Klowns in my Koffee

Daily Kup (My Life in the Last Half-Century)
The first day of spring break came with a snowstorm, a broken serpentine belt that idled one of our vehicles, and the sad news of death of a friend.

The latter made the first two so much less meaningful.

Ron had the knack of calling at the end of the workday. If the phone rang at 5:25, it was sure to be Ron. When parts had to ship overnight and they didn't get to the carrier in time, Ron would call to take responsibility. He'd tell a long and colorful story for which I had almost no enthusiasm since it meant that I needed to let some customer know that a promised part would not arrive as planned, a communication that would also come late since the customer had likely closed for the day by the time that I was notified. He was always apologetic and yet also unfailingly upbeat, a trait that at first annoyed me.

Only later when I understood him better did I learn that he deliberately chose his embullient attitude to overcome situations that weren't going well.

To die from an heart attack at age forty is ridiculous and wasteful and simply unfathomable. It makes me angry and it makes me sad.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.

~ Gilda Radner

For RW