Dan Barker is a friend of many years standing, a key international freethought leader (FFRF), debater dozens of times over world-wide (winner at the Oxford Union!), an author of many good books (I’m the proud owner of six different titles, all signed), a damned good chess player, a musician, a songwriter, and one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet. It’s a pleasure and a great honor to have his words grace Letters to a Free Country. He’ll be speaking to AFS via Zoom in July (free and open to the public) for any who want to hear him—more on that later.
Once is Enough
by Dan Barker
During my first semester in the fall of 1968 at Azusa Pacific College, I was experimenting with paper airplanes in my dorm room. I tried various foldings. I tossed the planes at different angles and speeds. I attached a paper clip to the nose for added weight.
On one attempt, I held the little craft up by the ceiling and released it gently. The plane descended in a graceful helix completely around the room, more than 360 degrees, and disappeared deftly into the slit of a bottom drawer that was slightly pulled out. That was amazing! I stood there relishing the moment. I didn't attempt to repeat the feat. I knew that if I tried it a thousand times, that exact trajectory would not happen again. How to calculate the odds? Perhaps a trillion times? But why bother? I saw it happen once, and once was enough.
• • •
Frank Gonzales, the evangelist with whom I worked in the 1960s and early 70s, was an avid basketball player. He was short but energetic, and that earned him a lot of respect while playing against prisoners and villagers in Mexico during our missionary tours. Frank taught me how to shoot a basket. He showed me where to place my feet and how to launch the ball off the tips of the fingers. I tried it a few times. Made a couple of baskets. But that was it. I have never played basketball.
About twenty years later, in Madison, Wisconsin, I dropped something off at the home of Sheila Thompson, who worked for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Someone was taking shots at a basketball hoop over the garage door at the end of their long driveway. When the ball rolled out to the sidewalk, I picked it up. "Go for it," Sheila said. I flashed back to Frank's lesson, took a position like he told me, and launched the ball in a high arc to cover that large distance. The ball swooshed neatly into the basket. "Wow!" Sheila said. "Do that again!" I shook my head. "Sorry, I have to get going." Once was enough.
• • •
I could have died. It was during a gymnastics meet at Anaheim High School in 1966 or 1967. I was in the middle of my routine, holding a handstand on the rings. My next move was to drop down and swing back up into an ell above the rings. But I swooped down so hard that I lost my grip and back-flipped to the floor. I think my head brushed the mat. If the rings had been a quarter inch lower, I might have broken my neck. My heels hit the mat late and I ended up on my butt in front of the crowd, which included my Dad. When I walked off the floor in disappointment and embarrassment, my exuberant coach told me, "Wow! I've never seen anyone try a 360 laid-out dismount from a handstand." If I could have nailed the landing—if I had known I was landing—that would have been an unbelievable feat. But how do you practice something that crazy without getting killed? No, once was enough. Besides, I had to get to my piano lesson.
• • •
When I was in ninth grade, all the students took an aptitude test. I got the highest score on every category except Mechanics. At the bottom of the page was a recommendation like, "This student will do well as a writer." I should have been proud of my results, but all I could see was that one lower score. My thought was, "Why should I be limited?" Determined to correct the insufficiency, I started reading books and asking questions about how things work.
One long night when I was eighteen or nineteen, traveling across country with a team of young evangelists, I was in the passenger seat next to my friend Glenn Schuler, who was driving. We were born the same year and both played the piano, so we hit it off and are still friends today. I was curious about automobiles, and Glenn told me he had taken a class in auto mechanics, so I asked him to explain how cars work. For many long hours heading east on Interstate 10, he patiently answered all my questions. When the sun rose in Texas the next morning, I understood the pistons and cylinders, the rings that separate the oil from the combustion chamber, the carburetor, ignition and firing of the spark plugs timed by the distributor cap, the cams that open and close the valves, the power train, braking system, cooling and exhaust systems, the differential that drove the rear wheels (in those days). It all made sense.
The first car I owned was a 1967 Datsun wagon. I put almost 200,000 miles on that little engine while driving around the country preaching. In 1977, it needed to be repaired. I asked Glenn if he could help me fix it, and he generously agreed. I bought the manual and borrowed some tools. We took the entire thing apart. Hundreds of parts were spread around the garage floor, much of it in little jars of gasoline in which we soaked and cleaned them. The engine head was cracked, so I bought another head and a torque wrench and carefully seated it to the block on the new gasket. The cylinder walls were worn, so we reamed the ridges and installed larger piston rings. Luckily, it was a simple 4-cylinder, nothing like the complicated computer-driven machines we drive today. I'll never forget the excitement when I turned the key after reassembly and the engine turned over. It felt like a miracle, but I knew it was basic mechanics.
I'm glad I learned how to rebuild an engine. I have gained a deep respect for the smart and creative people who work in fields like mechanics, carpentry and plumbing. But I never want to do it again. Once was enough. Besides, I would rather be a writer, as the aptitude test prophesied.
• • •
On a road trip for FFRF ten or twenty years ago, I had taken a shower in my hotel room before heading out to do a debate. The little bar of bath soap that you often find in hotel rooms was rectangular with straight edges, like a domino. When I was done, I casually lobbed the soap onto the ceramic tray in the corner of the shower. It was sudsy and slippery and the tray was wet, but the bar landed on its edge and remained standing perfectly upright at attention. That seemed impossible. But it happened. How to calculate the odds? I knew it would take me a billion tries to do it again. But why bother? I saw it happen, and once was enough. Besides, I had a debate to get to.
• • •
Someday near the end, I will look back at the stunning unlikeliness of life. Considering the probabilities that I would be born, that I would survive long enough to see it all—the astonishing and the mundane—I am amazed. I saw it happen. What are the odds? When I look at my incredible family and collection of smart and caring friends and remember the high points—the joys (born of desire), the surprises (born of curiosity), even the disappointments (born of ambition) and grief (born of love)—I will realize that it was all a wild shot down a long driveway that finally swooshes into the basket. I don't need a trillion tries. I don't need eternal life. I saw it happen, and once is enough.
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