Last night, i went to a wonderful ceremony. i met a lot of old friends, younger ones as well. It was a joy, a true joy for me.

Our friends, Jim and Sharon Hileman celebrated their Fiftieth Anniversary, that’s “50” as in years of being married. Their two daughters, Mandy and Lindsey, created and managed the entire affair.

There were about eighty folks at the affair.

The Hilemans and Maureen and i are close. Close enough to have celebrated another of our close anniversaries together. To celebrate our tenth and their twentieth, we traveled to Kauai together, and collected a passel of great stories to share.

Maureen and Sharon have been friends since they attended high school together. Jim and Sharon met a disco when Jim was in the Navy in San Diego. Maureen was also part of that dance scene and was a bridesmaid at their wedding. Their 50th was actually Friday, July 14. Our 40th will be July 30. At the reception for Maureen’s and my wedding, Sharon attended the entire wedding and reception in Maureen’s father Ray Bogg’s backyard. It was a catered affair. Jim arrived pretty late during the reception. When Maureen and Sharon introduced the two of us. Jim apologized for not making the entire shebang and explained he had been playing golf. i asked him why he hadn’t asked me. We’ve been close friends ever since.

The four of us shared Padre season tickets for almost 25 years. Maureen and her high school friends have outings together constantly, including trips to Santa Fe and others. When i refused to go on a cruise Maureen had won for her performance (they wouldn’t let me have the conn, Sharon went with her. Jim and i have been in golf foursomes since the late 1980’s. In 1988, we also convinced ourselves to buy Padre season tickets while watching the 16-inning game when Orel Hershiser set the major league record of 59 consecutive scoreless innings pitched only to lose to Andy Hawkins and the Padres. We held those season tickets until 2012.

With Jim and i, there is no end to the banter and no end to the respect we have for each other. The same can be said or Sharon and Maureen, except their banter has a governor on impolite sarcasm.

Our daughters played together.

In other words, we are pretty darn close. It was a joy to see them rejoice and celebrate with their family and friends. They deserve it.

* * *

i sat with golfing buddies while Maureen sat with her high school friends. We spent a lot of time mixing with most everyone of those 80 folks in the room. Fun.

Then, Marty Marion, who was one of those golfers at our table and a legend among us, noticed my arms and commented they looked like his. That is, very bruised and thin, rough skin. All of the guys at the table thrust their arms out and we all had bruises and thin skin. Most of us agreed that any minor scrape or nick would produce bleeding and take a long time to heal.

i thought, “old arms.” i remembered our daughter Blythe when we were out for dinner in Austin about five or six years ago, commenting my arms looked like my father’s arms in his later years. i took that as a compliment, but it really meant i had old arms even then.

i think it’s indicative of any older man who has been active most of his life, in work, sports, or leisure in the outdoors. Heck, when i was growing up, the darker your suntan, the more attractive you were to the women. It was cool to have a dark tan. Just ask George Hamilton. Now, it’s an anathema to folks, just ask any dermatologist.

Looking around the room, i admitted most of the men were old. Fifty years of marriage isn’t a drop in the bucket. For that matter, forty years when you married relatively late, is also a pretty good chunk of time. And you don’t spend those many years together without getting older.

To be honest, in spite of old arms and the multiple kinds of aging problems, some more serious than others, or the growing possibility of dealing with one of those problems, i sort of like being old.

There isn’t a lot of pressure unless you put it on yourself. You are out of the mainstream and you are not going to change a lot of things going on in this world. You can relax. Most of us don’t of course. We are out to fix something, make something better, worry about the house falling down because it’s aging also. Problems, problems, problems. Beating up, at least with folks your age, the younger generation who are going to hell and a hand basket, even though our parents said the same thing about us. Remembering mostly the good, very little of the bad from our past, and even if the bad is remembered, it is somehow put into a good light such as yes, “that (place the event from your past that was a downer here) wasn’t the best, but it made me a better man.”

* * *

So i revelled in the folks celebrating Jim and Sharon’s 50th anniversary. Old ain’t all that bad. Enjoy.

And congratulations to two of our closest friends.

And don’t think about old arms.

Just before i began my exercise walk this morning, i was cleaning up my office before the cleaning ladies came to clean up our house, including my office. In fact, every other week on Thursday, we clean up the house so the cleaning ladies can clean up the house. It is a routine that i find totally illogical but cannot help myself to forge onward with the cleanup.

Regardless (a term i use regularly, which signals i am wandering off focus again, which is normal, and i flatter myself by calling it “stream of consciousness” because in my case, it is more likely a stream of unconsciousness), i was cleaning up before the cleanings of two types ensued, and in one of the extraordinary number of piles of stuff that somehow had been shuffled to an office desktop, the photo fell out. It was not labeled, but it must have been of a relative of a relative. A piece of cardboard was behind the back of the photo. It must have been a child dear to someone enough to have placed it in long lost small frame. An ulterior motive in posting it here is that some relative might know who is the beautiful, healthy infant in the photo.

