October 23

Fifty eight years ago on this date my life changed forever. That was when the Hungarians decided they had enough and rose up in a revolt against the current communist regime and the Soviet Union.

I was a university student almost twenty years old and really didn't know which end was up. And honestly I didn't care much either.

My fist ten priorities in life at the time were girls, girls and girls. I was not politically active either for or against what was going on. As long as I had a girlfriend I was happy.

When I got to the university on the morning of the 23rd we were told that there would be no classes today because today we were marching. That seemed like a good idea to me even though I had no clue why we were marching for. Now as we all know, this march took up almost the entire day and eventually ended in a full blown revolution.

But while the Hungarians were making history I was very preoccupied with something else. My girlfriend and later my first wife's birthday was to be on the next day. My plan was to buy her a present on the 23rd but the revolution kind of screwed that up. All day I was wandering how and when would I be able to buy her a present.

You can see the magnitude of my dilemma, you can see that I was a very serious person. But my problem was eventually solved and I settled in to a life of "leisure" since the university didn't open thus I had really nothing to do.

Three months later I embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. I left Hungary and nine months later (on Halloween) I arrived in New York with my then girlfriend who a month later became my wife.

We started to make a life for ourselves in this strange world. One can not imagine the difficulties of a new life in a world where everything is strange including and mainly the language. After trying different jobs we both found our niche in life and settled in "normal" jobs.

We persevered and assimilated ourselves into this society.

The rest my life is another story. There is not enough space here to write down everything that happened but the importance of Today is the original cause why things turned out the way they did.

One can never know the ifs of life. What if October 23 didn't happen, what if I never left Hungary, what if I didn't come to the US, what if I never met my second wife, what if, what if.

This can drive a person totally crazy therefore just accept what fate throws in ones way.