Las Vegas

Once again it is time for a Poker Boyz trip to Las Vegas. A bare quorum of the usual suspects begin arriving tomorrow. We are all staying at the MGM Grand after several weeks of email negotiations regarding a) room rates & deals; b) walking distance to several appropriate poker rooms; c) daily access to the lion habitat.

There may be a random report or two from Las Vegas if anything of interest occurs. But the likelihood is that there will be:

-a lot of poker

-dinners, drinks, snacks, buffets

-interesting even strange encounters with non-indigenous wildlife (tourists)

-an excursion to my favorite SPCA shelter for a cat condo purr-fest

-a memorial stop at the Sahara before it closes

-meet-ups with several friends from 'the olde days'

-a Bellagio run for the usual sites and current art exhibit

-a downtown run for a tournament at Binion's and the annual picture

-one quick & dirty business meeting

Since most readers these days have little or no interest in card games or Las Vegas, I have queued up appropriate non-gaming posts while I am away. 

Coming Home?

Home - 1. a house, apartment or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family or household.

             2. the place in which one's domestic affections are centered.

In one sense I am coming home today, that would be the the sense expressed in the first definition above. If any place can be called my usual residence in the past several years, then the Berkeley apartment qualifies. Today after 112 days of remodeling, I am moving back in. Pictures to follow soon.

Domestic affections is another thing entirely. I don't really know if I simply no longer feel such emotions or just currently have no interest in that direction. Semi-nomadic feels comfortable and not at all foreign as I had anticipated. This gives me something to ponder as I place my minimalist domestic stuff in the renewed space high up in the low clouds of Berkeley.

Remember Coming Home (Fonda, Voight, Dern) one of the first two major films that took on the subject of the Vietnam War. They both came out in 1978, less than three years after the U.S. exit from Vietnam; the other film was The Deer Hunter (DeNiro, Walken, Streep). The picture below is the one most remember from Coming Home, Fonda and the crippled veteran she falls in love with Jon Voight. The picture at the top is of Fonda and Bruce Dern, her husband; the other factor in the film's equation. I much preferred The Deer Hunter but no one would have got the reference if I titled this post - Searching for Bambi? 


Nevermind, nothing to see here, move along.

And yes the apartment is nearly 100% new, so what am I bitchin' about?

Penultimate Post

Time to travel a bit before the calendar turns another notch in our collective lives. I am off to Las Vegas in a few days for some time with a mini-quorum of my poker buddies. Will also be catching up with a lot of former poker media friends at the WPBT Winter Classic. All-in-all a week to ten days in the desert.

After Vegas I will not be immediately returning to the Berkeley apartment because a major remodeling process will begin while I am in Las Vegas; considering the holidays the entire project will take about a month and then I will be re-inhabiting a very upgraded living space. I have been packing and moving out for the last week or so; yet another opportunity to divest myself of accumulated stuff.

So after the time in the desert, I suspect I will return to the Bay area, check on the state of the construction in the apartment and then do some holiday visitations. Weather will be a big determining factor for where I will be mid-month, I really want to position myself for a clear view of the solstice lunar eclipse on the 21st.

Also my friends in Mt Shasta will be heading off to visit relatives and I am once again the house/cat-sitter designee. So at some point I will make the northern trek to Siskiyou County where I will remain until after the new year hath dawned on what I suspect will be a very fluid 2011.
--
photo: another NASA moon

One Farmer's Disaster is Many Beetle's Revenge

Did you know that bug splatter on your car's windshield is a treasure trove of genomic biodiversity? Yes indeed, the DNA left behind in the bugs splattered on your car's window glass can be used to estimate the diversity of insects in the region.

I just got home from Las Vegas, which meant a spent quite a few hours in the 'fruit basket of California' or as it is more commonly known -- the San Joaquin Valley. They grow lots of grapes there, mostly for raisins and the majority of asparagus consumed in the U.S. come from there. Also lemons, mandarins, pistachios, lots of almonds plus other citrus and vegetables. In some sections, however, the water from the California Aqueduct has been rationed or even cutoff because of a continuing drought.

This means that you see a lot of signs like this:

I am not going to debate the water issues in the West today but I would like to point out that as recently as five years ago, you could drive the length of the Central Valley of California and not have a single bug splatter on your windshield. Today both times I stopped for gas I had to use a bit of the olde elbow grease to scrape scores of splats off the glass. There are several lessons here: first is the issue of broad spectrum insecticides and what just a minor decline in their use has done for the insect population.

