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“Rich, slow down, I do not want to die in this car, my life ending up being a statistic.” I was 26 years old and had already put my life on cruise control. From my perspective there was nothing in my way but an open road. The world had already become my oyster. I was driving a red 1986 300ZX with an entire summer of shenanigans in front of me. I turned to my travel companion with a smug grin. ‘There ain’t nothing going to slow us down today,’ tapping on the shiny new toy strapped to my dashboard. My mother, in one of her ill-advised attempts to help her younger son get around life’s restrictions, had gifted me a “fuzz buster” so I could avoid adding to my growing pile of speeding tickets. My radar detector indicated I had clearance for another 30 miles as I pushed our speed to over 100 mph. When I heard the words “slow down” I immediately pressed my foot harder into the accelerator speeding to 120 mph. Simultaneously, what looked to be an army of flashing lights and sirens were gaining on me. In a matter of seconds two New York State Trooper cars had me boxed in like a sardine and appeared to be calling for backup. “Hey Jim, get a look at this beauty. This guy has one of them fancy radar detectors to go along with his fancy ride.” His partner took the bait. “Wow, I’ve never seen one so elaborate. That had to cost “pretty boy” an arm and a leg.” For 15 minutes I sat there and was served up a record helping of humble pie. The story would provide for many laughs over the years but in the moment, there were numerous ominous warning signs regarding my future that I wasn’t ready to accept.

The situation I found myself in was making the career highlight films of these two road-tested authorities. They handed me a ticket for 100 mph (that insured the maximum fine) in a 65-mph speed area. Much rougher than the 300 hundred dollars I eventually paid was listening to the two troopers roast me. “Did you ever see a bigger compensation problem than this guy Jim? A big shot, trying to go the speed of light.” The other officer was shaking his head sizing up my passenger side. “Yeah Jim, I’ve seen tons of them, cocky kids who believe they are non-perishables. Most of them end up dead before they make it to 30.” They were talking directly to each other, but I was more than aware who their soliloquy was directed at. After the officers had distributed my litany of moving violations, I was left alone to hear a second lecture form the person riding shotgun. “I don’t know about you, but I have big plans for my life, and they do not include getting banged up in a car.” At this point my patience was running thin. “What do you want?” I asked the young lady I would marry three years later, ‘a dude driving steady in the right lane, minding all the rules, hanging on for dear life.’ I crumbled up my parting gifts and tossed them in the backseat. In the four years since graduating from college I move immediately into the far-left lane and pressed my foot to the metal.. In my mid 20s I was a full-time high school history teacher and a varsity basketball coach. I had money in my pocket, a dynamic sports car, and a nice-looking partner in the front seat. I felt like I had enough street credibility to drive as fast as I liked. At the time, the incident was nothing more than a funny joke. I was nowhere near perceptive enough to grasp the metaphorical warning that my life’s biggest crash was lying in wait for me.

In those days I was in a big hurry regardless of if I had anywhere to go, or not. I was racing as fast I could to whatever big event was next. Not once did I take a second to get a grip on myself. I was suffering from a bad case of “what’s next syndrome” that is typical amongst young people who are both ambitious and extremely impatient. My traveling companion who made it quite clear that it was my car she was enamored with, not me. “Rich, you think you are such a clever one, but you do not understand that there will be consequences down the road as a result of your sloppiness.” I don’t really remember what I said back to her, but I do recall my attitude back then was diluted ‘I was born with a leprechaun on my shoulder, everything will always work out fine me.’ Yes, I was that shallow, entitled, and immature. ‘I’ll be just fine, I may not be untouchable, but I am close,’ was the mantra I consistently used back then to get me through whatever crisis was simmering. The conversation was not going to die easy. “On the outside it looks like you got it all together, but we both know better,” she said with disdain. “You’re working on being a narcissist, you always think you’re the smartest person in the room, and you are very insecure. The worse part is you recognize this and are doing nothing about it.” She was right, but at that stage in my life I could have cared less. 

Through the years the incident was good for many belly laughs at mine and my mother’s expense.  Only after all the distance and time that was put between that day back and 1986 and today, can I see how loudly life’s warning signs were screaming at me to slow down. The whistles were blowing, the sirens were roaring. I was living large without the experience or wisdom to back it up. When you are moving that fast you don’t see much, there is only a far-off mystical destination in sight. I had decided to skip all the apprenticeships, claiming top dog status before producing top dog results. I told anyone who would listen that I was on my way to reinventing the art of teaching and coaching. I was a classic case of a cocky young man who was so egocentric that he committed the mortal sin of not seeking the help of those who went before. There is no doubt that the speeding ticket I received that day back in 1986 was a loud warning alerting me that the road ahead was filled with huge potholes. At the time I was a teacher, a coach, and all around entitled, selfish guy. My eyes were wide shut, I couldn’t see myself past tomorrow. From my view whatever loose plan I had concocted in my head was working. All I had to do was keep showing up and the money, fame, and status were in my future. I believed I possessed a guardian angel who made sure all was right in the world of “Rich Siegel”. In the following three years, without request, I was presented with the hard lessons I had always been convinced I would find my way around. I learned there are no guardian angels; only yourself. You choose the direction, the goals, the speed. Success and failure are soley in the eyes of the beholder. I learned we are the ones responsible of our paths. And I learned I wasn’t as good a driver as I thought.

Standing in that moment at 26, in the summer of 86, everything looked idyllic. I didn’t want to listen to the voices telling me to slow down, I was sprinting towards a place having no idea where that place was. I was not yet familiar with the teachings of Lao Tzu and his philosophical wisdom “the journey of 1,000 miles must begin with a single step.”  At the time I could not comprehend how long that 1,000-mile trek can be, uphill in the dark, both ways. In my eyes anyone who was telling me to slow down was a conspiracist theorist who was jealous of my propensity for acting the part of the ‘Big Shot’. In my warped mind I had figured this life out at a very early age, I thought I was immune to the hard lessons that are necessary along the way. Those painful lessons that you will lean on in the future. I honestly thought God’s angels had tapped me on the shoulder, “don’t worry Rich, we’ll keep you under a close watch.” Yes, I was that delusional. There are consequences in this life for our flaws that we aren’t able to get under control. I woke up on my 30^th birthday an “Insurance Man”, married, with merely a couple hundred dollars in the bank. Robin Leach was not getting ready to invite me onto ‘The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’. That 26-year-old hot shot cruising in his red 300zx was going to be forced to swallow a lot of bitter pills in the years ahead. They are what I call today “Now or Never Pills”. At the age of 30 I had to pay off all the fines of my past and start my sentence as an adult.

