He woke up the room was bare
* * *
He told himself he didn’t care
Pushed the window open wide
Felt an emptiness inside
To which he could not relate
Brought
on by a Simple Twist of Fate. *
It’s funny how our lives can be changed so dramatically
by a simple twist of fate. An incident
occurs. It may be an annoyance, an
injury, or something we hardly notice. But like a pebble tossed into a pond, it
ripples across the fabric of time and space and changes what might have
otherwise happened.
My father was drafted to fight in World War II. Following basic training, he was shipped off
to Panama to train with the glider troops.
During the training, he suffered a broken arm. His unit shipped out, and my father was
transferred to the regular infantry. The
gliders had no engines and limited maneuverability. They were easy targets for the German
anti-aircraft guns and suffered heavy losses where they were used. My father’s recovery from his broken arm and
reassignment delayed his arrival to the war in Europe. By the time he got there, the Germans were in
retreat. My father survived the war and
made it back home. He got married,
raised five boys and died at age 79. But
except for the twist of fate that resulted in his broken arm, he may have been
one of the casualties among the glider infantry during the Normandy invasion.
My father’s younger brother had just celebrated his 19th
birthday and was on board the troop ship S.S. Leopoldville with over 2,000
American soldiers. The Leopoldville was carrying
American troops across the English Channel on Christmas Eve, 1944. They were green and inexperienced but were
being sent to the front as reinforcements to fight in in the Battle of the
Bulge which had begun a week before.
Five miles from land, the Leopoldville was hit by a German U-boat
torpedo and sunk. About 800 men were
lost when the ship went to the bottom of the Channel. My uncle abandoned ship and had to tread
water for hours in the icy Channel before being rescued. Suffering from exposure, he was sent to an
Allied hospital to recuperate. When he
returned to duty, he was re-assigned to the Military Police and became an aide
to an officer. Except for the simple
twist of fate of having his ship sunk, my uncle may have died in the heat of
the Battle of the Bulge. Instead, he celebrated
his 90th birthday last December.
Fresh out of law school, I was hired as an environmental
lawyer in U. S. Steel’s law department.
The U.S. economy went into a recession shortly after I was hired. The company attempted to cut its losses by
closing several steel making plants, laying off thousands of workers, and
imposing a wage freeze for those that remained. Feeling uncertain about what the future
might hold for me, I decided to leave U.S. Steel to practice environmental law
elsewhere. Meanwhile, U.S. Steel hired
an attorney, Bill Kabbert, to replace me.
On September 8, 1994 Mr. Kabbert was returning to Pittsburgh on USAir
Flight 427 from Chicago. He had been
attending a meeting with U.S. EPA that I surely would have been attending had I
remained at U.S. Steel. On its approach
to the Pittsburgh International Airport, the plane crashed, killing all 132
passengers aboard. When I heard about Mr.
Kabbert’s death, I immediately realized that it could have been me. It would have been me – except for a simple
twist of fate.
* Simple Twist of Fate, Bob Dylan, © Ram’s Horn
Music, 1974, renewed 2002.
