Who would have thought someone I never met would turn out to be one of the key figures in the watershed moment of my life?

Damn you, Senator Joseph Lieberman.

[caption id="attachment_1451" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The villain of the story"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/lieberman-tutu.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1451" title="lieberman-tutu" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/lieberman-tutu-300x289.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="289" /></a>[/caption]

This story may seem a little weird, since the veteran Connecticut politician's name will be the only one in the story. I'll let the other folks remain anonymous out of respect for their privacy.

When I celebrated my 20th birthday in December 1969, my life was somewhat off track. I had gone away to the University of Virginia when I was 17 going on 12, and I had foundered in the party school atmosphere in Charlottesville.

I had started over again at George Washington University two years later, and my fall semester was sort of an academic disaster, but for a different reason. I had joined a fraternity and was having fun for the first time. By the end of the semester I was on academic suspension, but I was in love for the first time in my life.

She was a freshman and the daughter of a Connecticut politician (<em>not</em> Lieberman), we dated until the end of the spring semester while I worked and got ready to earn my way back into school for the fall semester. I had to take two classes in the summer at the community college to prove I could do college work successfully.

She went home for the summer. Her father -- a state senator -- was running for the U.S. Senate, and she was working on his campaign.

I took a humanities course and a chemistry course, and for the first time since elementary school, I worked hard and did well. An A and a B; I hadn't gotten a B in a science course since seventh grade. My girlfriend and I had been drifting apart over the summer, and after the end of July, we were no longer talking on the phone.

I sent my grades in, and GWU accepted me back -- on probation -- for the fall semester.

I was fired up, and I actually felt OK about the fact that my first real relationship was over. In early September, just before registration, she called me. She was flying in to register for classes and then returning home for a week. Her dad had lost his U.S. Senate race, but he still had a primary election for the job he already had. He was the majority leader of the state senate, so no one expected anything except a victory.

I picked her up at National Airport -- Ronald Reagan was still in his first term as governor of California then -- and we drove down to the campus. We had dinner together at our favorite restaurant, and we were walking back to her dorm after dinner when she asked me a question that took me by surprise. She asked me if I still loved her. Without even thinking, I said of course I did. She said that was good, because she still loved me.

We registered for our classes the next day, and we decided to take a political science class together. I drove her to the airport, and she told me she would be back in a week.

Then disaster struck. Almost out of nowhere, her veteran politician father lost his primary election to a 28-year-old political rookie named Joseph Lieberman. She was devastated. When she returned to school, we had spent a little more than an hour together when she told me we had to break up.

I didn't even ask her why, but something I had come to terms with completely in August now hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.

She said she hoped we could still be friends, and I just shrugged. At 20, I was playing Bogart when I felt like anything but that. All my motivation for doing well in school had vanished, and by spring I was gone again. I was 21, and most of the rest of my twenties turned out to be wasted -- a bad marriage, bad jobs and very little progress toward a real future.

So there was my watershed moment. I'm not saying we would have dated all through college, gotten married and lived happily ever after. Maybe, but not likely. But I think in September 1970, I had reached a point where I was ready to straighten my life out. If she and I hadn't broken up, I think I would have had the motivation to get through GWU and then go on to law school, which was my goal at that time.

I certainly don't blame her. I have very fond memories of our semester together, and I can't blame anyone but myself for the fact that I was so weak as to let myself get knocked off track.

Well, that's not quite true that I don't blame anybody.

I do blame Joe Lieberman.

&nbsp;