“There are no second acts in American lives.”---F. Scott Fitzgerald
“I call bullshit on that.”---Daniel Levine, reincarnatee
Here we are on the cusp of the new year and me with nothing to wear. But maybe that’s how it should be…starting off the annum with none of your accumulated assets, just one of those black boxes with yellow and green numbers and letters, like you got in first grade. That would be energizing, to say the least, and you wouldn’t be bored. Everyone would get a Magic Twanger, of course, an ejector-seat-like button which could be pushed when they got to the end of their new rope, but that’s for much later. Now is a time to consider the possibilities.
First day, everyone will gather in their little homerooms, black boxes in tow, to plan their futures. If you ever secretly wanted to be a jet pilot, a ballet dancer or an accordionist like Mike Boulware, this will be your big chance. Just reach inside your black box and pull out your Dummies Guide to Welding (or Waterslide Testing or Reindeer Gelding), then go to the classroom of your choice where a skilled professional will teach you the ins and outs of your chosen career. (Trainees can also select a backup course like Life Coaching in case the first one doesn’t work out.)
At recess, unencumbered by old associations, students will have the freedom to select new friends, religions and political parties, replete with the wisdom of experiences compiled in their earlier lives. Since everyone will now be single, the hunt can begin for future companions, but this time with full knowledge of the deadly possibilities. There will be booths set up in the schoolyard where advocates will advise on subjects like “Planning Your Four-Child Family” or “Touring the High Points of Europe Instead.”
Maybe your old life was in Maine and you wonder what life in Arkansas might be like. Maybe you’re a tepid city boy and you’ve heard a country boy will survive. Maybe you’ve felt like a mermaid stuck in the mountains or a goatherd mired in Key West. This is your big chance for The Ultimate Do-over. Grab your coat and get your hat. Leave your worries on the doorstep. Just direct your feet to the future side of the street.
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| J.B. in her wild and crazy youth |
Starting Over
We asked a few of our interesting friends to consider a rerun of their lives, starting at age 20. We got all kinds of answers, from the ridiculous to the sublime, which is just what we wanted. Herewith:
Jerri Blair, Attorney-at-law: “Bill Killeen waved his magic wand and gave me the opportunity to take back the body I wore at twenty years old and choose an entirely different life than the one I’ve lived. My first thought was, no, I like my life and I’m happy with my choices, but where’s the adventure in that? And I’ve always been an adventurer, whether it was finding new ways to interpret the law in the halls of justice or crossing a desert stream and wandering out into the wild. Therefore, I’m taking the offer and choosing to continue and exponentially expand the path I was on at twenty but left at twenty-three. At twenty, I was hitchhiking America with no possessions and no particular place to go. Kris wrote and Janis sang that freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose and they were right. The feeling of freedom on the road can be exquisite, but I’m taking my highway trek so much further. Maybe I’ve been inspired by wild animal cowboy Will Thacker, but I’m heading out for the jungles and deserts and oceans and cities of the world. I’m headed for a few years to an ashram in India and then skipping all over Asia. I almost get arrested in China for giving a pair of jeans to one of Mao’s teenaged grandchildren. I escape through Tibet to Nepal and hang with the Buddhist monks until the heat is off. I slide into Tehran in 1979 and join the protestors seeking a democratic government. Then it’s off to a Greek island where I’m swept off my feet by a dark-haired Adonis who teaches me the art of dancing and many other things (some of which should make me blush) in the Mediterranean waters. I work for cheesemakers in the Po Valley and then land in Florence where I immerse myself in Michelangelo and get a job as an assistant to a sculptor. I tramp through ancient ruins in Africa and then become a guide to the Lascaux caves before they are closed to the public. I finally settle down in Oxford and spend my afternoons at the Eagle and Child pub discussing the world with all those who love to ponder life. So my new life is either that fun ride or I lock myself in a lab and discover the answer to everything in the universe by solving the theory of everything. Whew!”
