This photograph haunts me. It came to me out of the blue, sent by an old pal I haven’t seen in over fifty years. The light is diffuse, almost ethereal; it looks more like a painting than a photograph. It must have been taken in that dreamtime before cell phones, when cameras were really cameras and you had to send a roll film off to be developed. The images would come back a week or two later, 3×5 or 4×6 snapshots, but by then, the moment was already a memory. Little did I know…

I have no specific memory of this moment, but I can tell that’s me—fifty years younger and sixty pounds lighter—sitting in that bleached rowboat, looking back at my now-self. My hair is thick and tousled; my Fu Manchu mustache is faintly visible. I’m not sure exactly where I was when the photograph was taken: Tunisia certainly (I was in the Peace Corps there), maybe relaxing in one of the benign little sea-side towns: Hammamet or Tabarka or Monastir, far away from my little village in the remnants of the Atlas Mountains, close to the Algerian border. There’s a shallow tidal pool, the edge of what appears to be an abandoned building, and, off in the distance, a boat rigged with a lateen sail. That would make sense: lateen sails were an Arab invention. They are triangular, mounted on the mast at an angle, running in a fore-and-aft direction. They were likely first developed by Arab traders in the eastern Mediterranean in the Second Century, and were crucial in the development of ships that were maneuverable and reliable under sail power alone because they allowed vessels to tack against the wind. Lateen sails changed the world.

The more I think about this photo, the more blurred it becomes. Most everything that has been important to me in this life was still to come: marriages, children and grandchildren, friendships, careers. Wins and losses, successes and blunders. I had no clue what lay ahead. If I could wade out to that little boat now and talk to that skinny kid, what would I say? Don’t fret; it will all be OK? I’m not sure I’d be telling him the truth. 

I feel gut-punched. My faith has been shaken by recent events: the political chasms that continue to divide us, sorrowful Supreme Court rulings, this lingering pandemic, our ailing economy, the degradation of the environment, racial injustice, gender bias; the list goes on and on. I said to my wife yesterday that I feel weary in my bones. I meant it. I wish for simpler, happier times. I believe we all do. But that’s not the way of this world. Like the young buck sitting in that rowboat, those days are gone. There’s work to be done and time is running out. Let’s get on with it.

What happens next? I didn’t know then and I don’t know now. There was a time when I trusted the world to be good, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe this feeling will pass, pass like the years that have passed since that photo was taken. None of us can ever be that young again. It’s just good to know that once I was.

We know how to tack against the wind. There’s still time to change the world.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

Once—not all that long ago—we were a great nation: confident, aspirational, perhaps even blessed. A shining city, set upon a hill. But now it seems to me the sun is setting on America. We’re torn and tired, sad and angry, divided, lost, maybe even defeated. Is our day done or is there still a little daylight remaining? We’ll know soon enough.

We did this to ourselves. Six years ago, we elected a flawed man of questionable character who remade the Supreme Court with ideologues of his ilk, three newly minted justices who lack the experience, temperament, and intellectual gravitas to make thoughtful, centrist judicial decisions. In so doing, Mr. Trump and his GOP minions made the Supreme Court, at least in Constitutional theory, the only non-partisan branch of our government, into a vengeful political weapon. Equal justice under law? Not anymore. The decisions of this court only seek to further an extreme political agenda that runs against the grain of a majority of Americans who believe that guns should be regulated, that a woman has the right to choose, and that love is love. 

There is no true north anymore; our collective moral compass spins wildly. We are polarized, paralyzed. We separate into tribes and reorganize in the wings, farther and farther from any common ground. Just over a hundred years ago, William Butler Yeats predicted all this in his poem “The Second Coming,” written coincidentally in the aftermath of another global pandemic:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

When I was younger, I was a patently cheerful optimist. But now that I’m older, I see things differently. It took several centuries for the Roman Empire to decline and eventually fall, leaving the Western World in darkness. Barbarian threats from without, political instability and corruption from within, a failing economy, and the rise of other empires slowly eroded the power and sway of Rome, eventually causing it to collapse. More recently and much closer to home, there was a time when the sun never set on the British Empire, but within only a century or two, that empire also shrunk and disappeared, writing one more painful chapter in history’s long textbook.

These days, events move more swiftly; the slope is much steeper. The evening of America—if that is indeed what this moment is—might only last a few short years. I would like to think there’s still time to right our ship, but it sure feels like the tide is running fast and the wind is blowing hard. I’m worried.

