Go Beyond

   I spent all but three years of my childhood in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Just before my first grade year, we moved to San Antonio where my Dad took a new job with an insurance company. We moved from our home in Mission to a home on Globe Street in San Antonio, just around the corner from Mary F. Huppertz Elementary School. The whole experience was a wonderful adventure for me. I had an opportunity to drive past this temporary childhood home this weekend while Cheryl and were in San Antonio to celebrate our twenty-ninth wedding anniversary. It’s interesting how memories that have been dormant for years can be revived by a drive through the old neighborhoods where they were made. As Cheryl and I drove past the house on Globe Street, it occurred to me how many things I had done or experienced for the first time while living there. Here are just a few…

• I learned to ride a bicycle while living on Globe Street. I can still recall the mixture of anticipation and excitement when we took the training wheels off of my bicycle. It was a great day in my childhood. I felt a new freedom to go a little farther than I had ever been before.

• I learned to make phone calls from our home on Globe Street. I spent all of my time outdoors and had never had a reason to make a phone call until a neighborhood friend asked me to call him. “I don’t know how to do that,” I replied. So, he taught me how to dial the numbers on our rotary phone and a whole new world of communication opened up to me.

• I was bitten by a dog when we lived on Globe Street — my own dog! Our doctor wanted to err on the side of caution so he gave me a series of three rabies shots in my stomach. Painful is the only way to describe that experience.

• I learned to speak better English while living on Globe Street. Up to that point I preferred to speak Spanish but was slowly making the transition to English. The transition made some things a bit difficult in school, but I managed.

• I learned about death while living on Globe Street. I was playing in our front yard when Mom came out the front door of our home in tears. President Kennedy had just been assassinated. Mom and I spent the rest of the day watching the news unfold on our tiny black and white television.

• I rode in an elevator for the first time while living in San Antonio. Dad’s office was in the Tower Building. I don’t remember which floor he worked on, but I do remember the elevator ride and the remarkable view from his office window.

• I saw my Dad without his moustache for the first time at our home on Globe Street. When I asked him what had happened to his moustache, he replied that while driving home he had hit the brakes hard to avoid an accident — so hard, in fact, that his moustache had fallen from his upper lip and onto the dashboard!

• I discovered the joy of reading while living on Globe Street. My grandparents would send my two sisters and me children’s books on a regular basis. As a result, I became acquainted with Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, and also read about stars and the solar system and much more.

   I am glad that Cheryl and I had an opportunity to drive past the house on Globe Street, a place that was once my home and a place where many of my childhood memories still reside. God used this nostalgic experience to remind me of many of the things that I did or experienced there for the first time. As we drove through the old neighborhood, I felt a renewed challenge to continue learning and doing new things for the first time.

   When was the last time you did something for the first time? It’s easy to orient our lives toward comfort, convenience, security, and familiarity — the things that most often keep us from doing new things for the first time. Henry David Thoreau once observed, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” He was right. That is the epitaph of those who are no longer doing things for the first time. I hope you will take a moment to evaluate your life and then challenge yourself to do something new for the first time.