Reliving Life's Mistakes

By Virginia Prescott on Wednesday, May 13, 2009.

Imagine a world governed by playground rules. If after getting stopped for running a red light... after finding spinach stuck in your teeth during a job interview... we could simply stop and say: "no fair! Do over!" Just like when the kickball rolled into the bushes or no one could agree if the runner was safe or out.

When we look into the rear-view mirror of our lives, what if we could get a second shot at the mortifying things that, decades later, still make our stomachs turn?

Writer Robin Hemley flubbed the lines in the school play, and he never got up the nerve to ask Lizzie Clark to the prom. One thing Robin Hemley did get right: a Guggenheim fellowship for his work on the do-over! Which is now a book called, what else? Do-Over! In Which a Forty-Eight-Year-Old Father of Three Returns to Kindergarten, Summer Camp, the Prom and Other Embarassments. Robin joins us on the line from Iowa City to explain why he decided to make a list of do-overs, and actually do them.

(Photo by Georgios Karamanis via Flickr/Creative Commons)

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We received a number of truly moving responses to our question of what people would do-over in their lives. I mentioned them on the air, but would encourage people to read them and post their own.
V

Dorothy wrote: After missing weeks of school with scarlet fever, I managed to catch up and pass Algebra with a "B" but failed French. I acquiesced and allowed a guidance teacher to transfer me from college preparation to a commercial course and regretably this changed my direction. I am comfortable with myself today but wish I had realized college could and should have been attainable. While, I have done alright,even at the age of 75, I am ashamed to say that I did not go to college.

Submitted by Virginia on Thu, 05/14/2009 - 15:40.

Ken McGee is clearly a writer, he's author of Eyes Shut Tight (www.eyesshuttightmcgee.com). I REALLY hope Neil English see this:

I am seventy-eight years old. There is a memory from more than seventy years ago that haunts my memory...one that I wish with all my heart I could do over. I was rather a frail child, probably the smallest in my class. I could be "picked on" but too small to "pick on" anyone else....and then came along Neil English...a very sickly child...mild of manner and timid. I intitiated a comfrontation with him one day...deliberate and mean. I wanted to make him cry...I fwantead him scared of me. He tried to back away so I grabbed his arm and twisted the skin both ways until he cried. Episode over. I wish to this day I could somehow speak to him and tell him how sorry I am...how terribly ashamed I am...and how I didn't turn out to be such a bad guy. I never forgot what I did that day so long ago....I like to think I never did such a thing again or ever will. I am sorry Neil English. I hope you had a good life....and you encountered better than me along the way.
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Submitted by Virginia on Thu, 05/14/2009 - 15:41.

This from our man Brady Carlson:

As an undergrad, my school offered everybody the chance to go on a fairly extensive study abroad trip through Europe without much more expense than a typical semester. Really wish I'd been smart enough to take advantage of the chance instead of forgetting about it. Oops.

Submitted by Virginia on Thu, 05/14/2009 - 15:42.

Kay wrote:

I wish I had had the words to stand up to the kids who told me I'd burn in hell because I didn't believe in God. I didn't even know the words atheist or agnostic at the time. I thought all religions were mythology and could not understand why they felt I had to believe in God to be a good person. My parents never said anything against religion: they just never said anything for it -- though the Golden rule was expressed often. I soon learned not to say anything about my beliefs or lack of them. It has been only in my 60's and 70's that I've felt absolutely free to be a free-thinker. I wish I had been more vocal, starting in my childhood.

Submitted by Virginia on Thu, 05/14/2009 - 15:43.

Given a chance to do it over, I would start working for myself earlier before I was put in a box by corporate America. We all have so much more potential!

Submitted by alexjenkins on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 11:18.

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Word of Mouth is all about what's new. Online and on-air, the show looks at our fascinating and ever-changing world, and puts the latest ideas under a microscope. Word of Mouth investigates everything from science and technology, to health and the environment, to new trends in popular culture. The show airs Monday through Thursday at noon and is hosted by Virginia Prescott.