The photo haunted me during breakfast and the cleanup. It kept haunting me through my walk. When i returned, i used my cool down period before a shower to scan it and place it here.

The child staring back at me hit me as gone. The past is irrevocably gone. Unless a relative actually figures out who this child is, which is an extremely remote possibility, this child is gone. Keeping the photo is a futile attempt to retrieve the past, and even if i do somehow find the name, the photo and the child in it are gone. None of us will know what the child grew up to be, if she or he indeed grew up, nor what he or she thought or did. i wondered if he or she played the piano, a curious thought. It strikes me as sad. Sad.

In spite of it being a perfectly beautiful, warm summer day in the Southwest corner, my walk, just over three-and-a-half miles in moderate hills, street walking unlike my favorite walk, a four-plus mile hike in the steep hill open space a block or so from our house soon to be cleaned after our cleaning up, my thoughts were tinged with sadness, in spite of some great music in my Airpods from my iPhone, something i would have killed for when i was mowing Fred and Ruby Cowan’s and J. Bill and Bessie Lee Frame’s yards back home.

That was probably a good thing. i wasted enough time singing the rock ‘n roll songs with the background music in my head while mowing and then sitting on our den floor across the street to take a “break” that somehow grew into an hour or so because i found something interesting to read and would have taken a longer break if they had anything on television back then other than the “Indian Head” (i knew it was a native American because of the headdress) nickel as the logo and only static for audio on the lone channel back until Kate Smith sang her heart out on her 3:00 show, which i had to suffer through to get to “Howdy Doody Time” in Lebanon, Tennessee back in those. years.

They were good times and i didn’t realize it. Gone. Sad.

And of course, i’m feeling guilty. Folks like me out here are always talking about leaving. Too many things not good going on. i’m a’thinking they haven’t been looking at the national weather or perhaps, even the news. i skip most of the news primarily it’s all bad regardless of where you live, but i do watch the weather. Better economic situation, they say. Better culture, they say. Better, better, better they say.

Now, i can’t say much about how it is elsewhere except for the weather. In spite of us complaining about it raining since January up until a couple of weeks ago and complaining about the marine layer elongating the May Gray and the June Gloom, keeping our temperatures in the 60’s to low 70’s for the last three months or so. i haven’t seen any place i’d rather be because of the weather. And then’s there’s calamities, natural disasters. Floods and blistering heat. Oh, we’ll get ours: wildfires primarily, but the threat of earthquakes and wildfires hang over us. But it’s still pretty good. As i have said on numerous occasions, i’ve been over a whole bunch of this earth, and most places have more “tens” on a ten point scale than San Diego. That’s because it’s relative, and when a good day comes in those other places, the occupants think it’s perfect. A ten in San Diego is very rare (we did have one last Saturday: No clouds, 72, slight breeze) because we have more “sevens,” “eights,” and “nines” than any other place on earth.

As for what’s going on in those other places, i’m a’thinking that’s because of that greener pastures thing. i’m sure the problems are different, but if politics is involved, it ain’t good anywhere, and a bunch of Californians moving there is just going to make things worse. We’ve already proved that in Washington State; Oregon; Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; name the next one. Don’t know the solution. Wouldn’t get involved. If i did i would be faced with the same political party pressure as anyone like Robert Redford’s character in the 1972 film, “The Candidate.” Too old for that kind of stuff, and no one would listen to me anyway because i’m no longer good in front of crowds. Sad.

i hope my family, friends, all Vermonters recover quickly from the flooding. i hope the South and Southwest get some relief for the heat from hell, especially my daughter’s family in Austin. Great places with troubles. Sad.

And i’m thinking of my brother-in-law. Danny’s recovering from heart surgery performed today. Nasty stuff. It looks like he weathered the storm. i’m thinking of so many other folks i know who are in my age arena and are dealing with similar problems or more, some who didn’t make it. Sad.

The walk felt good and most of the music scrambled today was blues, fitting.

As i hit the two-and-a-half mile mark, Crystal Gayle trilled into my Airpods. Remember her, Loretta Lynn’s sister, younger by 19 years. Never was a superstar. Saw her at Texas A&M with Judy McConnell, one of the best women i ever dated, Judy, not Crystal nor Loretta. Tiny woman with an incredible voice and long, long hair, Crystal, not Judy nor Loretta. And to close out my walk she, Crystal, sang, “Ready for Times to Get Better.”

‘Bout perfect. Logged my miles onto my walking-running sheet.

i’m not so sad anymore.

i was going to insert Crystal’s song “Ready for the Times to Get Better,” but being technically challenged, i couldn’t pull it off. Sad. Maybe later, when i am smarter…Nah.