Because of That Moment

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

My eyes had not adjusted to the darkness after leaving the bright sunshine on the other side of the door. “Skretch, skretch, skretch” was the sound that filled my ears as I tentatively negotiated the nauseatingly sticky floor of the dim bar that reeked of stale beer and cigarettes. Even with my senses overwhelmed, I could not help wonder what I was doing with my life. I had just missed my appointment due to getting lost on my way to this strange town. I certainly felt lost in deeper ways than a good road map could ever help.

Once my eyes adjusted, they took in the scene of the cavernous bar. They fell first onto the cumbersomely tall bartender. He stood hunched over at the shoulders like some apothecary giant tending to his brews and elixirs. It looked as if his height was too much for him to bear. He lingered near his only customer, a pint-sized white haired man who nursed brown liquor on the rocks and a cigarette. This lone patron’s face, ringed by smoke, appeared weathered by both excessive sun and alcohol. Somehow, in spite of his haggard, worn-out appearance he seemed cheerful, almost jolly. He had a ruddy glow which, along with his diminutive size, gave him the appearance of a Leprechaun. I guessed that his roots grew deep in the soil of Ireland.

The “skretch, skretch, skretch” of my shoes gave my unexpected presence away. I approached the bar and sat down leaving a few stools between the elfish old man and me. I rested my arms on the wooden bar that, thanks to layers of congealed beer and nicotine, felt as tacky as the floor. No bar rag wiping would ever cut through the years of residue. My hunger forced me to overlook the questionable cleanliness of the establishment so I ordered a sandwich and a beer from the bartender. 

The barkeep’s curly grey hair and slow lumbering movements made him seem older than he really was. I noticed he had a bit of a limp as he moved behind the extensive bar filling drink orders for the waitresses serving patrons in the attached dining room. He looked at me in that way that most older men did at that time. He had lust in his eyes.

In my early twenties older men were attracted to me while mysteriously, men my own age ran far and fast at first sight of me. With his goofy smile and inquisitiveness, this bartender did his best to flirt as he requested my ID so he could know my name. I sensed he would have served me whether I was of legal age or not. He seemed sweet, but I was not interested.

Because older men liked me, I was not surprised when the patron turned to me and started a conversation. His loud voice was laced with a Boston accent, or maybe it was more New York. Whatever the accent, he had lived in this small Western Pennsylvania town far too long for it to be distinct. No matter, his voice was piercing and echoed through the spacious room. His words resonated much like those of a professional orator who never figured out how to speak in the hushed tones of a private conversation and overfilled the empty space between us.

I cringed a bit when he asked the stereotypical question, “What brings ya to town?” Reluctantly, I shared that I was visiting the local university. Having opened the door for a conversation, he followed-up with the painfully obvious, “What’s your major?” Only, his “major” sound more like “majah.” I hesitated in answering not because I was shy but because the answer to this question was layered in years of indecision and transformation.

Prior to this day my life path, in regards to my education and career, was defined by a series of unplanned and slightly ridiculous experiences. The series of events that led me to that bar on a sunny Summer afternoon stripped away and then rebuilt my self-esteem. There was a time when I never would have expected to find myself in a college town with dreams of my future. My evolution from a discouraged child to a dreaming adult sure made my life interesting. I couldn’t help but reflect on who I had been once upon a time.

Many years before, I sat in the pew of the ornate church of my middle school wearing my rumpled, plaid and navy blue uniform with my uneven shag haircut accentuating my too big teeth and gawky prepubescent body. As usual, I felt defeated.  Four times a year our entire school gathered for an awards ceremony. Each time, I watched as student after student marched up the marble aisles in the glow of the enormous stained-glass windows to accept colorful ribbons for earning A’s and B’s. White honorable mention ribbons were given to average performing students. Predictably, when the last recipient marched to the front of the church, I fought back the tears as I looked at my empty hands forced to accept my below average status.

As I stared blurry eyed into those empty hands, I flashed back on how all my efforts to be a star student-athlete consistently ended in failure. I recalled sitting amongst thirty other students in our wooden desks raising and waving my hand excited to answer questions only to be overlooked as the teachers preferred to call on the boys. My mind wandered to remember how I joined all the sports teams only to find myself on the bench as the popular girls were coached into being stellar players. I saw all the art projects I diligently completed hoping to find them hanging in the drab green halls of the school building with an award ribbon tacked on at the annual art show only to be disappointed year after year.

