Was It Ever Thus?

A-tisket a-tasket

A green and yellow basket

I wrote a letter to my love

And on the way I dropped it

The trouble was you dropped it into a mail box and it disappeared from this earth into the netherlands of the post office sorting center.  Too bad, as this was a letter finalizing the elopement plans with your college sweetheart.  You were both graduating, she in political science, you in history; and even though both of you considered yourselves adults, your respective parents didn’t.  Her parents wanted her to take the LSAT’s so she could get into law school somewhere.  Your parents wanted you to come into the family business of steam cleaning rugs and draperies.  Neither of you could imagine anything worse than the paths your parents had set forth for you.

So you plotted and planned, and you promised her that letter with all the details within because, while you could use the pay phone to reach her, the only number you had for her was her home phone, where her mother hovered.

But it didn’t matter.  You had a backpack and a passport, she had a backpack and a passport.  The friendly skies awaited.  Both of you had agreed that the fun would be getting to the airport and taking the first plane out to wherever.  That letter with no return address contained the time and date for the pair of you to sneak away. 

The day for departure came.  It was a month after graduation, plenty of time to prepare, also plenty of time for your love to let you know if she had changed her mind about the elopement.  This you couldn’t imagine as it was true love and true love lasts forever. 

You arrived at the airport and were delighted to find that the first flight out left for Tokyo.  Wow.  No one would think of looking for you there.  Using your two credit cards, you bought two tickets, damn the expense, full speed ahead.  You just could’t wait to see her face when she arrived.

But she didn’t.  Arrive that is.

Desperate, you finally broke down and called her home phone.  Miraculously it was she who picked up.  “I’m waiting,” you told her.  “Where are you?”

“Where are you?”

“At the airport.  Two tickets to Tokyo.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I sent you a letter with all the details.”

“I never got it.”

“Well, get here now.  There’s still time.

“I can’t.  My parents have roped me into a road trip to Grandma’s.”

“But—this is our chance.  Ditch them and get here.” 

“I can’t.  It’s—it’s just too late.” 

“So I guess this is—“

“Goodbye.”

Well, this was a bummer.  No love by your side and most likely a ruined credit rating.  Still, you got on the plane and started your life anew.  You spent the next thirty years in the Far East, working in commerce, doing some dicey deals, as was the wont in some of those countries.  You put your old love aside and married an Australian, had two kids and a good life.  But she died and you were left at very loose ends.  When the announcement came of your college reunion, you decided it was safe to go home, now that your sister had inherited the family business.

Of the three hundred in your graduating class only two hundred some odd showed up.  Including the love of your college years.  She had become a lawyer, as her parents wanted, and was living in Los Angeles, practicing divorce law, which she used for her own divorce.  She looked good.  You couldn’t deny that.  And you knew you had kept in shape, also.  “I wish I had gotten that letter,” she said wistfully.

But she didn’t, and the path she didn’t take was the one you were on.  You wished her happiness and jetted back home.