But over on the horizon, there is still that small glimmer of light. Maybe there’s still time to get this right. We have to ask ourselves if we have the will, the resolve, and the patience to maintain our place in this world. We like to think of ourselves as a great experiment in the power of democracy, an ideal for others to emulate, but I’m sorry to say we’re looking less and less like that shining city set upon a hill. Yeats was right: things are falling apart.

I sound like Eeyore: “things could be worse, but I’m not sure how.” I’ll do my best to rekindle my faith in America. Will you do the same? Maybe it isn’t the evening of America, only the darkness before the dawn.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.  Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. 

 

Greetings from Colorado! We’re here to help celebrate a marriage and to get a glimpse of two grandkids we haven’t seen in four long years, thanks to Covid.

I won’t lie: travel is stressful these days. Better believe it: America is on the move again. Airports and planes are jam-packed and flight schedules can change on a whim. We had a shaky start: our departing flight was delayed and we almost missed our connection in Chicago, but miraculously we—and even our bags— arrived in Denver on time. We rented a car and headed off to Colorado Springs.

It’s different out here. The days are sunny and warm but there’s almost no humidity. The nights are cool and fresh. The land is open, vast, almost endless. The mountains stand sentinel over everything and the air is pine-scented. The people are different, too: they seem happy, relaxed, informal, and outdoorsy. They wear cowboy boots and hats, or sport mountain casual: Patagonia shorts or cargo pants, SPF shirts with lots of pockets, and Birkenstocks with socks. They’re drawn here by the weather, opportunities, even the lifestyle. But it’s a devil’s bargain: on our way south, we pass through acres of new tract housing. We drive at 75 mph along miles of new highways. We see countless new office complexes, industrial parks, shopping malls, and enormous box stores. The taint of urban sprawl. John Denver saw this coming as long ago as 1972 when he wrote Rocky Mountain High: “more people, more scars upon the land.” And now, climate accelerates the changes: the plains and forests grow more sere each season, many reservoirs are at record low levels, and a smokey haze from wild fires hangs like a shroud in the air. Our planetary clock ticks loudly here.

On our first full day, we (my wife and I along with two good friends) were happy tourists: a morning visit to the Garden of the Gods, an afternoon round of golf at the Air Force Academy, evening drinks and dinner at the Broadmoor. The following day, we climbed Pike’s Peak—by car of course—but that didn’t make it any less nerve wracking: twenty uphill miles winding through hairpin turns with few guardrails, eventually soaring eagle-like high above the tree line. At the summit (14,115 feet), we were dizzy and lightheaded, our lungs were working overtime. But the view was worth it. It was the same view that inspired Katherine Lee Bates to write “America the Beautiful” in 1893. From up here, America, despite her many faults and flaws, is beautiful indeed: her skies are still spacious, her purple mountains still majestic, and yes, from atop this peak, it seems as though you really can see from sea to shining sea.

We carefully made our way back down the mountain and headed off to Denver to begin our wedding fun. There’s no doubt that the modern American wedding has become quite a production these days. There is, first, the choice of destination; I guess no one ever gets married in their backyard anymore. Then, there is the wedding venue itself: in this case, a lush meadow overlooking a peaceful green valley rising into the foothills of the Rockies. Clouds scurry by and there is even a drop or two of rain, but just as the wedding party comes down the grassy aisle to the strains of “Here Comes The Sun,” the raindrops disappear and the sun magically comes out. I thought I heard the wedding planner breathe a huge sigh of relief.

What a beautiful, happy event! The wedding party, the flower girl, the two well-behaved golden retrievers, the proud parents of the bride and groom, and, of course, the stars of the show: the happy couple themselves. Their vows were unscripted and sincere; their smiles radiated love and gratitude. Marriages are promises made and I have no doubt these promises will be kept forever.

After all the stress of planning, the moment finally arrived and a new husband kissed his bride. Let’s get this party started! We settled in to dine and dance. The toasts were marvelous: the father of the bride brought everyone to tears with his loving tribute to his newly married daughter, the two maids of honor took us behind the scenes of the newlyweds’ first tentative courting steps, and the best man, the groom’s older brother, hilariously captured the rough-and-tumble of brothers growing up in the embrace of a loving family. We should all be so fortunate.

