Taking a stroll down memory lane……….

Another day another 600 points. So  much for building up my war chest to return to Nihon.

I wish I knew what to do about that. The advice to not panic is not working at this point.

However, today was a good day. On the way home via Philly airport, I had some time before my flight left. So I drove on up the Surekill expressway, with the hope to get over to boathouse row and remember to a simpler time, when once I was there and the future was so bright.

Bumper to bumper traffic near U Penn put an end to that notion.

So I got off on at exit 346, and went in to the University of Pennsylvania. After some effort, I found a place to park the car and I walked around some. This place too has memories for me.

Fall 1975. My knob haircut has just begun to grow back. We were up for the Head of the Schuylkill regatta. To save money, our coach had called in a favor with a buddy of his from the Navy who was up at U-Penn. He arranged for us to stay at one of the Frat houses there.

Which was a treat for someone in the middle of their plebe year who was going through a different kind of “initiation”. Plus they had a coke machine, one of the old kind you pulled the bottles out of, stocked with Rolling Rock beer. Over the course of our stay we did our best to empty it.

Fast forward 33 years. The campus appears a lot different than I remember it.  I walked past a lot of frat houses, but I sure could not find it. So I just walked around.

I was thinking to myself, back then-somebody walking around in a coat and tie was an old guy. Not me.

Now I had become him. Sigh.

So I walked around some more. Went to a book store full of old books. Crossed the streets to go to another one. Had a hoagie-a real hoagie-not the poor imitations they make down here in cotton country. Read the Philadelphia Enquirer. As munch on my sandwich I came to a stunning realization:

It just does not matter. No matter who wins the election-I’m going to get screwed.

As watched the young and pretty coeds go walking by, I wondered: Do they have any idea how life wears you down over the years? Some will go on to wealth, maybe fame. Others will marry, settle down, and if the statistics are correct, get a divorce. Drag some poor schmuck through the mud.

Or get dragged there themselves.

How nice it would be if you could warn them-but alas, if they are like me then-they would not listen anyway.

They will just have to find out for themselves.

I hated to leave the street. Looking at my watch, I knew I had to go. But I really did not want to do it. I like University areas-always have. Since the summer of 1976 when I went to Pitt for summer school. Just get out of the house and have my dad quit bugging me to get a job.

That’s another memory though. For another time.

So now I am home. Back to the salt mines. But it was a nice way to spend an afternoon.