When I hike my mind wanders off in many unrestricted directions. I don't control it, I just let it take me back into what could have been my future. Meandering down all the different avenues my life could have taken is one of the top five reasons why I like to get away, sit in the middle of nowhere, recall the good life, and imagine what might have been. It's the same driving along the long, lonely roads by myself to nowhere in particular. No blab, blab, blab from love ones to interrupt my thoughts.
Many moons ago, it was my senior year in high school and I was dating the Wicked Witch of the West Coast. To make a long story short, we had a fight (which was nothing new) and were broken up (which was also pretty common). Too bad it wasn't the final break up, but I do realize that if it had been, then I wouldn't be the man I am today, living the life I have. A good life. A life I wouldn't trade for anything else in the world.
Instead, we got back together, and eventually got married. Like Captain Kirk once told Bones, "It's our pain that makes us who we are."
My current wife once asked me why I married my former wife. I explained to her that when I'm looking for a girlfriend, the first thing I look for is intelligence. If she doesn't have that... then I marry her. Let me tell you, my wife hits pretty hard for a girl. Anyway...
Within days after our break-up, I started dating a sophomore who had the prettiest, greenest light-colored eyes. Green eyes are rare in general, but in the town I grew up in, they were almost non-existent. She was a very beautiful girl, quiet with a great smile. A normal body for a 15 year-old, but she wore micro mini-skirts and had the legs to pull it off. She also wore her hair in the style of the times: short. She was a beautifully ordinary 15 year-old girl, that is, except for the color of her hair. The color of her hair was platinum blonde.
That was also almost non-existent. You'd have a better chance of seeing Bigfoot walking down Main Street with Elvis, than a girl with platinum blonde hair. I've always wondered if it was her natural color, and I always regretted I never had the chance to find out. You see...
After the Witch found out that I had replaced her within days, she got me to go back with her, using the one Weapon of Mass Seduction she had at her disposal, Lord knows it wasn't her personality. Again, I wish I hadn't gone back with her, but I was weak. A bird in the hand... and all that. (Sex researchers say that sex drains you of all your energy. I don't know about that, my ex-wife always seemed to have enough energy to steal money out of my wallet after I'd go to sleep.)
Still, if I hadn't, who knows where I would have ended up. Maybe I'd be just another loser living with my parents and waiting for them to die so I could inherit their house, like a buddy I have who was in his forties and still had to have his mother co-sign for him so he could buy a car. He still owes me a thousand bucks, now that I think about it. He's owed it to me since the late 80's.
I remember, toward the end of my first marriage, the Witch escorted me to our family doctor for a physical. She must have wanted something. I passed the physical with flying colors, but when the doctor asked me if I had any questions or concerns, I admitted that I just didn't have the same passion for my wife that I used to when we were younger.
"What is it, doc?" I asked him, worried. "Is my testosterone low? Am I just getting old? Could it be something serious?"
The doctor called in the Witch. I thought he wanted to talk with her, get her opinion on the matter, but instead he just had her stand in the middle of the small examination room wearing her thong of indecency, and walked around her, looking her up and down, carefully checking her out. Then he turned back to me.
"You're fine," he said. "She doesn't do a thing for me, either."
So,...if I hadn't gotten back with her, then I wouldn't have the wife I have now, the kids I have now, the grandkids I have now, or the 94 year-old Dad I have living with me now. In the end, I guess, my ex-wife made me want to be a better man.
And that's why I left her and got a better wife.
The girl with the platinum blonde hair's name was Esperanza, which is Spanish for Hope. Hopie was the nickname I gave her, and I would love to see Hopie again . . . but not as she is now, a 60+ year old women, but as the 15 year-old girl I had such a crush on. Which brings me to...
One of the other of the five things I think about on my hikes is, after death, will we see our family and friends the way we want to, or will we see them the way they were when they died? Old and frail and sick?
Mom in her hospital bed, sometimes remembering who I was. Sometimes not. Dad high-stepping it in his late 90's, and taking his time in the tool section of Wal-Mart when I'm in a hurry. Will we see our grandparents young and strong, or old and angry because we just told them they weren't allowed to drive anymore?
If that's the case, then no thank you.
I don't want to be around a bunch of elderly men and women, if that's the way heaven is, talking about aches and pains and surgeries and bodily functions that no longer function. Billy Joel put it this way:
I'd rather laugh with the sinners,
than cry with the saints.
The sinners are much more fun.
When I hike, I remember some girls I
haven't thought of since I graduated from high school. I often wonder if those same girls I think about ever think about me. If they do...
I hope they think of me young and strong.
Raising My Father
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@JimDuchene
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