Once all the wedding festivities were over, we made time for family. We connected with our recently relocated niece and nephew for lunch up in the foothills. The following day, it was time for the icing on our Colorado cake: the long-awaited reunion with my son and daughter-in-law and their two children—our grandkids. It had been four, long years since we last hugged the boys; they were little tykes then, but no longer. How grand to see and spend time with our two big, beautiful Colorado boys and their parents!

Sometimes, expectation exceeds experience. Not this time. We head for home tomorrow, so, as I’m wont to say…

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon.

 

 

 

 

A pair of house finches are eyeing the hanging basket that sways over our front porch: wary, little locals looking for a new home. The gentlest breeze rustles a few leaves on the sycamore just beyond the picket fence. No cars move up or down the street, quite a contrast to yesterday’s busy Farmers Market morning. My first sip of coffee…

Around the corner, down the street, across the bridge, the world continues to turn: a Congressional committee deliberates past transgressions; men, women, and children march against gun violence; glaciers melt and seas rise. But here, in this single, silent moment, all is calm, all is bright.

In a couple of days, my wife and I will be on an airplane, flying over vast plains on our way to Colorado. We’ll be there a week: a wedding, time with friends, a glimpse of grandchildren we haven’t seen in three years. I rue the hassle of travel these days, but in this case, the results may well be worth it. I hope so, anyway. Nothing is certain anymore.

Yesterday, I attended a memorial service for a friend and mentor who passed away in January. He used to live nearby, but in the wake of the 2016 election, he and his wife moved to a quieter, safer place a thousand miles or more away. I never saw him again. But yesterday, he came rushing back to me, vital and quirky, vulgar and funny as ever. Three speakers brought him back to life and then several other good folk who knew him well were moved to embellish him, Quaker-like, forming him from the silence of a room in the literary house he had helped to establish. I wanted to say something, but didn’t. Sometimes, less is more, and those who spoke knew him better than I. Well, maybe just longer, not necessarily better. Just so you know, I miss him, too.

I’m glad I don’t have a crystal ball. I worry for us. I prefer to live in hope because it’s better than despair. When I consider my part in all this, I fret, then come to the conclusion that I just need to keep learning my lines and perfecting my performance. I make small changes because there isn’t time for major ones anymore. Step-by-step, day-by-day, and if I’m lucky, year-by-year.

Those house finches are still watching me, wondering if I would make a good landlord. I tell them they would be welcome tenants, but that’s only a half-truth. Another pair nested in a hanging basket a few years ago which made it impossible to water the plants. By the time the chicks hatched and fledged, the plants in the basket were all long since dead. Nevertheless, I like to think it made a good launching pad. Who knows? Maybe this pair are returning to a home one of them once knew. We’re all just flying through this thin air, over rivers, plains, and mountains, each of us on our solitary, singular way from alpha to omega.

Colorado beckons. I pack lightly, but my wife moves wardrobes. She tells me to mind my own business; she’s right about that. I bet the house finches will move in while we’re away.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wind and tide have erased the anguish of that awful day: June 6, 1944. Today, Omaha Beach is a serene space, albeit holy and haunted, too. At low tide, it is unimaginably wide; the thought of traversing it under withering fire is almost too much to comprehend. The sights and sounds and smell of battle are gone now, but the images of D-Day and its heroes remained fixed in our mind’s eye. We have to look away.

Five years ago, I walked on Omaha Beach and found a tiny shell—an auger—on the tide line. It was the only shell I saw one the beach that day. Its fragile delicacy seemed a promise fulfilled: that somehow, we survive and the world heals and carries on. I brought the shell home with me and a jeweler friend of mine was able to fix it to a gold chain; a simple, elegant necklace. I gave it to my wife as a Christmas gift. She wears it carefully and likes to tell its singular story.

It may be true that time heals all wounds, but I think that’s a lot to ask of time. I doubt that those who survived D-Day ever forgot the things they saw on the beaches of Normandy that bloody day. I’m sure the same is true for the parents, family members, and friends who have lost loved ones to the recent spate of gun violence that continues to plague this country. Some wounds just never heal and no delicate little necklace will ever ease their pain. 

Abraham Lincoln knew this truth all too well. The Gettysburg Address is only 271 words long, but it still resonates today, clear as a bell. “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

President Lincoln could have said the same about the soldiers who died on D-Day or, for that matter, of the innocent children and teachers killed in schools across the country, or of the shoppers gunned down in a Buffalo supermarket. There is so much unfinished work still to do and it defies all logic that so many of our elected officials refuse to do it. We truly risk perishing from the earth.