Marty Jourard, Itinerant musician: “What would I do differently at around twenty years old if I had the opportunity? A lost weekend in Monaco with Claudia Schiffer comes to mind—we share the same birthday—but the odds remain slim and I’ve had to let that go. Opening a music school was a viable choice for me. But I question how much control we have over our lives. As the Yiddish proverb says, “Man plans, God laughs.” I feel I’ve drifted through my life, even in hindsight, with the notable exceptions of deciding to drive to L.A. to see what developed, and then recognizing a good opportunity when it came along. Going with the flow appears to be my non-method—the Tao approach. Fumbling through each day is probably more accurate.”
Patricia McKennee, Retired bad girl and world traveler: “Given some time to ruminate on what I might say should some storybook genie pop in and offer me a do-over life, this is what I’ve come up with. Because I’ve loved to travel all my life and been fortunate to spend glorious times in countless countries, I would add having the chance to learn to be a really great photographer. After that, I would become a photojournalist, specializing in world travel, documenting and comparing the different ways disparate cultures raise and treat their children, perhaps with a sideline on how animals fit into different cultures. I will postulate that my notes, journals and photos might become books—quasi-scientific or coffee-table or both—and sufficiently successful for me to earn the right to speak about my findings and become recognized as an authority in various circles. The cherry on the cake would be that my future travels would all be paid for by appreciative representatives of various organizations hanging on my every word.”
Ron Thomas, Impostor: “When I was in college, my father offered to pay for a trip to Europe. I wasn’t ready to take a break from UF or leave Gainesville at the time so I didn’t go. But in my second life, I did go. I had never been farther than the Bahamas so I felt some trepidation, but I also looked forward to taking the Grand Tour I had read about in novels. London, Paris, Venice, Rome…I was amazed by the sights and the varieties of experiences to be had, and I made lifelong friends in many places. In fact, I took the leap to actually become what I had thought about for years—a writer. And since this reverie is whatever I want it to be, I became a very good writer and a world traveler nonpareil.”
Joseph Trepanier, Ancient Mariner: “I have a second life and I want to do better than I did with the first. If I can please start before age 20, I would like to grow up with three older sisters so I would understand women better. I have not done well on this subject. I blame it on isolation from females. I was brought up by my father and grandparents, my mother took a hike when I was two. I had my first real date when I was nineteen with the world’s premier introvert. I married her at 20, divorced at 22, slightly before we killed each other. Then I married the world’s premier extrovert, a lady truck driver. We drove back and forth across the country trying to earn a Guinness World Record title for Worst Food Eaten in Twelve Months by Anybody, Anywhere. Don’t believe what they tell you, though, sex in the back of a truck is better than advertised. Obviously, I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places. I know I’ll do better second time around.”
Ballad Of The Ultimate Closer
Life is a quirky arbiter. Sometimes, the villain gets the girl. Sometimes, as Leo Durocher once said, nice guys finish last. The Golden Ring hangs there as the carousel goes round and round and it takes a blend of luck and ambition to grab it.
I first met Danny Levine at the Subterranean Circus in 1967. His Art Department compadre Pamme Brewer brought him by the store to hustle a job. Prior to the meeting, Pam advised me that Danny had a wealth of experience selling men’s clothes in Miami. “He’s a natural salesman with a great personality,” she promised. “Nobody else here knows jack about selling clothes.” True, dat.
There was just one small wasp in the ointment. While in San Francisco a short while back, Danny had succumbed to a drug overload, thought he was Jesus and was committed to a mental institution, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’ve always found that short interviews are best, so I asked him “You still crazy, Danny?” Mr. Levine assured me he was just going through a phase. We hired him and he sold 50 pair of jeans his first day. I sent Pamme back to San Francisco to find more crazy people.
A couple of years later, a severe bout with asthma put me in Alachua General Hospital for five days. On my way out, a doctor told me living in a spic ‘n’ span environment might help, so I moved to the new Summit House apartments with Danny as my roommate. He wasn’t bad, as roommates go, except for leaving too many wine bottles in the sink and receiving visitors too early in the morning. That’s when the charming Miss Charlotte Yarbrough, a perky junior at Gainesville High School, would show up for pre-school hanky-panky, after which Mr. L would wake up the apartment complex revving up his Kawasaki to deliver his inamorata to GHS. Needless to say, Summit House chose not to renew our lease. Eschewing all blame, Danny preferred to think we were evicted for my playing of lovely Moody Blues music at maximum volume well into the early morning hours, which could have been a contributing factor.
