# A Road Not Taken



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

An anecdote:

Many years ago as a very young man, I spent a couple of years in Albuquerque. About a week prior to my pre-planned leave-taking, I walked past a storefront advertising Indian jewelry and went in, looking for souvenirs for people back home. I was greeted and waited upon by a characteristically taciturn Native American man of indeterminate middle age. Seeing some pieces I liked, but not having the money, I said I would go up to my branch bank half a dozen blocks away, and return. The man nodded me out the door and, though I didn’t realize it in my naivety, didn’t expect ever to see me again.

When I walked back in, twenty minutes later, with the smallest trace of surprise on his otherwise neutral face, he looked up and said “You came back.” We went over to one of the display cases and I picked out the pieces I wanted. And as he placed them in a small ziploc bag and wrote out a sales slip on a dime-store pad, he said again: “You came back. That proves you’re a good man.” I remember thinking to myself, “Doesn’t take much around here.”

I didn’t realize until years later that I had just been given the greatest compliment I would ever receive. I have lived an average life since, comporting myself in many ways that have deviated from being a “good man” in the sense meant by the shopkeeper, and it may have been impossible to live up to that anyway. But as I occasionally look back, I sometimes wish I had realized at the time what he was saying, and adjusted my life accordingly. Just a lesson for everybody at Easter/Passover, or whatever you may celebrate.

May you all be Good Men and Women.

(Just wanted to get that down. Now back to our regular programming. Cheers. )


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## Admiral (Dec 27, 2014)

Thanks for sharing that. I once lived near a large Native community - they believe in old values, a person's word is their bond.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

One of the most impressive Russian writers I consider to be Nikolai Leskov. He became famous thanks to Shostakovich's adaption of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, but the non-fiction story of










centers on the remark: "You came back". The story's location is Yakutia in Siberia, where the Native Americans are thought to have originated from. The same wisdom, the same human divine touch.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

People who actually do what they say seem to be in the minority. I have tried to be one of those. Of course not perfect, who is. It used to surprise and frustrate me when someone said they would do something important only to say they completely forgot about it. In the business world or when money is involved you can forget about it, I don't assume anything until it is done.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

After I got out of the army I took the LSAT (Law School Admission Test). When I entered the auditorium for the test I selected an empty seat against the far wall. Half way through the test I gave up: most of the questions were about math and interpreting exotic graphs-- nothing that showed legal aptitude -- and anyway, I knew I had been admitted to graduate school. I got up to leave; but then I realized I would have to walk past four deep rows of test takers, all of whom (I was sure) would know my defeat and humiliation. To avoid the embarrassment I sat back down. To pass the time-- there was more than an hour and a half to go on the test-- I completed the test by scanning the questions and arbitrarily choosing answers based on "feel" a!one. I was surprised later to learn I had earned a respectable score and was then admitted to law school, earned a law degree, then passed the bar. I occasionally wonder what my life would have been if I had sat closer to the hallway door.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

I spent a few days away from NYC earlier this week in a village I had never been to before. On Tuesday afternoon, I was finishing a walk with my dog in hot and humid weather. She was panting. I stopped by the ice cream parlor and asked for some water for her. The clerk gave her some. I said that I needed to pick up dinner, but I would be back for ice cream as my last stop. I got my dinner and returned. But a line had formed, and my dog clearly wanted to be somewhere cooler. So we left without buying anything. I was taking care of my dog, but I still feel bad about it.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

The Fixx: *One Thing Leads To Another*

_Do what you say, say what you mean
One thing leads to another ..._

Here I am, a 60's-70's lad praising a 1980's pop song?! Out of the mouths of babes ...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Here's an interesting video exploring the background of Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," which inspired the title of this thread.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Thank you for the (over)analysis. I was tortured with Frost in high school and took glee in the (probably apocryphyl) fact that he was such a ******* in his personal life that his wife on her deathbed refused to let him in the room.


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