I think of the natural beauty of that little auger shell I found on Omaha Beach. It seemed so lonely and out-of-place that windy day, yet there it was, what Anne Morrow Lindbergh might have called “a gift from the sea.” I wish there were some beauty to be found in the wake of more recent events, but I can’t see it. Yet. Maybe someday, there will be new and better laws and regulations to save us from ourselves, to advance all the unfinished work that still needs to be done.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon.

 

I don’t often use this space for anything approaching political heavy-lifting; there are plenty of columnists better qualified than I to write about those weighty topics. But after the recent massacres in Buffalo and Uvalde, I feel compelled to say something about our insane addiction to guns and the divisive issue of gun control. Here I go…

First, I don’t hate guns or gun owners. When I was a kid, I had a .22 that I used for target practice. I’ve shot skeet; sometimes I even shattered a clay. While I’m not a hunter, I recognize that many people like to hunt, whether to put meat on their tables or for trophies. That’s their regulated right and I accept it.

Second, with regard to the argument that the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to own a gun, I find it beyond ludicrous that the framers of the Constitution ever envisioned that one day there would be a weapon like an assault rifle with a high-capacity magazine, let alone that it would be used to murder defenseless children or their teachers or people shopping in a supermarket. It was James Madison who proposed the Second Amendment in 1791, and the original text provided for a “well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” That this worthy 18th Century ideal has devolved into an argument for a general right to own and/or use a personal arsenal of weapons worthy of 21st Century warfare is a shameful misinterpretation of the Second Amendment’s original intent, one primarily perpetuated by National Rifle Association and its minions in the gun lobby.

Third, thoughts and prayers are a useless defense against the twisted psychology that sends someone into a school or a supermarket to commit mayhem. Making a school safer by arming its teachers or providing police protection at its entrance is a step too late. Universal background checks and more effective screening of individuals who want to purchase a gun are steps in a better direction. So is providing better mental health services to individuals with a record of unstable behavior although there are no guarantees that these services could ever foresee or prevent deadly aberrational intent. Closing loopholes in the few gun laws that do currently exist sounds about as effective as the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dike.

We need strict laws that effectively regulate gun sales. We need universal background checks. We need a ban on the sale of assault weapons and tactical armor to individuals. Our police and military might require such offensive firepower or bodily protection, but you and I don’t. No other country in the world suffers so much senseless gun-related tragedy as we do and if we do nothing to stop it, it will only get worse. How long do you think it will be until the next mass shooting?

Our elected officials have failed us. Gun control needs to be a bi-partisan issue, not a red/blue, across-the-aisle shouting match. Commonsense legislation would not abrogate anyone’s right to own a gun. Rather, background checks and a ban on the sale of assault weapons would help heal a nation that is fighting for its soul and crying out for an end to this terrible national nightmare.

Let’s begin again. President Biden said it best: “Turn this pain into action!”

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon.

We’re about to be one step closer to the edge of understanding our universe. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a trillion light years away from being an astrophysicist, but that doesn’t make me any less of a star-gazer or dreamer. So when I hear that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is almost fully operational, I feel something akin to profound awe and wonder. The universe enthralls me.

I also marvel at the imagination, creativity, and capabilities of the men and women who have labored so tirelessly to unravel the mysteries of our home in space. Imagine: an object weighing nearly 7 tons, designed to conduct infrared astronomy, flying through L2 on the opposite side of Earth from the sun, capable of viewing celestial objects too old, too distant, or too faint for any previous space telescope. That’s the James Webb Space Telescope. Launched five months ago (on Christmas Day!) at a cost of $10 billion, Webb should be able to begin transmission of its first images within the next few weeks. What wonders will we see?

Theoretically, at the very least, Webb will enable us to see back in time. That may sound magical but it’s actually relatively simple. Light needs time to travel across the vast distances of space—at about 186,000 miles per second!—so Webb’s powerful lenses will be capable of seeing “back” more than 13.55 billion years, back to a time when stars and galaxies began to form after the “Big Bang,” the moment of our cosmic dawn.

Webb’s astounding ability to reach far back in time is a result of its ability to use the longer wavelengths of infrared light to hunt for previously unobserved phenomena like the formation of galaxies, as well as to look inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are still forming today….

