Rambling Josh

When my brother Jarvis and I were in elementary school our bedtime was 9:00pm, which meant that we were in bed and sound asleep not a minute past midnight. It also meant that somewhere around 8:59pm on February 13th we would tell mom that we needed to make a Valentines box for school. By “we” we meant “she”.

We did the grunt work, the cutting, the gluing, the whining, the wandering off to catch a little M.A.S.H. with dad, but mom was the idea generator. Our mom was, and still is, an amazingly creative woman, with the power to transform something out of nothing at the drop of a shoebox.

I must admit that I secretly enjoyed being a ringside witness to her endless creative prowess. Maybe she secretly enjoyed it too? If she did, she hid it well as she yanked down the newspaper she had been unwinding with on the end of the couch while contemplating what she had done to deserve the two idiots that had just finished fighting about who could brush their teeth the fastest and were now proclaiming their need for Valentines boxes.

While tossing the paper aside, she would ask through clenched teeth why we had waited until bedtime to bring this up. Asking such a question makes sense when those that you’re asking it to are sensible. Jarvis and I would look at each other and, neither of us seeing anyone sensible, would both look at our mother and shrug. Just shrug, because it seemed sensible to keep our mouths shut.

The dumbfounded shrugs were the starting pistols for moms race to create two knucklehead approved Valentine boxes, get previously mentioned knuckleheads to bed, and enjoy a full five minutes of relaxation before having to stomp upstairs and tell two knuckleheads to get to bed “now…I mean it…this is the last time”. As the parenting expert Merle Haggard once proclaimed, “Momma tried”.

What our mother didn’t know was that my brother and I had side bets going as to how long it would take her to whip something up. Each year we would reflect on the previous year’s events, “Okay, last year we told her the night before…to easy…this year we hold out until breakfast on the morning of February 14th. Then just as she’s getting into the flow I’ll pop the head off of Amanda’s favorite doll. There’s no way mom can maintain focus with that racket going on.”

If only that were the case. If only it wasn’t simply our stupidity and complete lack of comprehension in the concept of time. But alas, it is so. So it goes.

I still remember the shoebox I…she…we turned into a covered wagon. Complete with a cowboy cut-out from one of my comic books to drive the horses hitched to the wagon. No Pinterest, no Google, just the creativity of a mom that could always be counted on in our time of need. Some things never change.

Happy Trails.

Going to our cabin in Montana during the dog days of winter is always enjoyable. Well actually, being at the cabin during the winter is enjoyable, getting to it can be a bit of a crap shoot, as one never knows what the condition of the road going in is going to be until one is on the road going in.

Calling the road going into the cabin a road may be a bit of an overstatement. It’s more trail than road, a trail that only accounts for about 1.5 miles of a 350 mile journey, a short stretch that occupied a long bit of thought and concern as my good friend Paul and myself made our way west back in January.

The temperature was a concern, stuck well below the donut, it was going to take some time to put the “cozy” into the cabin upon our arrival. More concerning was the record snowfall that eastern Montana had been experiencing. Record snowfall that we were unaware of until Paul, bored of conversing with me, went Googling when we were about 50 miles from the cabin.

Concern upon concern, but we ventured on towards the unknown, with the bravado and confidence generally reserved for the moronically delusional. So it goes.

As I pondered the list of concerns, some ancient Stoic philosophy drifted into my concerned consciousness and reminded me of the dichotomy of control. The dichotomy of control simply states that there are things that we can control and things that we can’t control, and concerning ourselves with things that we can’t control is a waste of time.

What could I control regarding my concerns? I could control the pickup, stop it, turn it around, and come back when the record snowfalls gave way to record wild flowers. Paul had only completely rearranged his schedule and put in two hard days of pre-feeding his cattle and assorted ranch prep to accompany me. I’m sure he won’t mind.

I can’t control if he minds, so why should I concern myself with such a concern? Well, as the great philosopher Forrest Gump once said, “he’s my best good friend, and even I know that ain’t something you can find just around the corner.” So onward I drove, contemplating my concerns and reconciling them with that which is and that which is not under my control.

