To paraphrase SNL character Chico Escuela, “Life has been berry, berry good to me!” When I look back — something I’m trying to do less — I can’t help noticing the nodes. Those forks in the road where I had to chose which path to take. From my current vantage point, it’s tempting too say I wouldn’t be where I am today (a good place) had I chosen the other path at any point along the way. Yes, I might be in a “better” place, but it would be a different place. I’ve mapped out some of those nodes below. (Click the image for larger map)
For reason’s I can’t recall, I tried out for the high school musical and got the lead part. In college I switched my major from business to theater when it looked like falling grades my cost me my draft deferment. When Nixon froze the lottery — and I was no longer in danger of getting drafted — I dropped out of law school and got a job with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. I hated it and quit after a year and wound up working at a small town radio station.

On one of the nights I went to Tommy’s North End Cafe, I met my future wife (40+ years). She says it was the only time she had ever been there.

I burned out after ten years at the radio station and we moved to Albuquerque where I couldn’t get arrested. I went back to the radio station where Clyde Lear found me and brought me to work for his new company where I stayed for 29 years.

Like Harry Bosch, I don’t believe in coincidences. My life experience suggests there is a pattern to our individual realities. A process, intelligent beyond human understanding. As for those forks in the road, this from Random Walk by Lawrence Block:

“You did what you would have done, in a minute or in all eternity.”