You always think you’ll have more time…and then you don’t.

I saw him on Tuesday. They gave him the diagnosis on Friday. A week later, he was gone.

Our last phone call was too short, too laden with news and shock and grief. We were due for another conversation, in person, to share memories and dissolve the bleakness for just a few minutes. I was going to tell him about the stories I’ll share, the lessons I learned, the gift of six decades of friendship. I was going to assure him of his life’s value, his contributions, his legacy. I was going to…woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Another conversation never came.

You think you’ll have a way to organize it, to prepare, to make it truly meaningful in your last moments together. Instead, it suddenly turns out that your last dinner was your last dinner. Your last phone call was your last phone call. Your last visit was your last visit. Now, and from now on, there is silence.

I should know better by now. I’ve been through it too many times with too many friends. My cousin, Carl, calls it the conveyor belt. We all move forward, along with our friends and family, but we’re all on different belts and none of us can see whose will end first. We almost never know which of us it will be, but our own odds increase with each moment. All the conveyor belts end with a plunge and there is no going back, no way to pick anyone up and put them back on for a slightly longer journey.

Alan, Jeff, David, Tom, and, now, John; every one of the fallen was more than “merely” a four-decade friend. They were all witnesses to my own life, the people who could attest to the accuracy of my recollections or, all too often, correct my failing memory. In a way, they made my own existence more real, less ephemeral. As those connections disappear, part of me disappears with them.

Grief is, perversely, one precious reward for a long life. The longer you live, the more friendships you cultivate, the more you’ll experience grief. Grief is the validation, the measure of what we’ve lost. The more it hurts, the more we had to lose. If it doesn’t hurt, we didn’t have it.

They say we’re supposed to think of each interaction with friends and family as if it might be our last. We’re supposed to tell people how much we appreciate them while they are around to hear it. We’re supposed to avoid words we cannot take back if the door should close suddenly. Life doesn’t work that way, of course. We’re human and we say things we will regret, forget to say something we intended to mention, and assume we have more time, even though we don’t.

Meanwhile, we make more of the “last time” than we probably should. We build a relationship over years, with all the ups and downs that come with our seasons. If we’re good friends, if we’re good people, we build up a balance of good will that can’t be depleted by the wrong word or a bad day. It’s extremely rare that any last words can be painful enough to negate a lifetime of camaraderie.

All of this might sound maudlin, and it is, sorta, but it’s also a gift. If you’re lucky, your ride on the conveyor belt continues. To live is to have the opportunity to try anew, to discover, to experience one last dinner, one last visit, one last call of your own. To live is to have the opportunity to share stories and lessons from your friends and, in a very small way, keep them alive.

Cherish the memories. Tell the stories. Exhale, Inhale. Move forward. Try anew.
 
 
 
 

Fully 20% of summer is over already and I haven’t gone out to play yet.

Every morning is pretty much the same. I sit at the kitchen(ette) table and look out the window and think, “I want to go out and play.” And I’d do it, too, if I had any idea what that meant.

When I was a kid, my mom would use the term to get me out of the house and as far away from her as possible. She’d send me out the back door and down the stairs to spend a few hours wandering around the alley or walking to the park down the street.

Some days, I’d pick up pieces of broken beer bottles and toss them onto the concrete to watch them shatter. Sometimes, I’d find a stick I could use to pretend I was a swordsman or a baseball player or a conductor. I’m not sure if that was really “playing,” but mom never defined the term for me. “Play” meant out of the house and she didn’t focus on the details.

Every so often, she’d find some other mom who wanted to ditch her kids for the day and they’d put us together, but not in either one’s apartment. We couldn’t make our own plans, of course, because our phone plans included maybe three calls per month and only adults could use that privilege. We had to wait for two moms to get exasperated enough to come up with a scheme to get rid of two kids at once.

I don’t remember any stranger-danger speeches from when I was a kid. Maybe there weren’t as many ne’er-do-wells loitering around, or maybe we were just more expendable back then. Maybe the moms figured the cops would pay more attention if there were two missing kids instead of just one. Of course, that was before they started calling it “free-range parenting” instead of abandonment.