Then there is the not so obvious matter of my transit today ending the existence of several hundred sentient creatures. I would expound on those matters but I had a nine hour drive and what I truly need is some time with my back flat on the floor, followed by ice cream.

Talk among yourselves.

---

splatter photo credit: John Chiembanchong

Leaving for Las Vegas

I will be off in a few hours for Las Vegas. Interesting to return to a place where I lived for three years but really had no significant connection other than work. While Las Vegas is not my kind of town, I don't have the aversion that many of my friends have to Glitter Gulch, Lost Wages, Sin City or whatever not quite appropriate labels non-residents have for Vegas. 

The trip is part-business/part-pleasure. Amy will be there for a financial conference and we have a couple of pending projects to discuss.  Several other poker buddies are in town already or will be passing through. In addition there is some writin' business to be attended to. Another book deal to mull over and some other potential assignments to be pondered and perhaps negotiated. 

Poker will also be on the agenda. I will hit the Venetian for some Omaha 8 and I imagine a tournament or two downtown at Binion's. Also, now that Debonair has moved his play to the MGM, I foresee several sessions near the lion habitat.

I am staying at the Monte Carlo for most of the trip, rates on the strip are definitely down and the latest really good deal was at Monte Carlo. Besides that puts me right next to the new City Center project. 

Somewhat pokerish updates to follow.

Here Today -- Gone Tomorrow

Now that I have a permanent address again, able to receive both mail and visitors; it is well time to consider where to travel next. With that in mind I did some bookings for Las Vegas last night. Buddies in the poker media will notice that I managed to schedule two trips in the next several months yet still managed to miss all of the World Series. I really am done with poker, besides they turned me down for a media credential, seems I don't have enough experience.  


I will be in Vegas in early May to do a little business and some research on a future book. In addition, my co-author Amy Calistri will be there spinning her wisdom for the investment minded at the Mirage. So Amy and I and another buddy will be spending some quality time at our olde haunts, which may include a casino or two but mostly the cultural and gustatorial highlights of the city. 


I also booked the discount deal at the Monte Carlo for mid-July, post-WSOP, for the annual Boyz poker trip. For the first time in several years I will not be the local host but merely one of the attendees. We expect a full turnout this summer with the obvious exception of he who shall not be harassed. Both of the Las Vegas trips will be around a week long. 


There is another more substantial vacation on the horizon. Vacation as a derivative of "vacate." At some point in the May-June-July period, there is a nascent plan to remodel the Berkeley apartment where I am currently resting my head. The remodel is so extensive as to require a complete vacating of both me and all the stuff in the place. Furniture, clothes, computers, kitchen all of it has to move out so the transformation can be done in some reasonable mediation of labor and time. At that point I am probably going to head up to Mt. Shasta to visit my good friends. We might even coordinate my vacating with one of their trips and wound two avians with one rock. 


All of this running about leads to a potential big trip in August. I guess I don't want to talk about this one too much quite yet. Just leave it for now that it does involve my passport, I don't speak the language and I have never been before. More on this one later.

For now, all my bags are unpacked but not stored away quite yet.
---
art credit: Golden Sunset by Lauren Luna


Hello Blogger! New template has some formatting errors . . .

The Day is at Hand

Well my year plus of un-domiciled existence will be ending this week. I booked the carpet cleaner for Thursday, which means I will have a new mailing address in Berkeley come Friday. The process of removing 25 years of books, art and papers from the apartment has been daunting but also very interesting. As Mira likes to say: we were always one envelope, one box, one more file folder away from finding another treasure. All 3500 books have been shipped to the dealer or donated to various worthy institutions. The dust of decades has been blown away and now the art has started on its next journey to find new homes with someone who will appreciate and treasure the many pictures, textiles, brass and well just too many forms of expression to measure.

It will probably take another couple of months for all of the art to find its way down the hall and out the door but enough space has been reclaimed for me to live in the apartment for now. Besides there are literally hundreds of pieces of art and no docent to tell me not to pick them up to take a closer look.

Sometime this spring or early summer we will begin remodeling the entire unit but that is phase three. We are nearly done with reclamation and removal (phase 1). Next comes occupancy (phase 2). Once I am in, I will give you a description of what this place is like and twill be clear why all the labor was worth it. Yes, besides helping out my good friend #3; I had an ulterior motive or two.

For now. Nearly to the next station, wonder who will be waiting on the platform. I will venture a guess they have no idea who is about to disembark. Please to meet you, won't you guess my name.

