He didn’t know where

he got the great idea,

but he decided that

planning his life in

five-year segments

 

was a pro-active,

eminently manage-

able life plan, to

use appropriate

management lingo

 

from a few years

ago. Of course, he

didn’t start such

calculating until

he had his first job.

 

Everything before that

had been pretty well

laid out for him – school,

summer school for typing,

school, summer, etc.

 

And then he knew

where the great idea

came from. This really

wise thought came

from the Great Beyond,

 

from the Oracle of Delphi

and Jesus whispering in

his ear, “What the hay!

Of course, you can

survive this gig for five

years, man.”  It was simply

a divinely inspired survival

plan to keep him from fight

or flight and to exercise his

cerebral cortex more than

 

his alligator brain which

was more or less success-

ful.  And so he has eight

times five-year segments

notched on his Bible, hav-

 

ing been a minister and

metaphorically speaking. 

Now he thinks in one

twenty-year segment, as

in “Given the best of the

 

family history and elimin-

ating unforeseen circum-

stances, I think I have about

twenty years left,” he says

regularly to his long-suffer-

 

ing wife, perhaps in an

attempt to convince himself

and asked her that at the end

of the segment (which would

be four more five-year seg-

 

ments for a total of twelve

segments plus the first

twenty-five years for a

grand total of eighty-five

years, if anyone is counting)

 

assuming he has run out

of segments that Loren

Eiseley’s epitaph be read

in the Saugatuck Dunes

just before his ashes are

 

tossed to the wind and ad-

justed so the ashes don’t fly

up anyone’s nose from the

usual gusts blowing southeast

to northwest across Lake Mich-

igan from his home sweet child-

hood home Chicago, “I loved the

earth, but I couldn’t stay.”