me a fake check for $64,000.
Then came a question for $125,000: Which of these American westerns was not a remake of a Japanese film? Possible answers: The Magnificent Seven , The Outrage , High Noon , A Fistful of Dollars .
I knew that the first one was a remake of The Seven Samurai . I had no clue about the rest. If I wanted to hazard a guess, I had a one-in-three chance. However, if I guessed incorrectly, I would lose half my money. I kept focusing on High Noon , mumbling it over and over, whispering my suspicion that it was the answer.
Before jetting off to New York I had considered possible scenarios with my friends, and I actually had declared that if I were in that exact situationâwith an inkling of an idea at that particular level of the gameâI would go for it. You only live once, I announced. The name of the show isnât Who Wants to Be Slightly Better Off .
But when the real moment arrived, I hemmed and hawed and squirmed. Then, rather suddenly, I decided to stop. I took the money and walked away.
The next question would have been for a quarter of a million dollars. I would give anything to know what the subject would have been. In my daydreams, it is a bit of trivia about baseball or U.S. geography, something very much in my cerebral wheelhouse. All I had to do was answer three more questions correctly, and I would have been an instant millionaire.
The answer, of course, was High Noon . The ironyâthat I didnât have the guts to choose a film about one manâs gallantry in the face of long oddsâis not lost on me. While I was overjoyed at my windfall, I reflect on that moment of decision and feel pangs of weakness. I know that it took a certain daring to get there in the first place. And I very much believe that we make our own breaks in life. But that decision nags at me. How many people are handed such a black-and-white litmus test of their nerve? Isnât boldness the one trait shared by most every encyclopedia-worthy historical figure? Did my fears win the day?
It was my Scylla-and-Charybdis moment. In Homerâs mythological epics, this is brave Odysseusâs most heart-wrenching dilemma, as he pilots his ships through what may have been the Straits of Messina, off the coast of Sicily. On one side is Charybdis, an unpredictable whirlpool that mayâor may notâswallow entire ships. On the other side, in a gloomy cliffside cave, dwells Scylla, a monster with âtwelve flapping feet, and six necks enormously long, and at the end of each neck a horrible head with three rows of teeth set thick and close, full of black death.â She is guaranteed to snatch a half-dozen crew members in her deadly jaws. So this is Odysseusâs choiceâif he steers clear of one, he falls prey to the other. It is the genesis of the rock-and-hard-place metaphor. Do you risk everything for success, or do you sacrifice for safety?
Like Odysseus, I chose conservativelyâsecurity over audacity. And I regret it, both fiscally and spiritually. But that isnât the end of the story.
After every commercial break, Regis would ask contestants a personal question or two, his note cards stocked with information gleaned from a producerâs pre-interview. We chatted about how I met Amy and what magazines I write for. We discussed the one-in-a-billion coincidence that the person in the hot seat right before me was a good friend of mine whose husband I have known since the age of nine. We even touched on the fact that I suffer from cremnophobia, the fear of precipices (whichâletâs face itâis really the fear of death). Finally, after I had won the $64,000, Regis said, âSo youâve written a few books. Whatâs the latest one?â
So for about thirty seconds I described a book I had written, an account of my life-altering year on the road with my wife. States of Mind had been published to little fanfare by a small press in North Carolina. It had been
Then came a question for $125,000: Which of these American westerns was not a remake of a Japanese film? Possible answers: The Magnificent Seven , The Outrage , High Noon , A Fistful of Dollars .
I knew that the first one was a remake of The Seven Samurai . I had no clue about the rest. If I wanted to hazard a guess, I had a one-in-three chance. However, if I guessed incorrectly, I would lose half my money. I kept focusing on High Noon , mumbling it over and over, whispering my suspicion that it was the answer.
Before jetting off to New York I had considered possible scenarios with my friends, and I actually had declared that if I were in that exact situationâwith an inkling of an idea at that particular level of the gameâI would go for it. You only live once, I announced. The name of the show isnât Who Wants to Be Slightly Better Off .
But when the real moment arrived, I hemmed and hawed and squirmed. Then, rather suddenly, I decided to stop. I took the money and walked away.
The next question would have been for a quarter of a million dollars. I would give anything to know what the subject would have been. In my daydreams, it is a bit of trivia about baseball or U.S. geography, something very much in my cerebral wheelhouse. All I had to do was answer three more questions correctly, and I would have been an instant millionaire.
The answer, of course, was High Noon . The ironyâthat I didnât have the guts to choose a film about one manâs gallantry in the face of long oddsâis not lost on me. While I was overjoyed at my windfall, I reflect on that moment of decision and feel pangs of weakness. I know that it took a certain daring to get there in the first place. And I very much believe that we make our own breaks in life. But that decision nags at me. How many people are handed such a black-and-white litmus test of their nerve? Isnât boldness the one trait shared by most every encyclopedia-worthy historical figure? Did my fears win the day?
It was my Scylla-and-Charybdis moment. In Homerâs mythological epics, this is brave Odysseusâs most heart-wrenching dilemma, as he pilots his ships through what may have been the Straits of Messina, off the coast of Sicily. On one side is Charybdis, an unpredictable whirlpool that mayâor may notâswallow entire ships. On the other side, in a gloomy cliffside cave, dwells Scylla, a monster with âtwelve flapping feet, and six necks enormously long, and at the end of each neck a horrible head with three rows of teeth set thick and close, full of black death.â She is guaranteed to snatch a half-dozen crew members in her deadly jaws. So this is Odysseusâs choiceâif he steers clear of one, he falls prey to the other. It is the genesis of the rock-and-hard-place metaphor. Do you risk everything for success, or do you sacrifice for safety?
Like Odysseus, I chose conservativelyâsecurity over audacity. And I regret it, both fiscally and spiritually. But that isnât the end of the story.
After every commercial break, Regis would ask contestants a personal question or two, his note cards stocked with information gleaned from a producerâs pre-interview. We chatted about how I met Amy and what magazines I write for. We discussed the one-in-a-billion coincidence that the person in the hot seat right before me was a good friend of mine whose husband I have known since the age of nine. We even touched on the fact that I suffer from cremnophobia, the fear of precipices (whichâletâs face itâis really the fear of death). Finally, after I had won the $64,000, Regis said, âSo youâve written a few books. Whatâs the latest one?â
So for about thirty seconds I described a book I had written, an account of my life-altering year on the road with my wife. States of Mind had been published to little fanfare by a small press in North Carolina. It had been