Sorry, friends; this is the point at which I reach the limits of my own mind’s universe. I told you: I’m no astrophysicist! I can’t begin to understand what Webb will tell us, or fathom the distance, the time, and the mystery of its revelations. That’s all millions of miles and billions of light years above my pay grade. Try as I may, the mystery of creation will likely continue to elude me like a dream, one vividly perceived but much too dimly remembered. It’s possible that Webb will bring me to the border of science and faith, a crossing we all will make when that time comes. First Corinthians: “For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as I am known.”

But maybe I’m expecting too much from Webb. I’m sure the images that will return to us from its telescope will be astoundingly beautiful, but I’m not sure they will help me understand this long, strange journey any better than I do now. And you know what? I’m coming to terms with that. I think it was Tip O’Neil who liked to say that “all politics is local,” and maybe that’s true about our universe, too. I have no problem justifying the mission or expense of the JWST. Exploration is critical to our existence, but so is tending our own garden. In mine, the peonies bloomed this week and so did the roses and the wisteria.

Those are small miracles I can comprehend.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon.

My wife and I attended a party a few nights ago…a big party under a tent…a gala! Five-hundred guests, chatting, eating, drinking, dancing. We had a grand time and enjoyed being with friends in support of a good cause. And yet, underneath it all, like a riptide in the ocean, there was the lingering threat of that nasty little virus that simply refuses to go away. It was as though somewhere in the back of our collective minds was the memory of a time when we could safely shake a hand, or buss a cheek, or go to a big party without worrying about contracting a disease or ending up in isolation for a few days, let alone in the intensive care unit. Dreamtime.

“Dreamtime” originally referred to an Aboriginal understanding of the world, of its creation, of its great myths and stories. Dreamtime was the beginning of all knowledge, the moment when our oldest ancestors emerged from the earth, born out of their own eternity. It was a time of great magic, the beginning of light, the first dawn. A time of reverence and a place full of symbols, spirituality, and meaning.

But now, I think of “Dreamtime” as the world we inhabited before Covid. Back then, we didn’t wear masks or practice social distancing. We weren’t wary of proximity. We didn’t question science. We didn’t think twice about congregating or sending our kids to school or getting on an airplane. We didn’t carry vaccination cards and we didn’t make appointments to get booster shots or antigen tests. We lived in a bubble of blissful ignorance, at least with regard to a pandemic caused by a spiky little grey and red fuzzball representing something called the Coronavirus. In Dreamtime, we didn’t talk about contact tracing or superspreaders or nasal swabs. Now, there is an entire glossary of Covid terminology that currently runs from Aerosol to Ventilator, with new entries being added every day. Sigh.

It feels like the world is coming to the pessimistic conclusion that Covid is here to stay. We’ll just have to learn to live with it and to treat it like the flu. I’m no immunologist, but maybe the unlikely combination of vaccines and herd immunity will make this virus nothing more than an obnoxious house guest that has overstayed his welcome. Don’t get me wrong: we absolutely need to remain vigilant and do all we can to limit the spread and the virulence of this dreadful plague. As much as I detest the thought of learning to live with Covid, it may be all we can hope for because I sure don’t see it going the way of polio or smallpox or any other disease the World Health Organization has on its eradicated list.

Dreamtime existed before humans walked the earth, and it will exist after all life is extinct. But we live in the here and now. Our world is all too real: just ask someone who has lost a loved one to Covid, or people who live in Ukraine or Buffalo. While Dreamtime may have laid down the patterns of Aboriginal life, our lives today move to a different rhythm, one we are forced to confront every day.

At the party we recently attended, there was an energy that almost bordered on frenzy. We’d all been cooped up too long, and we just needed to blow off some steam. It felt so good to be together again. Let’s just hope it still feels good tomorrow, or the day after.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon.

 

 

That’s me, peeking out from the back row. The year was 1966, I was a freshman at Wesleyan University, and I had just pledged a fraternity. All those other guys in the photo were my new brothers.

That photograph was taken almost fifty-six years ago. I’m counting because recently my class celebrated its 50th reunion. For Covid reasons, that reunion had to be postponed twice so our 50th was actually our 52nd, but what’s the difference? Let’s just say my freshman year at college was a long time ago. 

For a variety of reasons, I chose not to attend the reunion, whichever number it was. But some of my friends did and they all reported it was a very positive experience: the fickle New England weather cooperated, the campus was thriving, and it was fun and meaningful to reconnect with old friends. I was glad to hear their stories, but I didn’t regret my decision. It’s hard to go back in time.

