The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Not too long back I got myself invited to a ‘men’s group’. I guess I thought it was mostly a drinking society startup but after the first couple of drafts up at the new bar at Terry’s Corner, the Tippler or some name like that, the conversation detoured from politics and art to subjects on the decidedly morose side. Meaning, our old friend Death, capital D. Gotta say, I was a bit blindsided by the change of topic but these were mostly old geezer friends and they didn’t seem too perturbed, so sure, let’s get Serious.

Serious is not my usual mode for coping with life’s problems. And certainly not the End of Life, which seems to me, is the solution for all the others, welcome or not. Crazy Eddie, fresh off a brush with the Grim Reaper and sporting a new pacemaker, avowed as how he wouldn’t mind sharing some insights after his near death experience. Bobby, having just received the bad news that his chronic back pains would require major surgery, said he was In. When Ralph, the head organizer, looked over at Phil, Phil shook his head wearily. “I don’t know, Ralph.” Phil had lost his wife a month earlier to pancreatic cancer.

Ralph bored in. “Do you a world of good to unburden yourself of some of that grief. What harm would it do?”

One by one Ralph roped them in, old fellas like himself, probably frightened of the waning light … or whatever poetic metaphor keeps the dark glasses off. Of course he had a reading list, most on the subject of How to Cope with the Big D, a syllabus, apparently, for those of us in the Final Stage.

Ralph no doubt will assume I’m in denial. And who knows, maybe I am. But I’ll be damned if I’ll spend one lousy hour of whatever time is left to me on this green planet sitting around with my geriatric pals talking about coping strategies for death and dying, I don’t care how good the beer is. Worst case I’m gonna find some younger friends to drink with.

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