Record snowfall…nope, nostril freezing temperatures…nope. Moronically delusional it is…it’s gotten me this far.

It turns out the trail in wasn’t so bad. The cabin heated up nicely and we had an enjoyable few days of staring at the fire. Sometimes staring in silence, sometimes staring as we chatted about things we’ve most likely chatted about before, but that’s of little concern. Most things are of little concern when you’re at the cabin.

I was mildly concerned when one of the lanterns had a bit of a flare up, and had a bit more of a flare up when I tried to remedy the situation by blowing out the flame. The logistical issue with blowing out a flame is that you have to get your face close to the offending flame. Otherwise, it’s just heavy breathing in proximity to a potential concern. Safer, but not particularly useful.

The angry lantern only managed to singe about half the hair on my sparsely populated scalp, and my eyebrows were in need of a reduction in force anyway. Thankfully, Paul didn’t appear too concerned. I’d hate to disturb his R-and-R with burn care responsibilities.

What can I control? Good question, and a worthy concern.

Another year has teetered and tipped into the abyss of the past, but worry not my friends, the abyss of the future stretches before you. How far does your future stretch? How should I know? I’m not a certified astrologist, and if I was, the going rate for such information would run you about $150.00 an hour.

I actually didn’t know there was such a thing as a “certified astrologist” until I decided to do some investigating to make sure I gave you accurate information on the hourly rates. All these years I was under the impression that anyone with half a brain could dole out useless information, but it turns out that the owner of that half a brain has to be certified.

Well, they don’t have to be certified, but setting out to face an uncertified 4-star day is risky, and not recommended by the Organization for Professional Astrology or the Astrology News Service (yes they exist). What if your willy-nilly uncertified 4-star day would have been astutely deemed a mere 1-star day by an actual certified astrologist? Rather than sequestering yourself within the friendly confines of your home, with your tinfoil hat strapped securely on, you unwittingly venture out into a certified 1-star day brimming with uncertified 4-star confidence.

You run a few red lights and blatantly jaywalk your way over to a convenience store to purchase your 4-star day lottery tickets, and roll the dice on a gas station burrito. What could go wrong? 4-star day all day baby! Well thanks to your uncertified astrological reading you have a couple certified traffic tickets, a certified case of the trots, and someone else won the 3.5 billion dollar lotto jackpot. Someone that most likely had a certified 4-star day. A sad tale indeed.

How far does your future stretch? For the most part that’s a certified crap-shoot. There are things you can do that might nudge the odds in your favor during your quest to stretch your future a bit further. Respecting chainsaws, wild animals, and women is a good place to start. Maybe a better question is how deep does your future go? What resistance is holding you back?

Sure it’s fun, and relatively easy, bobbing around, splashing and giggling on the surface for a while, but maybe this year calls for a change of pace. Maybe this is the year we toss off the water wings, take a deep breath, and dive a little deeper into life. Dive deep and really get to know those we care about, and let them know the depth they bring to our lives. That is within our control. That we can do if we so choose.

Nobody, certified or not, can grant you a 4-star day, but you are more than qualified to go get one on your own, and if you manage to go get one-after-another you will most likely have a certifiably good year.

I’ll wave the $150/hr this one time, and hazard an uncertified proclamation, that as of this very moment, I am quite confident that your future has stretched to this very moment, the present. Regarding that present, in the words of Grandpa Art in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, “Are you going to bawl all over it, or are you gonna open it?”

Happy New Year my friends.

For those of you that aren’t on our Christmas card mailing list (you know why) I thought I’d share this year’s letter with you. I’m sure you’re thrilled. For those that are on our Christmas card mailing list (who knows why)…carry on…you’ve already ignored this once.

Here we are, jingle bells deep in the holiday season, once again. Round 45 for this elf. Ding…ding… time to come out and take a few swings before the swing slows to a wobble and you find yourself slowly twisting in the breeze with icicles dangling from your Depends. Kids, no matter what your big brother tells you, those are not lemon-mocha flavor icicles.

