It seemed the lifeguard
was good at more than just saving lives, since he pulled an old book out of a
thread-bare sachel, and offered to read us a story.
Most of the children,
in this ad-lib formation, were visibly bored with the idea. And though it was
still raining lightly, and streaks of lightning lit up the dark horizon, by
ones and twos my peers strode to the nearest exit, and set a course for home.
Not to be deterred, and
though only a handful of my friends remained, this familiar, but unknown, and
unnamed (but not unappreciated) young lifeguard began to read.
He first pronounced the
name of that old volume, “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” and somehow the
title of the book drew me in, and would not let me go. I soon discovered that
it was not for nothing that the book was referred to as a Rhyme. For rhyme it
certainly did.
And as my unnamed, (but
not unappreciated) new friend read aloud, and shared the harrowing tale of the
Ancient Mariner, tears filled my eyes, and I experienced a myriad emotions I
had never before realized, (or even knew existed.) And it seemed with each
flash of lightning which surrounded me this day, my Mariner’s tempest
synchronized; and nightmare, and reality congealed, until the one could not be
separated from the other.
I sat transfixed,
though like sand in an hour glass, the grisly tale swiftly neared its end. And
I, I only longed for more, and hung onto his slightest whispered word. And hope
against hope, I
could not forestall the
end of his story, nor by my will cause it to last a moment more.
And as poetic justice
justly required, on that day of all my days, the storm which raged around me
abated; just as surely as that all too terrible tempest of my friend, The
Ancient Mariner, neared its own conclusion.
An eerie silence
permeated the confines of that smallish, non-descript porch, as my unnamed,
(but not unappreciated) friend, the boyish, sandy-haired lifeguard, returned
his precious volume to its former place.
And though I wished to
linger, I chose to leave. For lingering could not add an hour, nor a minute to
the pleasure I had known, but a moment before.
And though, at the
beginning, I had sought the comraderie of friends, whereas now, I walked alone,
and I was glad of it.
I pondered the Rhyme, I
cherished the words, I embraced the ebb and flow of nouns, and adjectives, of
phrases, and paragraphs. And I knew. I suddenly knew. As young, as innocent,
and as unacquainted with the world of work, as I was, the almost spiritual
energy with which I had been involuntarily endued that day, was nothing short
of all-engaging, and all-inspiring.
I WOULD BE A WRITER
The decision hardly
seemed my own. Any choice which remained to me diminished with each silent step
I took. And not unlike one who leaps blindly into a void, with no sure and
certain place to arrest his flight, I surrendered myself to my happy, though
still uncertain plight.
I owe that (still)
nameless, (though not unappreciated) young man who gave his time, and energies
to a random, little flock of neighborhood kids, who found themselves seated on
the inside perimeter of a screened-in porch.
A poorly paid
lifeguard, who might have gone his own way, done his own thing, and counted his
duties done for the day. (But he was better than that.) And I think Impact and
Legacy were his thing, and pride had no prominent place in his life, (for what
fame and fortune did his juvenile listeners have to impart?) And for no
apparent reason, other than that he cared, and saw an opportunity to impart a
little joy, and knowledge, and perhaps inspire a little insight… Well, my
friend, I am the rich recipient of his momentary efforts.
And though I have never
had the opportunity, no, the privilege, to thank him personally, I have been
granted the wherewithal to enlarge his momentary legacy which with humbleness
and joy, he bequeathed to a random group of children. For you see, I am a
writer.
And I shudder to think
where I might have been, where I might have gone, what I might have done, what
I might have missed…
without the momentary influence of that solitary life.
By William McDonald, PhD. Paraphase of Laura Hillenbrand story. Copyright pending
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