The Road Not Taken

My favorite American Poet, Robert Frost, made a timeless observation about the choices we make in his 1920 poem, The Road Not Taken. When I first heard it elementary school I was the young fellow of the poem's first four stanzas. I'm not sure when I became the older person of the closing stanza but I am sure that is me now.

The choices I have made regarding my friends, career, and where I have chosen to live have made a difference, as they do for everybody. I suppose some people consider these choices more than others, and for some they are just agony. This makes me fairly lucky as I have no regrets about the life paths I didn't take, or where I stand in life at the moment. I have seen many stories far sadder than anything I could conjure up and this keeps me honest about what I am doing and where I want to be going.

We all have many times in our lives when there are two roads before us and we need to choose one. I guess one of those roads, ala the Frost poem, I saved for another day was the option to live in Ridgewood. In fact, I have saved it for so long it is no longer a reasonable option, or even one I would consider. This is not to denigrate the town or its inhabitants. We all just grow up differently and cherish different things. I like to remember how Ridgewood was in the 1960s and 1970s and try to keep these memories alive via this blog. It gives me the chance to ponder at length the road not taken. It has also made me realize that for me this has made all the difference.



                                                   The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.