As Luck Would Have It - September 10, 2007

There are rare occurrences - like my being called first out of 130 students in criminal law - that you have to brush off as an extraordinary, singular occurrence. The courageous must be on to the rest of their lives - lingering only compounds the problem.

Only one student in each section gets to experience the exhilaration of first when it comes to the selection of names from a list of hundreds. I enjoyed that experience, as is very well known to all who were enabled the chance to witness the plight.

To be the first student in other classes after you have seen it done is not nearly as horrifying, but scary all the same. My contracts professor - the bow tie - decided to split our class into five groups. Each group will be at his beckoning call to answer questions at an unspecified class. He read over the groups, and in a decided hurry, got down to business. My group was the last group, so I rested easier knowing that there would be another victim to whom the tormentings of the professor would be directed. Well, I was wrong. He decided that my group would go first.

Having made the announcement that the five of us should be ready, I sat up straight and hung on his every word, which is difficult because this is contracts. As we got underway, he slowly paced across the room. From one end to another he strutted, speaking of reliance, expectancy and restitution. As he stepped to his podium to peruse his list of victims - namely the persons in my group - my blood rushed to my feet, leaving my brain numb. What else was I to expect? The chances of being his first pick in the class were low. No student with any ounce of luck on their side can fall victim to the same trap twice.

The luck I have is, apparently, not that of a student. No, it is the luck equal to that jokingly thrown around my family for decades. My family name strikes again. In that split-second, anecdotes my family relayed to each other of being in a crowd of 1000 and becoming the only person caught and arrested swirled through my bloodless head.

This was a decisive moment in my life. I would never have the opportunity to be the first to do anything in my life again. I would never again, nonetheless, be the first to be first twice.

My name was called.