The randomness of life

Being on a current existentialism reading jag, I am reminded of the randomness of life.

When I came to Baltimore to live in 1955 I knew absolutely no one here; however, I began attending services at its historic First Unitarian Church (at which William Ellery Channing delivered his famous sermon defining Unitarianism in 1819), where I made some acquaintances. One of these invited me to attend a Great Books summer reading group—this group followed the national Great Books reading program during most of the year but went for more light stuff during the summer.

Being a young bachelor at the time, at the first meeting of this group that I attended I naturally took note of some of the young women who were present. Before the next meeting, I thought of two of these that I would like to get to know. For whatever reason that I can’t now recall, I decided that, of the two, Anne would be the one that I would approach—my pitch would be (please pardon the pun) an invitation to go to a Baltimore Orioles baseball game for which I already had two tickets.

So, at an informal get-together at the home of one of the members of the reading group following the next meeting, I planned to ask Anne for a date to go to the ball game; however, after we all had picked up some snack food and sodas and taken seats in the living room, there were others sitting on either side of Anne. But there was a seat available on one side of Sally, the other young woman of the two whom I had taken note of. The conversation with her went thus:

I: Do you like baseball?

Sally: I hate it.

I: I have two tickets to an Orioles game on (whatever date). Would you like to go?

Sally: I’d love to.

A few days later—a week or so before the game—thinking that it would be a good idea for Sally and me to get together to better know each other, I phoned her at the law office where she worked as a legal assistant and made a date. The next day we went for drinks to Marty’s Park Plaza, a popular spot at Baltimore’s lovely Mount Vernon Place. (Marty's is one of the few such places in Baltimore that still exists.)

Following that first date at Marty’s and the baseball game, one thing led to another and, two years later, we were married at the First Unitarian Church. (Some years later, our two children were dedicated there.)

And, as such stories end, “They lived happily ever after”—well, sort of. Fast-forward 49 years: in another ten months (in October 2007) we will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, and we have five grandchildren.

Suppose, as the random event could have had it, the available seat would have been next to Anne—what would have been the further course of her life, of Sally’s, of mine? Of course, we’ll never know. The thought reminds me of the song from Naughty Marietta “Ah, sweet mystery of life.”