My Wish On Yoko Ono's Tree

Three of us entered the restaurant and started walking down a long hallway to reach the hostess stand.  The hallway was decorated with black-and-white historic sports photographs.

There was a woman in the hallway pointing to a photograph and asking a busboy to identify the person in the photo.  The busboy had no idea; he spotted me and told her: "The man in the beard will tell you who this is."

The woman turned to me in anticipation.  

I looked at the photo and told her: "This is Lou Gehrig, who was born in 1903 and lived at 307 East 94th Street.  My father was born in 1903 and lived at 329 East 94th Street.  My father and Lou Gehrig were boyhood friends.  At that time, New York City allowed students to choose their high school, and my father and Lou Gehrig both chose the same high school.

Lou Gehrig joined the high school baseball team and my father became the manager of the team.  Their friendship continued beyond high school; Lou Gehrig would send the Schneider family a Christmas card every year, even when he was playing exhibition baseball in Japan.

                          (This photo shows my father standing in the back row, 1st on the left.
                                                     Lou Gehrig is sitting, 3rd from right)
                                    
The woman in the restaurant hallway was fascinated by everything that I told her.  She told me that she walks in the yearly ALS fundraiser because she has a friend with ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's disease).

It was four years since I had set foot in that restaurant.  I certainly did not know that busboy.  There were three of us walking down the hallway; what would explain how the busboy picked out the person whose father was Lou Gehrig's childhood friend?

My high school classmate, Liz Bogen, had an explanation.  Liz Bogen once said “Doug Schneider leads a charmed life”.

I spent many years not believing what my classmate said.  I viewed my life as simply a life that just happens, not as a charmed life.

I am now in the last month of my 69th year --- it is a time to look back.

Looking back on: Growing up in a town with salt water on three sides.  Attending an Ivy League college.   Getting to teach in the most interesting school in the most interesting city in West Africa.  Being sent by the US Army, not to Vietnam, but to the West Coast, where I had never been before.  Living in Europe.  Getting into Information Technology just as it started to become a driving force in American society.  Following my heart and finding love and settling in Missouri in a house with a white picket fence and two dogs in the yard.   

Now, as I am about to begin my 70th year, I am ready to admit that my classmate Liz Bogen might have been right.  Ready to admit that there was something cosmic about a busboy singling me out to answer someone’s question about a black-and-white photograph hanging in a restaurant hallway.

Last summer I went to the St. Louis Art Museum, and headed straight for Yoko Ono's wish tree.  I wrote my wish on a tag and tied it on a branch.  Yoko took all the St. Louis wishes to Iceland, where they are now interred at the Imagine Peace Tower.

The tag that I hung on the wish tree said: "Wishing to continue a charmed life".

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Here is a 6-minute video filmed at the London Palladium.  Neil Hannon, the lead singer of The Divine Comedy, sings a tender song about his wish that his daughter will lead a charmed life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csef7e_2SUA

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com