No Accidental Successes

An erstwhile Texas drinking buddy who once helped me pack a sedan with 18 cases of Coors to take home to Jekyll Island from Denton, north of Fort Worth, sent me an internet puzzle last week.

He is obviosly still sipping Coors. Either that or he forgot I am blind. The puzzle involved maneuvering similar to Chinese Checkers, of which my late, Beloved Princess Betts was the undisputed intergalactic champion.

When I reminded my sons of this, they turned to the task of defeating the puzzle in less than two minutes, which was supposed to be the “second grade test” for Asian children.

Well, hell yes. They learn the matbles-jumping game before they can walk, I thought.

It took us all day to do it in four minutes. Actually, that is not fair. One of us obsessively cleared it up in less tan Five minutes the first time. That was NOT me.

During all this nostalgic replication of hours, days, years of defeat at the feet of our Number One Lady, one of the fine men confessed:

“I know solving it wasjust a great accident...”

And I pounced on him. When I shared my “pounce” with the Golf Editor of ESPN.com, Jason Sobel, he said:

“Bill ! You save and use that good prose. You tryin to make me jobless ?”

So, I pass it on to readers of the blog. Might be worth saving:

"In the well-intentioned or Spiritually fueled life, there are no coincidences and no accidental successes.

"That is why Golf at its best is so Spiritually pure. A hole-in-one or a double eagle is exactly what one most desires, and is attempting to accomplish, and sometimes deserves !"..

In the Midwest, a very close friend complained that if she had a perfectly tuned, equipped auto, made no errors and was crashed into by an idiot THAT would be no “successful” accident.

But that is a purely pessimistic, plan-plus-doom approach.

What I have in mind is the fruit of concerted effort, like tying on an Adams bi-visible, casting it past riffles until your arms are leaden and retrieving s20-inch, four pound rainbow from a pool that had heretofore produced only a pounder in the odd year.

Or walking into a fraternity house sock hop and meeting the girl you’ll spend 57 years with, after she tries to teach you Chinese Checkers.

There just ARE no “accidental” successes.....



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