It’s good to be home and at my desk once again.  I’ve added another 6600 miles to my retirement travel log, bringing my total to nearly 40,000 for the year. Not bad, for someone my wife calls a “homebody.”  It’s always great to get together with family and friends, explore new places, and get some fresh air, but there’s no place like home.   I get to stay in our house now for about three weeks before our trip to San Francisco to meet up with the grand kids.  My desk is cluttered with unopened mail, bank statements, bills, receipts, souvenirs, and travel brochures.  I was just looking at a 2019 Viking cruise from London to Norway to see the Northern Lights, so it’s easy to get distracted when your mission is simply to reorganize.   Several loads of laundry await my attention in the next room, as I still have some unpacking to do.

I got back from Miami in the middle of the night, and got up early to take the dogs to the Coast, so last night was my first good sleep in my own bed.  The dogs sure enjoyed their romp on the beach, as the tide was out, exposing a great deal more sand than usual.  Their big dog friends played in the surf, while Tally, our youngest schnauzer, searched for an escape route up the steep cliffs.  I swear she’s a mountain goat, and would normally keep her on a leash, but she was securely contained in a canyon bordered by water and rocks, much too high for her to scale.

While the dogs played, I spent the afternoon with a group of my home town cronies, reminiscing about our high school and college days.  All of us are married, but this was the first of several days planned for just the boys.  There will be five of us for a weekend of guitar playing, dining, beer drinking, wine tasting, live music, and just catching-up.  In a way, I’m the outsider, since I’m a year older and none of them was ever a college room mate.  The other four lived together at one time or another, so they have a lot more history.  Plus, they’ve all been good about staying in touch,while I drifted in and out of their lives.  I was the first one married, and wasn’t part of the original migration to the West Coast.  While three of us now live in Oregon, one currently lives in Denver, and the other two in San Francisco.  Since I’ve only lived on the West Coast for three years, I hadn’t seen Eric for nearly 30 years until just recently when he and his wife visited.  It had been over 17 years since Mike and I reunited yesterday, and nearly 10 years have passed since Dan and I were together in Maui.  It’s definitely a “Big Chill” weekend.

This first year of retirement has been filled with 15 instances of re-connection, starting back in February (Post #15).  According to my wife, who dabbles in numerology, I’m going into a “Nine Year,” the end of the numbers cycle,  when people from the past re-enter your life as part of reflection and review.   Face Book has played a role in two of these coincidental encounters with people from my past.  My college room mate and I got together in Tucson after 45 years, and just a couple of weeks ago I found another lost friend after 10 years at a Chicago White Sox game.  There have been an inordinate number of chance reunions with former bosses, neighbors, co-workers, friends, and clients already this year.  I’ve also made arrangements for two more get-togethers in the next few months, as others continue to re-enter my life.  I can’t remember another year with so many of these rewarding encounters with long-lost acquaintances.

With today’s Social Media outlets, it’s more difficult to lose friends and easier to stay in touch.  Also, you get to know people before you meet them.  A good example was a friend of mine’s parents who I just met in Florida.  I had seen their photos posted for years, so as I was introduced, it felt like I’ve always known them.  Furthermore, there’s no longer that shocking surprise of not seeing someone for a long time because you’ve watched them change via Social Media.   Even though I don’t see my grand kids on a regular basis, I can at least watch them grow-up through daily picture sharing.  I can remember when the first thing you said to a kid was, “wow, you’ve really grown tall!”   Nowadays, you aren’t surprised at all, and they aren’t embarrassed by the obvious.  By the same token, about 90% of Face Book posts seem to be related to good news – promotions, vacations, achievements, accomplishments, and friendship.  The bad news is communicated in a much slower manner.  Obituaries, illnesses, misfortune, and pain are still typically delivered by phone.  It’s tough to get those phone calls, and to think about all the broken links in life.

The dogs are quiet today, resting up from an exhausting yesterday.  As I enjoy the quiet here at home, I’m glad that people from the first quarter of my life are still around in the third quarter, even if they were missing in the second quarter.  Who knows who will be around for the fourth quarter – if there is a fourth quarter?  I’m in the second half of the third quarter, enjoying retirement and savoring friendship.  I hope there are many more missing links from my life that get reconnected, and wondering if there will be reunions in the afterlife?   There are a number of people that I would love to talk to, as we all try to make sense of the good, bad, and ugliness of life.