“They’re they go,” the officer not named Jim said to no one in particular. “yup, there they go”, repeated trooper Jim. Like the arrogant dummy I was in those days I fell for the trap. ‘Who?’ I blurted out. My two captors began laughing, (unprofessionally I might add,) “Who?” he wonders, trooper Jim said staring directly into my eyes. “There they go, all of them people you were passing.” He reached his hand inside my car to hand me my citations before giving my “fuzz buster” a few final loves taps. “Yup that’s a real nice machine you got right there. The troopers headed back to their ride. “Where do you think that kid will be ten years?” I imagined hearing one of them asking the other. “Dead, in jail, or he’ll be ruling the world.” Although they were right about my life being a rough ride, none of those three things came to attrition. Today, I barely recognize that shiny boy who was so far away from who he would become.

One of my favorite fables is ‘The Tortoise and Hare.’ If ever there was a young man in his 20’s who resembled a high energy rabbit it was me. I was running at full speed and anyone who stood in my way was going to get run over. On that day back in 1986 I was still three years from any type of starting line of an adult existence. It took me three years to understand that I was running myself out of the race in the first mile. All those people driving the speed limit got to their destination’s way before me on that day. I’d love to bump into those two troopers who went over the top in belittling me. “Hey guys, I want you to meet my wife, she was the girl in the car with me that day.” I want to tell them, not right away but I did slow down; I wanted to tell them they were wrong about me. For the moment, I am securely planted in the right lane of life and for now I’m appreciating the smooth ride.

It could only be chalked up to happenstance that I found myself on the last day of the 2022/23 school year settling down on a bench adjacent to the Elementary School I attended back in the 1960’s. The day was slightly overcast and not as warm as one might expect the temperature to be for the beginning of the summer. It was official, I could see a couple of remaining teachers carrying boxes to their car, school was dismissed until Labor Day. The Ernest Myer Hurley Elementary School (named after the principal at the helm when I was matriculating) didn’t look much different from the way I remembered it on a very similar day exactly 56 years when I rode my bicycle home on the quarter mile trek back to my house on Hook Street. There were very few vehicles left in the parking lot, but I suppose everything looked apropos considering the date. There is always an eerie quiet that can be heard at a school ground the moments after the final yellow bus has left the building. Staring out over the solitude of a vacant ball field, that I recalled as the stage for classic fourth grade softball games that my big brother starred in. Memories that I was sure had been lost along the way came rushing back. Mrs. Hutton was my first-grade teacher, and a blond girl, named Kelley Cahill, with a big gap in her two front teeth, was my crush. At seven years old my progressive parents allowed me to find my own means of transportation to and from the halls of academia. In 1967 I assume it was reasonable to put a seven-year-old on his two-wheel bike with the red streamers flapping in the open air.

Was it coincidence that 56 years to the day I ended up back at the exact same spot? Lol. What a day! The triple crown of happiness for a kid: The last day of school, the first day of summer, and the longest day of the year all wrapped up in one. On that June day in 1967 I pedaled down Zandhoek Road with a breeze blowing through my hair and an eternal summer of sun and fun ahead of me. In those days everything in my life centered around baseball and the Beatles. Across the street from my house lived our babysitter, Doreen Lyke. Miss Lyke had been diagnosed with a classic case of Beatle derangement syndrome by the time she reached 16. In the back of our house we had a makeshift baseball diamond where I honed my skills with the top teenage ball players from Hook and Walnut streets. I still see my dad, jogging from our back yard, his lean long body dolled in a white tee shirt, kinos, and a pair of high top Keds. In my seven-year-old mind any ball field I was ever on with my dad he was the best I ever saw. There he was running at me, I tossed him the mitt we shared ‘one day I might get to be just like him,’ I said to myself.  After the game it was time to go across the street and have some of Mary Lyke’s home brewed iced tea and listen to some tunes from four mopped topped teenagers who resided in Liverpool, England. I could have never imagined then, living in my idyllic Shangri la, that what lay ahead was going to be anything but perfect.

Before I knew it, it was 15 years later and I wasn’t standing on a major league pitching mound. Instead I perched in front of a bunch of 16-year-olds in a classroom somewhere in Pine Bush New York. My parents had eked out livings in teaching gigs and it always looked like not such a bad idea to me. Let’s start with the fact that it is a full-time job with benefits,  20 weeks of vacation a year, and you can retire at 55. Throw in snow days, wind days, heat days, cold days, and much more…..  it was a no brainer that a lazy Peter Pan type would decide to be a teacher. Besides, becoming an adult was never a priority for me. The truth I’m finding about myself in the late stages is that ‘I’m a teacher, but I could not sustain my passion for teaching working within in the constraints of America’s public education systems. Today, I feel blessed to have been able to be a teacher and coach in the Public-School systems for seven years. The years I spent in the classroom and on the basketball, courts were without a doubt the most intense of my life. Everything I am today, every word I say, and all the attitude I have developed were baked the deepest from my experiences in the 23 years I lived in the public school system. It can happen in life. One moment you are gloriously chasing your dreams in a certain direction, and then a strong wind comes along and moves you in a different direction. Starting over can be the most frightening of times.

What does a naturally born teacher do after turning his back on his life’s destiny at the ripe old age of 28? Of course, he can’t wait to be an insurance salesman. I had identified myself as three things before turning 30: A school kid, an athlete, and a teacher. I do not mean to offend when I say I doubt anybody grew up dreaming about being an “Insurance Man”. In the most critical juncture of my life my best option was pounding the pavement selling insurance. I had walked away from everything I knew, whatever identity I used to own was gone and all my apples were thrown into being a businessman.  The toughest questions I had to face came from my parents, simultaneously, ” What the hell are you doing?” And the more basic, “Why in the world?” There were several factors, but it came down to a voice inside of me. Untethered security and stability or take a shot at life moving over to a different lane. The six-month running conversation I had with myself back in the spring of 1989 went something like this: ‘Rich this is the time to suck it up. Eat your humble pie, finish up your credits, and get a teaching and coaching job in the same district.’ That voice had control of me right up to the very end. Another voice that speaks truth to myself was relentless, ‘No way can I continue to listen to bells and administrators for another 30 years. It will not end pretty.’ I jumped right into the business world and never swam in the shallow again. I handed in my teaching license, collected the $3,452 which had accumulated in my union retirement fund and signed up for my three-week course to be an insurance broker. In one years’ time, at the age of 29, I quit my stable chosen career, got married, moved to a new city, and started my career in the world of finance.  ‘Hello, my name is Rich Siegel and insurance is my game.’ Go figure. Let me not forget I was broke.