I apologize for the potentially melancholy and unfestive-like start to this installment of the Ellis Family Christmas letter, but we lost the angel atop our family tree this year. Grandma Rose passed away in August, and although we are all so very thankful for having had her in our lives for as long as we did, the holiday season is proving to be a bit more trying than I anticipated. I’m sure many of you understand, and I wish you strength as the nostalgia of Christmas on The Farm works its way around the string of cranberries and popcorn strung around your memories. I’m sure it’ll be alright, but it still stinks.

All-in-all the Ellis Family is getting along just fine. We’ve avoided incarceration, indoctrination, and remain diligent in the fight for truth and goodness in the face of alternative facts and flatulence.

When should you stop announcing the age of your children in the family Christmas letter? Not this year…Sierra turned 22, and is one semester away from finishing up her undergraduate degree in Film at Montana State University in Bozeman. One semester, and it’s off to wherever life takes her. Scary? Heck yeah, but we are extremely proud of this strong young woman, and have no doubt that she will find her happiness and leave her creative mark somewhere out there…near, or far, from mom and dad. Dawn and I can be strong in these shifting tides of growth and change, because our daughter is strong.

The Boy, is now a young man. Jackson is 18…registered with Selective Service, able to buy lottery tickets, a pack of Camels, and get hitched without parental consent. What else is there? He’s a short timer at Stevens High School, and looking forward to one last season of high school tennis in the spring. One last of a lot of things seems to be the theme around here. Ends are beginnings, and he’s exploring some options on those fronts. I’ve conducted some research investigating high school seniors, and 11 out of 9 wish that people would stop asking them, “So…what are going to do after you graduate?” I was raised by a good man, my father-in-law is a good man, and I feel that I know what a “good man” is, so I am quite proud to proclaim that our son is a good man, and I’m sure the next chapter in his life will be a page-turner.

Dawn and I are just fine. We both get to spend our professional lives doing what we love. Fulfilling, rewarding, and all those things that allow one to flourish in life. If you want to get personal, we find ourselves in uncharted territory. Not exactly uncharted territory, but territory that has not been visited for quite some time. Territory where the focus is shifting from the whirlwind of raising kids back to us. Back to where it all started. The kids are, and always will be, a major part of who we are, and what we’re here for, but the responsibility for wrangling the whirlwind is mostly theirs now. They are both quite capable and we are both quite proud.

This holiday season hold onto it all…the little bits…the big bits…all of it. All we have is each other and the bits of time we get to share as life pulls us this way and that. Our clan lost a bit in August, but we’ll gain a bit in May, and we’ll all keep moving along. Have a good year my friends. Health and happiness to you and yours.

Often times when I’m standing in front of a class of 18 to 22 year-old college students I feel the need to bring a bit of harsh reality to their youthfulness. A few weeks ago, I was finding the fact that they are twice as young as myself particularly troubling, so I had them write their own obituaries. As with most assignments, some were good, some were not, and most were solidly mediocre and uninspiring. One made me laugh, just one out of 25 was kind enough to entertain me. So it goes.

Not wanting the youngsters to have all the fun, I wrote my obituary as well, and shared it with the class. I thought it was at least mildly entertaining, they read it, and gave me that patronizing smile that young people give in response to old people humor. What do they know anyway? Strutting around with their smooth skin and hair covered heads. There’s nothing funny about that. Oh, their funny is coming.

I apologize for the rant, old people do that sometimes. Anyway, as Mark Twain sort of said, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Joshua C. Ellis (45), was kicked to the curb of life on Wednesday November 15th, 2017, after suffering a short bout of brain freeze and third-degree burns while enjoying lunch with colleagues in the Chadron State College Cafeteria. Witnesses say he was attempting to quickly eat a fist-sized scoop of chocolate-caramel-fudge-peanut butter ice cream, so as not to be late for his 1:00PM Personal Health class. The third-degree burns were a result of lifesaving measures attempted by a student in his Personal Health class, who attempted to ease the anguish from the brain freeze by dumping a large bowl of lobster bisque soup on his face. Before succumbing to his fate, he thanked the student for their heroic attempt to end his misery, complimented the CSC dining staff on the subtle, yet complex, flavor of the soup, and with his final breath of life in this beautiful world, asked that his family be told that he loved them, and that the soup and ice cream splatters on his shirt please be contended with before the stains set in.

