What Do You Remember? You’ll Laugh!

My friends say I have lots of stories. I do. I’ve lived a very unique, diverse life. Following is one of those stories.

A well-known copywriter, Andrew Jolliffe, has stated… good copywriters have lived lives that have provided interesting experiences.

Quick plug… Lee Rowley (“Lee After Dark”) had a chin wag with Andrew Jolliffe. Give it a listen.

This story has no chuckleheads or clown cars. I’ll leave those to the pros… Congress… this time.

I was a kid, maybe 5 years old. To this day, I remember standing out there in the wind thinking “this is a day I will never forget”.

Photo by Zach Kadolph on Unsplash

I haven’t. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this. As an aside, to those whom I have told I’m 50 something… I’m not. A shock, I know.

So here’s this 5 yr old kid, wearing a button-down shirt, on his driveway this blustery, overcast, very windy Spring day in Buffalo, NY, in 1956. He can smell the rain rolling in off Lake Erie and thinks “maybe I need a jacket”.

But, here comes the idea. The light goes on. A growing smile crosses his face.

The wind grows worse… gonna be a storm. Welcome to Buffalo and the world of a little kid who wants to escape. He dreams about it regularly.

“It’ll work”, I’m thinking as I turn to face the wind. “I have to try.”

The smile now a grin. “What if? Nobody has ever done this!” I thought.

I begin to run into the wind. It’s really hard. My tiny legs in jeans and sneakers pump hard, driving my 40lb. frame into the shrieking, gale winds of an on-coming storm (ok… seemed like gale winds to a 5 year old).

Photo by Vitaliy Zalishchyker on Unsplash

Running, holding my now unbuttoned shirt out to catch more wind, a gust almost blows me backward, feet almost off the ground. “Near success!” I’m thinking… “Yes!”

One more time.

Running, shirt out like a sail, grinning at the thought I was about fly! Legs pumping, into the wind, waiting… waiting… waiting… for that one gust.

I jump, diving forward into the wind. Eyes closed, in the air, shirt held out to catch more wind pushing violently against me…

… diving forward, wishing, waiting for that gust that will allow me to soar with the birds…

… And, he face-plants into the next-door neighbors front lawn! That’s me. Disappointed but not defeated.

In life, you gotta believe in yourself and you have to deal with failure. You keep trying, keep believing. Even if you face-plant in your neighbors yard.