We did the AZ Chicks with Picks show this past weekend and during one of the breaks, one of the guest’s accompanists turned to me and asked me if I was “the” Erich Sielaff who used to work as a buyer or merchandising manager at Smitty’s.   (First of all, the notion that anyone would ask if I was “the” anyone was a bit peculiar to hear… how many can there be?)   But I revealed that indeed, we were one and “the” same.

He smiled and said that his dad used to call on me at Smitty’s as a sales representative.   He also remembered me from the church I attend.   I paused and waited for my mind to fill in the blanks.     (This requires more time to accomplish than it used to.     More tape to rewind I suppose.    There I go with analog metaphors.  I have to reformat to digital.    More disc space to search?    Update file, update file, update file …)

Yes, I remembered his name and yes, I even had a vague mental image of his business card.   (Still doing the file search for his face.  I have an image driven operating system).   But what struck me instantly was that it had been 14 years since I left Smitty’s and I have no idea how much earlier it had been that we began working together.   Looking at his 20-something son, I suspected that contemporaneous with that event, the son was probably around 10 years old.   And now, a decade and a half later, here he was, sitting in a radio station with me waiting to perform.    Go figure.

You wouldn’t think it possible to draw a line from that life to this one.   But it happens.   And more often than the odds makers should be able to make book on.    I was glad that apparently I had left him with a positive impression.   People freeze-frame you and vice-versa.   Who am I today compared to who I was 14+ years ago?   Well, I am on a different road to be sure.   And that road intersected with someone who is also on a different road.   But the travelers are the same.   Or are they?   Am I a kinder gentler man?  Or am I a harder, less adaptable version?   Wiser or just older?   I wonder whom I have left with a less than happy recollection.   Whom might I have offended?

I am not entirely sure I can answer honestly who I was then compared to who I am now.    And I am not sure I even want to know.   I have enough trouble just managing the day’s events.   Turns out, I ended up having to bump my old cohort’s son because we ran out of time on the program.    I promised I would get him back on at a later date.   (Sooner rather than later)

Today I stopped to think.    I wonder with whom I will intersect down the road that will take something away from today that I won’t even remember.   One of the other guests did a song about someone being a skeleton in their closet.   I commented to her that we all likely either have one or are one or perhaps both.    I sincerely don’t want to be anyone’s skeleton.   But I guess like the proverbial ghost in a wishing well, I am not in charge of that.    We each must set our own captives free.   I can however from this day forward, do my utmost to do a good thing, to say a kind word and to try to leave something of value.

I am glad that in this case at least, I seemed to have been remembered well.    I am thankful for these intersections.   It reminds me again that choices matter.   Things are remembered.    It also stirs me to recognize that the time for morphing is now.    That all of us will eventually run out of time on life’s road and get ”bumped”.    And then, whomever we will have become will be whom we will remain.