And I never saw him again

Sometimes in a coffee shop you find out the most intimate problems of someone sitting nearby. You ponder them for weeks, months or years, but never see him again. At Caribou one day, another customer and I were discussing a vocabulary building book to use with the SAT test. His son was taking the test that day and the man was helping with this part. (Looked like a really great book, but I've never seen it in a store.)

He commented to me that he hated his parents because they had ruined his life by trying to control his choices in college so he had dropped out and became a rock musician until he was 35. Never to be one shy about my opinions, I told him it was time to stop blaming his parents, forgive them and go back and finish college. But he insisted he couldn't--his job in the import/export business is really too good!

Anyway, it turns out he was adopted as an infant and is really bitter that his natural background has been kept from him and that he and his adoptive parents have nothing in common. So we talked a little, and because he was born in 1951, his records aren't sealed and he knows his birth mother's name and what county she was from. He'd still rather blame his parents because they didn't give him this information when he was younger--although he admits he wasn't interested until he was in his 40s. I told him to go ahead and do a search--so at least his children will have the benefit of knowing and won't blame him 30 years from now when the trail is really cold.

I'm sure he still hasn't forgiven his parents or searched for his birth mother. Some people just need others to blame for the choices and decisions they don't have the courage to make.