The Greeks had not heard of M*A*S*H or Seinfeld, so their definition of a comedy was a little different from what we view as a comedy today. To sum: if a story had a happy ending, it was a comedy.

I have always depended upon the stories of my life having happy endings. Others may choose to dance on the fringes of tragedy, but I’m staunchly in favor of going to bed at night with a smile upon my face. Worrying about how I will get over the tragedies of life is not my bag, and I am not very good at it. I allow myself to be wrapped up in the hate and the failure.

That’s why I depend upon happy endings instead.

It’s not all a matter of luck, you know, there are things we can all do to create these happy endings. We have the free will to call upon Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, so why not use her? There she is, just sitting there, waiting for you to dial that number. Operators are standing by now, you know.

When you call upon her, she’s more than happy to give you a solution, but not all of the solutions are as easy as others. It depends upon the situation. You see, there is always a price to be paid for a happy ending. The key to a happy ending can be as simple as holding open the door for someone whose arms are full. Or, a solution may require a lifetime of work and toil. It just depends upon how complex the question is. It also depends upon how much you want out of life.

Sometimes you don't even know that you asked a question, but find yourself with a solution anyway.

I have three stories from my life that I will share with you. These three stories have happy endings, and I will tell you why they had happy endings.

Principal Hill spoke to the Senior members of the Tippecanoe Valley High School Student Council just a week before graduation in the Spring of 1987.

“Your behavior during Commencement will ultimately determine how people remember your class. If you make fools of yourselves, the community will always remember that.”

As a honor student, and a respectable member of my community, I took John Hill’s words to heart. I was a member of a successful football team and a track team, and I wanted to have a memorable commencement as well.

(this is what we call “foreshadowing”)

Sometimes, sub-stories within larger stories are actually tragedies. Perhaps that is what makes the good ending of an overall story that much better. My classmates chose to wreck protocol -- as well as defy common sense -- and make utter fools of themselves while Principal Hill and Superintendent Page passed out the diplomas.

I don’t know how many countless marbles made their way towards the podium. Several alarm clocks went off at once. I counted at least two beach balls flying during the air, and Shane Picklesimer himself presented one to Superintendent Page.

I remember blushing, I remember my blood boiling. I wanted to make my community proud, and in order to do this, I felt that I had to separate myself from the rest of my goonish classmates. After one alarm clock sounded just behind me, I felt my body jerk up, and walk out of the gymnasium, nearly knocking over one of the class geeks who was about to walk upon stage. By that point, only two-thirds of my classmates had received their diplomas.

Sitting by myself in the auditorium for about an hour, I made a plan to write a letter of apology to all of the local newspapers on behalf of my hooligan classmates. I had several other angry, violent fantasies during that hour, but it all came to a halt when my father finally found me. We shouted some angry words back and forth to one another, but what ultimately shut me up was this: “Son, you did not have to walk out like that just to separate yourself from them. You will never see some of these people again a day in your life. Why do you have to get all worried about what they do now? Tomorrow, it just won’t matter.”

Although I did not totally agree with that statement, it did make sense. So, did I walk out in vain? Did I ultimately make a larger fool of myself than my classmates did of themselves? The weight of the irony gave my shoulders an uncharacteristic droop as I finally walked out into the cafeteria and out the door to my parent’s car.

Despite our anger, this did not stop us from getting ice cream as previously planned.

The following week, one of the parents of one of my classmates stopped me in the church parking lot, and told me that he was proud of what I had done. He noted that it took a lot of courage to stand up for what I believed in. He was pleased with me. His words, and his words alone, patched the hole in my heart, and soothed the pain of my father’s lack of understanding.

So, that stopped the bleeding, and I was able to heal from there. Final redemption, though, was yet to come.

My sister graduated from Tippecanoe Valley High School in 1991. I went with my parents to the annual Senior Breakfast. I mean, who am I to turn down free food? The school management had changed. New vice-principal, new principal, new superintendent. At the conclusion of the breakfast, the principal had a serious talk with the Class of 1991. He spoke of a person he had never met, whose name he did not know, and of an event he had never seen.

“I understand that several years ago the graduating class made total buffoons of themselves during commencement. They were disrespectful to their parents, the school staff and the community. One person was so hurt by all this, that he walked out of his own graduation ceremony. We will not tolerate this today.”

