Today I returned home from a reunion; four of five old heads who once spent time together, in school, on a Philadelphia street corner and, fishing the nearby lakes and streams ... even in the bays and the ocean in South Jersey, or "Down the Shore" (as Philly folk refer to places like Atlantic City, Wildwood, etc.), spent time once again ... fifty years later! This morning, four of us scattered once more. Hopefully there's another reunion or two left.

Some things are bittersweet. During our four-day gathering, I often remembered a line from Hemingway's Old Man in the Sea; "Why do old men wake so early ... is it because they want one longer day ... ?"

I also got some time alone ... walking off into the Pocono (PA.) Mountain woods that are still abundant and relatively wild. The sight of my friends caused me to wonder how, they were teenagers just "yesterday," and, old men today; and then, of course, I remembered ... I'm one of them.

For the record, I'll be sixty-eight this month ... lucky to have kept healthy, well-exercised, successful in life, and, having family and friends (including those on NV) around me. Some of the people we knew are gone ... gone to other places or ... gone altogether. Caring for people has a price ... that being the pain of losing them, and/or, the anguish of worrying about them when the forces of destiny are not kind. In either case, it is not difficult to become "lost." And, in that time when we are "away," when we become lost ... we hope for better times and, if we are fortunate, " ... we begin to understand ourselves."

Now that I am out-of-the-woods (literally speaking) and back home, I'll probably spend the more normal number of hours on my iPhone and MacBook (what other kind of book is there if not a Mac book). The slideshow consists of older images ... I took zero pictures all week and barely posted any comments on-line.

Consider the subject matter as symbolic ... about "understanding," about "seeing the light" maybe.

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