He’s seventy-one and wonders
about dying. He read a novel
about a man whose wife died
and he kept trying and failing
to kill himself and then he be-
came kind of a hero in spite
of being a curmudgeon. And
he thinks that he’s kind of a
curmudgeon but a really heal-
thy one because he exercises
regularly, jogs like he has for
forty-thousand miles, bikes
like he has for an amount
not kept track of, works his
core, uses stretch bands for
his upper body and has a
knee saved by stem cells. He
thinks about dying of a heart
attack or something else fast
but then he plans the next day’s
run and the following day’s
ride on his forty-one year old
ten-speed which he has ridden
all those thousands of uncounted
miles and then he smiles and
says to himself, “Better than
anything else.”

He was a dapper dresser; he enjoyed
shopping for suits and top coats,
hats and shoes with leather soles.
He would take the new hat and crease
it down the middle, put it on over
his thick, wavy, gray hair and play
awhile with the brim, getting it just
right while looking in the mirror —
maybe a bit like Cagney or Bogie.
He left the purchase of white shirts
and ties for his birthday and Father’s
Day to his son and daughter — shirts
and ties every birthday and Father’s
Day. He came to count on it because
those were always the presents —
shirts and ties always.

He diabolizes the process
and millions of people
cheer and vent so much
anger at losing
a grip and thinking he,
Beelzebub, will babble his
way into the White House
and return it and the country
to white people the way
the framers of the constitution
meant it to be,
and if they didn’t,
should have, as he continues
to swat at flies and bees
and says, “Shush, be quiet
move over, and leave
everything to me.”
“Wild insolence,” a poet
wrote and that just about
sums it up for what should be
the Sweet Land of Liberty.
Such toxicity!

Someone declared it Father’s Day to be
celebrated for me, for I am a father, you see.
My children started — one, then two, now three;
the third came with a second marriage for me.
I’m proud of all three for different reasons that be,
because each is unique in his or her own story.
The three have married which brings my
children to six,
three that came along and three
that were the first three’s picks.
And grandchildren have a way of coming along too
and making fathers of three —
a son, a step-son and a son-in-law to me.
The step-son has four, the son-in-law two
and the son has three,
making nine grandchildren for me to see.
I’m actually hoping the counting stops
for awhile for an ever-expanding family tree,
because nine is the perfect number for a baseball team
which if they got together and practiced real hard,
could probably beat the Cubs to a World Series victory.

He sits surrounded by black and white
photos and all shades of gray in a
screaming loud Technicolor age —
rugged roots on a Finland hike, iri-
descent tulips, an overcast, foggy
morning with fishers in a boat on a
lake, a blustery, high seas day slapping
against the pier in South Haven, still,
aged pilings standing tall and silent
in the waters of Macatawa, an abandoned
church in rural Texas, sunset along White
Lake, an arched brocade in shades of black
and white, a dark library with light of
the eastern morning sky entering through
panes of glass and filtering though the
dust. He is surrounded with black and
white in a noisy, Technicolor age and
more than happy to be there in the quiet
and the stillness without the silent,
deafening roar of social media surround-
ed by photographic art in a beautiful
black and white world of peace and quiet
and, yes, the blessed silence of gray.

He breathes a sigh of relief for
having conducted himself with in-
tegrity even though he may have
apologized too often and then he
thinks he can’t be faulted for not
having apologized adequately and
so, he is satisfied and hopes he
doesn’t pop another hive overnight
with concern over the relationship
and there are some who would caution
him about being overly concerned
and he will consider their advice
before he climbs into bed, slips
between the sheets, reads a few
pages of a real page turner before
turning off the light and sighing
his last sigh for the day.

He lives at the Hotel California
where, I’m told, you can check

out but never leave. It’s on a
one-way street called My Way

Or The Highway. I had known
him a long time but didn’t

know where he lived until one
day he told me, in no un-

certain terms, where he lived
and asked me to check it out

but that I had to get there
his way. He said it’s My Way

Or The Highway, and preferr-
ing to travel on two-way streets

of coming and going, I decided
to take the highway and not

the one-way street, My Way Or
The Highway even if it meant

never checking into the Hotel
California.

Haven’t heard from you in quite
a while. I’m wondering how you
are doing on your journey.

I had to say goodbye to a good
friend of thirty-eight years who
died after a long, slow suicide.
I went to the memorial service
last week. He was a complicated
and tender man for whom life
proved too harsh.

A close friend of fifty years
blew a gasket at me while we
were hosting him and his wife
and won’t recognize the need
for us to do some relational
fence mending. Apparently, he
insists he’s right and I, now,
can understand where he is com-
ing from given my own behavior
from the past, but still….

It may be that our time together
has come to an end and our
correspondence has served its
purpose; if so, I feel gratified
for your healing and the small
part I may have played as a fellow
on the journey through the dark
night of the soul into light.

You have helped me on my journey.
Thank you.

All the best….

Familiarity does not necessarily breed
contempt, although as he stands in front
of the mirror in the morning having
just cleaned his glasses, he may wince.

Most of the time, however, he realizes he
is growing comfortable with his skin
and even begin to forget what it once
looked like except when he runs into some-

one he hasn’t seen in several years and
the person exclaims, “Holy Cow! Is that
you? I heard the voice and realized it
was you but never in a million years

would I have known it was you just by
looking at you.” But only he has to
stand in front of the mirror each time
and give thanks, in part, for not running

into less than tactful acquaintances from
the past more often and for learning to
embrace the things that are receding
and those that are exceeding in spite

of the planks, the stretch bands, the
slow jogs in the woods and the less than
Tour de France speed on the fifteen mile
round trip bike ride into town on his

forty-year-old ten-speed which has been
painted a few times and which always gets
nods of approval and affirmations of joy
at bike ships with the accompanying words,

“They just don’t make them like that
anymore. I’d like to buy that bike
from you and hang it proudly in the
front window.” He just has to accept

that nobody is offering to hang him
in the front window for all to see
that they just don’t make them like
that anymore.

We obliterate towns, blow up children,
men, women, dogs, cattle and anything
else that moves, (sounds like an Old

Testament script) tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands (maybe a million)
of humans, collateral damage all for

oil. Thank King George W, Dickie the
Sly Dog and Donald the Ducker of
Responsibility or any old Neo Con. The

children who live on as orphans become
what they believe to be freedom fighters
avenging the deaths of their parents,

aunts, uncles, grandparents and they kill
hundreds and thousands of other Muslims
and then they appeal to lost, looney-tune,

disaffected, wandering Americans in the
spiritual wasteland to get readily
available guns, assault rifles and

hit the soft targets, ten here, fifty
there, three somewhere else which sends
the people who have lost their way into

a panic and those who take the credit
know that guerrilla warfare works as
blow-back for what, in their twisted

minds, the arrogant Empire has done
like smug Goliath the Philistine roaring
before David and his five smooth stones.