The Way They Were
It’s hard to score goals in professional ice hockey. In a typical season, only thirty of 700 NHL players score more than thirty goals and only three players score over fifty.
About twenty years ago, I read of a defenseman who had just hung up his skates. Though he played effectively for a decade, this player never scored more than five goals in a season. On the day he announced his retirement, a reporter asked the now-ex-player how he’d like to be remembered. He smiled mischievously and said, “As a fifty-goal scorer.”
Often, how something is remembered differs sharply from how it actually was. And often, those who characterize their own conduct engage in revisionism.
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In July 2016, I attended my 40th high school reunion. I enjoyed it immensely. I danced enthusiastically and at some length—no, I wasn’t drinking—with various women who, when I was 18, would have seemed much too old for me. At one point, I came off the floor on that hot night soaked with sweat. A former baseball and basketball teammate came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder, smiled and said, “Be careful. You’re not as young as you used to be!”
We both laughed hard. I knew he was right. And I probably shouldn’t have done those splits.
Four hours earlier, when I had arrived at the reunion’s check-in the table, one of my 430 classmates, Maura Dolan, looked up from her attendee list, smiled and exclaimed, “Mark Oshinskie, you were such a pisser in high school!”
Back in the day, a “pisser” was a wisecracker/jokester. My heart was lighter then. Life was simpler and less alienating. Phone-free people spent more time face-to-face.
Some have observed that people don’t remember what you did or said, but they do remember how you made them feel. Over time, people experience and see a lot and
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.