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| Hatley Castle, Colwood, B.C. |
Trying Again
“Let’s try that again!”
Really? Samuel Mordecai Higgenbotham was so tired of trying things again. He had taken the radio announcer’s statement about replaying a particular Beethoven symphony that had ended abruptly quite personally.
“Have I not yet learned enough? Did I not go to school from Kindergarten through Grade Twelve? Then college for four years and then on to University for an Advanced Masters Degree in Education! I am fed up and just want to live my life the way I feel like it. Get up whenever I want in the morning, have a strong, steaming mug of coffee, read the newspaper at my own pace and then, after lunch take a well deserved nap. I want to go to bed at night when I feel like it. No more meetings, no more penguin suit functions.”
Samuel marched back and forth across his living room as though he were on parade. As he spoke, he punctuated the air at the end of each sentence with both hands.
“Then I will read til I fall asleep and wake up when I wake up. Oh my goodness!” Samuel Mordecai Higgenbotham slapped his forehead with heel of his hand. “Then I will have to try it all again!! Just like that pompous announcer said! Life is just an unending circle. We’re like scruffy dogs chasing our tails. Just when we think we have it caught, we lose our balance and have to start all over again.”
Melissa Samantha Higgenbotham, Samuel’s charming wife of fifty years had smiled quietly, then grinned discreetly and finally burst in to giggles fit only for a teenager.
“What are you laughing at?! This is serious!” Samuel Mordecai Higgenbotham was not used to being laughed at and didn’t like it one little bit.
“Your face, my darling…..it’s so…..so….stern. And red. You must see how silly this all is.”
“I am not, nor have I ever been silly, my dear. Right now, I am just frustrated with this extremely troubling situation. After all, look around you at this handsome home we’ve lived in for so long. I should not have to try anything again.We have everything we worked and planned for.”
There were oil paintings from some of the most celebrated painters in the world. Furniture handmade and of the finest woods graced their dining room. The living room furniture, also handcrafted, was upholstered with the most exquisite damask. Poor Samuel couldn’t see past his aquiline nose to see that his concerns were, well, almost quite silly. Melissa Samantha Higgenbotham settled herself and calmed down. Of course her darling husband couldn’t see what was as plain as the nose on his face. Suddenly she could see the young man she had married and remembered his ideals. She could see the same pacing and gesturing when confronted with other’s expectations. His ideals had become tattered and torn, as she watched his climb through the labyrinth of university hierarchy to the polished oak desk in the president’s office. Now, retirement, despite being celebrated and cheered on, had knocked him for the proverbial loop.
Samuel sighed and smiled slowly.
“My dear, I am being quite silly with all this verbal combat into the air. There are many things we have had plans to do and here I am worrying about going in circles from morning til night, and then again the next day. We’ll plan a trip ~ not a usual kind of trip ~ but one just for the experience. We were teenagers once. What things have we neglected or set aside? I guess we do need to try it all again.”
Melissa smiled and handed him a packet of travel brochures. “Can we start with these, Sam?”
“Being stubborn can be a good thing. Being stubborn
can be a bad thing. It just depends on how you use it.”
~ Willie Aames, actor, film and television director,
producer and screen writer
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