Perfection: Lottery Tickets & Four-Leaf Clovers

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1972 Miami Dolphins season, Blogs, Don Larsen, Four-Leaf clover, Harper Lee, Mary Lou Retton, Perfection, Static in the Airwaves, Striving for Perfection, Tim L O'Brien, To Kill A Mockingbird

We yearn for it. We strive for it. Its desire drives and fuels the craving and hunger. We stumble and fall. Rise up and fall again. Yet, like fools searching for gold, we march on in pursuit. Longing for a bite of the forbidden apple.

In the sad sense of tragedy found in realism, rarely, will we ever find it.

What is so elusive that litters the highway with failure? What can have such a demonic hold on a person’s soul?

Not winning the lottery, though, I suppose you have a better chance of purchasing the winning ticket as crazy as that may sound.

I’m not talking about any sort of utopian inspired happiness. Or an altered state caused by drugs.

I’m talking about the dream for perfection.

So many strive for it. You’re even given your own label – a perfectionist.

Society praises perfection. We admire it. We applaud it.

Perfection is sought for many reasons. Maybe you’re fueled by the desire to make yourself worthy to someone significant in your life. Like a child, searching for praise from a parent. Maybe the glory is what drives you forward. A desire to be held in immortality. Perhaps, the dogged pursuit to be the best picks you up ever time you fall.

As invisible and elusive as perfection may seem to be, it can be found.

In the sporting world, very few have reached the pinnacles of perfection. The image of Yogi Berra leaping into the arms of Don Larsen in Game 5 of the World Series at the completion of Larsen’s perfect game in which the Yankee pitcher defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers 2-0 in 1956. We remember Mary Lou Retton’s two perfect 10’s during the 1984 Olympics to earn Olympic Gold.

Every time an NFL team reaches the midpoint of a season undefeated, comparisons to the 1972 Miami Dolphins dominates the sports world. The Dolphins are the only team to ever finish an entire season, including a Super Bowl victory, undefeated.  Once again, earlier this year we watched as the Green Bay Packers victory total continued to soar. We began to cheer. Could this team reach perfection? Like the old ABC Wild World of Sports slogan – “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” – the Packers failed.

We search for the perfect job. We dream of a wife, two kids and the white picket fence. We strive to be the best we can be. We want the perfect body, the perfect smile.

Our military works to create the perfect, ultimate warrior to send into battle.

As students, we strived for the perfect report card – straight A’s. Well, some of you strived for it, many of you even achieved the perfection. For others, myself included, it never happened.

We all know a diamond is a girls best friend, right? When picking out that diamond for the special someone in your life what are you actually searching for?  A diamond with no flaws, correct?

In the literary world, I always felt Harper Lee wrote the perfect American novel – To Kill A Mockingbird. Was the greatness of her début novel – the level of perfection rarely read or written – a reason that Lee never wrote another book again? She captured lightning in a bottle once, what are the odds of duplicating that level of greatness?

Writing can be a frustrating and a self-damaging career choice. We strive for the perfect word. The perfect sentence. The perfect paragraph. The perfect story. We write, edit, re-write, edit, re-write, edit and end up deleting it all. Is there no wonder why such great writers in our history were also renowned drinkers?

Yet, down the stream we all swim, battling against the currents. Blind or naïve to the overwhelming odds of failure. Striving for something that considering the odds would label us foolish. Leaving Las Vegas with cash in your pocket even has better odds than reaching perfection. Something I’ve never been able to do on any visit to Sin City.

As a child, I used to sit in a field of green, searching for a mythical four-leaf clover. I picked and pulled and searched. After numerous attempts and only finding the standard three-leaved type I came to the conclusion there is no such thing as a four-leaf clover. The luck it would bring was not to come my way.

Can your dreams come true? Can perfection every be reached? Are we fools for setting our goals too high? Is striving for perfection nothing more than a game of roulette or searching for a four-leaved clover?

Stephen King’s Latest Novel: 11-22-63…What Would You Do?

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11-22-63, Adolph Hitler, Blogs, Jimi Hendrix, Lee Harvey Oswald, Static in the Airwaves, Stephen King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tim L O'Brien, Timothy McVeigh

The Day Kennedy Was Shot…

The Day That Changed The World…

What If You Could Change It? 

I must confess.  I have only read one novel written by Stephen King.  I have enjoyed many of the movies derived from his novels, but I just never cared to read any of his books.  I enjoy a good horror movie, I just don’t read books from that genre.  What a shame.

