Topic: Luck

     When I was in first grade at Goodman Elementary school in Cincinnati, Ohio we had a magician come to our school.  I don't recall why we had a school-wide magic show, only that the year was 1971, and it was a typical school day.  At the conclusion of the big show each of us got a pencil with stars on it that the magician told us was a magic pencil and that the pencil would bring us good luck. 
And even though it was a standard number two pencil with no apparent magical or lucky characteristics, I believed him. 
     As I walked the half mile or so home to our apartment I dreamed of what having good luck would mean.  I had a crush on one of the boys in my class.  Perhaps, with my lucky pencil I would write him a note, and he would start liking me back!  I wanted a new bike for Christmas.  I had my eye on one I had seen at Sears a week before.  It was purple with a glittery banana seat.  Maybe when I wrote it on my Christmas wish list with my lucky pencil it would be mine.  I knew it would take luck or magic, because my mom had told me it was way too expensive. 
     As I neared the apartment I reached for my pencil.  I wanted to have it ready so I could show my mom.  It wasn't there.  I scoured my book bag and even turned it upside down but the lucky pencil was gone.  I saw a small hole in the bottom corner of the bag where it could have fallen out.  Tears welled up as I turned back and retraced my steps all the way back to the school and back home again.  By the time I had done that I was seriously late-and I still hadn't found my lucky pencil.  My mom was pissed.  I told her she shouldn't be mad because I had a good reason for being late. I just knew that once I explained about the lucky pencil she would understand. She didn't. 
     "I don't believe in luck, " she told me.  When I told her about the boy, she said luck and magic didn't enter into it.  "If he doesn't like you, it's his loss.  He's the unlucky one," she added.  She reiterated that they still couldn't afford the bike, and that if I really wanted it I should save up my money and buy it myself.  Then she told me to dry my eyes, wash my face, change my clothes, and do my homework. 
     My mom meant it when she said that she didn't believe in luck.  She did believe in hard work and determination. I knew my parents' money was tight.  My dad worked as a college professor and she had three children under the age of ten.  To make extra money she put an ad in the paper and sold handmade Barbie doll clothes.  I remember her charging $5.00 for a Barbie wedding dress-that seemed like a lot of dough at the time.  She wasn't waiting for luck or fortune to smile upon her. 
     When I was in second grade, 1972, mom got her driver's license and decided to go to law school at night.  None of my friend's moms went to law school.  I don't have many memories of my mom sleeping back then.  When I awoke for school she was up and dressed and getting ready to head to her part time job at a legal publishing company.  If I woke up in the middle of the night after a bad dream I'd find her in the dining room poring over law books and legal pads covering the entire surface of the table.
     Luck didn't enter into it when she graduated four years later, passed the bar exam on the first try, and soon was running that legal publishing company.  I don't think she ever bought a lottery ticket.  And if she threw some cash into a Superbowl pool, bet on the horse with coolest name at the racetrack, or bought a raffle ticket at the P.T.A. meeting, she never put up more than she could afford to lose. 
     After losing the lucky pencil I tried to adopt my mom's attitude.  She taught me that the only thing we can truly control in this life is ourselves.  Good stuff happened and horrible heartbreaking stuff happened, and it all seemed and still seems so arbitrary and capricious.  But what I did with my time and my energy and talents--that was up to me.  About a year after losing that pencil I bought that  purple bike from Sears and my parents sent me to a new school, the Catholic school that at that time served grades 2-8.  And it was there that I had my first requited schoolgirl crush.  Lucky me.