Monday, May 1, 2023

The Difference Between Yes and No

 

Let’s set the scene—1966, a young and lonely


Army G.I., 18 years old at the time sits with his


buddies in a German gasthaus drinking beer.



A young woman walks in and sits at a table


alone. She turns the heads of every soldier in


the place.



One of them works up the courage to go over


and offer to buy her a drink. Reluctantly, she


accepts. After a lengthy and pleasant conversa-


tion, she consents to meet with him again.



Fast forward a year or so later, the same G.I. sits


alone at the N.C.O. Club at the Army base in that


same German town.



He recognizes another young and attractive woman


as one he went out with once around the time he had


gone out with the first woman.


At the time, she too accepted to go out with him.


But, things between the two did not work out,


and he never saw her again.



Eventually, he and the first woman were married. Funny


how things turn out, sometimes for the best, they say—one


woman says, yes; and another for reasoning unbeknownst


to him, turned him down.



Some 65-years year have passed since then. Ending in a


divorce after seventeen-years of marriage and two children


later, history for him and that first woman who years earlier


said, yes, had not been so kind.



The second woman who said, no, has become an enigma


to him. In his old age and alone now, why is the mystery


question which to this day occasionally occupies his mind?


One thing is for sure, he muses, passing time tells no lies.



                                              -30-


Chris Hanch 5-1-2023




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