Thursday, April 27, 2017

How 's Your Luck

"With a little bit of Luck"
   Part of a line from one of my favorite songs from the musical, My Fair Lady. How many of us sophisticated, non-superstitious folks put our hands behind our backs and cross our fingers when hoping to score a prize?
  How many of you checked to see if you could still cross your fingers?
   Luck is the joker in most endeavors. You work, you learn, and you persist then one day the world spins, your 'luck' changes and you win. Did you unconsciously follow the rules?
   Let's see how many we can remember?
   We wish people good luck, especially actors & musicians before a performance by saying, "Break a leg."
   Find a penny head-side up, pick it up, it will bring good luck.
   Find a pin, pick it up and you'll have good luck all day long.
   Luck of the draw is an old gambler's adage or we can stretch it a bit to include the survivor of a western shootout. 
   Carrying a rabbit's left-hind foot or a buckeye in your pocket will bring good luck.
   Finding a four-leaf clover will bring food luck.
   Your chances are 1 in 10,000 based on the material I read in Wiki. One man in Japan found a clover stem with 56 leaves. How much luck did that bring?
   Four leaves on a clover stem is according to the scientists a sport (one time change in a plant) or a rare recessive gene which produces the famous symbol of good luck. As a kid I spent many hours on my hands and knees searching for one. I still look down to see if today is the lucky day when I find it.
   Celtic symbolism gives each leaf an attribute: faith, hope, love, and luck.
   The other side of the coin is bad luck. We all know the famous line from Hee Haw, "If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."
   When things go bad, then you're down on your luck.
   If you break a mirror you'll have seven years bad luck.
   Walking under a ladder will bring you bad luck or a crack on the head or both.
   A black cat walks across your path is a sure sign of bad luck in the future.
   Friday the 13th means bad luck all day long. Got a good thing going for us in 2017, we won't have an unlucky Friday the 13th until October. So enjoy your summer.
   Step on a crack, break your back is another symbol of bad luck. That little rhyme popped through my head as I edited our new novel, Tempered Blade, which is coming soon. Unconscious writing where we have a character being careful not to step on a crack.
   It provided the inspiration to find and remember things lucky and unlucky to share with you. Today is your lucky day.
Nash Black, author of Legacy of Death