It was June 23, 2023, the day after I my respite at Ernie Myer’s school. I was driving my car around looking for a parking space during the local high school graduation. The covid kids, warriors who missed far too much time while the so-called experts held their education hostage for two years. Covid was finally in their rear-view mirror as they marched towards the stadium in their maroon gowns and white caps. You could see the water dripping off the tassels swinging side to side. I watched from a distance as the undaunted graduates braved the rain as if they had expected it. The clock in my head had quit running on school time some 35 years ago when I started the long journey into business and finance. And now here I was falling out of the other side of those years. For the first time I officially allowed myself to question myself in reference to my life altering decisions back in 1989. ‘Did I do the right thing for myself leaving the teaching profession?’ I stopped moving my fingers for several minutes before I gave myself time to reflect before formulating my reluctant answer. ‘I don’t know. I will never know,’ And ‘What’s the difference?’ I thought about how much the characteristics at this time reminded me of similar
crossroads and that once again it was time for dramatic alterations. A time when I needed to act, when I needed to adjust, even reinvent. I had to change my perspective, I needed time to reevaluate my priorities preparing for the end of the game.

Somehow, after all the in-betweens, I had ended up in the exact place I started my journey 60 years ago. The little boy from Hook Street had put a lot of mileage behind him. He’d driven some smooth rides and there was more than his share of highways where he didn’t miss a pothole. After all the bumps and bruises I had come through the storms relatively clean, still with a fighter’s chance. I was sitting in front of my old elementary school in the processes of a major make-over. My phone started buzzing, and I was
thrust back to the reality of the day. “Hey dad just wanted to let you know our flight is delayed and I’ll be at the airport in Puerto Rico for the next 12 hours. Not a big deal, I’ll be back in Providence tonight.” I hung the phone up and thought about how far my daughter had already traveled, and how many open highways that lay ahead for her. The great philosopher Carl Jung saw life in the round as “something forever coming into being and passing on.” All those sayings I vividly recall form my youth, “What goes around comes around.” “We reap what we sow.” “Every dog has his day.” I could hear Mrs. Hutton asking us to turn the page. “See Pete run. Look at Spot. He is Pete’s dog.” It seems like such a long time ago. It also seems like it happened yesterday. Along the way the words have gotten bigger, and the
world kept getting more and more complicated . There will be many times when you’re out there alone on the road when it will be prudent to listen to that voice calling you home to your roots. Once you return to the starting point it will all come back to you. You just have to get back on the bike again and start pedaling.

What was, or when was, the happiest time of your life? Go ahead, think about it. A time when you felt accepted, when you were in control of all the big problems in your little world.  A moment when you said, “I’m going to be fine.” It doesn’t happen often but when it happened , for sure, you knew it. In those moments you felt like you were the master of your universe. For many of us those feelings of calm happened in our younger days before we went on that 30-year journey in search of spiritual maturity. Was it your days of little league and girl scouts? Maybe it was those first years after leaving the control of your parents behind? Or maybe, the first-time cupid tugged at your heart? The next time cupid pulled at your heart.  Maybe you felt it during the time of raising a family, or as you climbed the ladder of your life. All of us have been there, in a space, a zone when you are convinced all the synergy from the cosmos is leaning your way. When the labor of hard work, or love, and a series of good decisions has caused all the obstacles of life to wreck their havoc on somebody else. From the second we fall out of our mother’s womb we unconsciously begin to yearn, even whine, about our right to happiness. In short order we humans discover there is not a direct train route to the land of the giddy. It also becomes evident early on in life that everyone’s specific location in the land of happiness varies. Except for love, it is hard to think of something, in the abstract, that are both hunted and then short lived as happiness.

In his book ‘Hector and the Search for Happiness”, Francois LeLord sends Hector, a psychiatrist, on a trip around the world with the mission of finding out what, in the human experience, triggers happiness. What are the roots of this simple concept that the Declaration of Independence says every American has the right to pursuit. What part of your brain needs to be fed to deliver your body to your “happy place”? Of course, everyone has differing appetites but there are certain universal categories such as love, family, money, and status, that when injected with enough portions sends you in the right direction. Hector traveled from his home in Paris, to China, to Africa, before finalizing his trip in America. During his extensive adventures Hector kept careful notes on each encounter he had. Hector quickly discovered that, universally, people want to be happy. He came to understand that many of us see our immediate families’ happiness as our number one pursuit. What he also discovered was that people were in survivor mode, and any form of happiness was a function of the periphery happiness that comes with survival. Hector cumulates his journey in Miami, Florida, where he meets with the county’s most renowned professor on “human happiness”. The two of them agreed that “happiness” is an individual pursuit, whose parameters are defined only by the individual. You are the Superintendent of your School of Happiness. You are the single author of your curriculum.

The actual definition of happiness is: The state of being happy. And happy is feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. Happiness is abstract, and only a person in a happy state can confirm his or her happiness. It is often said that “being happy is a choice”. There will always be obstacles in our lives that can give us reason to be unhappy. We all know a person who is never happy, and they can’t wait to tell you their reasons : “My boss is an ass.” “It’s going to rain all day.” “He didn’t call me back.” We all know people who consistently have a reason their day is not going well. Life is always ahead of them, and they feel they have no hope of catching up. These unhappy people have an uncanny ability to always have a glass that is half empty. There is a small persistent group who live amongst us they decide each day to put on a happy and optimistic exterior. This is where it gets complicated. Nobody can be happy all the time. Without sadness, and struggle happiness would lose its meaning. The challenge to being happy is us recognizing our problems and finding ways to make the best of them. Afterall, it is within living life and finding ways to make yourself satisfied that we find happiness along the way. What are the things that bring a feeling of satisfaction to people? Personal accomplishment, a romantic relationship, a promotion, being accepted by your peers, or a windfall of cash falling from the sky. It could be assumed everybody searches for happiness and it can be equally assumed that ever very few can find it, let alone, sustain it.