Wearing a slightly different version of that ubiquitous navy blue uniform my new high school required, I gazed at the sign-up sheets for the basketball team tempted to tryout. Then I remembered that I was not good enough. Planning my schedule, I scanned all my options for coursework wondering what it would be like to take Latin or calculus then remembering that I was not smart enough. Instead, I found a way to obtain the most mediocre education my high school would permit. I convinced the principle to allow me to create my own major, sewing. 

The sewing lab became my refuge. Instead of pursuing the academic portfolio that would put me on the trajectory toward Ivy League universities, like my classmates, I spent four years stitching together poor quality garments and smoking in the bathroom with my friends. As it turned out, I was not very good at sewing either, but smoking became a passion.

After four years, I jumped the wall, literally, of that school with a C-average and entered the exciting world of retail. I spent a few years wearing name tags trying to find joy in my work. Then, one day I arrived on the sales floor and came face to face with an irate penny-pinching old lady waving her used underwear in the air demanding a refund because “the elastic wore-out.” Absurdly, store policy required that she receive the cash she sought. In that moment, I knew I needed to make a change. I tossed those stained and stretched out granny panties in the trash and resigned.

Even though my uninspired fashion choices had been shaped by the eclectic mix of the Buttericks patterns my mother lovingly sewed, the Catholic school girl look, and 1970’s Garanimals outfits, my fleeting time in the retail fashion industry gave me the notion that I could evolve from behind the sales desk as a clerk to behind the scenes as a fashion merchandiser. 

Conveniently forgetting my complete lack of artistic sensibilities and my lousy seamstress skills, I enrolled in a small fashion institute. Sitting among artsy types who understood how to design an extravagantly creative project that required incorporating ten different shades of white-who knew white came in so many colors-I immediately questioned my decision. Compared to fellow students’ ensembles which were resplendent in miniskirts and tights with off the shoulder sweaters, my bland fashion choices of pleated jeans and hand-me-down Beach Boys t-shirts amplified the fact that I did not belong. I was immensely grateful when I was called on by a former boss to manage a new trendy restaurant.

Sitting in this beautiful, modern restaurant fumbling with a power I was inept to wield, I seriously questioned my choice. My job required me to lead professionals who understood how a restaurant ran. It became abundantly clear to everyone that I knew nothing about the restaurant business. In an attempt to mask my ineptitude, I befriended those I was meant to lead and spent more time partying than I did learning and leading. 

As expected, my stint as a too young and too inexperienced manager ended in a horrible mess. With my new found freedom and my small severance pay, I followed my dream. I moved to California.

Broken and broke, I hitched a precariously large U-Haul trailer to my ice blue Honda Accord and set out on the three-thousand mile journey with my best friend keeping me company. Quickly realizing that I did not know how to back a trailer out of the driveway, I relinquished the wheel to my sobbing mother who reluctantly set me free. Too poor to afford hotel rooms, we drove for two days and nights stopping for gas and food only if we could pull straight out, no reversing.

Determined to continue on my forward moving journey, I arrived in my new West Coast home filled with fear and hope. However, my hope started to wane as I realized that there was no one to welcome me to the decrepit Victorian on the cliff overlooking the Monterey Bay that I would call home for three years. 

In fact, it seemed that California’s welcome wagon was broken. It took a natural disaster rocking the region before anyone would even consider hiring me. Ironically, the tragedy caused by the "World Series Earthquake" was the catalyst for things finally taking a turn, but I had lots of hard work ahead of me to truly change my life path.

Since work was scarce, I took advantage of the practically free California college tuition. Beneath sunny skies framed by palm trees, I mingled with young adults at the local community college. They, like me, were searching for direction and purpose. Finally, I found a place that I felt I could flourish.

Before I knew it, I was signing up for courses that I wouldn’t dare to as a high school student. I took tennis lessons. I swung my racket at bright green fuzzy balls that inevitably bounced off the net or sailed over the fence. For once, I did not worry about my athletic prowess. I took Italian and stumbled along with all the others trying to conjugate verbs in unison slaughtering that beautiful language. 

Then something unexpected happened, I discovered there, in those classrooms, that I was not the “below average student” I always believed. My professors began to compliment me on my abilities. I shined. I earned A’s. I never saw an A on a report card before in my entire life. Was I actually smart? Why didn’t they pass out satin award ribbons in college?

My successes in California went beyond the classroom, and, overtime, my self-esteem blossomed. I overcame all my previous failures. The time came for me to challenge myself to create a happy and fulfilling future. Pursuit of that dream propelled me to that stinky, sticky bar where I spoke to a man who reminded me of a drunken Leprechaun. I felt equipped to reveal to that curious, booze sodden, orator what I wanted to be when I grew-up. This became a crucial moment in my precarious journey.