Big Week

After nearly a fortnight of prep, negotiation and staging; this week big progress will be made on the new digs. Not only will the plumber come by to fix the annoying leak but the donated car is being moved out of the garage, internet and phone go in and the book dealer will spend a whole day cataloging and packing up a goodly portion of the 4000+ tomes in the apartment.

This is the week to satisfy the most ardent list-maker, numerous items will get the inky slash-thru before any sabbath doth arise again. I myself am not so lexiconic, but I have friends. And I am not critical of the need to chronicle a life, personally I don't worry so much about what I may have missed.

Hopefully by the end of this week an actual move-in date will be in sight and the settling process shall begin after over a year of having a key to a storage locker always at hand, whilst periodically scratching my head over the unanswerable question: "Where the hell did I put that?"

I often need to admonish myself that I am indeed the architect of this life style and creator of the confusion but the conversations in the mirror don't always go so well in the seventh or thirteenth month of the same discussion. She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me not, who cares anymore. Particle, wave, flour, corn, boxer, brief...

Another new chapter begins, already I am knee deep in the preamble.

----

art credit: Ron Mueck (Australian, b. 1958). Big Man, 2000. Mixed media, 80 x 47 1/2 x 80 1/2 in. (203.2 x 120.7 x 204.5 cm). Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Many Thanks Along the Way

I have just spent eight months on the road and most of that time I was not staying in hotels or motels but in the homes of many good friends. I want to sincerely thank every one of you for opening your doors, yours hearts and your homes to my vagabond ways. I enjoyed the variety of experiences at each and every stop and would not hesitate to encumber you with my presence again in the future.

Particular thanks to Randy, Gary and Cyndy, Bill and Kathy, Dan and Sue for not only inviting me to stay but also having the extreme good manners to pack up and leave. The only thing better than good friends would be good friends who offer you the shelter of their home and then go away.

Celebratory thanks are also in order to Pat, Bob and Holly, Jim and Mary Grace for timing their parties to coincide with my visits. The many meals at all stops were just too scruptious to mention but Bill, Pat, Mary Grace and Eric will be remembered for their culinary skills. Also the caterers in Virginia, the grill in Weed and the barbeque at Salt Lick in Austin.

To those who opened their homes for weeks at a stretch, I am gratefully indebited. To those I was only able to share a meal and a conversation, you too. The briefest of stops in the strangest of locations were like beacons into our past.

I learned the intricacies of the DVR at many different stops along the way. I became a fair to average Wii disc golf player and I observed various examples of Ipod, Bluetooth and other new techno devices both enthralling and frustrating their new owners. I even acquired my very first GPS to find my way from doorstep to doorstep. In all cases, I can honestly say to every one including myself: RTFM!

Thanks to David and Kim for opening their spare room on short notice. To all my old college friends in Kalamazoo, was great to see you, wish we had more time to talk. To the several dozen 'friends of friends' I met on my travels, twas nice to make your acquaintance, except for that one crazy woman in Florida. To those I saw but did not homestead with, was good to catch up and to those I missed along the way - I am not done traveling just yet.

Special thanks to the PokerBoyz for all the laughs in Biloxi, when are we doing that again? I would point out for the Boyz that I remain the only member to have met Becky, Rachel and Eric or to have seen and visited all but one of the PokerBoyz home turfs.

I would be remiss without sending cyber scritches to Midnight, Rascal, Matisse, Tigerr, Cat, Duffy, Jerome, Abra, Edmund, Crattchet, Blackie, Java and nuzzlin' my keyboard as I write this - Vlad.

What did I learn on this adventure? Well part of it I hope you will be reading in the book/story I am writing roughly based on the geography, if not the actuality, of the trip. Second, I came to realize on a much deeper level why people refer to me as their friend. I want each and every one of you to know that I value whatever interaction we had, I am humbled that you consider me that type of friend and you have more than repaid me with your friendship and camaraderie. Each and every one.

Six Months of One, Half a Year of Another

It's a real, live, exact, calendariacly significant day. I officially began my trip on July 31st last year, I even blogged about it. That's the "when" of the story. Back then I imagined I would be extending my undomiciled existence for "five months or longer", well as of an hour ago I am back in the Bay Area (Oakland to be exact) and since this is where I will be staying for some unforeseeable time into the future, I guess it is time to declare the wandering aspect of this journey to be complete. There is still more to write, both here and in one of several stories I am working on. But for now the "Where Am I?" updates can abate. In the next couple of weeks I will be settling into an apartment in Berkeley and perhaps even clearing out my storage closet, perhaps.