I nearly leapt out of my seat and cheered. Afterwards, several people went up to congratulate the principal on taking a stand against foolishness, and oh, by the way, this is the person who walked out! I shook his hand, and walked away with a total feeling of healing and closure. I gave my father a “neener, neener, neener,” and he could only smile and say, “Well, Son, I guess you were right.

Well, duh, of course I was flipping right! This was not about my father, though, this was about me and my feelings.

For what it is worth, some classmates were surprised that I showed up at the five-year reunion in 1992. After all, the last time most had seen me was that night five years previous. By my ten-year reunion in 1997, no one even mentioned it. As if anything needed to be said, I

On a spring night in 1987, Thalia told me that I had to take an awfully large risk if this story were to result in a happy ending. I could have just kept my butt in its seat, which would certainly have been the easier thing to do, or I could have actually taken a stand and showed the community what I thought of my classmates.

(when they come to ethnically cleanse me, will you speak up, will you defend me)

At the time, I knew it was the right thing to do, but I did not quite know why. After four years, I finally knew. The story had a happy ending.

The moral: you must always stand strongly with your values, stand and stand tall for that in which you believe. Thalia will take care of the rest.

OK, here’s a little anecdote I need to tell you to help you understand the moral behind story number two.

During the Fall of 1989, one of our fraternity pledges found himself with a new girlfriend. She had fairly dark skin, and very dark hair, and we just assumed that she was Hispanic. No big deal, we Hoosiers can deal with that. We are sheltered beings, but many of us do not have problems with Hispanics.

Of course, she actually turns out to be Jewish. There are not many Jewish families in the rural areas of Indiana, so this was a shock and a surprise to many of the brotherhood. We were not actually prejudiced, we were just . . . sheltered. When we were in high school, no one taught us how to act around and how to treat minorities.

(of course, that’s the whole irony of it all: you DON’T treat them any differently;. remember, this is indiana. as shocking as all this may be to those of you who take people of different backgrounds for granted, it’s actually a very frightening thing for the average hoosier to come into contact with minorities.)

In the backs of our minds, we just knew that the subject of Judaism would come up around her, and none of us knew how she would react. Again, you see the irony.

Midway through an evening of drinking, loud music, and gun cleaning, one of the more foolhardy brothers put down his can of Miller Genuine Draft, stood up, puffed out his chest, and confidently blurted, “Mara . . . say something Jewish!

Without blinking: “Schmuck!”

I don’t think we stopped laughing for days.

OK, that was the anecdote, so let’s skip to November 1993. I had left the friendly confines of Purdue University nine months previously, and was living in Hartsville, South Carolina. I was on a date with Sandy -- the best-looking woman in all of Florence County -- and we were at Red Bone Alley with several of her professional female friends. We were trading fully one-liner stories, and I it was my turn. As I started in, one woman at the table stopped me, “Now, wait, Kim here is Jewish.”

I looked Kim right in the eye and said, “Good, you will love this story!” She did, and so did everyone else.

What if, though, what if I were the type of person who told racist and politically incorrect jokes? What if I did actually have a repitore of rather offensive stories? I just might have told the wrong tale, I just might have embarrassed myself in front of my date, her friends, and poor Kim. I might have walked into a brick wall, and it would have been a bad thing. It would have been bad for all of us.

Ever since I had been in high school, Thalia had told me not to tell offensive jokes. “Look, I don’t care if you listen to them, but don’t repeat them, just stay away from the whole thing. Tell knock-knock jokes if you have to, but stay away from foul humor.” If I had not listened to my Muse, I just might have chosen the wrong story to tell. Kim did not have a Jewish surname, she did not look Jewish, she was just another professional South Carolinian woman to me. By appearances alone, “being careful” would not have been enough. I would have hurt an innocent woman with a foul joke.

This is a case where you are not really asking her a question; instead, she is giving you advice. The answer is now, the question comes later. In this case, the answer is simple: stay away from being offensive. Don't pick on people, leave them be.

For years, I had resisted telling offensive jokes, so this story came out with a happy ending.

