As an epidemiologist I'm supposed to know about rates, risks, probabilities, all the mathematical methods and statistical tricks we use to work out how likely people are to get cancer or heart disease - or as it was with us, how likely it was that we would meet, be attracted to each other, get together, stay together, and make it work as well as we seem to have done for so many years.
For many years we kept a low profile when the conversation turned to how various couples we know had first met. The way we met wasn't something to be ashamed about, or so embarrassingly flakey as as to be something unmentionable, or we were diffident to talk about; but it was really flukey, so much a matter of chance we wanted to keep it private, hold on to our secret. We began to mention it quietly to close friends when we'd been married about 35 years and began to think it might last. Then I went public, sent the story to Shelagh Rogers, host of a CBC classical music radio program, and she read it on air on our fortieth wedding anniversary, played the piece of music I had requested -and awarded me a prize for the best story.
The facts are simple enough: Janet Wendelken and her friend Louise Zuhrer were exploring Australia as hitch-hikers. On Sunday August 7, 1955, they were heading out of Adelaide on their way to Mount Gambier in the South-East of the state. I was off duty in the medical practice where I was the junior doctor and was on my way to play golf. We met because I was the driver who stopped to pick up that particular pair of hitchhikers. Picking up hitchhikers wasn't in itself unusual or flakey in those days. The custom was induced, made customary, by wartime shortages when everybody helped everybody else; and it lingered on for several years after the war was over so it was commonplace to offer people lifts. Two flukes made it possible for this particular hitch-hike to happen.The first fluke was that they were on the wrong road for their intended destination, couldn't possibly get where they wanted to go, on that road. The second fluke was that i was on that road at all, let alone on it at the same time as they were. I was between half an hour and one hour late for my golf game that Sunday morning, because I'd stopped at a hospital where I had delivered a baby in the small hours of that morning. Everything had gone OK at the delivery but the mother had bled a bit more than usual and the baby's crying hadn't sounded quite right; so being conscientious, I had stopped in to look them both over a few hours later. So I was late. I was also a few miles off my usual way to the golf course, which was down the Anzac Highway to Glenelg then along Brighton road all the way to the turnoff to the Marino Golf Club. That day I had to head west on Cross Road, turn left at the main South Road, then later planned to cut across to Marino just south of Seacliff. For them to get where they intended to go, the corner where I intended to turn west was the last place I could drop them so they could head in the other direction, towards the road they had to be on to reach the South-East. But a few minutes conversation with the curly-headed girl who had such a lovely smile attracted me to her as I'd never felt attracted to anyone before. So instead of dropping them at the corner where we would be heading in opposite directions and out of each other's lives forever, I suggested that they abandon their plan to head for Mount Gambier that day, and let me show them the dairy farming, grape growing country south of Adelaide, take them on to the south coast, bring them back to Adelaide, then next day they could set off on the right road to the south-east.
That's what we did on that early spring day in August 1955, and what I've thought about often ever since is how much chance entered into it: the odds against meeting a lifetime partner this way must be vanishingly small. We were unbelievably lucky! Over the next 10-15 years, luck more than chance favored us - but I'll talk about that some other time.
No comments:
Post a Comment