Two words that could mean nothing at all or mean a
complete change in a person’s life.
The reason I am thinking about this is because few of my
poker playing buddies and I were discussing this last week. We are all about
the same age, mid-60s to early 70s and we agreed it is counter productive to ask
this question at our age. Our careers are set or we have retired. We have kids
and grandkids and long-term marriages. The consensus was it might actually be
harmful, or at least depressing, to consider “What if?” at this point in our
lives.
Yet this nagging question does creep back into my
consciousness every once in awhile and I usually push it out of the way. Still,
I sometimes wonder, “What if?”
Before high school, I don’t really recall too many conscious
decisions that I could have changed. And that’s what I am talking about—not incidents
where fate is involved.
Reaching the Age of “What
If?”
Once I reached high school, there were more choices with meaningful “what ifs.” What if one of the
girls I asked out had said “yes” instead of “no” and things had clicked. What
if I had decided attend Ball State University—my oldest brother when there--instead
or Miami University. If I had gone to Ball State and majored in Radio-TV, I
probably would have been in classes with David Letterman (we are about the same
age) and, who knows. But, I wouldn’t have met Pam and shared 46 years of
marriage together.
Our senior year at Miami, Pam and I both looked for jobs. She
was offered an elementary school teaching job in a nice suburb of Cincinnati,
but I couldn’t find a TV or radio job in Cincinnati or Dayton, so she turned it
down. My only job offer was at Eastern Kentucky University and we moved to
Richmond, Ky., the summer after graduation. The week before school started, she
interviewed for a teaching job in rural Estill County and was hired to teach a
split third and fourth grade class—her first and only year teaching in an
elementary school.
What if she had accepted the job in Cincinnati and I had continued
to look for something in that market or if I had decided to switch careers?
In the late 70s, we decided to start a family, but after a
year nothing happened, so we started going to a fertility specialist at the
Cleveland Clinic. After several fruitless years of tests, procedures, etc.
there was no pregnancy, so we explored adoption. During those few years, I was
offered a new job a couple of times, but we would have had to relocate. I
declined these offers, because we were moving up on the adoption waiting lists
and still seeing the specialist.
Mid-Career Move: What
If?
After we adopted Brian, I didn’t look for other jobs for a
few years because we had a nice house and Pam had completed grad school in
accounting and was working for a good local CPA firm. In the early 90s, enrollment
at UA was declining and it was becoming apparent that our video department at
the University of Akron might fall victim to budget cuts. So I began looking
for another job. I had several interviews, mostly outside of northeast Ohio,
but I never got any offers.
A university in Florida contacted me and I applied for a
doctoral fellowship that would meant relocating for a year and then writing my
dissertation. Dr. Collins anyone? Could have happened but I missed the final
cut.
After our department was axed in 1995, I scrambled around to
make a living teaching part time and transitioning into journalism and then
multimedia. I returned to UA in 2001 and now that I am retired, I try not to
give much thought to “What if?” moments anymore.
I checked Google to see if there were any good articles
about this question. There were over four million entries, but I didn’t see
anything that dealt with this question to my satisfaction. There have been
several fictional stories, a few movies and about two dozen songs containing
this question.
I think the reason you shouldn’t speculate on this question
is because there is no way to get an answer. A scientist can hypothesize “What
if…” and there is a chance of finding a definitive answer. But, I will never find the answer to my “what
if” questions, unless I can find a time machine and go back like the film “Back
to the Future.”
Still, every once in a while I wonder: “What if?”