Longtime readers of The Meyhem Project will remember the job struggles I had in the early part of 1997. I was the shipping supervisor for a manufacturing company in Canandaigua, New York. On December 30, 1996, I realized that I was in a job that I just could not stand, and I was working with people I really did not like. Come New Year’s Day, I knew that it was time to go, it was time to leave. I was in over my head, and I had thrown up the white flag of surrender.

I had to find a job without quitting the one that I had. I could not afford to just ditch and run, I had to find a home before I could ditch. I did not -- and still don’t -- necessarily have the type of job requirements that allow me to find another job in a hurry in the same town. It’s not like jumping from Wal-Mart to K-Mart. It’s not like jumping from JC Penney to Sears. I wanted to find a white-collar analyst position in logistics.

(logistics is the study of the physical movement of products and the information related to the products)

I didn’t want to spend the time hoping that something would pop up in Rochester, or ever Syracuse or Buffalo. I wanted out, and as quickly as possible.

I had a resource that I did not have in the fall of 1992 when I was searching for my first job out of Purdue University: the Internet. I could search for jobs in the ease and privacy of my own home. I didn’t have to check the newspapers in the library, and I did not have to employ a headhunter that I could not afford.

I could write resumes and cover letters under my own roof. I could search for jobs and careers on the West Coast where I wanted to be. I could specifically look for the job that I wanted. I did not have to be broad and vague, I could look for exactly what I wanted.

Trust me, I found opportunities! There were many available logistics positions, and many were on the West Coast, just like I wanted. Night after night, I would prepare resumes and cover letters to print, and I would even have the opportunity to send resumes electronically. When I visited my favorite Barnes and Noble, I would pick up books on writing said cover letters and resumes, and I even bought a book on Pacific Northwest job searching.

I wasn’t discouraged when I would open my mailbox and find form letters from my chosen companies.

(thank you for your interest, we have put your resume on file with our human resources department.)

I knew that would happen, and it certainly wasn’t anything personal against me. It’s just the reality of searching for a professional position. You don’t let that stop your search, you just have to keep on plugging, keep on trying and searching.

January tripped into February, and February slid right into March. I was still searching, still pumping out resumes, never quitting, never losing faith or hope.

I was sitting in my office in early March, and our plant receptionist paged me to pick up a call.

“Bryon, this is Jane Doe from Management Recruitment, International. Are you in a position where you can talk privately and confidentially?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Bryon, I’d like to speak to you about a job opportunity in the logistics field.”

This opportunity turned out to be the position I had here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The headhunter had called me completely independently of any of the resumes I had sent. You see, I had spoken to my plant manager in February of my intent to leave the company. She talked to my old boss back in Hartsville, South Carolina, and he obviously must have said something to one of my other colleagues. MRI had originally called my colleague, and although he was not looking for a new position . . . he knew of someone who was.

That would have been me, of course.

The point is that I had worked hard to find a new and rewarding position. I never let ding letters and form letters get in my way. I was determined to leave, and I was not going to settle for anything beneath me. My hard work paid off in the form of a phone call from the blue. Yes, it is true: had I not actually performed the first job search, I still would have been the recipient of that call in early March. Hindsight tells us that. Still, we do not have the ability to look into the future and see these things. We must put in the hard work to get there, even if the work is all quote in vain unquote. Thalia told me that I had to keep chugging along, I had to search the Internet job sites every week, I had to pump out resumes. I had to pay the price for success and a happy ending, even it came about via luck. I like what Zig Ziglar has to say about luck: it is when preparation meets opportunity. Those of you who are more spiritual than I am may call it destiny or fate or karma or good vibes. It’s all the same in the end. You work hard, you pay the price, you get a happy ending.

To sum: three stories, three happy endings, courtesy of Thalia.

1. Stand up for that in which you believe. Have a backbone, stand proud.

2. Always, always, always, do the moral thing, not necessarily the fun, easy, and lazy thing. It’s hard to get in trouble if you always take the moral high road.

3. Never ever quit. Keep moving along, and you will get what’s yours through the persistence time. Be it luck, or be it fate, just keep moving forward.

To quote Rush, “I don’t believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate.” I believe that we make our own choices in life. We have the power to make our time on Earth what we choose it to be. As Morpheus said of The Oracle in the movie The Matrix, Thalia is only a guide. She will show you the door, but only you can walk through it.