Galvin crop

I was walking down East 6th Street in Medford — on the sidewalk, of course — minding my own beeswax, heading for the Cascade Range mining town caffeine outlet, when “it” happened … my most memorable moment of 2023.

Mind you, as I write this there are still four days remaining in the year — so who knows what might happen?

But it’s a safe bet that whatever does occur won’t be as memorably odd as what crossed my path that particular day.

As I said, I was trundling along unobtrusively when a book fell from the sky and landed face-up before me on the sidewalk.

Okay, it likely didn’t “fall from the sky.” There wasn’t someone reading on a flight into (or, I guess, out of) the Southern Oregon Rogue Valley Medford International Airport of Jackson County who found a way to drop what they were reading and send it fluttering down to me as I made my way toward an afternoon iced tea.

And, it didn’t really “flutter,” either. It landed with a thwop from an upper-level window of the old Woolworth’s — or maybe the Cuthbert Building, my memory’s a bit fuzzy on that detail.

Now here’s the strange part, especially for those who are familiar with how my mind works … and if you are one such individual, my apologies: The book was a paperback edition of Dale Carnegie’s 1936 classic, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

Yeah, I know, right?

My first thought was … no wait, it wasn’t my first thought. My first thought was that I was damn glad I hadn’t been thwopped in the head by this thing, particularly if it had found its way out of an airlock of a departing or arriving plane.

But after that, I was struck by the irony of that book landing in front of me, out of all those who trundled along that sidewalk that day. (It is irony, right?) I mean, winning friends and influencing people having never been very high on my to-do list — certainly nowhere near, for instance, leaving the seat down and pulling the fly up before exiting a bathroom.

Who would throw such a tome out a window, where it might wind up hitting a stranger? Seemed impossible to me that anyone would do that on purpose — unless, of course, that certain book-thrower was indeed someone who was familiar with the way my mind works and they were delivering what they thought was a message from up above, as when Moses Brooks delivered those 15 … oy … 10, 10 commandments to obey.

Yeah, I know, right?

I mean, let’s face it. Of all the twaddle that you’ve been subjected to from me over the years, the percentage that was produced with the intent of either winning friends or influencing people has to be lower than Bluto Blutarsky’s grade point average after seven years at Faber College.

What am I going to do with friends? Send them Christmas cards? Still haven’t sent out this year’s, and most of those go to family members. Friends occasionally will take you to the airport but, in return, they expect that you’ll listen to twaddle of their own — and, frankly, I can’t keep track of all the voices in my cantaloupe as it is.

And, as for influencing people … well, that sounds too much like work to me. Besides, why would I want to be held responsible for convincing you what to think — like, say, that the clothes you’re wearing today actually go well together.

Speaking of which … do you own a mirror?

As far as I was concerned, this guide to complicating the lives of others — spurred by whatever voices were holding sway in Carnegie’s melon when he decided to write it down — could just sit there on the sidewalk, waiting for someone else to trundle along and claim the book for themselves.

Let that be their most memorable moment of 2023.