A lucky streak

I try not to think about luck too much.  Either you're lucky at a particular moment, or you aren't.  I think it was Carol Burnett who said that it isn't what life gives you that's important, but what you do with it.  But I have to admit that there were times when I've had good luck.

For example, I was lucky to pass my Ph.D. examination.  It was a very difficult process and after I did my seventh draft they told me it was "unexaminable." I had to demand an examination anyway, which happened after three more drafts.  I ended up feeling like in Easy Rider when Dennis Hopper said "We did it!" but Peter Fonda said "We blew it."

And I'm lucky that a certain Meetup group I was in made an event of this memoir group. (I don't think they did it again.) It was from that event that I discovered the group and made a lot of friends.  Imagine if I'd been busy with something that day!

I remember a joke from when I was young where a guy parachuted out of an airplane but the parachute broke, but he fell toward a haystack, but there was the sharp end of a pitchfork sticking out, but he missed the pitchfork, but he missed the haystack!