A recap and acknowledgement of the trip will follow later this week. A full six months on the road has provided me with lots of writing juice and has made me much more aware of who and where I am in this newbie of a decade. For now --- I am as home as I can geographically imagine at this point on my personal segment of the time-space continuum.

Looking forward to who & what's next and reflecting on where I have just been. and, of course, there is . . . why?

Can't Go Home Again. Yes you can! No you can't!!

"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." - Thomas Wolfe

I find myself in a strange, even uncomfortable place as I near the end of my journey. I have been "home" to Michigan (1948-1975 & 2000-2006) with no discomfort. I have seen family in new and old places and many friends in towns and cities throughout the country, all with relative ease and comfort. But as I approach Los Angeles my home for many years (1975-1991), I find it unwelcoming.

It's like a new pair of wool suit pants. Nothing feels right, movement is irritating and you really don't want to sit down. In fact, all you want to do is get away from the discomfort and move on. That, of course, was not my feel of L.A. when I lived there or I never would have stayed so long. The last several times I was in Hermosa, Redondo and Manhattan beaches I was just as uneasy. Maybe there is some truth to this "you can't go home again" stuff. Some places are best left in the past to hold memories but not to be revisited, resurrected or unearthed. Methinks the great L.A. basin is one of those places for me.

So I am going to make a quick pass through, grab a meal or two with old friends and get out of town and back up north where the temperatures are cooler and the earth for me, much warmer.

The Western Turn

After many months traveling to points north, than east and further east and recently to the south... our wanderings have now taken a final directional change, my head has turned back to the west. The return has begun but not without several more interesting stops along the way.

A quorum of the PokerBoyz have assembled at the Beau Rivage here in Biloxi, Mississippi for several days of camaraderie, story telling and yes, even some poker. Amy is in from Austin, Mike is down from Minneapolis; Randy and I made the drive from Satellite Beach yesterday. For absent members of the gang, we as a group want to wish you well and to announce that last evening we did share a meal and a far amount of ridicule with Zippy. Yes, he lives and breaths and was here in all his flesh. He has not been playing much of the game, but will be joining us for several evening events this week.

Apparently, despite the check-in line last night, occupancy at the Beau is down; so we have all been upgraded to the Gulf view rooms. A pleasant site this morning to watch a sunrise over the water. Temperatures will be a bit nippy while we are here, however, except to drive to another casino for a tournament, there was not a lot of outside activity planned for the week. On today's agenda -- poker. Those seeking meaningful insight into the universe should stop back next week.

Who ordered the fried cat fish?

A Handy House Guest

Consider this an advertising resume for my next cross-country visitation trek. I am not what anyone would call a handyman. My solution to nearly all household repairs involves the use of the yellow pages. Recently, however, upon solving a niggling fix-it problem with some outside-of-the-box logic; I was humorously nominated as a superior hands-off household consultant. Which struck me as interesting because as a visiting house guest of some duration, I do become involved in what can only be described as a --- Travelin' Honey-Do List, including over the past several months:

-winterizing and wrapping a hot tub;

-rearranging a living room (and putting it all back);

-liquor and wine shopping for a holiday party of sixty;

-emptying a dozen or more litter boxes;

-assistant cat claw clipping;

-watering two vegetable patches;

-drip irrigation repair (failed attempt at)

-picking up or delivering assorted personages to train, bus & air transport hubs;

-clean-up after bladder control challenged dog;

-installation of tv satellite dish;

-leaf raking;

-chimney sweeping;

-recliner foot rest repair (consultation only)

-bird feeder relocation;

-big screen tv relocation, re-relocation, re-re-relocation;

-six bag Goodwill closet clearance (w/ psychiatric support at no additional charge);

-re-tracing route home from bank and finding lost $124;

-re-caning patio furniture (abject failure);

-re-covering escaped cat (twice);

-changing many light bulbs (it's a height thing);

-lots and lots of slicing, dicing and cooking;

-tree trimming (security & safety support only);

-toilet tank repair with coat hanger and Bic lighter;

-mattress flipping (no really);

-digital television system reset;

-saltwater fish tank servicing (kibbitz only)

-bi-annual throw rug laundry marathon (3 day event);

-trimming night blooming jasmine vines;

-finding lost objects based on vague description;

-finding lost objects based on reverse OCD affliction;

-relocation of oversized slate King Arthur round table;

-swimming pool servicing;

-neighbor servicing (oh wait, that's a different post)

-the infamous crawl in the attic, air-conditioning duct fiasco;

I are a good houseguest, invitations now being accepted for 2011.

