MAY 12, FRIDAY

DEATH AND LUCK

On Friday morning Tom Showalter‘s older brother, John (both retired from teaching at Warren Wilson), joined us at McDonalds for the senior coffee or WWC old man‘s club. We old guys have been meeting for 12 years. After I had been retired for several years and I realized that I wasn‘t seeing any of my old friends, I suggested to friends that we meet once a week. There were just three of us at first, Ron Wilson, Sheldon Neuringer and I. Then we added Hugh Himan who came once a month and wanted to meet on the first Friday of the month at Cornerstone restaurant for a good breakfast, which we have done ever since. Sam Scoville came a few times but it interfered with his schedule (although we set 10 on Friday because we thought he would be free then).

We were old friends meeting. But the problem with being old friends who are getting really old is that when we hit our 80‘s we started to die. First Hugh, who was fading because of Alzheimer‘s disease, could no longer come, and died, and then three years ago Ron Wilson, who was our shepherd and made sure everyone knew what our schedule was, died, and shortly after that, Sam Scoville, a close friend who lived across the street from me, died.

When you enter your eighties you know that death is just around the corner, although how far around the corner you have no idea. The year after Sam and Ron died, two years ago, my wife Kathe suddenly died. Years before good friends Fred Ohler and Louis Miles both died. We were a regular Thursday dinner group of three couples but with the loss of Fred and Louis and Kathe we are now two widows and one widower. Our Thursday evening group stopped meeting regularly during the pandemic. But the old men‘s group met right through the pandemic, either on zoom or sitting outside in the sun.

So when John came to visit us death was in the air, as it always is. John has stage 4 renal cancer. I hadn‘t seen him in years. He had lost a little weight but he was lively and fun to be with and was in no pain. He told us about his treatment, which seemed to be as much a social event for him as a medical event. New medicines have developed and he is holding his own. He might outlive us all. We talked with John about investing money, which none of the rest of us have done particularly well, but John, who loves to play the stock market, does extremely well. Staying informed about companies in which he plans to invest and watching the stock market several times a day is great fun for him. None of the rest of us have his enthusiasm for investing and as a result we are all getting along reasonably well and John is doing extremely well.

John is turned on by following the stock market. Each of the rest of us have things that keep us going. This daily post is fun for me to write and helps me through the day or I wouldn’t do it, it certainly doesn’t bring me a penny. We are all holding our own, not exactly living in suspense, but quite aware, because so many of the people we love have died, that it is luck that is keeping us alive and our luck could run out at any moment which is one of the reasons why, when in August nflights to Montevideo, Uruguay, popped up on GOING.COM a couple of days ago, $600 cheaper than the normal price, I waited 15 minutes, and then booked it. I know nothing about Montevideo or Uruguay or even South America. The time is not that convenient, either, since I am going to Sicily and Tuscany in October, but I can‘t put off the trip until next year or whenever it becomes cheap again because my luck might not hold and there might not be a next year. My whole old folks group and our visitor John reminds me of that. So I am going without a clue of what the visit will be like or of what I am going to do in Montevideo. I will find out when I get there.