Making Mistakes

So, like.....On Facebook one of my friends from high school posted a photo of his wife, nice looking, smiling happy young lady in her nineteen seventy nine wedding dress, and above the pic he said: "Happy 43rd anniversary Debra Ann!". Well, I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut. Sometimes, maybe I should, but not this time. I plunged in, typing a comment: "Hey buddy? Um....hate to be picky, but, um...well, I think this is your 44th anniversary, not 43rd". He shot back: "you're crazy". Daunted but undeterred, I gently demured back: "So, you think you got married in 1980, do ya?" He thought about it for a few hours, then typed back: "Well, Um..I aint really too sure...the more I think about it, seems like it was a lil further back, like, maybe in the late seventies".....Correctomendo, quipped I. The year was nineteen seventy nine. "That small red brick church downtown. Day was hotter'n hell."... Belatedly, he acceded, and we had a good ha ha lol. I think several dozen other people who had already left congratulatory messages also returned to the scene posted a few laughs, mostly emoticons depicating cartoon facial hilarity. Vauguly I wondered whether my classmate and/or his lovely bride had felt a wee bit embarrassed. Well, as they say, fuck it. who cares? If you can't even remember when you got maried, well, then..U gets what U deserves...I started playing tennis in the early seventies and found that I liked it, and could become good at it. By the mid seventies I was well on my way and enjoyed watching tennis on television. That was the golden era of McEnroe, Conners, and Borg, Borg being my fave of the three. The match was close, and exciting. Suddenly, in the midst of a long and important point, the ball going back and forth relentlessly, Borg, never at a loss for top spin, decided to end the rally once and for all. He wound up his backswing bigger than usual, and took a mighty swing at the ball, swiping the racket strings kinda sideways across and over the top of the yellow ball so as to induce his patented, and difficult to deal with, top spin. Only this time he didn't connect. He swung, but cut it way too close, and missed the ball entirely, which landed harmlessly on the court and stopped rolling at the fence behind the court. Love fifteen. I was agape, as I am sure so were most of the fans - in - attendance and members of the TV viewing audience. But not Borg. Utterly cool and unfazed, the famously stoic and taciturn champion merely went about his busines without so much as a smirk, grunt, or frown, and procedded on to the next point. What's done is done, no need for guilt or anger. Move on. As usual, he won the match. I learned something that day, and spent my ensuing tennis career trying to emulate his style, not without some degree of success. Just the other day on FAcebook I saw a post which pictured a young, maternal looking woman staring off into distance, as if searching her soul for ways to improve the world. The caption below said: "Stand up for our children!" Reading it too hastily, I somehow thought it said: "Stand up TO our children!"..Immediatly I reflexively responded: You Damn straight! To hell with this decline of discipline in the home and at school! Take their social media away, and ground 'em!" ( I was really fired up). I haven't been back to the post to see what fun, or ridicule, or scorn, people undoubtedly made of my misbegotten words. Goethe said that "Only by mistakes that really irk us do we advance" I might amend that to say: "Only by mistakes which really amuse us do we advance." Maybe I will go back to the post and take a look, but, I don't think I ever will.