Unfortunately, there will always be a portion of the world’s population who view being intrinsically happy as an impossibility. The disturbing events of their past do not allow them to see any way of getting to a happier state in the future. In a sense they have stripped themselves of their God given right to pursue happiness. Scientists believe that there is an entire section of the human brain that is devoted to an individual’s happiness. A place in your brain that is stimulated by triggers associated with making you have a deep feeling of happiness. “Without your health, you have very little.” Humans are taught at a very early age that good health can be a prerequisite for happiness. The road to any sort of a search for happiness starts with a healthy body. Right next to good health on people’s list of happy triggers is the almighty dollar. Some will say that after establishing yourself as a physically and mentally capable player the next step on the road to happiness is financial security. As Johnny Depp so aptly suggested; “Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy you a big enough yacht to pull up right next to it.” Exactly, money is not the answer to everything, but it is hard to argue that lots of greenbacks makes the whole game of life much less stressful. There is substance in the words “money is the root of all evil” but it could be argued many people who preach this point do not have very much money.

There are the very few who walk amongst us who claim to have arrived at their happy place and have decided to make it their permanent residence. Most of us are lost wanderers in this world, searching, poking, and asking ourselves the questions: Am I happy today? Is there happiness in my future? What are the elements that need to formulate for myself to find peace and happiness? What do I need to do to try and sustain a happy state? As Hector traveled the world, he asked people what it took to make them happy. It was a rarity that Hector would receive a similar answer to his questions: “Whenever I travel and am learning new things,” “Being around my family is my happy place”, “after I have accomplished a tangible goal,” “Walking alone in nature,” “When I am in a loving relationship,” One person had a cynical and humorous answer. “I think my happiest time was one before I arrived on this planet.” One of Hectors’ many findings was that people’s happiness had very little to do with location and everything about the emotional stability of the heart. Happiness does not have an address; it can thrive anywhere but seems to have stronger powers under the sun or near the ocean. Happy doesn’t know race, or gender, it is an equal opportunity emotion. It is in the individual’s power to control his or her own happiness. Fact.

We all live together on this singular planet, surrounding by a litany of other planets, spinning around in the middle of nowhere. We are here for a short visit. It is only a handful of years and before we know it our biological clock is expiring. We are not unlike Hector in his search for the origins of happiness. We have much so much thick brush to navigate in our search . As in all challenges the first step of getting started is the hardest. The first step is deciphering what does it take for you to find your happy place. There is only one person who can get you to where you must go. Happiness must come from within, there is not one person or activity that you can depend on to sustain you being happy. Life will find every possible nuisance to give you reason to feel unhappy with your yourself and your life. There will always be something, or a time from the past, that will keep you feeling down, if you let it. There will be the time when we don’t get the girl. There will be many times in our lives that we fall short of our own expectations, and there will be times when are closest friends let us down, or even worse, we let them down. We all face periods in our life where we are absolutely convinced the stars are aligned against us. If you live life hard enough there will be times when you are sure that there is a calculated world plan determined to conspire against your personal happiness. At the end of the day happiness is literally your choice. If you have lived this life with any passion, there isn’t a day that goes by you couldn’t find a plethora of reasons to bring you down. Yes the Declaration of Independence gives us the right to pursue happiness. One of the biggest challenges of this life to going out and getting your share.

Have you ever listened to a writer, or a philosopher, talk about life and discover that the word “process” is an oft-used word? That’s the quirky kind of thoughts that were top of the mind recently. He sat alone on his back porch on a mid-May day in upstate New York. He could hear the whistling wind move amongst the trees, yet the air movement directly surrounding him was stagnant. As he let the energy from the cloudless sky’s sun soak in, he closed his eyes. “How could there possibly be that many threatening weather sounds, so close, when the skies above had unlimited visibility. The calm before the storm? Or maybe the peaceful stirring of serenity? Either way, his eyes remained shut. The whistling breeze went quiet. A chorus of birds began their choral rehearsal. In the moment, he was able to find his way to the elusive peaceful place inside of him. The surroundings were perfect. It was highly unusual for him stumble into a location where nothing was in the way. The topography triggered him to pick up his pad and start jotting down random thoughts: “Good processes, usually lead to good results. Do not get married to process but respect it.” In the case of this day, the second the big yellow ball in the sky collided with his face he was building his story. All his beginnings started with questions. “How did I end up where I am presently?” That’s a query for the start of a book, not an essay. Next question: “Who am I? Who was I? Who Cares?” And then, just like that, you have the beginning of something.

In the next step of the process, there are more questions. Who is your audience for your story? The fact was he wrote for himself mostly, but in the front row sat others who had equal passion for their trade. Ideally, he wanted to write for everybody. Yet, he was aware of the impossibility of connecting with 100% of his readers. Therefore, he concluded the motivation came from himself, and the chips will fall where they may. Those were the first few words his filter purposefully allowed to pass across the stage. He laughed to himself about how much he stretched his altruism. “I write for myself.” He conceded. “Yes.” He thought, in this life all processes and final decisions begin and stop with, “me”. Of course, all writers attempt to write in universal terms to connect with the reader. Without clarity, a bond, a hook, or a purpose your audience will quickly seek another platform. On this day, his answer to himself was firm, “I write for myself. The process of prosing narrative can be both therapeutic and healing. He wrote for survival. In all those times of life when everything around him seemed to be souring his writing was still alive. Getting lost in the story the breathing comes easier as the adrenaline rushes through the body. The process of writing is not that dissimilar to the process of life. Everyday presents a different perspective to one’s view of the world. And everyday our lives and our perspectives regarding it change.

There comes a point in all accounts when the reader checks in to get stable footing on the road he is being led down. When the conveyor of the story checks with ground control in terms of direction. And then the difficult sometimes ignored questions: “what is the point of it all?  Is anybody still following along? Have I done, ok?” Is there a plan or are you going to keep making it up as you go. He had a good laugh attempting to calculate the preparation/spontaneity ratio he had experienced in his life. He realized the importance of a solid plan, with the addendum that all plans need constant tweaking along the way. Like penning an essay life’s journey is filled with rough drafts before we feel comfortable presenting the final product. The initial dream starts to develop before adapting and evolving into stories that end up right where they started. He scribbled fast and hard, “this is all going in the garbage anyway.” Even as he uttered those words he searched in the rubble for the themes and ideas that sometimes are buried and never found. “Just keep writing, just keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep doing, keep failing. Then one fine day after all the facts have been gathered, they can be shined, buffed, and eventually packaged.”

