Alan C. Fox

I arrived at the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in the early afternoon of a pleasant Sunday in June. I was sixteen years old.  After my adventure of flying alone, and riding a subway/elevated train in an unknown city all by myself, I found my dorm and checked into the room where I would spend the next five weeks.  I was participating in a national five-week summer speech program for high school juniors.

A few of the guys had arrived before me and were throwing a football around on the grass between the dorm and Lake Michigan.  I was large.  By that I mean fat — five feet seven inches tall and over two hundred pounds heavy.

“I’ll bet you play on your high school football team,” one of them said. My priority at that moment was to fit in rather than be honest.

“Sure.  I’m a lineman,” I heard myself say.  “Third string, all city.”

Before I could retreat to the relative safety of my room he said, “Great!  Now we have enough players for a touch game.  You’re on my team.”

“Oh, shit!” I thought. “Sure!”  My traitor mouth said.

But I was on the debate team, not the football team.  Even so, my first fib had led to another, then to a whopper, and there I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

On the first play of our “touch” game I lined up to the right of the center.  As soon as he snapped the ball I was knocked flat on my back by the player lined up opposite me.   He was smaller than me, but at the time I had no idea he was an all-state guard on his high school team in Tennessee.

I smiled apologetically, lined up again, and for the second time landed on my butt, looking up at a fuzzy sun.

The third play was different from the first two in one significant respect.  I didn’t get up.  My right thigh was burning, and my leg had disconnected from my mind.  The leg refused to work.  I couldn’t move it.

My memory of what followed is foggy.  I somehow ended up in the campus infirmary, and after a painful examination by someone in a white jacket I learned that I had torn a ligament. I was given a few pills and told to stay off my feet for a few weeks, “maybe longer.”

The next five weeks were a torment.  Classes were at the other end of campus.  Fortunately, someone loaned me a bicycle.  It would take me a few minutes to painfully place myself on the seat, then close to half an hour to propel myself, with only my left leg, to the other end of campus.  Using the pedals was out of the question.

Obviously, I survived.  I even won an award in discussion, which many of my classmates regarded as a wimpy event.  I had a girl-friend, Becky from Indiana, but only for two weeks, because she got tired of my limping along behind her and she stopped talking to me.

Did I learn my lesson?  Am I now willing to risk rejection by speaking my mind?

I’m still working on it.

But as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Prize winner in Literature, wrote, “When I was a boy they called me a liar.  Now they call me a writer.”

Actually, my football career didn’t really last a full five minutes.  It was more like three and a half.

Alan

When I was a kid I wanted to be President of the United States.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with this ambition.  As an adult I realized that to become President I’d have to:

1. Meet and connect with a lot of people.
2. Remember names and faces.
3. Fundraise.
4. Spend many evenings away from home.
5. Have my private life constantly scrutinized and broadcast to the entire world.

I’m not very good and #1 and #2 and I don’t like #3, #4, or #5, so I’m happy that I never acted on that particular priority.

While making money was one of my priorities, at some point I decided that I was not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to compete with those who wanted to become a billionaire.  I knew I would need to ignore many other aspects of my life until I was retired, and I didn’t want to do that.

Years ago, however, I told a friend that she could become a millionaire.

“How?” she asked.

“You would have to work every Saturday and every other Sunday for fifteen years, then save and invest every weekend dollar you made.”

“Every Saturday?  Every other Sunday?  No thanks.  I don’t want to work that hard.”

But some people are willing to put in the time. Sprite knew in the seventh grade that she wanted to help people by becoming a journalist.  She won her first speech contest in the sixth grade.  She was willing to start at a minimal salary in a small TV market and move around the country every year or two as better jobs became available.  She was willing to work on weekends, early mornings, and late evenings.  She sometimes had to take her daughter into work when there was breaking news.  In short, Sprite did whatever it took to succeed on the highest level.  Ultimately she became a network anchor on both ABC and NBC.

I asked her, “Was it difficult?”

“No.  I had a calling.  I knew I would do whatever I needed to in order to be the journalist I wanted to be.”

Will you succeed?  That depends entirely on you.  First you have to figure out what you want to succeed at.  Then you have to be willing to do whatever it takes.

When Barack Obama hired David Plouffe to be his campaign manager he asked David, “Do I have to campaign all the time?  Can I go home on weekends?”

“Sure,” David said.  “If you don’t want to win.”

In a newspaperk article recently I read the story of an immigrant couple who wanted to save money to pay for their son to go to college when he was eighteen.  To raise what was needed they worked six nights a week for more than a decade, scavenging through dumpsters for recyclables. They were able to pay for their son to attend an Ivy League school because they were willing to do whatever it took.

You can succeed.  You will succeed.

As long as you’re willing to do whatever it takes.

Alan

P.S.  I think that anyone who wants to be President is a little crazy.

Until I was twenty-one years old I lived with my parents in their house on a hill.  I remember gazing with wonder at the strange roads and odd buildings on the hill across from ours. I simply loved the view.

Many of our preferences and priorities are rooted in our early experience.  I still like my hot dogs with mustard, but I prefer my hamburgers with ketchup as well.  From my father I learned the importance of saving money.  From my mother I learned to be curious. Both curiosity and saving money are priorities in my life.

And I have always preferred to live in a house on a hill.  My first law office was on the eighth floor of a building with a ten mile view through floor-to-ceiling windows. Until last week, I have lived in a home where I enjoyed a spectacular view of the San Fernando Valley.

Even so, I have often indulged my curiosity and visited an “open house” in my neighborhood.  Two months ago, on a Sunday afternoon drive home, I passed an “open house” sign on a nearby street.  I decided to take a look.

The house was Mediterranean in style with a red tile roof. I had passed it many times on my early morning strolls.  I expected to find small rooms and perhaps an updated kitchen.  What I found was a home that had been completely rebuilt, with beautiful landscaping both front and back.

The seller, a television set designer, had entirely redesigned the home from the rooftop down to the three-car garage.  As I walked through it I felt like I was in heaven. With windows on all sides and few walls, the house was filled with light.  The kitchen and family room were designed as a spacious great room that opened to the pool and garden.  I could throw a football to my grandchildren from the kitchen, through the dining room and entry hall, all the way into the living room.

There was one significant flaw to this otherwise special house.  It rested at the bottom of the canyon and had no valley view.

I told my fiancé that I loved the house.  She said she loved it too.

“Could you happily live here for the next thirty years?”

“Yes, I could.”  She hesitated.  “But if we kept on looking do you think we could find something better?”

I smiled.  “Not likely.”

Outside of writing, my priority is to take action.  Whenever I worry I ask myself if there is an action I can take.  If there is, I take it.  If not, I stop worrying.

I had lived gladly in my house on a hill for more than forty years.  It had served me and my many children well.  All of us had cherished the view.

Even so, I bought the new house.  My fiancé and I moved in a few days ago, and today I’m writing this blog from a sparsely furnished office near the kitchen.

Do I miss my Valley view?  To my surprise, not at all.

Instead I thoroughly enjoy a view which is quite different from what I am used to.  Our second story master bedroom reminds me of sleeping in a treehouse floating among the trees, with a close-up view of the leaves ­– worthy of my wonder for many years to come.

While we form many preferences when we are young, from time to time we might also enjoy, actually or metaphorically, living in a house with a brand new view.

Alan