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"Raining hard in 'Frisco" - The gift of choices

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What cheers you up? Fame, fortune, palatial house, snazzy car? God or Nature gave us the ability to make choices, but it is up to us to try to make the decisions that improve the quality of our lives. Having choices is what has always given me a lift.


It was the Spring of 1972, and I had recently made such a choice, leaving a high-paying job as a research engineer to take a temporary position as game warden for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. My new job was to patrol the rivers and streams close to my home and enforce the fishing laws of the state. In effect, I traded the rigors of a tough commute to the Boston area and the toxic factories of the chemical industry for the clean air and beauty of the woods and waters of central Massachusetts.

It was a time when Harry Chapin's song, Taxi, was all over the car radio. I will always mentally connect that tune to one of the best choices I ever made.

"It was raining hard in 'Frisco

I had one more fare to make my night

A lady up ahead waved to flag me down

She got in at the light" 

Taxi, by Harry Chapin

Looking back more than half-a-century later, my decision definitely did much for the quality of my life. The temporary position may have been the most-pleasing job I have ever had. And months after the position ended, I continued in law enforcement as a full-time cop for the town of Pepperell, Massachusetts - later being promoted to sergeant and then lieutenant. As I write this, I have been retired for 34 years after a 20-year career that was so rewarding in many ways.

"However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest." --- Henry David Thoreau

It is easy to bitch about your lot in life, but regardless of how "mean" you view your existence on this planet, your choices probably delivered you to that "Hell on earth". So don't call it "hard names". Your choices pave the road to either delight, discontent - or destruction. The quality of your life rests, for the most part, on your state of mind and the direction you choose. God or Nature gave you the gift of choice. Use it wisely.



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