Hi. I’m Wilem Lange. And I’ve got to say it’s many years since I’ve been the last man standing. But my first job is to diminish a case of great anxiety. Mother – as they say in Russia – things I don’t have with me script. I do. Relax.
The phrase, "turning point," implies to me a turn of at least ninety degrees, or even 180. I don’t recall I’ve ever had even one of those. But there have been quite a few of what you might call minor course corrections over the past seventy years. They remind me of the way kids rolling hoops used to steer them with a stick, once they got ’em going. Here are a few.
In 1943 our family moved from the heart of downtown Albany to the edge of Syracuse and the beginning of green fields and forests stretching to infinity.
In 1947 our neighbor Dave Bliss walked across the street and asked if I’d like to go to a Boy Scout meeting. Dave had a Model A roadster with a rumble seat, and I became a Scout.
In 1950 a juvenile court judge decreed I’d be going away to school that fall. Just 7 weeks from now I’ll be returning for my 55th reunion with old friends at one of the most beautiful places on this planet.
In 1959 the most stunning young woman I’d ever seen walked past a manhole I was digging. Normally quite shy, I climbed out and chased her down the street. We were married about twelve weeks later, almost 49 years ago.
In 1982, depressed to distraction by the imminent failure of my business, I drove to the Valley News in West Lebanon and asked the editor, a wonderful man named Marvin Midgette, if he would consider publishing a column of mine.
Now. none of those, taken alone, was a turning point. But together… well, it’s been a life.