What the hell. Give it a whirl.

A lot of what anyone winds up doing throughout life happens by chance. If someone had asked me when I was 20 or so years old if I would live more than half of my life in Sweden, I probably would have shrugged my shoulders and said, “Who knows. But the possibility is remote.” But here I am.

If at the same time someone had asked me if I could earn a living by applying my writing skills, I would have replied, “Perhaps”. But in my junior year at Gustavus Adolphus College, Milt Gustafson, the retiring sports editor convinced me that I could take over his position and successfully edit the sport page of the Gustavus Weekly. I had serious doubts, but said, “What the hell, I’ll give it a whirl.”

The following year, Janice Larson persuaded me to edit the newspaper. Again I said, “What the hell, I’ll give it a whirl.” Both editing tasks involved a whole lot of prestige for me to either gain or lose as the Weekly for many years in a row had been awarded All America honors for newspapers from colleges the size of Gustavus Adolphus. Needless to say, I succeeded or I wouldn’t have the courage to relate this information now.

Journalism school

Chuck full of confidence, I applied for admission to the Columbia School of Journalism. George Grim, a long-time columnist for the Minneapolis Tribune, conducted my admission interview. After writing a time-limited essay, which took me a lot more time than he allotted me, he correctly appraised my ability to compose a story pronto as lacking. As he put it, “David lacks facility.”

Undaunted, I applied to the next best school and was admitted to the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri. As W.C. Fields once said, “I spent year in Lompoc one week.” Replace Lompoc with Columbia and you’ll get the idea. This was a “whirl” I didn’t care much about. So “what the hell,” I got out my thumb and returned to Minnesota only to be faced with military conscription.

This was during the autumn of 1961, when JFK called me and thousands of other 21-year olds to defend Berlin against the building of the wall. I flunked the military physical induction examination, and JFK didn’t stop the wall, but I must admit he didn’t do it because I wasn’t in Berlin to tell the Russians to go home.

Recruiting students

What to do? Hooks Holcomb to the rescue. Hooks was the Admissions Director at Gustavus Adolphus and he offered me a job recruiting students to the college. Why? Don’t ask me. But, “What the hell, I’ll give it a whirl.”

Two years at Gustavus were followed by a seven year teaching career as a high school teacher in a St. Paul, Minnesota suburb, at the University of Minnesota High School and the University of Minnesota General College.

During 1968 I turned 30 years old. Just in case you don’t remember that year, I can remind you that it was full of protest and turmoil, and without too much exaggeration a pivotal year in the western world. Young people exerted themselves and as they said then, “If you’re over 30, you’re irrelevant.” I was employed at a university and daily reminded that in terms of my age I was on the cusp.

Consultant

So, following a tip from a colleague, I found work at a consulting agency in St. Paul. This job involved a lot of writing that didn’t require a lot of Grim George’s facility. In other words, I could take my sweet time doing it and found out to my satisfaction that I could do it.

This job took me to another consulting agency, again as the result of a tip, in San Francisco where I wrote analyses of various federal health and welfare systems. A great job, but after a year Richard Nixon’s trouble virtually shutdown government and anything that had anything to do with it. The consequence his trouble put me out on the street for the first time in my life. I had fallen off the rails, so to speak.

I liked San Francisco, so I decided to stay on. “What the hell, I’ll give it a whirl.” I had no idea what I’d do if I returned to Minnesota. But what would I do in San Francisco? Affirmative Action was rampant in the early seventies. A teaching job in the Bay Area for me, a card carrying WASP, wasn’t even a consideration. So I painted houses for five years and liked doing it. It was physical work that I could pursue on my own terms.

A long-legged blond-haired Swede

Then one day a long-legged blond Swede turned up in my life, obviously by chance. But that’s another story.

When I showed my one-way ticket to the agent at the gate at San Francisco International, he couldn’t believe what he saw. “What the hell, I’ll give it a whirl.” was my answer when he asked me if I really knew what I was doing. Now I’ve lived more than half of my life here and I’ve enjoyed every moment of it.

Again, I was faced with the question what to do here in Sweden. Again chance kicked in. I was asked to teach English and even Chinese cooking in evening schools. And I translated. One day Stig Anderson, the Marketing boss at Electrolux Constructor in Säffle, asked me if I’d like to write a customer magazine. And at about the same time, Leif Friberg, the Publicity boss at Billerud, asked me the same question. “What the hell, I’ll give it a whirl.” Now I’m retired but still writing professionally.

Based on my experience, my advice for young people pursuing careers would include the following: Look around you. Notice what’s happening. Assess your skills. Build on them. Do what makes you happy. Recognize opportunity when it pops up in front of you. Listen to people you respect and can help you with whatever you’re pursuing. Take chances. Live with failure. Work for success. Deal with chance. Don’t ever count it short. And then! Give it a whirl. What the hell.

John Lennon

To end where I started, chance plays an important part in the lives of most of us. John Lennon, in all of his wisdom, put it this way: “Life is what’s happening to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Chance is important. But when mixed with a good measure of chutzpah or in other words, audacity, impudence and self-confidence, it becomes relevant. “What the hell, I’ll give it a whirl.”