Our college years weren’t easy. That’s an understatement. We might not have known it at the time, but we were a generation on the cusp of significant cultural change. The war in Viet Nam was always lurking in the background. (In my senior year, I vividly remember watching the first draft lottery on television, a life-defining moment for many of my friends and classmates.) At the same time, race relations were being radically redefined. Drugs, largely absent from the scene when we were freshmen, were everywhere by the time we were seniors. Wesleyan, an all-male institution, was about to admit its first co-educational class, another transformation with profound consequences. (For the record, I was delighted with the prospect of coeducation; I only wish it had come sooner!)  All the elements of a revolutionary counter-culture were coming at us hard and fast, and I often felt unhinged by the all choices I had to make. Even now, fifty-six years later, I have no wish to relive even one moment of all that almost overwhelming angst. 

After graduation, I fled. Within a few months, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer on my way to a village in Tunisia. I guess I needed to find a little breathing room, some space to regain my equilibrium. Seen in that light, my decision to join the Peace Corps was more selfish than altruistic, but I’ve made my peace with that.  Perspective helps.

Now, when I look at the faces in the image that accompanies this Musing, I see a sea of innocent faces. If we had had the presence of mind to recreate that image four years later, I know I would see that innocence gone, lost forever. That’s not supposed to be the result of one’s college experience, but sadly for me, it was. Don’t get me wrong: I still cherish many of those fraternity brothers and friends, but nevertheless, I rue the things we lost along the way.

Youth, once lost, can never be found again. I think I’ve remained reasonably young at heart, and my educational choices and friendships have certainly informed the way I’ve lived, worked, and loved in the decades that have flowed under the bridge since that photo was snapped long ago. But, as in any black-and-white image, there are shadows, and sometimes, I still feel like I’m peeking out at this brave, new world from the back row. 

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.

Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

Age has come creeping up on me like a fox to the hen house. Not all that long ago—well, I guess it might have been a decade or two ago—my friend Marty said to me, “Growing old isn’t for sissies.” I scoffed at the time, but I’m not scoffing now: there is more snap, crackle, and pop in my bones than in a bowl of Rice Krispies!

This muscle hurts, that joint aches. Body parts creak: knees, hips, ankles, elbows, shoulders; can someone please bring me the Tin Man’s oil can? Arthritis blooms like a noxious weed in the night. Conversations with my circle of aging friends are bound to be exclusively about doctors, health care, surgeries, biopsies, sleep aids, cortisone shots, gummies, and a plethora of over-the-counter remedies. CBD are the new initials of choice. I know we stopped talking about politics a few years ago, but didn’t we use to discuss other subjects like the designated-hitter rule or the benefits of putting STP in one’s gas tank? These days, once my friends and I have exhausted the twin pillars of weather and ailments, it seems like there’s nothing more to say. The silence can be deafening. Literally!

Simple acts I once took for granted—tying my shoes, pulling up my socks, putting on a pair of pants, even walking up a flight of steps—now require practice or patience or both. These problems are compounded because in my mind, I’m not old; I’ve barely hit middle age. I’m still thirty-five or forty or maybe just fifty. But my body knows the sad truth of it. Ask it to hop out of bed in the morning and it laughs in my face. “Hop? Really? Are you kidding me? Why don’t you just sit here for another couple of minutes, old man, and we’ll see how things go from there.”

Now it seems to me there was one other aspect of growing old I wanted to discuss but I can’t for the life of me remember… oh, wait! I know what it was: memory! There are all kinds of vitamins or supplements that are touted to promote “healthy brains,” but I don’t remember which ones supposedly work. Moreover, while it may be true that memory loss is just one natural component of the aging process, it strikes me as ironic that while I can still recite all of my elementary school teachers’ names, I’m hard-pressed to remember where I left the car keys or why I just went into the kitchen.

Now where was I?

For all you statisticians out there, the official start of old age is 65. I looked in my rear view mirror for that year, but it’s long gone. Let’s just say that I’m well into my dotage, and while I might rue the truth of that cold, hard fact, what good would it do? Better to accept what is and aspire to adjectives like “spry” or “wise” than to go looking for pity or dressing up like one of the Katzenjammer Kids who finally got knocked out by Father Time in 2006 at the ripe old age of 109.

But don’t count me out just yet. Remember that wonderful song from “The Fantastics?” I still keep my dreams beside my pillow. Follow…follow…follow.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com