BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment

Subject: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 06:01 AM

Every moment we are all at what J B Priestley's old play called a Dangerous Corner. You are fine this second; but next second you might just trip over the footstool and hit your head on the edge of the coffee table & die. Any second...

But some corners are more significant than others. One morning in October 1956, my parents & I hurried down an approach to the jetty at St Malo harbour as the ferry for Dinard was about to depart. It pulled away, but two nice English girls on the boat pointed us out to the crew; who, more obliging than such crews often are, pulled back from about 10 metres out to pick us up. My father thanked the two young women & invited them for a drink that evening. Over ½-century later, one of them died after being my beloved wife for 48 years. Like MacNeice's ancient world, how 'unimaginably different' my life would have been if those girls hadn't been so observant & those French ferrymen so kind, and we'd had to wait the 30 minutes for the next ferry. Where would I be now? Not where I am, sitting here posting this, that's for sure.

Probably my most significant 'Corner' moment, that.

Yours?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: Stu
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 06:24 AM

For me, the moment I stepped out of a truck in the Hell Creek Formation in the badlands of North Dakota a few years ago. My wife and I were on a seven-day fossil dig and by the end of the week my life was changed forever; I knew this was going to be my life's work. In a way it was already as I'd been collecting dinosaur bones at home in the UK for well over a decade, and never grew out of my boyhood live of dinosaurs.

Stepping into the intense heat, dodging rattlesnakes and getting bitten to buggery by deer flies and skeeters didn't mean squat; I loved it all. The smell of sagebrush, the glint of white bone on the gumbo banks . . . that was that. I don't come from an academic family, was in the bottom class at school and university was never even mentioned when I was growing up (except once by one teacher, but that's another story) but now I'm in my late 40's and I'm studying part-time for a PhD and have just had my first paper published.

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: Musket
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 07:02 AM

Such things are related to the parallel universes theory, where each crossroads in your life is acted out in the alternatives that were never taken.

Thirty years ago, I might have said if only I stayed in a rock band, but once we had to turn pro (an agent's stipulation) I left as I had a decent job, mortgage, baby etc. If you were to ask me now, I am the only member from then still alive. Rock n Roll takes its toll. Four very good friends.. Relocating to Los Angeles from Sheffield. Swapping pickled eggs and a pint of Stones followed by a knee trembler behind The Grapes for snorting marching powder from the breasts of a groupie in Santa Monica.

I think I'll get my flat cap on and take my greyhound for a walk. (You have no idea how comforting that sounds....)

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 08:44 AM

In 1989, unwinding after the Fox Valley Folk festival, I was talking to a woman friend. I mentioned I was an english major, wasn't particularly interested in having kids, liked cats, and then revealed that I didn't like sports. She told me I should give her a call, if I wasn't too busy. Well, I did and now we are retired and living in Michigan's upper peninsula. The folksingers are in the lumber baron's old house. One chance remark....

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 09:27 AM

'Corners' happen constantly... we just sort out those special ones that make the crucial difference.

I have.. as we all do... dozens of stories, some major, some merely interesting, that fit that "what if it hadn't happened" concept. Sometimes there are a dozen links in each story leading to the event or situation that we focus on.

I signed up for a job with a 'temp' agency to make some needed money fast. One day they sent me to a store where I was asked to sort & clean out some stuff. They liked me and asked me to become a permanent employee. I stayed 3 years, and met some people who steered me on to better things, where I met more people who offered me a job in the Wash DC area, where I had an experience similar to the one Michael describes. I went to a folk sing and met a woman and dated her for a few months until she decided to 'move on', but introduced me to her friend...and 35 years later I am still married to the love of my life.... and her story of how SHE happened to be there would be just as fascinating.

-------------------------------------

This basic phenomenon is described by Stephen J. Gould as contingency, and is considered to be an important concept in understanding the entire history of life.............not nearly as interesting for most as their own personal stories.

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 09:36 AM

April 15, 1968: "...the unit is ordered to a period of up to two (2) year Federal Active Duty...." May 13, 1968: "Raise your right hands...."

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: Firecat
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 12:18 PM

My husband and I met at a college in North Wales - a residential "second-chance" place.

Neither of us saw the small advert in the paper, but both our mums did. I can't speak for my husband, but my mum forced me to apply (I think she wanted me out from under her feet!)

We met on the first day of the course, became friends, not expecting anything more than friendship.

