We're given second chances every day of our lives.

-- Andrew M. Greeley

F. Scott Fitzgerald is famous for saying "There are no second acts in American lives," implying that you get one chance to get it right.

Of course, that's not true.

There are second chances all around us, and I share the example of Donald C. Neal, who died Feb. 29 in Florida.

If you covered Augusta politics 30-plus years ago, you knew Mr. Neal.

That's how I met him when, as a new reporter in town, I was sent to cover the plum assignment of a Soap Box Derby presentation. (If anyone ever won a Pulitzer covering the Soap Box Derby, I vowed it would be me.)

That was where Mr. Neal, a longtime supporter of the derby, began to tell the group about his latest personal challenges and then broke down and cried, professing his innocence of the newspaper's many allegations.

I didn't know much about all that, but I felt terrible that my colleagues were involved in such attacks. In fact, I told them so when I returned to the newsroom that afternoon.

One looked at me as though I was the most naive kid to ever step off a Greyhound, opened his desk drawer and began to pull out file folders, all containing the notes, clippings and other detritus dedicated to the doings of Commissioner Neal.

(I slipped back to my desk, promising to keep future opinions to myself.)

Don Neal is still credited (along with the late Ed McIntyre) of conceiving the idea of an Augusta civic center.

He also was hauled into court (where he pleaded no contest) on charges that he illegally used the public's money on some trips connected with that civic center.

Somewhere in the early 1980s, Mr. Neal left Augusta, and I pretty much forgot about him until earlier this month, when his obituary was published in The Chronicle .

He died in Fernandina Beach, Fla., where he was well remembered.

"He was the most amazing man. He loved the community and everyone in it. He's always cared," said Marilyn Evans-Jones, a former chairwoman of the county Republican Party.

In Nassau County, he had been a former chairman of the GOP and served on the Republican Executive Committee. He worked with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to implement the Early Learning Coalition for Nassau, Clay, Bradford and Baker counties.

He was a member of the Fernandina Beach Optimist Club, St. Peter's Episcopal Church and had served in the Army National Guard, the newspaper said.

It also reported that he was the director of Soap Box Derby racing in Fernandina Beach, which brought together politicians, youths and families.

Fitzgerald, it appears, had it wrong, and maybe a more astute philosopher such as Yogi Berra has it right: "It's never over till it's over."

We all have a chance to do better next time.