Fast-forward 60 years—and those decades disappeared faster than I could have imagined—and nothing has changed. Mom is gone, physically, but she’s still in the back of my head, hectoring me to go out and play on any sunny day that shows up outside my window. There are still plenty of broken beer bottles in the alley, and more than a few sticks, so a fun time is absolutely guaranteed.

I need to hurry, though. In ten weeks, I’ll have one more summer under my belt and one less to experience. Whatever it means to “go out and play,” the clock is ticking.

Tempus fugit.

The plane is already at the gate when I arrive, the skies are clear, and there’s no reason to expect any delays on my morning flight.

Foolish mortal, what was I thinking? Of course, there’s a delay. The flight crew is coming in from Milwaukee and that flight hasn’t taken off yet. Our departure time gets pushed back a few times, unlike the plane, until I get bored and walk up to the gate agent to ask for an update on when the crew might arrive.

He points down the concourse and says, “There she is now.”

She? She, as in one person? That’s the flight crew we have been waiting for?

Why, yes, it is. The solitary woman rolling her suitcase behind her as she runs to the gate is the reason we’ve all been delayed two hours, so far. Those two hours, BTW, are more time than it would have taken for her to Uber from Mitchell to O’Hare.

It’s going to be a while, because she has to get on board and set up whatever nobody bothered to set up in the two hours we’ve been waiting. Then, we’ll spend the next 40 minutes boarding by group. I’m in Group 2, which is actually Group 10, after Global Services, Platinum, Active Military, Families with small children, Inactive Military, First Class, Families with large children, people who need extra help, and Group 1.

With nothing but time on my hands, I start doing the math.

We’ve got a $100 million jet that hasn't done any of its scheduled jetting for the past two hours. Even if the plane is older and it cost half that when new, that’s still $50 million. If the airline’s paying 6% interest on the loan they took out to buy this thing, that’s $3 million per year, or roughly $340 per hour, 24/7. The airline will be on the hook for about $700 of carrying costs for this delay, which will lead to other delays and re-bookings all along the chain of dominoes on the schedule. (They'll try to make it up in the air, but it's tough to erase a two-hour delay on a two-hour flight.)

Meanwhile, there was at least one other flight, possibly two, that was supposed to depart while we were waiting for our damsel from Milwaukee. Those planes were delayed, along with their crews, which meant other flights also got delayed with their crews. There’s a multiplier effect here, and the airline is probably paying more than $1,000 per hour as our delay ripples across the schedule. Some crew members, including pilots, might time out for the day and need replacement, as well.

But, wait, there’s more. We only have one gate agent to handle the flight, and now there's a new delay.  Early in the boarding process, some guy tries to get the agent to switch some seats so the passenger  can sit with his friend, but the plane is full and the agent cannot accommodate. This guy isn’t taking no for an answer, though, and we end up delayed another seven minutes until the agent finally asks him to step aside so the rest of us can board.

So, we’ve got equipment that’s idle and workers getting paid to wait and passengers who will miss appointments, totaling many thousands of dollars, but somebody at the airline thinks they’re saving money. I happen to be flying United this particular day and I’m at O’Hare International Airport, the world’s busiest. It’s also United’s home and its busiest hub. No surprise, of course, that they’ve cut the number of gate agents and other staff over the years, but it would be surprising to me if they’re really saving much. You can measure employee costs directly, but it’s much harder to measure the costs created by understaffed operations.

Those are just the airline’s costs, of course. The costs of missed connections is a burden for the customers, but that doesn’t show up on the income statement. On the income statement, staffing costs are lower and somebody’s getting a bigger bonus this year for keeping those costs under control. Someone else is getting a smaller bonus, or zero, as they absorb the costs that are shifted, not saved, as headcounts fall. Maybe it will balance out as the higher bonus for one guy gets deducted from the other.

Many years ago, airlines discovered that it was less expensive to give passengers a full tomato in their salads, rather than half a tomato, because it cost more to slice the damned things than they were worth.  I suspect some of the savings from cutting staff are equally elusive.
 
