MY WORLD AND THE HEAVY OUTER WORLD
Today I drove to the Warren Wilson Presbyterian church. I stopped to talk to Ann Scoville, in her eighties, who has lived across the street from me for years, and learned that Ernst Laursen, in his 90’s, who lived next door to me for years recognizes no one but is visited in a memory care institution by his daughter and son who take turns flying in from far away every other week to care for him. Another neighbor, Trina Summers, in her 80’s, had a tooth pulled, which led to an infection and a week in the hospital.
I sat through the sermon without hearing it, as I thought about getting old and infirm, about these friends and Dean Kahl, a good friend, who died suddenly a week ago. My circle of people I care about was on my mind.
I stopped by my son Tom’s house on the way home. Am ordinary uneventful Sunday in my own small bubble of the world.
But when I got home the outer world washed over me with stories about the mayhem caused by the cartel headed by El Mencho. His cartel had terrorized and killed people for years, usually in fights with other cartels, but he had always escaped capture until last night. In retaliation for his death his cartel members stopped cars and buses in 20 of the 30 Mexican states, made people get out and then poured gasoline into the vehicle and burned them leaving hulks of burned busses and cars blocking the roads.
I had just been on those roads a little over a month ago, although on the other side of Mexico. The hour long shuttle bus ride to the airport in Leon took us over barren hills on narrow roads with few people around. If I had been going to the airport today the bus filled with fellow tourists could easily have stopped and burned. That is the larger bubble of the world that I live in which in these uncertain times always hangs over me and my little private bubble.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 