Indelibly yours

My friend Marvin West has a way with words.

I'm just a pretender, but Marvin is the real deal. His incredible journey led from Powell to UT to the News Sentinel to Washington to retirement in Maynardville. But that's another story for another day.

Marvin has a good line, though. He says that life is indelible. It is what it is and was what it was, yesterday, today and maybe tomorrow. Only in the movies, he says, can you go back and change it.

I don't have a lot of regrets. Oh, one or two. Wish I'd kept playing baseball. Maybe wish I'd opened my mouth a time or two when I didn't.

Course, there are a few times I should have closed my trap instead of yapping, so I guess it evens out. But, all in all, life is what you make of it.

There are moments I wish I could have back. I never have tried to read "The Lords of Discipline" by Pat Conroy again because I know it won't be as good as the first time.

I'll never forget this one image, when the woman the main character loves sends back to him the sea shells they had been collecting during their courtship. The shells were all broken inside the box. If that didn't actually happen, Conroy has one hell of a morbid imagination.

I sometimes wish I could go back and do one last show in front of all my high school friends. I miss that. I don't miss anything else, save some of the people. But I do miss that.

I'd like to go back to the first time I ever really fell in love. There was an innocence to it, a childlike wonder about it all, that time and experience born from heartache tend to remove.

A few football games come to mind. Beating Florida 45-3 in 1990. That magical Miami win in '86.

And baseball, of course. Sid's slide. Beating the Indians in '95. Just being at the ballpark on any beautiful spring afternoon.

There is one woman to whom I wish I'd never given the time of day. But we won't get into that. Just makes you appreciate all the good ones that much more.

All in all, it's been a good ride. I'd change a few things, sure. But, then again, the choices I've made have made me who I am.

Besides, I couldn't do that even if I wanted to. Right, Marvin?