i will not mention names here. In a way, names aren’t important. Although this name is very important to me because of our shared experience and how we think alike.

My only clue to the name is the two of us met tonight in a Scottish pub called Fourpenny House in, of all places La Mesa, a pretty neat place for a suburb of San Diego.

Amongst the “Smoked Auld Fashion,” some ales, a Scotch egg, and fish and chips, we talked of many things: the usual state of the world, change, life, family, the past…ahh, the past. We remembered a sea we had been on when being on and under the sea was different. i remain convinced, in spite of curmudgeoning (my word) creeping into my old age…okay, not creeping: crashing in like the curmudgeon in me owns the place, my world of the sea then was best for me then. We talked of many, many things.

It was a wonderful evening. The kind of evening this old folk would like to have with many, many friends in a world from far back in time. This is not a knock on now time. Now time is different. It is unfair of many of us, if not duplicitous, to accuse now of being worse than then. After all, we had something to do with now being what it is because of then. But now is changed, different, not bad or good, different.

We talked about that, and, i think, resolved it in our own minds.

It was a good evening. When i got home and related the news of my evening to my wife, i sat down and thought of the evening.

It occurred to me friendship, relationships to love ones are more powerful, more important than all of the other things in this world. And as long as that is most important to most of the people in this world, we are going to be all right.

Now, i’m going back in time tonight. The rain in the Southwest corner has made it cool enough for my first fire on the hearth in the living room. i will read some Robert Penn Warren and Wordsworth, two sources of my strength and belief in us.

Most folks east of here have gone to bed. Perhaps they will read this tomorrow. Regardless, i would like to convey to folks still up and those friends and family who will see this after they wake tomorrow morning, the way i feel right now, with a song i find…hopeful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QuIxSW_OMM

and i believe in you.