While wondering the aisles of my local Barnes and Noble this past November, I happened upon King’s latest novel 11-22-63.  The unusual title caught my attention.  I picked the book up and read the inside jacket.  The basic premise of the story idea sounded intriguing and with some hesitation, the book is 750 pages, I headed to the cashier.  I was excited about reading a King novel and even more anxious to see how this plotline would play itself out.  The story line presented endless possibilities to my imagination. (Note: there are no spoilers!)

From the author’s website: Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time. 

While reading the novel, I couldn’t help myself from thinking about events I would like to change if given the chance to go back in time.  There are some stipulations attached to this idea.  You can not go back in time and change something in our own personal life.  I’m sure there are many things we would like to change.  There would probably be fewer ex-wifes or ex-husbands banished from our timelines.  The decision to change careers could be erased.  The money lost in that bad investment would be back in your pocket. That night you had one to many drinks at the party and got behind the wheel to drive home could be erased.  However, that is not the question raised in this book.

If you could go back in time through a portal what national event would you change?

It would reason that most of us would like to change the outcome from September 11, 2001, a date that resonates with us just as 11-22-63 does.  However, I don’t know if it would be possible to stop a network of terrorists.  Unless you’re Jack Reicher, Mitch Rapp or Garbriel Allon.  In King’s novel, the goal is for one man (Epping) to stop another man (Oswald).  It would be impossible for one person to stop the entire network of terrorist and preventing the horrific events of 9-11 from every taking place.  You can not just march into the White House and warn the appropriate people.

Here in my homeland of Oklahoma, I’m sure there are many who would like to go back and stop Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols from blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City which caused the deaths of 168 people and injuring 800 more.  At the time, it was the worst domestic act of terror in the United States.  Seems the odds of stopping two men from their intended plans is not too far-fetched.

Earlier this month we celebrated Martin Luther King Day.  It would be gratifying to celebrate his birthday every January 15th with him still alive.  Thwarting King’s assassination seems possible for one  person to attempt with a realistic chance of success .  Who knows what the future would look like if a shot never rang out that day at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  The race riots that followed would be erased.  Imagine the beautiful speeches he had yet delivered.

For those seeking high adventure and dangerous odds maybe you prefer to go back in time to Nazi Germany and prevent Adolph Hitler from ever seizing power.  I imagine that, at some point in Hitler’s rise to power, it would have been possible to stop him.  What would the world look like today if the Holocaust never happened or World War II never took place?

Of course, maybe you are not interested in changing a national event or risking your own life to do so.  Maybe you prefer to go back in time for personal gain.  Imagine the money you could stockpile gambling on future sporting events where you already know the outcome!  Maybe you would like to beat Steve Jobs to the punch and take credit for all of his future inventions.  You could live like a King. Own your very own deserted island.

If you’re a music fan you could travel back through the portal to prevent Stevie Ray Vaughan from boarding that helicopter in East Troy, Wisconsin headed to Chicago.  Perhaps you try to prevent Jimi Hendrix from overdosing that night at the Samarkand Hotel in London.

The possibilities are endless.

Would you be willing to go back in time?  What national event would you go back and try to change?  Or would you rather time travel back through a portal for personal gain?

Trying To Find My Way Home

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Blog, Karen McFarland, Rio Grande, South Texas, Static in the Airwaves, Tim L O'Brien

Some of you may have noticed my blog has been MIA since Christmas.  Some even sent messages of concern, which was very kind of you.  I wish I had a terrific story to explain my disappearance, but I don’t.  I wasn’t attacked by wild hogs or kidnapped by the Mexican drug cartels.  I’ve been in God’s Country – South Texas along the Rio Grande – for two of the past three weeks.  I had three blogs written that I intended to post the last week of 2011, but those plans were thwarted when the new internet device failed to provide service to the compound where I was staying.  I enjoyed writing them, but they are dated so there is no need to publish them now.

Like that evil step-mom or obnoxious mother-in-law, I couldn’t stay gone forever.  In fact, Karen McFarland, one of my favorite bloggers, found my secret hiding spot and has brought me back to the blogosphere world today.  I’m glad to be back.  I have a pocket full of blog ideas to write in the future.

Karen asked me several weeks ago to be a guest blogger on her site.  This was a first for me, but with it came the formidable task of writing something that would uphold to her standards.  She has had several previous guest bloggers, and the list is quite impressive with many published authors lending their words to her blog page.  Why she asked me I have no idea, but it was truly an honor to do so.

So for further proof that I am still alive and writing, please click on the following link to check out my first guest blog.  I hope you enjoy the blog and further enjoy reading Karen’s blogs.

Click on this link to read my guest blog at:  Karen McFarland’s Blog – Expressions From the Heart.

No date has been set for my welcome back party, but I have plenty of beer on ice.  Hope you enjoy today’s post.