Josh was a loving family man, and leaves behind his wife Dawn of Rapid City SD, two children, Sierra (22) of Bozeman MT, Jackson (18) of Rapid City SD, and his beloved black lab, Pre (9 or 63). He was a deeply dedicated professional, who truly cared for each and every one of the students he had the pleasure of sharing his classrooms with over his 16-year career as a college professor. The Chadron State College campus was much more than a place of work for Josh, it was his second home, and he considered everyone that he was fortunate enough to share that home with, as family.

In accordance with his final wishes, an educator to the very end, Josh was immediately transported from the cafeteria to the Chadron State College cadaver lab, where his lifeless body will hopefully bring life to students budding dreams of a career in medicine.

A raucous celebration of his life is planned to take place during his cremation at the CSC homecoming bonfire next fall. The bonfire sea shanties will be led by the deceased’s good friend, Paul Richter of New Underwood, SD, the remaining member of their world renowned musical duo, “Donnybrook”. Gluten-free s’mores will be provided by Josh’s lovely bride of 21-years, as group flatulence and bonfires are in direct violation of state and federal fire codes. FR clothing is encouraged.

He is survived by all that have not yet died, and was preceded in death by all that have. In lieu of flowers (Josh couldn’t smell), please send monetary donations to Chadron State College in support of a campus-wide initiative to teach proper emergency life-saving skills, so others may be spared from suffering the same fate that befell our dearly departed.

There are many edges in life. Some we approach knowingly, willingly, courageously and others unwittingly, blindly. Most have moments of choice involved, a moment when we decide to move towards or away from the edge. Sometimes we recognize that choice, and choose to move forward, move a bit closer to the edge, to a place that forces us to grow forces us to be a better version of ourselves. Sometimes we don’t see the edge coming, and as we move towards it we feel ourselves moving away from ourselves, away from those we love, away from what could produce that better version of ourselves. How do we know what edges to move towards, and what edges to step back from? Intuition, experience, a willingness to listen to those that have toed those very same edges in their lives? Hard to say, hard to get it wrong. Life is hard, harder for some than others, but hard just the same. It’s not that the life of others doesn’t matter, it’s that your life, your edges, need to matter a bit more. For if you fall, if the edge takes you away, you can’t be there for others. Finding love can take you to the edge, an edge that is uncertain, an edge that makes you want to be someone for the sake of someone else. Being a parent can take you to the edge. It can move you further than you ever thought you were capable of moving. Sometimes these two edges, the edge of that one we fell for, and that edge of parenthood can seem to be on opposite sides of the same mountain top. We lose sight of one for the other, we can’t approach two edges at the same time. As we move towards one, we move away from the other. Or so it would seem. When approached with clarity one can see that they can be the same edge, but clarity is generally in short supply while mired in the fog of the day-to-day. The kids need to be taken here and there, meals need to served, dishes need to be done, the life needs to appear somewhat in order. The one we love has needs as well, the need to not be pushed to the edges of the life they were once the center of. It’s easy to lose sight of that in the fog of the day-to-day. Someday, someday sooner than imaginable, the children will begin pushing towards their own edges, and we must let them push without pull. If we pull excessively they will push harder than is necessary, and when our grip slips, they will fall harder and further than if they were allowed to approach the edge on their own. On their own, but knowing they can turn back anytime and ask for help, ask us to steady them, ask us which edges should be explored and which should be avoided or stepped lightly towards. Let them step towards their edges, loosen your grip on them, and take that opportunity to tightly grab the hand of your love and stride towards your edges. The edges you talked of many years ago before the day-to-day fog moved in. Those edges are still there, and hopefully, so are the two of you.

We headed west a few weeks back, predominately uphill, through wind, snow, and dark of night, so that the family could be together to celebrate the 22nd year of our daughters head first exit of the womb. For those planning such an event, head first is preferred by all persons and personnel involved.

Sierra doesn’t recall much from that day, which is probably for the best, as I recall lots of yelling, unflattering accusations, name calling, fist shaking, and finger flipping in St. Luke’s Hospital that afternoon. How was I supposed to know that was the last piece of finger jello in the hospital cafeteria? Never mess with a hypoglycemic nun eight hours into her twelve hour shift.

