Life Down At The Crossroads

When I first started to practice law, I joined the firm of Racine, Huntley, Olsen and Nye. The late Mark Nye was a good guy and we formed a solid friendship. Mark got a kick out of me because of my excentricities. A Harvard grad, Mark was exceptionally intelligent, observant, and articulate. One of the things that he observed about me early on was that I had a tendency to be indecisive, or as he put it I always seemed to like to be at “the crossroads.” At the time, I thought that I was simply being careful by reserving judgment, waiting for more information. That was in about 1979, but Mark’s observation stayed with me and I often reflected on it. The practice of law makes one conscientious, and as Hamlet put it:

“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.”

I would have preferred to be much more of a man of action, but at the same time considering the complexities of things with the patience required by the practice of law gave me a view of life that I think I would have missed if I had worked in another field. Recently Mark’s words came back to me as I reflected on my career and life, as I do now when trying to write something meaningful. The result was the following poem, turned it into a song on the AI platform I use for such purposes.

Life Down At The Crossroads

I’ve always hung out down at the Crossroads 
No, it’s not that I lost my way 
It’s just that down at the Crossroads 
It feels like high noon at every time of day 

I didn’t see myself as Wyatt Earp   
Or any kind of Billy the Kid 
I just needed to keep myself wide-awake 
To play my hand and keep track of the bid

Each road always offered me promise
Promise that always came at a price 
I watched other people choose one or another 
Unlike me, unafraid to roll the dice 

The reason that I’ve been stalled so long at the Crossroads 
Just rattling the dice around in my hand 
Was the adventure of the odds always changing 
And I didn’t ever want to see those snake eyes land 

Each road had its merits
Dreams of good things further down the line, I’ll grant you that
But once they chose one to commit to 
They always started to see the world as a little bit more flat 

I’m tired of shootouts at the Crossroads 
Where my only aim was to hold my ground 
I know it might have been better if I’d picked one 
And moved on further along to settle down 

But having spent my life at the Crossroads 
And accepted that the Crossroads were my home 
I look back and see that hanging out there 
Is what allowed my troubled mind its treasured freedom to roam