Cool winds are blowing. A sweater feels nice. If you do not like the weather, stick around; it will change. So it goes with our time on Earth. Colleagues told me that one day you have chicken, the next day you have feathers. I have yet to eat feathers. Life is full of surprises. ‘The best laid plans of mice and men suddenly go awry.’ Man plans and God laughs.

The Godfather said he was drinking more wine, and his son told him that wine was good for him… The Father said I am drinking more of it. There are abrupt changes and subtle ones. We old folks feel the same but look different. We see ourselves through our mind’s eye; others see what is before them. People treat me with the deference of the elderly. I wonder why, as I do not feel old. Yesterday I was one of the young people and hid my age as a manager, thinking my staff would wonder what a Kid was doing as the boss. No one would make that mistake now.

Leaders are interesting to watch. Often, they conduct themselves as if they were 30 years younger than they are. They believe they cut quite a little figure and wish the girls would leave them alone until they get a little bigger…as Grandpa Berl said of little boys.

Change is happening all around us. It creeps up behind us and yells…Boo! We see the softball-sized hail and say we have always had hail. The rich are now billionaires, while many working people have food insecurity. There have always been rich and poor.

‘We hunted for persimmons in the woods with Grandma A because we had nothing to eat,’ Neva J said. ‘Grandma A would feed the Hobos that came to our door…in those days, no one went hungry because we were all in the same boat,’ Neva J laughed. ‘Rich people were few in our neck of the woods,’ Neva J winked. ‘We were a community,’ Neva J reminisced.