I don’t even like finger jello, but they say you get to see the world through the eyes of a child when you become a parent, so I gave it a shot. Not the first, or most likely last, error this dad will be charged with attempting to navigate this rule-less game of parenthood. The kids are 22 and 18 now, old enough to make their own errors, and then lay the blame squarely on shoddy upbringing.

The blame can be laid, but like the dog crap in the yard you were asked to take care of nine years ago, it will not be picked up. It might stink for a while, get squished and smeared around a bit, but eventually it will dry up and disappear without a trace. If only we had taken them to Disney Land. The “Tragic Kingdom” would have made up for all of our parental failings. So it goes.

Maybe if we become grandparents, in the very distant future, we will take our grandchildren to have Mickey Mouse and the gang purify their souls. Probably not, I’m putting my life in grave danger with this confession, but I hate Mickey Mouse. As a wee lad I was excited to watch Fantasia for the first time when it was broadcast as the NBC Sunday Night Movie.

The excitement faded quicker than dry pajama bottoms on a potty training toddler and NBC at midnight. The excitement of us kids having control over what was on the television for a bit, was quickly replaced by a lifelong repulsion towards all things Mickey Mouse. Walt & Roy Disney lost a fan, gained an enemy, and by proxy potentially ruined my children’s lives, because I refused to make a pilgrimage to their mouse infested magical world of landfill fodder.

I guess to a kid whose television viewing had mostly been comprised of M.A.S.H., Gun Smoke, and Quincy, Fantasia was bit too far removed from my “normal”, and my normal is pretty far removed. Too odd, a bit creepy, and lacking in all things entertaining. That was my 8-year old self’s review of Fantasia. Two Bugle’s snack adorned thumbs down.

Speaking of “crap”, Sierra has been missing our black lab, Pre, quite a bit since abandoning all of us for college. Her birthday wish was that we bring him for her birthday, and she would return him when she came home for Thanksgiving. We talked it over with Pre, he was a little hesitant, but thought maybe it was time he do a little traveling now that he’s in his 60’s.

Sierra’s boss at Movie Lovers (yes there are still video stores surviving out there) brings her dog to work, so Sierra was anxious to bring her dog to work as well. Shortly after arriving at his first day on the job, Pre left a calling card on the floor to let the boss’s dog know that he appreciated the opportunity to work at Movie Lovers.

Pre got let go. Maybe that was his plan, maybe at 60-years old he came to Bozeman to take up philosophy at the university or be a street mime, and he felt this video store gig would stifle his creativity.

Or, he found Fantasia, and anatomically unable to give a thumbs down, laid down what he felt was the appropriate review. Mickey Mouse is to blame for the whole mess, but Sierra had to clean it up. Will this mouse’s terrorism of this family ever cease?

It’s all so goofy.

Legends and myths are commonplace this time of year, and each generally have threads of truth winding through them. When you find that thread, and you take the time to tug on it a bit, more and more of the factual side of the story might begin to show itself. That thread, woven into the tapestry of the infinite, begins to take shape, begins to become more clear and finite.

Her mom was gone, her father got sick, and she was the only one of her siblings that was willing to put her own life on hold while their father held onto the last of his. It’s a decision she never regretted. Those three years of caring for the man that always saw the good in her, no matter how bad she tried to be, served to expand her heart beyond that which she had believed a heart could stretch. Now he’s gone, now she needs to take care of herself, now she needs to fill that big heart that now has space to spare.

She hadn’t intended on buying a pumpkin to carve when she went to the store to stock up on the unlimited 2-for-1 Hot Pocket deal advertised in the sale ad. Hot Pockets were the go to meal during those years she cared for her father. Quick and easy, it seemed selfish to take too much time to herself when his time was so short.

It wasn’t a conscious decision, but this was probably the very same reason she had taken to wearing floral print moo moos around that same time. Quick, easy, little time or thought required. We only have so much thought we can attend to in a day, and she wanted hers available to attend to him.