If you are living life with an open mind everyday presents an opportunity to view yesterday’s circumstances in a different light. Every day we should take a fresh inventory of our story. What’s new since last we stared into the computer? Where is the story headed? How did yesterday bring anything new in terms of developing ideas? He wandered into a coffee shop to search for the words to complete his narrative amongst the other confessed seekers in search of a fleeting truth. Within the process of writing there is a nonstop flow of questions: “What is the purpose, why should the reader care? Is the story filled with hope and inspiration.” Sometimes it’s the notes from the day before, or a dream that you can recall as motivation. There are times you are in the middle of a story, and in your search, you discover sources that stimulate the story in a different direction. The night before he had unexpectedly bumped into a couple of high school chums, whom, he had not had a serious conversation with in 45 years. This chance meeting opened some vaults that otherwise would have remained dark. A conversation that, while intriguing and full of confessions, could have never taken place without the passage of decades. Nonetheless, he was grateful for this happenstance impromptu reunion. There are people in this life whose painful youthful experiences coming of age never completely heal. When he was senior in high school, he walked off the stage vowing to himself to run fast and far. He imposed an embargo on childhood friends and all characters from the past. He could admit now that he was a spoiled, disenchanted rebel who in some very sinister way thought he was special beyond practical expectations. The problem was nobody else noticed or cared. Now, he plopped down in a chair next to the two most popular girls in the New Paltz high class of 1978.

In the process of writing, not unlike the process of life you must reach inside yourself and open the door to the “hidden goodies”. Like the travels of life, writers at any one time have three or four stories simultaneously dancing around in their head. The normal goal of ‘stay in the moment’ gets bumped aside for not being able to find that moment. He chuckled to himself thinking of a machete,  chopping away all the brush that always found its way to his mind’s writing place. The very first peck is usually proceeded with a check list of reminders: 

1. He confirms the “theme” of his prose.

2. He reminds himself that when lost to return to basic principles and processes.

3. Think about the immeasurable periphery rewards that go along with the process of writing and having written.

Then he begins thinking of metaphors and analogies that are universally relatable.

The checklist brought him back to the conversation the night before, and the two old friends who knew him when snot was running down his nose. They had spent the evening reminiscing about those intense days of schoolbooks and holding hands. They shared stories only the three of them could appreciate. He could not have expected this unlikely encounter which put him in that uncomfortable position of feeling unprepared. Three old friends who hadn’t gone as far to avoid each other over the years, but also hadn’t searched very hard to grab a catch-up cup of coffee. Still, they appeared glad to be sharing some mirky high school parking lot news.

Another day another chapter. The day after his chance meeting he sat in a coffee shop thinking about all the years he spent hiding from the boogie monsters of his past. He now finally understood it was all about finding that balance between letting go and purposeful avoidance. You can run from yesterday but eventually it will track you down.  He strolled away from the breakfast nook and over to a bench aside the old colonial church and watched Sunday morning come down. The sun was struggling to break through the gray sky. Endings in life, and in the stories can be joyous and they can also be devastating. Endings can be sudden surprises, or they can be calculated plans that are executed without a hitch. The indulging part about writing a new story is that with enough patience you can develop a resolution that fits your script. He had waited two days to see what, if anything, had developed since Thursday evening. As Sunday rolled towards late afternoon, he investigated his quiet surroundings. The 17th century place of worship stood in front of him as he looked for the “closure” that people too often mistake for salvation. He saw three sexagenarians in the present, having put the hard work in, sitting watching the sunset over the Catskill mountains.

The giggles regarding the who’s and when’s, the confirmation and denials surrounded by hard laughter all the way back to a day in English class 1977. The three of them were in the back row predicting their futures. What they were going to do and who they were going to be. ‘I’m going to be a famous interior designer.’ I’m going to be a schoolteacher,’ the third friend was hesitant. ‘I guess I’ll try it all. I’ll play the game and then tell the tale….. so we remember.

The three of them had gotten what they’d asked for such a long time ago.

“Rich, you got to get up, I just got off the phone with your father, your mom died last night.” It was 6:14 am on an early January morning. A day that was as cold as one I had ever felt or would experience again. My mom was 76 years old, and for the prior ten years her health had been erratic, still, hearing Donna’s words sent me to a numbing trance of which I remain. I immediately sprung out of bed and switched my mind to auto pilot. I had very little experience with losing people close to me. My initial persona was one of being completely paralyzed. There is no one who is prepared to compartmentalize the death of their mother. At 47 years old, I was in the prime of my narcissistic conquering of the universe. This morning’s news provided me with a reality trip as what was to lie ahead. In silence I stumbled to the shower, dressed, and prepared to make the drive to the family homestead. Back to the place where for 25 years I lived under the roof of a woman who was my whole world. Not for one second had I imagined a world without her. In those years of growing up in New Paltz not a morning went by that my mom didn’t enter my room at some point to announce, “It’s time.”  The two words proved to be an effective way of dealing with a son who didn’t have much use for schedules or alarm clocks. It was a simple motivational
tool my mom implemented to combat my tendencies for tardiness and procrastination. “Nobody ever made anything of their lives by staying in bed.” My mom’s magical words, “It’s time” was my daily reminder that those in this life that do not keep moving fall behind. My mom understood my
competitive nature and she instigated it regularly.

Nina Vail was born in Peekskill New York in 1935, at the time she seemed destined to live a charmed life. Her father’s side of the family (Charles Vail) were wealthy real estate developers who owned several commercial retail properties. Growing up, education was not much of a priority for a privileged little cherub who would become my mom. Nonetheless her parents sent her to New Paltz Teacher’s College, not so much to get educated, but more to find a husband (that was always her side of the story). My mom’s co-ed years turned out to be the time her father was feeding horses at racetracks across the nation. By the time my mom turned 23 she didn’t have a diploma, she was married, she had a son, and her parents had gone from being rich aristocrats to bankruptcy. Her destiny had been sharply rearranged from being a pampered entitled daddy’s girl to the real-life grind. Regarding motherhood, there was zero pretense, she loved her calling and was determined that being a mother was going to be the best thing she would ever do with her life. In her mind her life’s calling was to be the mother of Gary and Richard Siegel.

