Introduction:

No one makes it to old age without having close-calls. In the scale of night-terrors, mine do not match those of some of my old friends. I have not passed out drunk at the wheel nor have I woken up startled after months in a coma…

As with most males, many of my most-hair-raising escapades occurred in my teens.  Of course, few boys exit their early twenties without having tested their fitness for natural selection at least once. Through the ages, that opportunity has been most readily provided by war. In the absence of that crucible of ‘manhood’, boys are often inclined to acts of reckless stupidity… 

One shudders in the imagining of how the world might have been after one’s early departure from it.  One does not need to look into the eyes of one’s child or grandchild for that shudder–– but their presence certainly lends to the haunting… 

I was tempted to include here such anecdotes as that of the teen who repeatedly dove off a dam into white water and who once clung to a ledge at the top of a freight elevator shaft. But those seemed mere isolated acts of blind recklessness.  

Only one of the three accounts that follow chronicles a close call of youth.  I was more interested in including herein episodes that unfolded more slowly and which had a greater impact on others.  

All three of the following pieces have recurrent elements––acceptance of guilt and self-castigation are particularly emphasized.  There is acknowledgement of the equal danger at critical moments, of having one’s head in the clouds or up one’s ass… The gratitude for deliverance is deep––but uneasy. Most recurrent in these selections is the acknowledgement that every outcome––tragedy or  shit-lucky escape––is a shake of the cosmic dice… 

Of course, even for cosmic lottery winners (as I regard myself) the luck will inevitably run out. The hope is that when the heap of poker chips is jerked away–– the final thought might be: ‘All in all–– that was a damn good run!’

-2023

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