Besides, she joked that they were slenderizing. Slenderizing much in the same way throw pillows make a couch look smaller. She really wasn’t in need of slenderizing, but the covers on the magazines she saw while waiting in line at the supermarket told her otherwise.

She is aware that magazine covers are not a rational metric to measure one’s self-worth or body image against, but squeezed between rational thought and general checkout line daydreaming, she found herself planning to start a diet sometime soon, even while still rationally convinced that a diet wasn’t what she needed or wanted. Perhaps after the Halloween candy was properly disposed of, perhaps after the last of the Hot Pockets, perhaps…

Her cat Whisker, it used to be Whiskers, but time and circumstances have whittled away the plural, sat with its crooked, mangy tail flicking about as she transformed her pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern. Many more years ago than she can remember, the cat showed up on her doorstep. Not cold or hungry, just in search of company it seemed. Whisker was a fine looking calico then, a proud feline. She knows that, she remembers that, and chooses to see that, rather than the tattered cat before her now.

She senses that Whisker extends the same empathy and graciousness to her. Whether flowing out or in, empathy feels good. Good to understand, good to be understood. Understood for who you actually are, not who you appear to be through the lens of whomever decides to point their lens your way.

It’s easy to say that someone’s life is a fine mess, when we only see the messy parts. Messy parts tend to sparkle in the spotlight we shine on them, making them seemingly represent the entirety of that person. We don’t see, or choose not to see, all that falls outside the periphery of that spotlight.

The normal, the mundane, the kindness, the day-in and day-out compassionate displays of humanity extended to all who take the time to hold up their hand and shade the brightest part of the light and see it all. All of that is who she is, and when we see that who she is just might be a shade better than who we pretend to be, we can either move our hand and continue to be blinded or hold it there and feel shameful.

Shameful for missing all that is good, shameful for laughing at all that was different. Different from our normal. Maybe our normal needs to be different, maybe we need to just keep looking, keep getting closer until that thread of truth reveals itself. Even if it’s not found, at least it was sought. There’s no shame in that.

I wasn’t sure where this was going when I started, and now that it’s finished, I’m not sure where it went. The start of a story bigger than a column? A ramble turned babble? Is there a difference between the two? This nonsense is yours to make sense of. So it goes.

Something that I know to be true and factual is that later this week, November 5th to be exact, is our daughter Sierra’s 22nd birthday. We’re going to head to Bozeman and help her celebrate her day, so if you have any suitcases full of money, or extravagant gifts that you don’t trust to send through the mail, I can deliver them.

The holidays are coming…consider yourself warned.

There was a time, not so long ago, that we innocently viewed “getting your bell rung” as an indelible part of many sports. Simply a part of the game, as innocuous as a jammed finger or a rolled ankle. Maybe even more so, as you can see the swelling of a jammed finger, you can see the limp from a rolled ankle. The injured brain suffers in silence. The swelling, the cognitive limp, unseen, ignored, trivialized and often deemed a weakness by those that didn’t know or care to know.

That time is past, we now know, we now see what we were unable to see before. We can no longer claim ignorance to the words Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and the cascade of issues those that suffer from CTE must endure, often without knowing they are enduring. Possibly unaware that they are not entirely the being they were prior to “getting dinged” playing some game.

Athletes are often told to play hard and “leave it all on the field”, a platitude meant to motivate and inspire one to transcend themselves, to extend their reach beyond their grasp. I take no issue with this, and believe that sometimes sport has the ability to move us toward a better version of ourselves. I am only concerned with the prospect of leaving something that can’t be regained on the field, and being left to deal with a shell of our former selves. A shell under the command of a commander that is limping into the sunset, stumbling in the dark.

Although we know, there are still those that don’t understand, or simply refuse to acknowledge the gravity of this issue. No, we’re not making too big a deal of this, and I really don’t care if you feel the safety measures being put into place are “ruining the game”. It’s not a matter of “toughness”, you can’t “toughen” your brain by concussing it. Dumber yes, tougher, no.

Given all that we know, choosing to err on the side of ruining a game rather than err on the side of protecting another human from the possibility of ruining their life for your entertainment is irresponsible, idiotic, and a lot of other words that my mother taught me but aren’t publishable in a family friendly newspaper.