So, I told this man with the bright blue, red rimmed eyes that sparkled with mischief and a little bit of lewdness my future plans. I pronounced with much pride and hope, “I am majoring in education of the hearing impaired!” He looked at me as the sparkle dulled in his eyes and he exclaimed, “What the hell do ya wanna major in that for!” Only his “major” sounded like “majah.” But even his endearing accent couldn’t stop my stomach dropping and my heart sinking as his words unfolded in my mind.

After years of struggling with what I would do with my life, I had finally decided on my future. I set the wheels in motion. I had given up everything and chose to relocate once again and attend the university in this strange town. Now, the first local I meet, tells me I have made a horrible mistake. What was happening to me?

In the silence that fell between us, I stared at him with questioning eyes disbelieving his words. Fortunately, he followed up with helpful advice. Slurring slightly he revealed, “I’ve been at this for a long time. You can’t get a job with that majah. You need to study speech pathology.” He promised that this “hot field” needed more competent professionals. He suggested that if I took his sage advice, I would be “guaranteed” a job. Then he took another swallow of his brown liquor after the bartender topped it off.

I looked at that Leprechaun of a man and in that moment, I went from feeling lost to hopeful. In that moment I decided to do exactly as he said. I knew nothing about this man except that he drank brown liquor and smoked cigarettes in deserted bars in the middle of a work day. That’s it. I didn’t know his credentials. He could have just been some weirdo who liked to mess with people’s hopes and dreams. Nevertheless, in that moment, I changed my “majah.”

“Skretch, skretch, skretch,” I made my way to the exit and I walked out into the bright sunshine and fresh air. Back on campus, I walked to the registrar’s office and signed up for two classes that would introduce me to my new career. Before I knew it, my ice blue Honda had a new U-Haul attached to the back which once again, my mom backed out into the street so I could embark on this new adventure.

I unloaded my few belongings and my dog Sinbad into a tiny house in a residential neighborhood off-campus. I walked to that same tavern and filled-out an application on the sticky bar where I met the elfish man who changed my life. It turned out that the painfully tall bartender did have a crush on me and I was hired on the spot. 

My new routine of riding the bus to school and walking to work became comfortable. After my first introductory courses, I learned what a speech-language pathologist was and did. Ignited with excitement and anticipation for this career and my future, I plunged into my studies.

As I increased my courses and became a full-time student, my life started changing in other unimaginable ways. I found myself on the Dean’s list every semester. I became a provost’s scholar. I learned what provost was and why she had scholars. My neighbor became my boyfriend and then my husband.

One day I was waiting tables at a new job at an upscale restaurant when I heard a piercing, slightly drunk voice that I recognized. It was my Leprechaun. He sat a table with a lovely co-ed who looked a bit like me. He sipped brown liquor on the rocks and smoked a cigarette as he regaled his companion with some elaborate story. He laughed easily and was unaware of the audience he had drawn. Thanks to his resonant voice, the other guests were listening to his tale whether they wanted to or not. I approached his table and it was clear he had no recognition of our first meeting nearly a year prior.

It turned out he was a regular customer at this establishment who I waited on often. Eventually, he learned my name which, when I found myself sitting in an auditorium with 300 other students, I was not pleased. He was the professor teaching that course. I was mortified when he called on me regularly to answer questions I was ill prepared to respond too. With his New York, or was it Boston, accent he called through the cavernous space in his orators voice, “Redhead! Where is that Redhead girl? Yeah you Redhead!  What do you think about blah, blah, blah?”  He loved to pick on me. I forgave him. If it weren’t for him and that brief conversation in a dark and stinky bar, I would not have my current life.

Because of that moment, the career I embarked on upon graduating with my master’s degree has brought me more joy and opportunity than I ever would have dared to imagine as that discouraged high school graduate. Because of that moment, my husband and I were able to adopt our two beautiful girls. Because of that moment, I have found joy in counseling and teaching countless families. Because of that moment, I became a public speaker and a published author. Because of that moment, I have taught college courses at my Alma Mater. Because of that moment, I have met amazing people.

They say that Leprechauns bring luck. Who knew that my pot of gold would have been delivered by a slightly lecherous, intoxicated professor who just happened to be present on the day I made one of the most important decisions of my life. Though I started my journey in what is now my hometown feeling lost, I remain here firmly grounded with my family, my career, and the knowledge that anything is possible. Just open your heart and mind to all of your opportunities and dare to recognize your true potential.