Today is another warm fall day, a good time to be out of doors.  As with most of the country I watched the speech last night of Vice President Joe Biden, with Senator Kamala Harris acknowledge having won the election.  It was a good speech, one that Biden after a lifetime of public service was well prepared to give.  The words were those of America as a great and compelling ideal.  How does one give a speech, any speech without resorting to idealism?  That is what “people,” humans in general are prepared to understand.  A society, like an army needs a flag, a rally point, something to follow, a focal point of effort.  I think that ideals, any ideals, erode under the pressure of circumstances, another way of saying “life.”  That is especially true when it comes to war or a pandemic which call forth the substrate of our being, human nature.  What good and what evil is conjured to being by severe events…

Yesterday our grand daughter’s first birthday was celebrated by the extended family.  Aunts, Uncles and cousins came to our place for the opening of presents, the enjoyment of birthday cake and the joyous acclamation of a one year old member of our family.  A child is an arrow loosed into the future, a bet that is placed, irregardless of uncertainty, that the future is open, that the future can be fashioned for the good.  The time spent together in the kitchen and dining room in a glorious chaos of decorations, flying wrapping paper, and slices of birthday cake will be a sustaining memory for me.

Another event bears mention.  I decided to take a short walk, about three miles in length on the east side path along the Fox River.  Conditions of the day were perfect, the path was well used by many bicyclists and fellow walkers, runners.  Nearing the half way point of my walk I recognized that my blood sugar level was dropping.  For a diabetic (I am) this lightheaded feeling is a clue that one needs to consume something to cause the needle which is approaching “empty” to move in the opposite direction.  I made a mistake of “betting” that I could reach the mid point of my walk and there I’d purchase a candy bar.  I don’t remember falling, the lights simply “went out.”  Falling is easy.  The force of a physical body against another physical body is the hard part.  The impact to the asphalt jolted me back to  awareness.  I slowly got to my feet.  Several guys who lived across the way observed my distress and offered a folding chair and a paper towel.  I blotted up the blood oozing from the scrapes on my right arm.   I sat for a minute or two, conversed with them, thanked them for their kindness.  I went on my way.

Another song by The Eagles comes to mind.  In a New York minute everything can change…  More true words have never been said, of an entire society and of the individual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylKxR6oZJE0

New York Minute

Written by Don Henley

Harry got up
Dressed all in black
Went down to the station
And he never came back
They found his clothing
Scattered somewhere down the track
And he won’t be down on Wall Street
in the morning

He had a home
The love of a girl
But men get lost sometimes
As years unfurl
One day he crossed some line
And he was too much in this world
But I guess it doesn’t matter anymore

In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute
Things can get pretty strange
In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute

Lying here in the darkness
You hear the sirens wail
Somebody going to emergency
Somebody’s going to jail
If you find somebody to love in this world
You better hang on tooth and nail
The wolf is always at the door

In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute
Things can get a little strange
In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute

And in these days
When darkness falls early
And people rush home
To the ones they love
You better take a fool’s advice
And take care of your own
‘Cause one day they’re here;
Next day they’re gone

I pulled my coat around my shoulders
And took a walk down through the park
The leaves were falling around me
The groaning city in the gathering dark
On some solitary rock
A desperate lover left his mark,
He said “Baby, I’ve changed. Please come back.”

What the head makes cloudy
The heart makes very clear
I know the days were so much brighter
In the time when she was here
But I know there’s somebody somewhere
Make these dark clouds disappear
Until that day, I have to believe
I believe, I believe

In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute
Things can get really strange
In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute