Heron today, gone tomorrow

This is a great green heron on Lady Bird Lake.

Lauren and Chuck E-mailed the other day that they have completed purchase of property in

Panama on which they plan to build a home, Chuck is designing. At the same time, they have purchased a cabin in Monte Rio, California that they'll occupy when visiting the USA.

Lauren writes, "from feeling untethered and aimless just last year, to having 2 big projects

in front of us, is an enormous and welcome change." If I know the two of them, they'll

meet the challenge and reach their objectives with plenty of room to spare. In the meantime,

we'll have to decide which of their homesteads to visit first.

Saturday, Feb. 11 and a bright sunny but cold day in downtown Austin. We took our usual

stroll around Lady Bird Lake bundled up. Barri is on a business trip to the west coast but

is due back this evening. The Condo group is having its Valentine's Day party tomorrow

and a local liquor dealer is providing hooch for all, however, I don't think we'll partake.

We arise so early in the AM that when 7PM rolls around both of us are played out and

ready to hit the sack.

I have been spending much time thinking about my early years, way back as a youth growing

up in Hempstead, about the friends I had, both male and female. I can even recall their names.

I guess that becomes one of the easier activities one is able to pursue when your body

starts to refuse commands that your brain prescribes. I often think of Stan Abrams, Stan Small

and Sid Donow, buddies of mine who were always around to laugh and joke. Strange,

how I seem to miss them at this point in my life more than 70 years later. Then there's

Arlette Sager, who lived across the street and Lucille Moskowitz, my first sweetheart, I think.

I'll never know why I didn't keep in touch with them through the intervening years. I wonder

if they are still alive and think of me. Age 87, gives you plenty of time to dwell in your

reverie, like the songs that you recall from the past. So much has happened, all the schools you

attended, the big war, my marriage as a 22 year old, three children, my working life and all the

rest, experiences that now come back to me in old age. Where did all the years go? I often

wonder if I made the right choices in my early life and now, as an old man, I have the luxury of time to replay life in thoughts, some of which can bring a smile, while others, slow beads of water down my cheeks. How I wish I could see the old friends once again and renew those

carefree days of my youth.