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What does an old man - - to tell the Truth for once, I never thought of myself as an old man, my grandfathers were old men, there were old men in the parishes I served, many of whom I buried; I never even thought of my father as an old man until the doctor who, in my presence, as he pronounced my father's death at age 82, startled me into realization and slight resentment by remarking "Yes, he was a nice old man". I've watched career politicians age into old men in office and die, have watched priests and bishops whom I knew all my years from age ten on and many of us as teenagers together, age, retire, age and die; seen many naval officers who were friends, colleagues, or superiors retire, age and die; been startled to find obits of long ago friends, only to realize their old age was printed right there in front of me; but never thought of myself as an old man, just a person being and doing as life goes on around me - - do when it slowly dawns, not suddenly, but gradually comes to realize, and it's punctuated with a period not a comma, that life has caught up with him?! 

It was 2018 that did it, 2018 and its ongoing aftermath, the new existence surrounding near and far and closing in, part of which is evidently going to be permanent, the other part, like being kept long term away from my home and my StAndrews and my Bay and can't wait to get back if it ever happens, while in the same Time and moment thinking I've got to get out of here, our Gulf hurricanes will resume in October and I'll be right back to the place in parcheesi where I have to roll a double even to get started around the board. 

But I'm an old man at a Wayside Park with a flat tire and a thrown rod, got my AAA card but my phone's dead, there's no getting started again, there's just what, in prostate cancer, which I've had but got rid of fifteen years ago, is called Watchful Waiting or Watch and Wait. It's been watch and wait for ever so long, and Easter but never Christmas.

Currently watching and waiting from beside the osprey nest, where, settled warming her chicks, the mother bird starts to move sticks around and check on the babies as the low morning sun shines on (which tells me that the nest is on the east side of the creek where he snatches all those trout) and the father bird flies up.