She was more content living vicariously through her boys than pursuing any of her personal ambitions. The happiest I remember my mom being was at my brother’s graduation from Brown University. In my mom’s eyes my brother being an ivy leaguer vindicated her lackluster years in the halls of academia. Despite Gary’s best efforts to plead that I was mom’s favorite I never saw a beam on her face like I did that day of the Brown commencement back in 1979. Until grandchildren arrived my mother’s greatest claim to fame was “my good son went to Brown.”

My mother’s infatuation with elitist institutions only made me a little bit jealous.  I didn’t doubt for one second that my mom did have a favorite and it was me. Lol. All the joking aside I know my brother is convinced our mom loved us both equally. Her priority in life was singular; protect her boys and present them with every opportunity to stand as critical thinking independent adults. There were many times when my mom’s protective paranoia made it more challenging for myself to gain the independence that I
struggled to find in my youth. Looking back three main themes were the foundations of our Mother/son relationship 1. Unconditional Love: I, and Gary were 100% unconditionally loved. We were always our mom’s number one priority. 2. Unlimited Support:  In my mom’s eye I was an angel, a knight in
shining amour. In her eyes I was the best player on all teams, besides being the smartest and best looking. There was certainly no objectivity when it came to my mom evaluating my life performances. One time after a high school basketball game, I kicked a referee in the butt. I was suspended for two
games and placed on double secret probation. When I came home that night, “He deserved it,” was all my mom offered. 3. Belief in her children: There has never been a person, and I am sure I will not be in contact with a person who believed in me more than my mom. “The cream will rise Richard,
and you are pure cream.”

My mom loved holidays and special occasions, especially Christmas. It was of utmost importance to my mom that Christmas be special for myself and Gary every year. My Dad would bemoan the money my mom would pour into gifts and the accouchements that went along with the Christmas holiday. Every night from December first to the middle of January my mom would sit in front of our Christmas tree, put on some Christmas melodies, and stare into the lights and ornaments. “Nothing makes me happier than my family being together for the holidays,” she was fond of saying. Every year mom made sure to have
one big gift that was usually shared with my brother. I recall a snowmobile, tickets to Mets opening day. One year it was a family trip to Disneyland in California. My mom made sure myself and Gary had sweet memories of our childhood. She took it upon herself that her two boys would emerge from adolescence with every chance to make the best possible lives for themselves. My mother’s doting and unconditional support could have its drawbacks. She anointed me to such high pedestals, at times without merit, which gave me a distorted reality of where I stood in the pecking order of the universe.  She, without question provided me with a good self-esteem, maybe too good. It was left for me to learn how to temper my mother’s high ideals of me within my own reality. 

In many ways my mother was a very liberal in the manner she brought up her two boys. There were few specific requirements that needed to be met to stay out of her doghouse. She insisted that we were well mannered respectful boys who were expected to mind the authorities and get good grades in school. She expected us to develop passions outside of academics and in general have a well-rounded childhood. She expected to not hear from school administration or police regarding any nefarious behavior. In my brother she had a son who was naturally independent and anxious to depart his hometown. Although her method was identical with each of us the results were the opposite. In her youngest son she had a classic ‘momma’s boy’ who was far too comfortably attached to the nipple, and unlike my brother I was in no hurry to be weened off. At 16, I had my own car and no curfew, who could
have more independence than me? My mother was in a trap, and she knew it. If she imposed restrictions on me, I was going to rebel more than she was ready to deal with. By letting me run loose she knew she was giving me enough leeway to get much closer to the edge of the cliffs. Either way, it was years later that my mom told me: “The hardest thing about being your mother was understanding you and feeling every ounce of your joy and of your pain.”

It was January 12, 2012, I had made my way over the mountain to my childhood home. I pulled down the steep driveway just beyond the hairpin turn. My father was standing in front of the opened garage door in his pajamas. It was approximately 7:00 am, the outside temperature on my pilot’s consul said
4 degrees, and snow was on the way. My psyche picked that moment to let the faucet open. All those nights of my youth when I came pouring in that driveway knowing my mom was waiting there for me under every kind of life circumstance. Most nights, or early mornings not a word was spoken. She may
not have known all the naughty details of my misadventures but in the broader sense of understanding me she knew everything. In her private moments I knew she bled for me, she cried for me. She also celebrated my accomplishments with seemingly more joy than I could ever muster myself. There is not a person who has lived in this world who has loved me harder or longer than my mom. She had my back in the ways only a mother can.

I got out of the car and headed towards my dad. My father looked worn down, and tired of living. Half of him was gone. I believe that cold morning was the only time the two of us ever embraced in a full hug. The empty numbness I felt that January morning has not left. Grief is a very personal process that for me has been an elusive one. Alone by her casket, I made my piece with the woman who gave me life, and consistently gave me far more credit than I earned. ‘Mom it was not your fault that I was a very slow learner. Thank you for having the courage to let me find my way to me at my pace.’ I told her to ‘rest easy, thanks to your patient hand, you knew your second son better than he did himself.’

He drove up the hill heading towards his house. It was that first day of a new spring 2023 when the awakening of a vibrant colored collage jumps out at all of those who are still breathing after the chilling frost. A day that is not noted on the calendar with holiday status, but a day that metaphorically represents, for all of those residing in America’s Northeast the end of winter. A day in the ides of April when all of nature puts forth its brightest hue. A day when the fresh warmth of the spring sun can only be absorbed, not memorized. As his car continued to climb the rutty city road an inferno of fire roared straight into his eyes. There was not a single cloud to the block the fire’s glare. The glittering pyramid of colors was peaking to new heights. Shades of yellow, green, purple, red blending into the backdrop of a deep blue sky as the sun was setting in the west. Days like the one in front of him brought with them an energy that connected him to springs in another place and time. All the way back to those long-ago springs, when there seemed to be no time to soak in the miracles that the circle of seasons provides. He had always felt a sense of relief back in the years that March went out like a lamb. On a day like this in his youth his thoughts turned to summertime and all the possibilities that included. In April, November seemed like a lifetime away. There would be lots of golf, too many Molson’s, and perusing adventures deep into the night with the queen of hearts.‘ So much fun and games to be had before another snowflake flies,’ was his thesis for seasons in the sun that lay ahead.  On days like today all the bad visions had disappeared and the good vibrations were reverberating into the future.

