RATTLED BY REBUFFS?

RATTLED BY REBUFFS ? GO ON! Rebuffs, rejections, failures, can serve grander designs, which are temporarily masked by an illusion. Just now, I was thinking of a law firm at which I had interviewed in 1975 in Washington , D. C. I had worn my sartorial best: platform shoes, a colorful sports coat, and broad necktie to Dow Lohnes and Albertson , a communications law firm. I had met one of its principals at the Federal Communications Commission, where I had been a law clerk to Commissioner Benjamin L. Hooks in summer 1975. Hooks was, of course, the first black FCC Commissioner. He had been appointed by Nixon to serve. I met a lawyer from Shrewsbury, Missouri, which abutted Webster Groves , my home school district. He had invited me to his firm for a look-see, as I was entering my last year of Howard University School of Law . When I showed up , he took me around. One of the first persons that I encountered on my tour was an older white female secretary who literally blanched in fear, it seemed, when she saw me! He hurried me through one or two more brief intros and showed me to the door. I don't remember his name nor anything else but that one scared white secretary who freaked out. I will never forget that. But in fairness to the white law firm , I was also rejected by a black one, Hudson, Leftwich, Davenport . Not just the law firms but the real estate brokers examination had a particular math problem that did me in. I also dropped a securities course I had been taking while I was still in law school to become a stockbroker ; and there were one or two more dabbles and failures that convinced me that I had to leave D.C. to work the work for which I was sent to this time, in this place. I feel better for having written this. It may help someone else who is or who was rattled by rebuffs as I have been, but who get back up to go. One never knows what life may bring. Acceptance can be one's doom or boom, as can rejection be either doom or boom. One never knows, nor can anyone ever know, what might have been either way.