what if

This week I am supposed to walk 15 minutes, twice a day. It was very hot today so I got out there at about 7 am this morning.  A storm threatened late this afternoon, so at around 515 I did my second 15 minute stint.  I checked my cell phone as I departed to make sure I had completed the requisite quarter hour.

As I neared what I thought was the 15 minute mark, I took out my phone to check the time. Somehow, while in my pocket, I'd hit something that set off an update. On the screen I was informed that the update was in progress.

No big deal. I knew it was about 15 minutes and went into the house.   I glanced at the phone and saw it was still doing its updating thing.  A few moments later I saw that the Verizon logo was coming on as it does when I power on.  I grabbed the phone and went upstairs.

I glanced at it when I got to the top of the staircase and was thrown for a moment when, at 545 pm eastern time, the clock read 1:15 am.  Great, I thought, now I am going to have to figure out how to reset the time.  Before I went ahead and attempted to do that, I was really thrown when I saw the date. January 1971.

January 1971. I know just where I was in January 1971.  I was a senior at what is now called the University at Albany.  In January 1971 I was a resident assistant on campus ahead of the students helping to get the dorms ready for the beginning of what was, laughingly, called Spring semester in a climate where Spring did not arrive until late April or early May.

Here I sit nearly fifty years and how many right and wrong steps later.  I've got a scar from my collar bone to my gut indicating that my heart has been repaired.  Scar or not, all of us with fifty years around the track since college, have had some bruises to our hearts or we're kidding ourselves. That comes with the territory.

Aside from being disoriented when I saw that it was 1971, my second reaction was "I'll take it".  Sure three years of Nixon again would be tough on the stomach, but I'd like another shot at getting things right and fifty more years on this wonderful planet.

Not maudlin here.  Even with a tomahawk's mark on my chest and my current recuperation which will, for the first time in decades, deprive me of going to the US OPEN with my high school pals, I know that every day, every minute, we have a great shot at enjoying time. 

Also, who knows if some of the right steps I have taken would be taken correctly if I turned back the clock.  But still, there is something attractive about having another shot at doing those things I did not, and not doing those things I wish I had not.

It is just a mind game.  My phone figured it out before I needed to mess with it. 8/19/19 at 6:10