Make the Right Call
Keith Tucker
BY KEITH TUCKER
Special to The Enterprise
When you’re on a roll, just go with the flow. How many times are you called upon to make life-and-death decisions? If you said never, then you’re wrong. When you get behind the wheel, it’s every day. But there are a lot of people who are tasked with keeping us alive. Doctors who do life-saving surgery every day. Then, there are the mega blunders where the wrong decision costs lives. Like the Challenger. There were dozens of people who were pressured into saying go when every bone in their body was saying no. But in the end, no one had the backbone to stand up and hold their ground. They would likely have lost their job over it. And no one would ever have known the disaster that did not happen. History is written by what did happen.
But how different could the world be from slightly different decisions made at crucial times. How do you think the night before D-Day Eisenhower felt? It was 100 percent his call. How do you think the ref who missed the call on the New Orleans’ game has felt? History has been altered by that one moment in time. How many of you question did I marry the right person; based on the divorce rates, about half. The night before the first atomic bomb test, how did Oppenheimer feel? There was one opinion that the atmosphere would catch fire and blow up the planet. How about global warming? Are future generations going look at us and say they really screwed up the world? The decision to have kids or to abort kids or adopt kids or give up kids for adoption. The list of options is endless. So, are there multiple universes out there where each of these different scenarios are played out? Based on some physics formulas, that is a possibility. But that’s not my opinion.
There is a standoff going on right now in Washington where puffed-up egos on both sides are costing many people to have difficulties. How many of you were just a second from death that was averted? I remember when I was about 12. I was off by myself plowing a field on a tractor. Now the footrest under the brake side had fallen off. So, when I hit the brake to make a turn at one end, my foot slipped off the brake and my foot went all the way toward the ground. I was holding onto the steering wheel for dear life. It just so happened my toe landed on a dirt clod that had fallen off the plow that was about 6 inches above the ground. It let me pull myself back up into the seat. I turned and looked behind and said thank God for that dirt clod. This story has never been told before. I sure wasn’t about to say anything to give anyone the idea that I couldn’t do the job. I loved driving too much. So, everyone just be safe and try to use good judgment and make the right call. After all, WWJD.
Editor’s note: Keith Tucker is a Greenfield resident and owner of The Marble Shop.
