QUE SERA SERA

A few years ago, I was invited to a black-tie affair in San Francisco, hosted by my friend, Bonnie---the foremost real estate agent for Victorian homes in that magnificent city. She welcomed 500 guests to her estate. They were fed by the staffs of three caterers, and entertained by three bands that rocked the rafters from 8:00 at night until the sun shone on stragglers the next day.

I wandered around the crowded house eves-dropping on conversations while admiring beautiful people in their designer gowns and tuxedos. Several women wore shoes that cost more than my airline ticket. When I climbed the stairs to the 3rd floor ballroom, it seemed as if all 500 guests were at the bar or gyrating on the dance floor. Many of them were plastered, but I was merely stuck to the wall, unable to move.

Several young women were shouting at one another above the din. One of them said, “I’ve been accepted to nursing school.” When asked about her boyfriend, she said, “I dumped him!” But she added, that she had recently purchased a boxer. I assumed she meant a dog, but wasn’t sure since I was in San Francisco.

Later in the evening, fresh entertainment arrived---a cartoonist, an opera singer and a palm reader. The guests, who hadn’t yet lost their hearing, gathered around the grand piano on the main floor, and others lined up to either get their likeness sketched or their palms read.

I spied the young woman from the ballroom standing in line with her friends waiting for the palm reader. I said to the young woman, “You really don’t need to wait, because I can read your palm.” “You can?” she said. “Yes,” I replied as she extended her hand. I asked for silence and gazed at her palm. I said, “You have recently traded in your boyfriend for a boxer.” Her friends gasped. She looked at me awestruck. “And,” I added, “You will go to nursing school, meet a nice doctor and have a happy life.” Then I left. I threw in that last part about the doctor and a happy life, because I got carried away with my forecasting ability, but thought it couldn’t hurt.

An hour later, I joined the sedate group around the piano. The opera singer had left, and I finally found a conversation worth joining. A woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me, I was upstairs and saw you reading that young woman’s palm.  I have to know. Are you psychic?” “No,” I replied, “I’m Jewish.” She looked very confused as she left to get another drink.

No one knows what the future will bring, so I recommend that people stay positive, open minded and hopeful. But if you want to guess about the future, remember what Niels Bohr said; “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” Then there are gems such as:

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” (H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers 1927.)

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” (Decca Records
Company rejecting the Beatles, 1962.)

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” (Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943)
 
“And for the tourist who wants to get away from it all, Safaris in Viet Nam—a popular holiday for the 1960’s” (Newsweek)

Not a psychic in the bunch. Que Sera Sera.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.” Grover Cleveland, U.S. President 1905)