Are we there yet?

November 28 - December 4, 2016

In sync

By Jay Edwards

“I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility that there is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care to know. Who can say what it is that’s going on? But I suspect that part of it, anyway, is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: “You’ve turned up in the right place at the right time. You’re doing fine. Don’t ever think that you’ve been forgotten.” ~ Frederick Buechner

I saw my former ace reporter Becca Bona recently. She now works at CenterRock Advertising where she is the digital content specialist. It was good catching up with her.

One of what KM often refers to as a goocher, came out of that little reunion with Becca. When I looked up meanings of the word goocher, they were not what I expected. Most of them referred to the movie “Stand By Me,” when Vern called the coin flip a “goocher.” He meant when you get all tails when flipping coins (all heads is a “moon”). They went on to say that it is supposed to be extraordinary bad luck to get a goocher.

But that’s not how KM means it. Hers I like better. An example of one of those came to us the beginning of the summer when she told me it came to her that we should study St. John’s Gospel the next few months. Then later that day I got behind a car whose license plate read, “St. John.” I called KM immediately to tell her and she yelled, “GOOCHER!”

Yes, her goochers are better – the “whisper from the wing’s.”

So over a few beers, Becca told me about her favorite book by her favorite author, “The Sun Also Rises,” by Hemingway. Then she asked me what she should read first by Flannery O’Connor, who she knew was one of my favorites.

I told her I probably enjoyed, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” more than most short stories.  

It’s about an escaped killer who calls himself The Misfit, and the fate of the family that had a car accident in Florida; the wrong place at the wrong time.

After a great time with Becca, I bid her goodbye, wishing her Happy Thanksgiving. She told me she was headed to Navarre Beach with her family, in Florida, the stomping ground of the fictional Misfit.

But that isn’t the goocher, it came a few days later when I was thinking about Becca’s favorite last line. I began wondering what some others were and Googled “famous last sentences.” One of my choices on the first page of links was “Famous Last Words: Our 20 Favorite Final Lines in Literature ...”

So I clicked that one and was taken to flavorwire.com, where the number one favorite last line was this –

 “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

From, “The Sun Also Rises,” - Ernest Hemingway

Wow, I thought. Number 1!  Way to go Becca!

But no, that’s still not the goocher.

I looked to the second favorite last line and read –

“Shut up, Bobby Lee,” The Misfit said. “It’s no real pleasure in life.”

 - “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” Flannery O’Connor (From The Complete Stories)

GOOCHER!

Flavorwire’s description was  - “Most delicate ending to a delicate, harrowing story about the different kinds of humanity and grace.”

They said of Becca’s favorite, “Best pessimistic diagnosis of a resigned and wistful generation.”

What does it all mean? Much more than we know I think. Synchronicity is alive and well in the Rock.

Jay Edwards is editor-in-chief of the Daily Record. Contact him at jedwards@dailydata.com.