In the late seventies, driving a very different looking gas guzzler, he had to negotiate a mountainous road to get to his childhood home. Although a dissimilar road in a neighboring town, the views maintained the same theme . In the spring of 1978 on prime April days his thoughts turned towards ocean waves, tanned bodies, sun worshipping and late-night shenanigans. Those were the top priorities for a teenage boy growing up in small town America. Driving away from the village, in his grandmother’s hand me down 1967 Ford convertible he investigated the ocean green and the tower at the top that stood as a beacon to the people of the valley. Top of mind subject matter mostly pertained to sophomoric delusional dreams. He would have loved to make a living playing golf but didn’t have the talent or the discipline to put in the work. He knew it was time to get out of his one-horse town but was having major trepidation about cutting the cord. He wanted to have meaningful relationships, but he lacked the maturity needed for such. He ended up running on empty chasing all the things he could not get. In our younger days we don’t make the time to take in the messages that are staring right at us every day. We live with a frantic urgency that makes you feel taking time to think is wasting time. His generation had been programmed to believe it was all about going… never stopping. Practice, condition your body, make money, win, find the girl. He kept score in all categories and unless in all of them the aesthetics of a spectacular spring day would not be a talking point. He didn’t know back then that taking in the moment could only help one appreciate the obstacles he gotten passed and ones that lay waiting ahead.

There are very few people, who, in the youth of their lives, can comprehend what awaits them if they make it to the other side of 60. The problems that are right in front of us distract us from ever thinking about what is on the other side of the mountain. Over the hill is a place you arrive without warning. What life is going to look like 40 years down the road is not something that 18-year-old boys spend much time focusing on six months before their final summer of freedom. “I got to get out, I got to break it out now before the final crack of dawn, but we got to make the most of our one night together, when it’s over we’ll both be so alone,”  Meat Loaf was pleading his case about transitioning from his hometown on his new ‘Bat of Hell’ track. In the hot spring of 1978, he knew the time to put away childhood pipe dreams had arrived. The time had come to be independent and create his own persona as an independent adult. He was leaving all the privileges and entitlements that go along with mommy and daddy on standby. The weight of the next step made him shiver with the fear of leaving all the comforts of his parent’s nest behind. On those spring car rides heading back to the home of his youth his mind was far too cluttered to notice the miracles of colors that go along with the transitioning seasons. His thoughts were consumed by birdies flying over the short green grass, of new faces on a college campus, and on leaving childhood behind in the past.

At a time when he still hadn’t figured out a career, or if he wanted to have a family, or a clue as to his purpose, he blindly chased haphazard dreams never finding a single answer. He was chasing what we all chase in our youth: money, independence, and freedom. It was the jingle that made all the rest seem reachable. At the time he was convinced that money talked, and bullshit walked. One side of himself understood the evils of money but his more practical side could see the doors that opened just by letting some Benjamin’s fly around. The cynical side of him believed ‘people who say money isn’t important don’t have any.’ And without the power of the dollar the independence and freedom could not be obtained. There are very few people who can obtain and maintain all three without being born into wealth. The fact is the first thing any person on a journey to success must do is get over their sense of entitlement and privilege. As a young man he had a hard time grasping that nothing in this life is guaranteed, and that all human life at some point gets shattered. In those golden twilight springs of his life his mind raced faster than his grandmother’s 1967 Ford. In those days it raced so fast he never saw the forest through the trees..

Despite all the rumblings regarding the earth’s health you could not notice any scars on this day in April of 2023. The scenery may look same as it did back in 1978 but the visions dancing in his brain were all about finding a game or wrestling awkwardly under dashboard lights. The aesthetics in the spring of 2023 may have seemed familiar but the games that were played in 1978 were now only clouded memories. Driving towards home in the present he can see a bittersweet collage from the past filled with both goals achieved and dreams that died on the vine. The yellow forsythias were brighter than he could remember, they helped him recall how they glowed in the prime of his years. He had always looked forward to the time in early spring when all things were filled with unconditional hope for the upcoming season. All these years later he was headed home one more time. To a place where wild ambition had morphed into practiced calm. All the way back to squaring ledgers that could have easily gone unsettled. He squinted as hard as he could driving directly into the sun. He was approaching a new realm, high up to the peak of the hill that few reach in this short lifetime. The mountains had been climbed, now he was hoping to find the time to take in the view.

It was 4/20/23 and the old man was running down a dream thinking of the springs gone by. He smiled reminiscing of the heartbeats that never turned into heartthrobs….. all the dreams that came up short….. and still the place he had ended up did not look much different from the one he imagined. He was still climbing but his mind was in the present thinking about the treasures that were on the other side of the hill. The other side of the mountain where all the glitter of your youth is replaced by a slower and steadier fire. The other side meant transitioning to a life of grandchildren, of telling tales of battles won and lost. It is about discovering parts of the mind that during the climb there was not time for. The hardest part of transition from one phase of life to another is saying goodbye to the people and things that inevitably must be left behind. All the things that go along with a privileged youth; the bravado, the entitled cockiness, all the unbridled boldness does not wear well on a sexagenarian. Going up that last hill of life can naturally cause us to turn our shoulders and look back, all the way back, to the time when the beauty was just as bright as it is in the present. Up and down the northeast coast spring is peaking. The visuals and the pictures are similar, only the shades have changed. Like an old song that meant one thing to you at 21 and something totally different in the present. As he kept moving towards home he felt an appreciation for all things that had been gained and an even deeper appreciation for all that was left behind not to be found again.