During the last fortnight of the course, a sewage pipe burst under the halls of residence. My friend helped calm me down, reassured me and was there for me during the panic that being kicked out of halls caused (everyone had to leave for health and safety reasons). We were shipped out to halls at Aberystwyth University. He'd been there before, so showed me around Aber, then we played cards in his room with another friend. On the Tuesday of the last week of the course, I wanted to take my TV with me so I could watch Torchwood: Children Of Earth. My friend helped me bring it across, then up to my temporary lodgings. We ended up (officially) getting together then.

Five years later, my friend is sitting next to me as I type this - as my husband! If it hadn't been for our mums seeing the advert, we'd have never have met, and if that sewage pipe hadn't burst, we'd never have got together.

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 02:27 PM

most significant 'Corner' moment for me...???

.. probably aged 5 or 6 when a couple of older boys were nearby enough
to see me fall into a flooded disused brick works clay pit
and drag me out....

All I can remember..
it was a frosty cold morning, I was wearing a duffle coat with the hood on & toggled up, and welly boots.
I leaned over the edge to look down at the water,
then toppled forwards...

The coat and boots trapped sufficient air to keep me buoyant on my back
with my head and feet poking out the water
long enough until the other boys reached down to grab hold of me...

Then I stood up on the muddy bank, drenched & cold,
absolutely delighted that my wellys were full of water and squelching bubbles
when I stamped hard in the mud.
I was too childishly oblivious to danger to be shocked or afraid..

Don't remember anything else...???

Going home, my mum's reaction.. nothing........????

Though I believe my mother then pestered the council to erect railings around the large deep pit.

Din't stop other kids falling in and drowning though..........

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Oct 14 - 05:46 AM

divorce.
As I always say "I'm sentimental about Malvern, because that's where I got divorced". If that is harsh on anyone then the truth is to blame. Quid pro Quo maybe.
Most divorcees will tell you, it is when life begins again. And for me - Malvern.

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 23 Oct 14 - 08:16 AM

Monday 13th November 1978 saw me taking my Mother on a journey to Preston to visit my Grandfather who was in hospital nearing the end of his long life. On the way back home we called at a Folk Club in Skelmersdale that my brother went in, 30 miles from our home town. In the club was a slightly drunk and slightly stoned girl who chatted with me a little bit. The following Monday we did the same trip and on the Tuesday 21st November 1978 she came over to my town and never went home. Almost 36 years later we are still together, we've had our ups and downs, been very poor, been comfortable, but we've always been with each other. I consider myself a very lucky man.

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: GUEST,LynnT
Date: 23 Oct 14 - 05:04 PM

I have had a lot of "close misses" and one quality close hit.

I was in the Pentagon on September 11th, my first day back from knee surgery. I got trumped by a senior officer for a conference room for my 0900 briefing; good thing, it was much closer to the impact path than the smaller space I got, and he carried about 6 people out of there. I was unharmed, just got dusty from the ceiling coming down on our heads, though I lost a lot of good friends.

I was late for an IT meeting on the Navy Yard (my first meeting that morning ran overtime), and so missed the shooter.

It's why I don't buy lottery tickets -- my luck is exactly where I need it to be.

After splitting up with my partner of 13 years in 2003, I had decided to do a year on my own, to rebalance. I went to a reenactment Yule Revel to see old friends, and was going to leave after lunch, but they said "stay for dinner, you never know what will happen" -- and then they forgot to save me a seat at their table. So I sat with the leftovers at the end of the hall, and there was this tall man there who flirted with me and the other women at the table. He was willing to try medieval dancing -- not bad, either. At the end of the evening he asked for my phone number, which I declined to give, but we did exchange email addresses, which led to a six-month courtship via email, very 18th-century, before we ever went out on a date. We got married in 2012 after living together for about eight years.

Lynn

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 01:31 AM

I would not be here if I hadn't been there and I wouldn't been there if I hadn't just turned.

I wouldn't have my kids in 1995 if my 1988 roommate hadn't decided to marry her boyfriend, leaving me without a place to live which isn't what led to the twins, it's that I was courted by the groom's brother...

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: olddude
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 01:45 AM

Dec 1,1967 a drunk driver killed my dad

Subject: RE: BS: Your #1 'Corner' moment
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Oct 14 - 03:03 PM

I wouldn't have had my kids, I meant.

Olddude, yeah, I thought about my dad being killed by anti-american islamic terrorists between my finishing college classes and the graduation ceremony - it certainly derailed me, but it wasn't I who turned that corner.

Still, my sympathies. It bites. And people are still driving drunk, and blowing people up for thinking differently, too. Pity *that* corner hasn't been turned yet.