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I was crushed by a bus door on Friday and it was a major learning experience, although I’m not completely sure what lesson I'm supposed to be taking to heart.

Usually, a ride on the CTA is an uneventful opportunity to mingle with my fellow citizens while avoiding both traffic jams and overpriced parking lots. Even when the bus is full, you can almost always find a spot to stand without becoming, um, excessively intimate with your fellow passengers.

On this particular ride, the place to stand was near the front door, which crushed me when the driver opened it at the next stop. I didn’t scream like a little baby, but I did let out a very deep and thunderous and manly groan that alerted everyone to my agony. Even the driver noticed, which was nice, since he was the only one who could close the damned door.

A few passengers asked if I was okay, if I needed any help, etc., and one jealous guy with clearly capitalist intentions urged me repeatedly to call an ambulance. Nothing appeared to be broken, though, so I declined the opportunity to overburden the medical system.

Still, just in case I was really injured, I decided to take a photo of the bus number. Suddenly, the driver started paying attention. He yelled to everyone to stay away from the doors, even the back doors that couldn't hurt a flea. He wanted to know why I was taking a picture. He wanted to know whether I needed help. Then, he stopped the bus and ordered everyone off. Apparently, this was an incident that required an official response, but only if/when the injured passenger takes a photo.

Everyone left the bus, but I stayed with the driver, who kept telling me I should have stayed away from the door. It would have been nice if he'd mentioned that five minutes earlier, but he missed that opportunity. Of course, theoretically, I knew I wasn't supposed to block the door, but I didn't know that A) I actually was blocking the door and B) the motor that opens the door applies enough force to kill a child. I've been stuck near the door on an overcrowded bus a million times, but this was a first.

You live and you learn, as they say, although that aphorism only works out if you live.

So the driver was motivated at this point and he got on his phone to get help. I don’t know exactly whom he was calling, but it doesn’t matter, because nobody showed up. After waiting with him a while, I opted to try walking it off and headed to my next destination.

I was hurting quite a bit, but I knew I’d be hurting whether this was a big deal or nothing. If it was nothing, the walk would help keep me from stiffening up. If it was something, I’d find out eventually. I knew I’d be in pain for a while, no matter what, so standing with the bus driver wouldn’t make a difference.

An hour later, on my way back home, I saw the same bus coming down the street. I double checked the number because, as we all know, I took a photo. I guess someone finally showed up to take the driver’s statement or whatever and, unlike me, at least he got paid for his time.

Back home, now, I’m trying to figure out what I learned from this experience. If I’m going to get injured, at least I want to get some kind of life-changing insight out of the deal. I’ve tried to find a message about the arbitrary nature of fate, the need for self-reliance, maybe the limitations of rapid response. Nothing has come to mind, so far, other than avoiding buses that are so crowded you have to stand by the door. 

Maybe that has to be enough. Like Nietzsche said, if a bus door doesn’t kill you…


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Being a true conservative, I decided to go to the No Kings Rally yesterday at Grant Park in Chicago. I thought it was only fitting, being as conservative as I am, because the Founding Fathers disagreed about all kinds of things, except one.

Nobody wanted another king.

Yes, kids, it’s true. As it turns out, the Founders disagreed about how powerful the federal government should be, how to tax the commoners, where to put the Capital, and they even disagreed about slavery. They were absolutely determined not to have a monarchy, though, and that’s a true fact. You’d think they’d teach people about this in law school or during their Supreme Court orientation weekend, but that’s a post for another day.

Anyway, it seemed like this whole anti-monarchist sentiment was being dismissed as liberal Argle-bargle on right-wing media, so I figured I’d balance the turnout by showing up. I decided not to wear my Make America Great Again hat (a gift, I swear) or my ICE hat (a gift, I swear again) so I would blend in better with the crowd. Good thing I did, though, because there were no other MAGA/ICE hats on display. Maybe my conservative compatriots were as bashful as I am about showing off our strict-constructionism cred.

