The wall is a there.  That terminus for every man, in every woman’s future. You likely guess my meaning. Just as there was a time before my entry, there will be a time for exiting. Time. Birth and death are measured in time. Our manner of conversation marks birth dates, and in the obituary, the date of one’s death.

I learned of the death of Jim Crown while viewing the Channel 7 evening news. He died this past Sunday June 27, while celebrating his 70th birthday at Aspen Motorsports Park. His race car hit the wall. The crash was been determined to be an accident.

If circumstances had permitted my acquaintance with Jim Crown, I believe that we would have become friends. Those who celebrate a birthday by belting themselves into a race car know the wall is there. Close to the wall is where you find happiness.

Jim Crown. Here is what others said that his life amounted to…

Joe Biden mentioned the Crown family story of coming from little means to turning a construction company “into an empire.”

Gov. JB Pritzker said that Crown’s “passion for caring was unending.”

Brandon Johnson, Mayor of Chicago spoke of Crown’s commitment to working collaboratively with the city to create a public-safety task force to grapple with crime.

“He led by example, didn’t just talk the talk. He walked the walk.” Said Roseanna Ander of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Jim Crown took time to talk with people living in depressed neighborhoods.

Crown was serving as lead director of General Dynamics Corp., a director of J.P. Morgan Chase, Trustee of The Aspen Institute, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the University of Chicago.

That wall will be there for me. And for you as well friend. I think that Crown was smiled upon by good fortune. He “did good” with a life that was entrusted to him by fate.

And ultimately, he chose his wall with eyes wide open…

On the last hour—

Storms are my danger.
Will I have my storm of which I will perish,…

Or will I go out like a light
that no wind blows out
but that becomes tired and sated with itself
–a burned-out light?

Or finally: will I blow myself out lest I burn out?

–excerpt The Gay Science, Book 4, Section 315  by Friedrich Nietzsche