I played in that time before we knew. I “got dinged”, I “got my bell rung”, I even managed to get knocked out a time or two. But nothing “looked” injured, so I counted the coaches fingers, managed to guess the day of the week with relative accuracy, and tottered back onto the field. Now, I’ve spent about 20 years as an athletic trainer, someone’s whose job it is to recognize when someone has been “dinged” and keep them from tottering back into harms way, to keep them from leaving it all on the field.

It’s my job to know, and knowing can be frightening, but if we know we can try and make things better. We can better prevent the occurrences and better treat those afflicted. I’m hopeful that I didn’t leave too much on the field, but concern creeps in from the fringes sometimes. I’ve never shared this with anyone, but for those that have never had a traumatic brain injury (TBI), it may be helpful to “hear” the thoughts and concerns that linger in the minds of those of us that have.

He lay there troubled from within by something contrary to the idyllic life he lives in the light. In the light, darkness dims and recedes, driven to sulk in seclusion. Sulk, simmer, and gather strength that may one day be too powerful and overwhelming for the light to drive away. What if the light fails? What if darkness fills the space entirely, tethered to nothing, in possession of all. He can see the madness for the madness it is, but worries that some night, day will fail to appear, and the madness will be all that is known, and eventually all that he is known for. Darkness covering the entirety of life, blurring, then obliterating the light. A progressive series of dark, heavy blankets placed silently upon him, bringing no warmth, no comfort, only suppression of the senses. Mind, body, and being, all that he’s spent a life to build, brought down by darkness.

A work of fiction? One can hope. Ruin a game? Don’t care.

My wife and I recently ventured to Aberdeen, South Dakota, for the Northern State University homecoming festivities, along with a few friends that are also NSU alumni. Gypsy Days has been a yearly tradition each fall at Northern State since 1916, and we try to get back for it as often as life permits.

The exercise of mentally tacking 25 years onto people you shared your college experience with can be exhausting. Equally exhausting is chit-chatting and catching up with so many people, but, for the most part, it’s a good exhausting. A lot can happen in a quarter-century of living.

A “quarter-century”…I don’t like the sound of that, it sounds sort of old, sort of wrinkly, sort of greying and/or balding, sort of like everyone I ran into this weekend. At least those that have embraced the white walls and opted to forgo some topical magic in a bottle.

As one tends to do when surrounded by those that you were last surrounded by when your body was relatively shiny and new, I indulged a bit too enthusiastically in the consumable magic in a bottle. When that magic wore off there were a lot of rough looking pumpkins that shouldn’t have pushed the midnight hour as far as they did. So it goes.

The majority of the students traipsing around the campus now were not of this world during the time of my own traipsing. Which makes sense, because I’m the same age as all of their parents. I’m in that age range that is supposed to try and make themselves invisible.

Most of those a quarter-century our junior would probably prefer we all worked the night shift in dimly lit surroundings, so they could avoid witnessing the grizzly effects of aging in full, unflinching daylight.

We visited with a few current students (a.k.a. kids) while we were roaming around, and they were all very kind and polite, and respectfully laughed at all of our attempts at humor. Cross-generational humor is a gap that is rarely traversed successfully, but when you get to a certain age the humor is more for your own entertainment anyway.

There was a kid that went above and beyond in his duties to take care of his elder alumni. We were setting out to walk the 2 miles to the football stadium to catch the homecoming game, when some grumbling in the group regarding such a jaunt prompted me seek out alternative means of travel.

I successfully flagged down a well-worn Subaru being driven by a member of the NSU marching band. He stopped to give me a lift, and was more than a bit shocked when I jumped in the passenger seat and informed him that I had five other people with me. Quincy was a good sport and a nice kid. He made my day, not just because of the ride, but because young people like him, and there are lots of them, generate great hope in our future for me.

We paid him for his troubles, and helped him carry his bass guitar amp into the stadium. To top it off, he let me wear his marching band hat…another bucket list box checked. A lot can change in a quarter-century, but a lot can also stay the same. With young people like Quincy on campus Northern is in good hands.

Enjoy the homecoming season.