Why Not?

If our family had a coat of arms, the motto would be: “Why Not?” That seems to have been the way we went through life.

Most people seem to approach situations asking, “Why (should we do this)?” Ours tended to be, “Why not (do this)?”

So I was a teenager in high school and wanted to work in the news department of the largest radio station in the area. No experience. I don’t think I’d ever been inside a radio station before, but I wanted to do this. “Why not?” was what I heard from my parents. Thus did it all start at WICC.

My brother (8) and I (4) were going to Vermont on the train, with our parents to follow by car a day or two later. Why not? We were certainly old enough to travel alone and I still remember the trip. “Put them off in Brattleboro,” I remember one of my parents saying, and so the conductor did.

I’ve already told you about being on the beach in the eye of a hurricane. It wasn’t my idea; our parents thought it would be a good idea, so why not? We knew enough when to get back home and all the wusses were still inside, so we had the beach to ourselves.

Go out into this huge gut (a type of swamp) and hunt fiddler crabs for bait? Climb trees to string radio antennas? Why not?