Opportunity Knocks

 If you could go back in time to do things over, what would you change?

That's the kind of moderately rhetorical question that gets tossed around a lot on Al Gore's Internet, and having stumbled over it a few times myself, I confess that I have taken a moment or two to ponder my prior existence. What sort of choices have I made? What do I wish that I had taken the time to do that I skipped the first time around? Did I really want to take the road less traveled? 

Since it's Christmas time, and Charles Dickens is trending, it seems like now would be as good a time as any to reflect back on what those spirits might have me look into had they shown up in my bedroom like they did for Scrooge. 

I know that it's a bit hackneyed to suggest that the sum of all the turns I have taken on my path to sixty-one years are the exact combination that dropped me off here. A flit to the left or a jump to the right could have altered my course and sent me spiraling off in some unintended tangent that might have kept me from being a husband, a teacher, a father. 

Still, there must be some regret that nags at me. Something that keeps me awake at night. What is my "if only?"

Just prior to my twenty-first birthday, I woke up to a rather bleak looking day. Colorado, even in June, can present a serious array of meteorological extremes. This wasn't snow, but a relatively surprising bit of fog, and the potential for additional inclement weather. When the phone rang, I was considering these conditions. A friend of mine had tickets to see a concert at the Red Rocks Amphitheater and would I like to go? 

"Who's playing?" 

"U2."

"Right. The Irish guys." 

I thought about the chance to see a new band. I thought about the challenges presented by the weather. 

"That's okay," I said, "Why don't you see if somebody else wants to go."

The date was July 5, 1983. The concert was filmed and eventually presented as "Under A Blood Red Sky." Their performance on this night of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was named by Rolling Stone as one of the fifty moments that changed the history of rock and roll. 

I missed it. 

But I stayed warm and dry. 

Sheesh.