---

ID this photo Joe, I did change the tag

Where Did You Begin?

Being the first morning of a new calendar year and a 'full of promises' decade; I was pondering where I had geographically begun previous years and prior decades. How about you?

2010 begins in Satellite Beach, Florida

2009/2007 - Las Vegas, Nevada

2006/2001 - Ann Arbor, Michigan

2000 - Forestville, California

1999/1994 - San Francisco, California

1993 - Weed, California

1990 - Hollywood, California

1987 - Redondo Beach, California

1986 - Hermosa Beach, California

1984 - F.F.F.F.

1982 - airplane over Bolivia

1980 - Kona, Hawaii

1974 - Hell, Michigan

1972 - Boston, Massachusetts

1970 - Kalamazoo, Michigan

1965 - Dexter, Michigan

1949 - Detroit, Michigan

2011 - ? ? ?

2020 - ? ? ?

---

a plug nickel if you can identify the map at the top

74° on the Dec. 24th

Perfect winter weather is a great caffeine, while perfect summer weather is the best sedative. ~Amethyst Snow-Rivers

All the quotes, writing, singing and complaining about winter means next to nothing when you live somewhere warm. I have frozen in about as many Michigan and Massachusetts winters as I have malingered in California and Nevada temperate climes. This is my first "cold season" in Florida. Today, Christmas Eve, I went to the beach and walked along the shore as four foot swells broke on the sand. I assume all the other strollers were there for the same reason, so they could write or call home and mention the sun and the temperature to those shivering somewhere up north.

It's in the mid-70s today, there were squadrons of pelicans whirling about the beach and sandpipers chasing the waves back into the shoals. The ocean is just five minutes from where I am staying in Satellite Beach (that's right about where the Swordfish is hooked on the postcard map above).

I thought I might check on the temperatures in the other stops I have made along the way on my recent travels:

Las Vegas 48°

San Francisco 50°

Sebastopol 45°

Windsor 46°

Mt. Shasta 38°

West Wendover 19°

Fort Wayne 29°

Kalamazoo 32°

Ann Arbor 30°

Hinckley 34°

Atlantic City 38°

McLean 37°

Savannah 62°

Satellite Beach 74°

Chilly holidays to all and to all a good, warm comforter.

Friends Along the Way

A couple of my readers have asked for some observations about the many friends and family I have seen in the past eleven months on my journey. I have thought about this for awhile and decided I need both a serious and a humorous version. You decide which one this is.

Driving: To at least three of you: I will never get in a car again with you behind the wheel. That goes for golf carts and if we take a bike ride, I want you out front, so I can see the accident coming.

Food: I am 'thinking about dessert', does not mean double chocolate with whipped cream in a small tub delivered to my room. Having your own stash of carry-out styrofoam is an obvious giveaway to your intentions. But mostly, thank all of you for not cooking like the ladies in my family of origin.

Television & DVRs: I had no idea some of those shows even existed. Those I did know about, I was sure I knew no one who watched them. It truly must take all kinds. Wii, on the other hand, is an entirely different issue.

Pets: I love all the cats, even the ones that won't come out to play. Those last two dogs were pretty cool too, but they smelled like gingerbread.

Mattresses: Many thanks to anyone who owns a firm guest bed. So far no one has caught me sleeping on the floor.

Alcohol: I approve of the upgrades you have all made in the variety and quality of your imbibing concoctions. Particularly the grape-based liquids.

Hot Tubs: Two perfect. One empty. One tepid.

Availability of Suitably Aged Female Companionship: You are all miserable failures, except one.

Wildlife: This would be the Sierra Club type of wildlife, not the variety inferred in the previous category. A gold star to Mt. Shasta, silver to the Windsor foxes, bronze to the white cat.

Best Sci-Fi Series: Hands down the offering at Beit Malkhut.

Smallest Hut which can actually be lived in: Golden Ridge in Sebastopol.

Best Grill: Gallop Road, Weed California.

Best Wine: Five way tie.

Best Barbeque: Everett & Jones, Berkeley, Ca.

Best Bunch of 60+ yr. olds to party with: K College Reunion, OK so maybe not so much partying but still great to see everyone.

I would rebook at any of the stops I have made this year. Now on to the southern portion of our travel program.