The send button was pressed, and the words went floating into space, the original plan, rooted in simple stubbornness, had been abandoned. ‘Today represents 65 consecutive Fridays. Hope all is well with you and your family.’ Technology had found a way to connect me to an old college fraternity brother with the ease that even two old dinosaurs like us could handle. In that bittersweet time of life when we leave our hometowns for the first time the person that I sent the e-mail to was my first acquaintance when I arrived on the campus of Muhlenberg College in the fall of 1978. In the first moments I arrived in Allentown, before I was even unpacked, I glanced out my dorm window and saw a lone shooter firing jumpers at a rickety old basket that had lost its netting. Today, 45 years later, only he would understand the meaning of my brief coded message. My old acquaintance is an accountant, and I can only assume that to be the reason he has not been responsive to my rantings for over four months. We were never best friends, never roommates, and certainly not long-term confidantes. At one point there was a gap of 30 years where there was zero communication between us. In our 20’s we did attend each other’s wedding before we took our unscripted hiatus from each other.

It was April of 2020. The phone buzzed in my office. “It’s a gentleman who says he is a fraternity brother of yours,” was Gina’s reply to ‘who is it? Please tell him Mr. Siegel is extremely busy at the moment and would like you to take a message.’ My co-worker immediately buzzed me back with his response: “Your friend, very nicely told you to go make love to yourself, but first pick up the phone.” We had not seen or spoken to each other since a rainy wedding Saturday day in the month of August, 1989. It had been 30 years since I had heard that calm calculated voice of reason. He got right to the point. “I’m having trouble finding a player to fill out my foursome this year in the Muhlenberg Alumni Athletic golf tournament.” This was the old friend, whose steady voice had been a guide for me in my four years at college. ‘So, you’re desperate, and you’ve exhausted all other possibilities?’ The master chess player was silent. He had made his move and was confident it was more than enough to close the deal. He always had a way of cutting to the chase without much small talk, which would have inevitably come from me had he not worded his question carefully. The timing of his call could not have been better. It was the beginning of the pandemic. It was also the first time in years that my business life was in turmoil. In the dark corners of my brain, I was starting the process of breaking ground on a personal make-over. ‘What’s the date?’ I quipped. “Third Friday in September.” Without the routine ‘let me think about it’, I committed. ‘I’m in, send me an e-mail with the details.’

In my riddled mind the Alumni golf tournament was just a smoke screen for the greater purpose of the phone call. I was lost again, like I was back in the fall of 1978. I knew that I needed adjustments in all aspects of my life, and it was time to “do something” about it. Doing something meant saying yes, more than no. It meant starting now, not later, it was about sculpting the remainder of my life. It was time to go back to basics. And going back to basics meant going back to listening to the voices that helped me build the foundations of the person I wanted to become. It wasn’t about returning, we can never do that, we can only look behind from where we came and grow from experience. It was all about playing back the old tapes. Going back to basics meant going back to Muhlenberg to get a fresh perspective. Taking that first step opened the door for me to go all the way back to my college 40th reunion three years later after my friend’s initial call. During these golf outings and in between I talked to my friend more than we did during our collegiate days. Without knowing it (he never cared much for emotional stuff to be on the surface) he became my advisor, psychiatrist, patient, and sponsor.  Two old friends cutting up on where they’ve been, what they went through, where they were headed next, and mostly where it all began. In the ‘Platoon’ of our lives he had been the ‘Elias’ to my Barnes’. The steady humming that made me understand the difference between these two souls that lived within me.

Whatever connects two people is way above my pay grade, deciphered in the depths of some examination by neuroscientists. But whatever it is that sparks mental connection between two people, I felt it the moment we met. I had a best friend from my hometown; I even developed a “closer friend” on campus, but never would I reveal my dark side to anyone but my newfound sage. We never discussed any of the above, yet I believe it was a similar truth for him. It took time for me to make sense of our dynamic. In my new acquaintance I saw the “good side of Rich”, one which I rarely exposed in my youth. The debates I had engaged myself in now were answering me back through another human being. This was the nature of our relationship all the way until the time we each married our wives (both medical providers).

The golf cart pulled right up next to my late arriving ride. ‘Shit,’ I was thinking. ‘You haven’t seen the guy in 30 years, he invites you back into his life and I turn out to be the last guy to show up for a tournament field of 120 former Mule jocks.’ Typical “Rich crap” I expected him to say as he approached with his trademark indelible smirk. “Get in old man, we’re good, I had to listen to the banter of ‘Siegel hasn’t changed,’ but I never doubted for one second that you would be here.”

After the round of golf, four frat brothers who I hadn’t shared conversation with in 40 years headed into the inner sanctuary of the Brookside Country Club to share a libation from days gone by. Three brothers, who had maintained a fraternal bond over the years, and me. My friend was clearly the Yoda amongst some very accomplished adults. In all my years in the halls of academia the hour I spent hearing the trials and tribulations that we all had experienced in our varied, yet deceptively familiar lives gave me the vantage point I needed to make decisions I had already been contemplating. Although I did not execute anything immediately, I drove out of Allentown that night with the beginnings of a whole new plan for my future. Based on the conversations and sharing I made three mental decisions as I headed back to my hotel room in Bethlehem: 

 

1. It was time to find a way out of my current business situation and spend the rest of my life on my terms. 

2. My family, like it had been before my daughters left the nest, was going to be my primary focus going forward, not myself. 

3. I was going to change my relationship with alcohol. “Recovery is the process of recovering the person, you were meant to be.”  Not unlike all processes the hardest part is taking that first step of committing.

At a particular time when all the phone calls gave me heart palpitations, when all the cases you are chasing don’t close, when all the putts are not finding their way into the hole, when you feel everything you’ve worked so hard for is slipping from your grip, one ring of the phone can motivate you to flip the switch. It was the following Friday from the start of this prose. It was officially Good Friday, the 66th Friday of a newly discovered life. I was back in same joint I had been the Friday before where I had located the inspiration for this story. Unlike the normal shilly shallieness my procrastination had a purpose. I was going to let some time pass before I wrote the ending (a few days). But now a week had passed, and it was more than four months with no communication between myself and my old friend. A young man sat next to me in the coffee shop. We chatted about writing, the current condition of humanity, and the purpose of life. Some heavy stuff in a very short period. I was there to finish a story so I said the pleasant goodbyes ‘it was great meeting you, I hope we bump into each other again. My name is Rich,’ as I shook the stranger’s hand. “Likewise, my name is Elias.”  Tax seasons ends April 15th and accountants emerge from their bunkers and try to recoil back to a 40-hour work week. Sometime between now and May Day, like it has the three prior years, the phone will ring, and it will be my old friend. “Same plan as last year,” I can hear him saying with me retorting ‘thanks for the call, see you in September.’