By my rough count, there were between 20-30,000 people in Grant Park, and I was impressed by the demographics. I saw a few people from recognizable minorities and some people who appeared to be under 40, but this was about as old and white a bunch as you’d have seen at a Grateful Dead concert. In the 70s, they were marching out of concern for the world they’d be living in and now they were back because they’re handing a much crappier world to their grandkids…and some brought placards that made that point clearly.

The speakers on stage tried to drum up enthusiasm with group chants and cheers, with only moderate success. White liberals don’t work well with organization and cohesiveness, which is evident whenever there’s a rally. Or an election, but that’s also for a future post.

A woman walked by with a sign against the Iranian incursion/excursion and she said she buried her son this week, one of the first U.S. military casualties of this not-a-war. I checked after I got home and, yes, six reservists who were killed in a drone strike came from a unit in Iowa that draws soldiers from Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota. Freedom isn’t free, the politicians love to say, but the politicians are never the ones who pay the ultimate price.

As the march was ending and people started heading home, I wondered what it all meant. It’s safe to assume nobody in D.C. was watching the march and deciding to change course. Still, it probably made a difference to the people who attended and that impact can have ripple effects.

Increasingly, I have conversations with normies who see nothing but extremism represented on their feeds and they tell me how much they feel alone in the political world. As the algorithms promote conflict, they say, they’ll wonder if there is anyone who sees things the way they do. On Saturday, they saw the reality. They saw other people who feel the same way they do, without any social media filters. Many/most/all returned home just a bit less isolated, more confident, possibly emboldened to share their views with others.  

Will they change the arc of history? You never know. Still, it’s reassuring every so often to watch democracy in action.

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While driving home the other night, I started talking to myself, as only the smartest and most intelligent and well-adjusted and absolutely-not-crazy people do. I don’t remember exactly what I was saying, but I am sure it was witty and charming and filled with gravitas.

My car thought so, to, because SILEXA jumped out of the dashboard to ask how it could help. I ignored it (Her? Him? Does SILEXA have a gender?) and continued driving, but it reminded me to check my settings and stop the car, or maybe my phone, from eavesdropping on my most intimate conversations with myself.

It doesn’t really matter whether it was the car or the phone, though, because I never asked for this. Yes, there are times I cannot remember why I’m standing on a riverbank, wearing a tutu and holding a bloody knife, but I am sure I would remember asking my car to lend me an ear. Likewise, I know that, if someone had ever asked me if I wanted my car eavesdropping on me, just in case I needed something, I would have declined.

Add this to the list of incredible, time-saving, efficiency-building, supercharging-my-life improvements I cannot find a way to escape. I bought something from Walmart a couple of weeks ago and now I can’t get rid of a wallet app that I failed to reject. I get regular notices that I’m running out of storage in an iCloud folder I didn’t ask for. There are half a dozen sites I cannot access until I get past the pop-up that offers easy entry through my Google log-in. And my microwave won’t stop reminding me that I left the cat in there while I was taking my shower.

My doctor’s office sends me emails, but I need to log into MyChart to read them, including--really--"We are excited to let you know that we will be moving to a new office on March 31, 2026.” I needed to look up my password and wait for them to send a verification code to my phone for this? Couldn’t they just annoy me with regular emails like all my relatives do?

It's the death of 1,000 cuts, a labyrinth of obstacles and side roads that make every task just a bit slower, error-prone, and joyless. Exactly when is all this technology going to make life better?

I’m not kidding about that. I know I can get information more quickly than ever, but I’m also getting misinformation, disinformation, and scam links even faster. Every search leads to links and AI summaries that might, or might not, be accurate. I need to double check whatever I’m reading more than I did before AI started making my life easier. Net-net, am I really ahead of the game?

Not that many years ago, I could walk out the door and flag down a cab. Now, I need to have a ride-share account that’s costing me more and paying the drivers less than the system it replaced. Worse, the cab drivers actually had an idea where they were going, while all my gig-working friends are still staring at their screens after ten years as drivers. There was probably a time when I said the taxi industry couldn’t get worse. I was so very, very wrong.

I was going to write more about this subject, but my phone has been pinging like crazy while I've been typing and I'm sure it's something really, really important. I mean, nobody would be sending so many texts if it wasn't incredibly important. Right?
 
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