A Definite Southern Turn

It was in the high 30s when I hit the road again in Virginia this morning. By North Carolina the mercury had crept up into the mid 40s and finally the day peaked at 50 as I entered South Carolina. Another ten degrees and I would have lingered in the Carolinas, I have not seen this part of the country in almost forty years. I understand today twas into the 60s in Georgia, where I will be tomorrow and Florida, my next significant stopover, reached the 70s and even the low 80s. By geographic extrapolation it was 130 in Belize today.

Yes, the sojourn has definitely taken a southern turn. After wandering north for two months and east for nearly three, the big turn-and-return is in full swing. Not that I am in any rush. I will be dipping down into Florida where I will pause again for a couple of weeks. Then the westward tangent begins with many, hopefully warm stops along the way.

I have some research I want to do in Savannah tomorrow and then its off to the land of grapefruit, oranges and hot grandmothers.

Apogee in Atlantic City

This week my trip has reached its geographic apogee. I am the furthest I will be from where I began, whether I mark that beginning as Las Vegas or San Francisco. As a dear friend told me, I have begun the arc of return. While its still probably at least seven weeks until this chautauqua ends, I do feel a change in the pulse of my wandering. The hum has become a strum.

For one thing I saw a thermometer yesterday morning that read 19 degrees. That kind of weather I am joyfully leaving behind. There is a big storm moistening California preparing to move across the country. Everywhere I have been thus far is directly in the broad, white path of this first full-fledged winter assault. While I am not ready to run for Florida quite yet, I am going to head south by the end of the week as far as Virginia, but that should be southerly enough to dodge any drifts of white snow or patches of black ice.

The family phase of my journey has ended and now I will be imposing myself on old college friends and recent poker buddies. And yes, I am playing a bit of the old poke' myself. Today I demonstrated clearly that playing tournament poker is not like riding a bicycle. You actually do get rusty and can fall off causing injury to your wallet. Guess I should have tried the tournament with training wheels or perhaps the ladies bike without that damn ball busting middle strut.

Tomorrow a stroll on the Atlantic City boardwalk in what promises to be weather well above freezing and somewhat below Chamber of Commerce mild. Methinks the salt water taffy will be about as brittle as my last blind date.

----

Art Credit: Apogee from DeviantArt.com

Hollow Weenie

I am traveling today because my religion does not allow me to travel on a double holy day tomorrow. Nov. 1 is both All Saints Day and my sainted mother's birthday. And while that is not as significant as April 1st being my wedding day, well you get the idea.

Halloween plans include giving sugar infused trinkets to cold, wet youngsters and imbibing hot, alcohol infused toddies for the adults. But not until I make yet another geographic move. So short and distorted is the blog today. I need to build my Wii holiday avatar before I hit the open road yet again.

Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,

Voices whisper in the trees,

"Tonight is Halloween!"

---Dexter Kozen

---

Lisa Scream from Simpsons.com; The Scream by Edvard Munch

Forty Year Observations

The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten. Arthur Schopenhauer

I do believe in my last post I promised not to write more about my college reunion, it appears I was mistaken. Offered for your consideration several random observations and bits of a oft told story or two.

First, I would like to say to all those many hundreds of thousands of music lovers out there who tend to say: "I like all kinds of music except rap" or "I love any type of music but none of the twangy country." Well I want to offer for your consideration that when you share a hotel for an entire weekend with a barbershop quartet convention; you will definitely change your mind about your musical exception. Sweet Adeline can put you into a diabetic coma from several rooms away.

One of my friends observed this weekend that graduating students from the sixties seemed to fall into three groups: those who did not have a master plan for their lives; those who did and actually followed that plan and by far the largest group: those who had a plan followed the plan and are now on plan #2, #3 or #19. I, myself, am the poster boy of the first group, having no idea who I was or what I was going to do. I believe I now also qualify as a card carrying member of the third group as well, being that I am now on my twenty-somethingth career. These may be more universal traits of all youthful graduates but methinks the late 60s and early 70s produced a lot more young people who kept looking for their path long after commencement.

I've got several more interesting "career twist" stories from the weekend but I think they belong in a short story not here. What I am fascinated by are the people who every five years really enjoy a cocktail party, a box lunch, a class photo and a bad hotel rubber chicken dinner with old friends versus those classmates who never come back to campus and who actually have told me via phone and facebook that the entire idea of talking with a friend not seen in 40 years is downright frightening.

What is nostalgia and how much of it remains logged in fantasy and the midsts of memory, not to be ripped into the light of reality by seeing friends now wrinkled and worn with the living of the intervening forty years. Our gang had a great time and anticipate our 45th reunion just around the corner. We expect the Boston and Washington contingents to show up in '14.

====

photo credit: archives