Just That Kind of Day....

I can think of so many cliches....the road not taken....one door closes and another one opens. I look back at my life and realize just how many millions and millions of small decisions or choices have brought me to today.

It was September 1965 and I was starting my sophomore year at Ripon College in Wisconsin. A small liberal arts school, Ripon was home to just over 900 students. For me it was a very good fit. My high school years spent at a giant school with over 4,000 enrolled was, for a number of personal reasons, quite an unhappy time for me. So when the opportunity came to choose college, I went small.

Within the first week or so my roommate and I were down at the new 18-year-olds-allowed pub in town, sitting at the bar enjoying a beer. She and I were becoming best of friends (a friendship that still endures). We were having fun just talking and sipping, comparing classes, listening to the music from the juke box and sort of watching other students dance.

I don't know how long we'd been there when a young man I vaguely recognized came up and asked me to dance. My friend nodded her OK so he and I took to the floor to match our skills to the latest dance craze....perhaps the jerk? It was fun,, he was easy to be with and I was happy he'd approached me at the bar. After perhaps two songs I smiled, thanked him and went back to sit with my friend. She and I left about 10:00 to head back to the dorm and I waved to him as we left.

No one could have convinced me that those two dances would  lead to almost three years of dating, a winter wedding in 1967, two children, 11 houses, two moves from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic states and back again, two years of living on a sailboat, four grandsons, 12 years of retirement traveling the US and Canada in a small RV and so much more.

As he tells the story, David Mulford Woodard says he walked toward the bar where we were sitting unsure of who he would ask to dance. 

A small choice....just the kind of day that paints a new future. If it had been a different kind of day and my friend and I had gone to study at the library instead of walking down to the pub, every day following would also have been very different.

Small choices.....just that kind of day.....