"Sounds like it might be a good thing, Kevin.  Sounds like a good opportunity."

Well, I hope so.  Don't know if I've ever run across a bad opportunity.  Trouble maybe, but a bad opportunity?  Isn't that an oxymoron? 

Opor - two - nidy.  What a stupid word.  I hate important words that are stupid.  Why can't opportunity be called fried chicken or something?  Cream gravy maybe, or how about Selma Hayek?  Now, if Selma was fixin’ to come up to my front door holding a plate of fried chicken smothered with cream gravy, that may just about cover everything.  But that’s another blog.

Opportunity, says Webster, is a, "favorable juncture of circumstances."  In my Oxford book of quotations, there are seven famous lines about opportunity.  Seven – that’s it!  There are twenty-seven regarding failure.  Seems it's been easier for the great thinkers to ponder about messing up as opposed to giving us direction on the good stuff.  There are even forty-eight lines about doors.  You know, doors, the partition behind which opportunity lurks and knocks?  Or does it knock?  Here's what it does for me.  Here's what I get.

A few years back I’m sitting in my living room and hear these annoying scratches on the back door.  Seven, maybe eight scratches, then a pause, then seven or eight more.  "Go in your doghouse!"  I yell.

We had this dog and though we loved him, if you saw him for the first time you would immediately wonder, “What happened to him, anyway?”  A cute, fluffy puppy grew into a nice but scrawny looking dog.  All the dogs I knew when I grew up were playful, then plump, and then fat.  My dog hid behind wind, he was so scrawny.  Wasn’t sick or anything, he just looked like a dog you'd find in an alley or something.  You wouldn't know him from the rats, either. 

On that particular night, I thought he went in the doghouse after I yelled, and shortly after, I went to bed.  About an hour later I realized he was still scratching on the back door, and from there it went something like this:

I get up, flick the light on, and see him do two things.  He wags his tail, happy to see someone, and then he gets up on his hind legs and paws at his snout.  Pointed at it, I tell you.  I'm thinking he's possessed.  Really.  Well sir, I do what any man would do.  A moment later, the missus is rubbing the sleep from her eyes, saying with no small amount of confusion, "He's doing what?"

"He's possessed, I tell you.  Come and see."

We go outside; he wags and then does the snout thing.  I'm hunting out a rock, intent on being humane and putting him out of his misery.  While I’m doing that, she looks him over.  Turns out he has a small part of a chop bone caught in the roof of his mouth.  My wife - I mean our team, supervised by me - reaches in his mouth, flips it out and we settle down to sleep.  The moral here?

I think his scratching is the sound opportunity makes.  I don’t think there's a big booming pound on the door.  I think it's an annoying scratch that, sized up against the rest of the day, seems worth ignoring.  It doesn't come wrapped with a pretty bow on top, and more times than we care to admit, I'd bet it gets caught in our throat.  If we try to listen for an exact sound, an expected sound, we end up shushing that annoying noise to listen and…you get the point. 

This thing I spoke of at the beginning?  I’m thinking it’s too much noise to be anything special.  Then again, God knows – because He’s God – that along with my aging eyes, the ears are going too.  Maybe He’s just speaking up.  Or maybe He’s clearing His throat to get my attention.  But that’s another blog.

I’d listen to those small sounds if I were you.  Me?   I listen for that scratching all the time.  Religiously, if you’ll pardon the pun.  At worst, it will be another opportunity that doesn’t pan out.  At best, I'll know not to kill our current dogs.

Heeeeeere we go...

When you were a kid, if organized sports meant going odds and evens, ‘toss the bat’, or rocks, paper, scissors, to see who picked first…you might be pushing 50.

When your best conversations with your wife include this phrase, “…now, I know what you’re going to say,” and then you fill in what she was going to say (meaning she’s not actually said a word) and you walk away satisfied she gets your meaning…you might be pushing 50.

