50 Cents that Changed My Life

Sometimes small things are the big things that change our lives. My life was changed by a 50 cent candy bar in the summer of 1991.

My best friend Seth and I were at scout camp that summer. Our camp site was at the top of a steep hill, and for each meal two people were assigned to walk down to the camp kitchen and pick up food. We devised a system of broom handles and milk crates to carry the heavy load, but it was still difficult. At the bottom of the hill there was another camp site, and at lunchtime Seth and I took a shortcut through it to save a few extra steps. The scoutmaster asked us to please go around (he had probably had a lot of kids try to use his camp as a shortcut). Miffed, Seth and I took the long way back and immediately started making plans to play some pranks on this scout troop during the night.

At that time, I was an angry teenager with a fully developed attitude problem. The world, I was convinced, owed me a lot more than it was giving me. So it seemed perfectly reasonable that if someone gave me crap I would give it right back.

With our plans for nighttime sabotage fully in place, Seth and I walked down the hill to pick up dinner (taking the long way around, of course). As we returned, the scoutmaster who had earlier chided us walked over and said, “Thanks for the taking the long way around.” Then he threw us two candy bars.

There are moments of perfect clarity in life, moments when we see things as they really are. There we were, ready to exact revenge against a perceived injustice. Then, suddenly, as if waking from a dream, Seth and I both saw how wrong we had been. That night, instead of giving “an eye for an eye,” we vowed to be more positive, to use better language and to be more kind and forgiving to others. That was the summer before we started high school, and because of those decisions it was a wonderful experience. Seth passed away two years later, but I'd like to think that the rest of his life was a little more full and a little more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. Sometimes, despite our best efforts to live the lives we want to live, God has other plans for us, and he gives us moments like this one to help us see the error of our ways.

The entire trajectory of my life was altered by a single moment of clarity, and I will be forever grateful to a man I only remember as “Bart” for taking the time to throw 50 cent candy bars to a couple of misguided kids.