Those Were The Days, My Friend
Opening the Subterranean Circus door each morning at ten was like going to a new musical comedy every day. We never knew who was going to show up and in what condition, but whatever happened you knew Danny Levine could relate to the psychological deficiencies of any customer. He was a combination of Class Psychologist, mentor of the young and innocent, loyal friend to the confused and depraved. He was also an official minister of the Universal Life Church, having sent in his 29 cents and two boxtops from Quaker Puffed Rice. Now and then, he’d trek out to some woodsy glen and marry an optimistic, starstruck hippie couple while their doting friends released terrified doves into the sky.
Daniel Levine was a man for all seasons, a cheerful bon vivant, a lover of art history, a daring motorcycle racer, a sucker for any crazy new plan. Once, in Manhattan, he took me to the Metropolitan Museum and taught me more about Art in a few hours than I’d assimilated in the rest of my life, which is a big deal since in college I took Mr. Cyclone Covey’s exceptional Humanities class. It’s only natural that Danny eventually morphed into a professor of Art History, spending 17 years at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
In all his years, alas, D. Levine never had the good fortune to run across another Charlotte Yarbrough. It’s a long and a dusty road, a hot and heavy load and the girls you meet aren’t always kind. He did get a brief jump in blood pressure from one of his SCAD students named Deanne, but quickly put those feelings aside lest he fall prey to the deadly aging-prof-meets-nubile-young-thing catastrophe. Alone but not unhappy, Professor Levine laid back in his Savannah easy chair and enjoyed the academic life. He also rambled around Europe, taking in the exotic scenery, examining the surfeit of art and eating at every restaurant in Italy. If you ever have three hours to pass, call Danny and ask him to tell you a little about Italian food. Prepare yourself, though, he gets very emotional.
A Fork In The Road
As everyone who has been there well knows, the journey through the switchback corridors of Septuagenaria are unlit and scary, full of foul odors and disturbing sounds. A step too far to the left and you’re protein deficient, too far to the right, you’ve got kidney problems. But dismiss any urge you might have to race through there, it’s worse on the other side of the tunnel.
Around the time of The Last Tango in Gainesville in 2022, Danny called and revealed that he’d contracted Parkinson’s Disease. He came anyway, had a good time, looked great in his movie interview, but things soon went downhill. He called a year later, sounding very much like he was ready to call it a life and cash in his chips. With Parkinson’s, you generally wake up in the morning miserable and it rapidly goes downhill from there. Sooner or later, driving gets very risky and you’re afraid to go very far by yourself. You wonder what you’re living for and begin looking for a way out. But sometimes you get a great notion, and Danny’s was to try Deep Brain Stimulation at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.
We met Danny and his sister for dinner in St. Augustine just after his first treatment. He was a little wobbly and very tired, but he ate his dinner and had a good time. Slowly, but surely, Danny got a little better. We visited him in Savannah this Spring and he showed us the sights for more than two hours. Despite the occasional setback, the disease was no longer advancing. After a subsequent visit to Mayo a few months ago, Mr. Levine called one day to say he felt “almost normal.” It seemed as good a time as any to start planning that second life.
Danny Levine tracked down the object of his academic affection, Deanne, in faraway Oregon. She visited him, he visited her and in November the two of them headed off to Umbria, laughing. Before he left, Danny called to say “This is the happiest time of my life!” It’s a rare thing to feel, but we honestly felt so happy for him it was almost as if this exciting phenomenon was happening to us. Sometimes, the end of the line is not really the end. Every so often, the conductor empties the train, winks, and carries us all the way to Coney Island. Sometimes, on those very special occasions, we find our second wind, discover a hidden dimension, are truly stunned by our good fortune. Sometimes, we actually grab the Golden Ring.
That’s definitely not all, folks. Have an exhilarating New Year!