If you ever bought a brand new car for under $10,000, paid less than 30 cents for a gallon of gas, or snagged a HUGE raise that took you from minimum wage all the way up to $2 an hour…you might be pushing 50.

When you were a kid, if air conditioning in your house consisted of a box fan in a downstairs window, your bedroom door open three centimeters, only ONE window in the entire house open (and only open two centimeters), all designed to create the elusive if not downright mythical Draft….you are pushing 50. 

If you saw a hockey game featuring players with no helmets, baseball with no designated hitter, basketball when the players wore shorts that would get them arrested these days, and football when ‘da Raiders’ were good…you might be pushing 50.

If the only helmet you wore while riding your bike was an NFL helmet (Real life bobble-head doll, yes?  Get the visual…wait for it, wait for it…), you might be pushing 50.

If you can change the oil or gap a set of points and plugs faster than you can text, “I’ll be home at 6:30”…you might be pushing 50.

If you know what ‘gap a set of points’ means….you might be pushing 50.

Fellows, if you walk into the bathroom at work, take care of business at the urinal and walk out of the bathroom with your reading glasses on the whole time…you might be pushing 50.

You were once described similarly to Paul Newman’s Cool Hand Luke: “I seen him eat ten choc'lat bars and sev’n cold drinks in fifteen minutes. He kin eat busted bottles and rusty nails, any damn thing.” But do you now usually say: “Well, I shouldn’t eat this, but maybe just a little…?”  You just might be pushing 50.

When your young adult children tell you what their plans are (“Hey Dad, I’m thinking me and my friends are going to invade one of them ‘istan countries that used to be the USSR.”), and you respond with a smile and, “That’s great, be careful”…you might be fixin’ to turn 50.

Your Dad’s jokes/puns that were painful at worst, made you shake your head at best, and were relatively embarrassing regardless?  If they are now your jokes/puns…you might be pushing 50.

A Father’s Day story seems appropriate; I have a good one.  At least now it’s a good one.  In 1970?  That was another matter.

It’s the Saturday before Father’s Day and I’m a twelve-year-old on the hunt for a card.  My father proudly occupied his throne as king of one-liners, puns, and assorted comebacks that were sometimes better left unsaid in mixed company.  I'm looking for a card a fella like that can appreciate; I stumble across perfection.  The front says," What's the difference between Father's Day and Mother's Day?"  I open it and it says so many months.  Perfect.  Add a rim shot, and the package is complete.

Now it's Father's Day.  He’s slugging through the gifts and cards and as he gets to mine, I’m walking back into the living room from the kitchen.  I remember giggling in anticipation!  I hear him announce, "Okay, here's the last one."  I go over the card in my mind as I hear the envelope being torn open.

(What's the difference between Father's Day and Mother's Day?  Nine months.)

Nine months?  Wait a minute, Mother's Day is in May, Father's Day is here in June . . . that’s only one month . . . so . . .

Oh, no!

I freeze in the hallway.  Even with only a basic understanding of the birds and bees, the thrust of the pun is only trumped by the magnitude of what I’d done.  We didn’t discuss toilet paper in my house, let alone sex and the question of…um…duties. 

As my Dad reads the front of the card to everyone, I strongly consider running in the living room, snatching it out of his hands and continue out the front door, never to return.  I hear him read the nine months part, and there is perfect silence.  A couple of throats clear and the subject is quickly changed.

Think of a guy standing on stage; he tells an awful joke with horrible timing, smiles and nods when the place erupts in laughter, all the while not realizing he's turned to face the audience with his fly open and his shirt sticking out of it.  I uncovered my place in his family tree that Father's Day. 

You miss different things about your parents once they’re gone and you remember odd things.  He and I never spoke of this card, ever, but I guarantee his buddies heard about it.  It may be the first thing I ask him about when we next meet, only I suspect God Almighty will be standing next to him, laughing, keeping the both of them unable to answer me.