Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture A little of the glory of, well time slips away And leaves you with nothing mister but Boring stories of
Glory days yeah they'll pass you by Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye Glory days, glory days
-Bruce Springsteen
Email already lighting up at 6 a.m. this morning, so I moved out to the couch for work so the burbling phone wouldn't wake up P. Last call ended yesterday evening around 6:30, after spending the day in Dothan for depositions. The witness brought a Bible and spent a lot of time looking worried, for good reason. God didn't do anything to save him.
But the divine did take care of your correspondent. Peg rode with me to look at Mercedes SUVs at the dealer on Ross Clark Circle, after deciding that a miniature version of Issac and Olivia's massive 400 class with all-wheel drive (the very expensive term Mercedes coined for that attribute is "4Matic") is vital to her safety and well-being in the frozen north. Upon arriving at the dealership she learned, alas, that supply chain issues left them with no such vehicle to sell, and no prospect of obtaining one before she heads back north in a few days. Our checking account remains unscathed.
Which is a double-blessing because the firm sent each of us partners a K-1 for all that Covid payroll protection money we received in 2020. Time to amend our income tax return and write a giant check back to the IRS on all of that tasty phantom income. Uncle Sam giveth . . .
Still playing catch--up from having one of my oldest and best friends visit the farm with his new squeeze over the weekend. We've known each other since he was just leaving Columbus AFB to go to F-15 school after several years there as an instructor, and I was a student still flailing through T-37s. We flew together in the war, then served in the same squadron as instructors at Tyndall in the years following. Our sons were born two weeks apart nearly three decades ago.
I told myself there'd be no trips down memory lane, focusing on the now and all the great things that had come along since those days flying Eagles in the desert, but after a few drinks on Friday night there we were, painting an action series for the ladies that included trashed rental cars, student pilots puking all over the instrument panel, SA-2s floating past the windscreen like telephone poles with one end on fire, and flight leads snaking through Nevada canyons at 300 feet when they were staggering and slurring in the parking lot a couple hours before, waiting for their ride from the hotel to the base. I'm not sure all that nostalgia is particularly healthy, but it felt good to roar with laughter while re-living times that felt a little less leaden than these.
Unlike me, my friend never left the defense establishment, now working for a defense contractor, and his politics have sadly drifted into MAGA land, with an unhealthy dollop of evangelical Christianity that seems not to have curtailed his ability to sit up drinking and telling stories until all hours of the night. The mixture has brought a level of certitude I find disconcerting, along with an almost fetish-like attachment to firearms. At least I got a cool ballcap with the logo of the airplane he sells.
Today will be spent doing phone conferences on the way back to Panama City, then a mediation after lunch, then supper with friends if all goes according to plan. I have 118 e-mails from yesterday that also demand my attention. Then there's another acrimonious and complicated deposition on Wednesday, then two more just like it on Thursday, then Friday to regroup and take stock before P goes back to NY on Saturday and I'm left here to fend for myself until after my trial at the end of the month. It's not the life I'd choose, but it's the one we have.
I took this morning's photo through a gritty window and a screen, not wanting to wake up P with a squeaky door swinging open for an outside shot. Misty and lovely out there.
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