I've done a lot of things in my life, many of them were "good" things and a few of them were "bad" things, but very few of any of the things I've done in my life can I truly say I regret. The one exception I can think of goes back more than thirty years to a time when I was but a teenager with what was then called a "Learner's Permit" to drive. I was 17 years old and while I had been out of school for 2 years already and was working full-time making "my own way" through the world, in hindsight I can see that I was still a very young, immature man in many of the ways that do matter. I had moved back in with my Dad and younger brother, recovering from some really bad decisions of a year earlier, and so I was included in the upcoming trip to see the King Tut exhibition in Toronto (we lived about 100 miles away in London at the time).
It was pretty exciting really, we were all looking forward to seeing this very unique and rare exhibition and even though it meant a 2 hour drive to The Big Smoke (this was in the day's of AM radio, we didn't have tape decks and FM radio meant classical music, and Dad and I didn't seee eye-to-eye so much back then, so the ride was going to be anything but fun, but I digress). As I had only had my learner's permit for a few short weeks, I didn't even think to ask if I could drive as I knew that my father would have said "no". But, much to my surprise and astonishment my father pulled over just before we got to the highway, threw the keys at me and said "you drive".
This is the regretful part and the action that so tells me today just how young I really was for I was too embarrased to tell my Dad that I probably shouldn't drive (I was really scared, I wasn't prepared to drive on the highway) and too honest (or stupid) to be able to come up with a good lie to cover my "no thanks". So I took those keys, I got behind that wheel and I drove to Toronto keenly aware of how wrong it was but truly unable to see a way out.
Well, as you can probably guess, things didn't work out all that well. After about half an hour or so of uneventful and fairly unstressful driving, I heard my Dad say to me/us "hey, look at that!" and so I did. Unfortunately for us all, so did a lot of other people on the 401, rubbernecking it is called and it is an incredibly dangerous thing to do. Within about 3 seconds of hearing those words and me looking over at a rolled-over semi-truck I turned my head back just in time to see that the full-sized cargo van ahead of me had all but stopped on the road; the ass-end of it was sitting right on top of what once was the hood of our Ford Fairmont but was now simply crushed metal.
The car was a write-off, my brother (who was not wearing a seatbelt) came flying in between the front bucket seats but managed to miss everything and came out unscathed; my Dad's knee very much engaged into the underside of the dashboard but, in the end, was only bruised and I was an emotional wreck but physically unharmed. Of course we didn't make it to King Tut, I stole that from all three of us. I felt terrible, I knew it was my fault that they would likely never see King Tut's stuff and both Rich and Dad were so very much looking forward to it. I wouldn't even attempt to drive again for many many months, not because I was scared to really but more as a way of a self-imposed atonement for my sins.
I never thought I'd be able to make amends but now, 30 years later, the (supposedly) very last tour of King Tut artifacts anywhere ended up in Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario (better known as the "AGO"). Fifteen of us went as a group today: my dad and my stepmother, my mother, my sister, four of my nieces, one of my brothers and his lovely wife, my lovely wife, my three children and I all made the trip today to see that exhibition. I arranged the group visit and paid for my Dad's and Rich's tickets. It was a very interesting exhibit, though probably not as interesting as I had hoped, but it was ultimately one of the most gratifying experiences of my life.
My Dad is 81 this year and while I hope and expect he still has many more to come, this was cutting things close!
Oh, and while I'm not superstitious and really don't believe in "luck", I did decide not to post about this until after our safe return just in case I might jinx it :-)