Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for April 26, 2022

We are all feeling our age. Shakespeare sums it up so well.

Johnson’s laying a strip all right.

Brings back memories of friends I can no longer see. I do however remember them the way they were when we were together and personal bonds were tight. That was before life moved on. Time does wound as well as heal.

Here’s the whole thing.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50646/sonnet-65-since-brass-nor-stone-nor-earth-nor-boundless-sea

Damn, that man was good!

Yep, it looks like Jimmy is letting us down as easily as he can.

Just thinking of the people know I’ll never see again. And I’ll have to do it in bite-sized chunks.

Listen closely and you’ll hear the strains of a Fleetwood Mac song from the car’s radio. (Tuned to an oldies station of course). Title anyone?

There is a line of Verlaine I shall not recall again,

There is a nearby street forbidden to my step,

There is a mirror that has seen me for the last time,

There is a door I have shut until the end of the world.

Among the books in my library (I have them before me)

There are some I shall never reopen.

This summer I complete my fiftieth year:

Death reduces me incessantly.

Jorge Luis Borges, “Limits”

You can go your own way

To paraphrase the Bard: Life’s lease hath all too short a date.

I should have posted the three poems today, not Sunday.

What a beautiful comic . . . touching, lovely, and with a Shakespeare Sonnet, to boot. Gives this English major a melancholy and wistful smile today.

Speaking of the passage of time and losing those close to us, today is Confederate Memorial Day.

To me the past should stay in the past! The memories are better than the reality!

Poor Cassie seems to be getting fatter every day.

“Go Your Own Way” – Fleetwood Mac

Sorry Jimmy Johnson, this didn’t work for me. We never heard of these people before last month so it felt contrived when they showed up now, and I can’t feel sad that we’ll never see them again.

This isn’t a knock against A&J in general – I’ve enjoyed it for decades. But this story arc fell flat.

There were two missives from Mr. Johnson today, not counting, of course, his artwork.

prefer

I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, no just for tomorrow, but in the here and now. Keep moving and forget the post mortems; and remember, no one can get the jump on the future.

Carl Sandburg

This is what I hated most about the covid restrictions. Time lost cannot be made back up. Those were years that are gone forever. I don’t want to debate if we should or should not have done what we did. I just want to acknowledge the lost opportunities to get together.

**yawn

At any age, treat everyone you love as if you will never see them again. “Tell me that you love me now, not when i am a stone in a church yard!” Irish saying.

My mom bankrolled our coast to coast tour, new vehicles, even a house or two. She was 100 and didn’t trust how her extended family would handle things. I went to the west coast and spent a week with a pilot buddy from the Arctic who I haven’t seen for 40 years and the to Toronto to see my BFF from high school who talked me into joining the RCAF. I take care of my HS alumni website, too many old friends are only memories.

At least they got to reminisce about their “good old college days” and family happenings. They always have FaceTime if they can’t “drop in” in the future.

So many comments about getting old. At the ripe old age of 38 it was prognosticated that my life would end in less than 2 years at the rate I was burning up the carcass. my lifestyle was such that no one who knew me would ever think to buy a 40th birthday card for me. And I agreed. yet after a massive lifestyle change ay 39, here I am on the cusp of 70 reminiscing of those gone before including literally a dozen who were sure they would outlive me. reality is, every day in my life is one I should not have had the opportunity to spend, so every morning when I wake I sit up and say,,, “Told you so”.

It has been said, “Life is full of little comings & goings”….

I think the biggest error so many recommendations about preparing for the future make is in presenting our later days as being like the earlier ones. It is not a matter of being worn out, but of having fewer unknowns. The unknowns we have in later life are essentially a small subset of the ones we had when we were younger.

Things that have changed since I was a young man: I am very unlikely to die in a war; I met my One and Only – we will celebrate 48 years together in a few months; my careers are history and I remember the glory days without wanting to relive them; our kids have turned out great; we have enough income to get by on. Within two decades my shift will very likely be over.

I hate trying to figure out poetry. Just say what you mean!

They need a free place to stay on their drive back home. They will hear from them in a week or two.

This one makes me sad (and I realize that bittersweet feeling was the intent—it worked). At my age, there are so many things that have happened for the last time, and at the time I didn’t realize it.

I always favored this from Macbeth:Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.

Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf; and I don’t feel so well myself…

“I wonder if we’ll ever see them again!”

You will if you make the effort.

“Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they’ll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived.” — Jean Luc Picard

If we never meet again.

Happy bday, Shakes!

A few years ago my late father commented that he was happy for Gina & me going to places like Mexico & other exotic places. He commented how he wanted to do that with Mum but never made time for it, & now their health didn’t allow them to travel any more so they couldn’t.

When my kids were young, my folks flew across the country to visit, and as long as they were in California my dad wished out loud that he could go visit an old Army buddy he’d been very close to. They’d kept up via Christmas cards and the like for about 50 years. Of course, Dad! So he called and set it up. We made a day trip to play tourist in that area and then, with the kids fed lunch, headed over there, the kids told beforehand that this was for Grampa and his friend and all of us were to keep quiet and let them do all the talking. We pulled in the driveway and Dad leaped out of the car. Before he got to the door, his friend stepped outside in that same anticipation. …I got to see that moment when the two of them laid eyes on each other for the first time since I’d been two years old: there was a split second of pure shock, both ways. How could he be/do I look that old?!! And then they fell into each other’s arms. The men spent maybe 90 minutes catching up, Mom and my husband and kids and me trying not to interject anything and rather sorry they weren’t having this all to themselves but there we were. I’m so glad Dad got to see his friend. He never got to again. And now I’m the age Dad was then and some of my old high school friends and I are trying to figure out how to get together and see each other from across the country after the last of this pandemic goes away. I want to splash a hand in the C&O Canal again…

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and sometimes time slips in and steals away.

Well, THIS was certainly an uplifting strip.

Thanks, everyone, for a great trip down Memory Lane!