Getting Lucky!

Or is it just chance?

Well, friends, today is a Friday the 13^th. Even in an age where we are continually exhorted to “Follow the Science,” where any scintilla of belief in the Godly, is met with derision, this is considered an inauspicious day.

My favorite standup comic, Nate Bargatze, has a very funny bit where he talks about how his mother and fiancée were both “cheap” and tried to cut corners in every way in the planning for their small wedding. They booked a wedding venue for a Friday, the 13^th and when they asked what times were available, the booker said, “All of them!” (See below.)

Hotels pretend there is no 13^th floor, though anyone with a room temperature IQ would realize that you can CALL the floor AFTER the 12^th the 14^th, but it doesn’t change anything.

Even a very smart demographic like Orthodox Jews are superstitious as all get out. Religious Jews will say “kinahora” -- an exhortation to turn away The Evil Eye -- after mentioning their children or future plans and the grandmas will even still spit three times after saying it!

Casino doormen will usher you in with “Have a lucky day!” as you prepare to shovel your hard-earned cash into a one-armed bandit. SOMEBODY’S getting “lucky”, but it probably won’t be YOU. Many years ago, an Indian standup comic I worked with said for Indians, casinos meant, “We’re taking America back. One quarter at a time…” Judging by the parking lots at every casino, they are well on their way.

I love how casinos originally called what they were selling “gambling”, but then that morphed into “gaming”, as though losing a great deal of your money was just a fun evening out like a game of Bridge or Yahtzee. Joe/Max wrote an amusing little country song entitled “It Ain’t Gambling If You

Know You’re Gonna Lose.”

So, is there such a thing as “LUCK”? I don’t know a combat veteran who doesn’t think so.

Many of us have played Bridge where the highest card in our hand all night was a Jack. Where, if you had 6 diamonds to the Queen, your partner had a void. Sigh. A really skilled poker player (not me) can win even without great cards, but in Bridge, enough points to open is pretty much everything. And it is very tedious to keep getting 6-point hands all night long.

On this unluckiest of days, l thought I would take a break from politics altogether. Instead, let’s take a ride in the Wayback Machine while I provide a very personal little thumbnail sketch of what it took for Joe and me to find each other. See if you think any “luck” were involved. (Or the Hand of God disguised as “luck”?):

I have mentioned before that a doctor advised my mother who was suffering from pre-eclampsia to terminate the pregnancy and try again. Mama voted NO and, when the eclampsia was full-blown and imminently life-threatening, I was taken by C-section. It was early in the 7^th month. I weighed in at 2 lbs., 12 ounces. It was 1946 and, apart from an incubator, there was no neo-natal nuthin’. I was fed by IVs and one night all my little veins collapsed and they told my parents I would not make it through the night. Then, one functioning vein was found. I rallied and, as Elaine on Seinfeld would say, yadda yadda yadda.

Three months later I weighed 5 lbs and could get out of the incubator (well, not without HELP) and go home! Family legend has it that I could fit in a shoebox. So, Baby Susan ALMOST is “terminated” and then ALMOST dies on her own.

I live and thrive and go to school and graduate high school and it’s time to pick a college. Being the oldest child in my family, I had no idea how to go about it. Carol, my dear friend from grade school who had moved to St. Paul, did some research. We both had top grades and high test scores and she picked Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. In 1964, it was a lovely campus of about 6,000 undergraduates. We were both average-looking nerd girls and she had determined that the boy-girl ratio was favorable to us at Northwestern! Seriously. The non-Prom Queens among us had to take every advantage! We both got in Early Admission.

Meanwhile, in Springfield, IL, a Jewish boy, the 5^th boy in his family, had been born. His father had returned from a long stint as a physician in the War to do his part in the first levy of the Baby Boom. His mother was a Latvian Jew whose family lost everything in the Communist takeover of Russia. She was a brilliant student, gifted in Math and went to college at 15. His father was a Hungarian Jew who had to go to Germany to study Medicine because of the quotas on Jewish doctors in his native Hungary. They met at University in Leipzig, Germany and married a few years later. And, as my mother-in-law once told me very matter-of-factly: “Then came Hitler.”

They both got out of Europe, though at different times. Papa went to America first to find employment. (stepping across the Rio Grande was not then an option for immigrants. You had to prove you could support yourself – isn’t that a quaint notion?). He learned English in six weeks so that he could take his Medical Boards in English. Joe’s mother and oldest brother, then a little boy, of course, were sent to Hungary to stay with her in-laws. Papa sent for them and they literally made it out on the last ship allowed to leave. The little boy was warned not to tell anyone onboard they were Jews.

Joe’s parents became naturalized United States citizens and the family grew. Joe was raised in Springfield, IL and later, Oak Park, IL. In part because his father was already 45 when Joe was born, Joe was encouraged to go to summer school each year and graduate a year earlier than his class. Otherwise, he would have been a year behind me and likely we never would have met.

He also went to Northwestern but applied late and there was no more room in the dorms. He lived at home and commuted the 90 minute El ride twice a day, which he did not much care for. Meanwhile, his mother, whose Super Power was Relentlessness, called the Housing Office multiple times a day (there was no Caller ID in those days) until miraculously, they found a place for him in a dorm! I don’t think my mother-in-law was entirely to blame for the Housing Director’s stay in the Happy Days Asylum; I’m sure there were additional factors involved. (j/k)

As if this were not luck enough, now it gets really crazy.

I had had a steady boyfriend Freshman year and part of the next. Suffice to say he was not nice to me, it was not a healthy relationship and in January when we returned to school, I broke up with him.

One day shortly after the break-up, I went into the Student Union. It was really just a large, loud cafeteria with booths that seated six. There were vending machines and primitive Radar Ranges (a modern miracle!). It was very crowded and I was about to leave when I saw one opening in a booth in which I knew one person. I asked if I could sit down. Joe was one of the other 5, and we began talking. He was unlike anyone I had ever met.

And still is.

The others all got up and went to class, and we stayed behind – Classes? What Classes? -- and continued to enjoy each other’s company. The die was cast! The Rubicon was crossed! The girl was smitten! The boy had a devastating effect on my GPA, but hey, yadda yadda yadda, 61 years later, staring down the approach to 80, we are still together. Baruch Hashem!

What WERE the chances? What WERE the odds? You tell ME.

Joe’s GPA was already uninspiring when I met him and our obsession with each other did not improve his GPA or mine. In retrospect, it was well worth it. Besides, no one has ever asked to see my GPA since. All employers ever asked initially was “How fast can you type?” and eventually, “Can you make people laugh?” Answers: “100 wpm”; and, “Usually. On most nights.”

An altogether great life. Blessed AND lucky! Kinahora. Spit spit spit.