Adventure of the Green Shoelace

Originally posted on Quora

The following is a true story.

Decades ago, I left Hong Kong for the first time to attend university in Canada. I was eighteen. I was a freshman at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. At that time, I had the habit of running at the tracks every night with my best friend. I had a rather odd pair of running shoes that I brought over from Hong Kong. They were green, and had green shoelaces. I would say green shoelaces were rather unique at the time. One evening, after running 400 or 800 meters with my best friend, we returned to Whidden Hall (student residence which inspired Animal House) to discover that I had lost the shoelace on one of my running shoes. Since I didn’t believe that I could find another green shoelace in the whole of North America, my friend and I went back to the tracks to look for the shoelace. It was in vain. I even combed the tracks again and went to the school Lost and Found the next day but there was no green shoelace.

As time went by, I simply forgot about the green shoelace. It was insignificant and I had other more pressing matters to attend to. By the end of school year, I started looking for summer jobs. Eventually, I found a job working as a bar server in the Men’s lounge of the Dundas Valley Golf and Curling Club, a private club for the privileged.

In order to be near work, I looked for a summer rental in the small town of Dundas which was not far from the university. I found a perfect rental of a second floor of a house with private entrance. The owners lived downstairs. They were an old couple who immigrated from Austria. The old man’s name was Manzl, and my name was Man. We hit it off immediately and the deal was done. The house was perfectly located in a quiet back street and only minutes away from the club by bicycle.

One day, the old couple told me that they would be away for a week to visit their daughter in Vancouver. They said that I could watch TV downstairs and if I needed tools for anything, I could find their toolbox in the garage. Before this, I was never invited into their living space.

My best friend got a summer job at Cambridge which was not too far from Hamilton. During weekends, he would come to visit me. He would usually wait for me to get off work at my place, and then we would finish a bottle of vodka. Those were the days. On this particular weekend while the Manzls were away, my friend rode his bicycle to the club. Dundas Golf and Curling Club sits on a bit of a hill, and we have to go downhill to get back to town. Being young and fearless—some may say reckless—and accustomed to riding the bicycle on this route everyday, I just rolled downhill with my arms stretched sideways like the wings of a plane. It was a Sunday and there was no car in sight. My friend on the other hand came from a well-to-do family and learned to treasure his life. He went down more carefully behind me with his hands securely controlling the brakes.

As my bike flew into town and through stop signs where no cars would ever appear, my friend shouted behind me to warn me about the stop signs. I foolishly turned around to ask what he was saying. But since my hands were not on the handle, the bicycle swerved and hit the only electric pole within a mile. I jumped off without hurting myself, but the cross bar of the bicycle was bent. To make a long story less long, I went to the garage to look for tools. When I opened the toolbox, I found my lost green shoelace inside.

I would later learn that Mr. Manzl had worked at the university as a part-time gardener, and he found my shoelace at the tracks. Having survived the Second World War, he did not like to throw out anything. So he kept it in his toolbox just in case it might come in handy. For me to meet my shoelace again, I’d have to find a job in Manzl’s town, rent his home, he and his wife had to go away, he would for some reason tell me to use his toolbox, my friend would have to visit me at the club and yell at me about the stop sign, I would have to foolishly turn around, my bicycle would have to hit that single pole, and viola, I find the green shoelace. The odds are astronomical, but a series of events conspired to help me find my green shoelace. And my best friend was right there as my witness. This tale amazes everyone who hears it.

Aftermath: I showed Mr. Manzl my green shoes with the missing shoelace. He was also amazed by the coincidence, and gladly returned the shoelace to me. I don’t remember wearing those shoes very much though, I think green shoes went out of style.

Mr. Manzl by the way fought during the Second World War. He showed me pictures of him as a soldier of the Third Reich. 

​As for the incredible Animal House experience of Whidden Hall, that's another story for another post.

Comments
Charlotte Neumann: It’s a nice story - but any statistician could tell you this is not the way to look at an event.
My response: “If a man speaks in the middle of a forest, and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?” — George Carlin.

Ashok Lulla: But what happened to the bike? Did you manage to fix it? Did Mr. Manzl take it kindly that his bike had a ‘crash’?
My response: It was my bike. I found my green shoelace but I paid with my bike. I junked it. Life’s not perfect. At least I got a good story to tell at dinner parties, and now to share with Quora readers.

Samina Naz: I hope you have not lost the other shoe lace by that time.

Sabrina Couture: Amazing!