I took the road less traveled yesterday. On my way to Marathon, we drove down highway 90 from Del Rio. I should have some ancestral memory of this road. My father’s travels as a member of the US Navy took us back and forth between California and Virginia at least four times. I have one hazy memory of stopping in Langtry to visit Judge Roy Bean’s offices, but that’s it.

Crossword puzzles are humbling. I think I am skilled in problem solving until I run across a set of puzzle clues that make me feel as though I’m wandering in a desert. It happened this morning. The clues simply sat there on the screen and no matter how many times I read them aloud, they meant nothing. My brain was blank. Finally, and I have no idea how, a single answer popped up. From there I was able to unwind the puzzle as various letters appeared. It was a relief, but it was a hard morning.

I’ve heard it said before that so and so lives in their own world. It’s a way of identifying the outlier, the odd man. But I’m beginning to think we all live in our own worlds. We pop into existence, try to learn how things work, then pop back out. It brings to mind the fable of the blind men describing an elephant by touch. That’s us when we’re alive, trying to make sense of the world. Someone sings a song. One person loves it. The other person hates it. In your own universe, it’s to each his own.

Well, I surrendered. I hired someone to clean my gutters. It felt the prudent thing to do. Granted, I can still hoist and climb my ladder, but the younger man did it with considerably more ease than I’ve managed lately, and certainly with less trepidation. I fought back the temptation to stand outside and watch him. Instead, I sat inside and listened to the banging. When it was all done, he sent me pictures of my nice clean gutters.

A group of old friends gathered at the house yesterday. We knew each other young, now we know each other old. Where once we would have danced all night this time we drank in measured quantities and floated in a pool. Sedate with quite music in the background. Conversation filled the air and clocks were watched to ensure everyone got home before dark. Periodically a swallow would drop by for a drink. That’s how quietly we sat.

It’s time to mow the tall grass on the back lots. In fact, I should have mowed it sooner, before it went to seed. Now it’s tall and brown, perfect fodder for fire. I need to knock it down, so that rain when it comes can help it begin to decompose and make its way back into the earth. And I want to expose the Bluebonnet seeds for next season. But mowing the tall grass is hot dusty work on a zero-turn mower. A tractor with a seat high above the fray would be better.

I have a nice flashlight that I can quickly shift from wide to narrow beam. I try to keep it handy for my nighttime forays into the yard at 3 a.m. looking for deer and varmints and anything else that might poke its head up. But I couldn’t find it last night, and I didn’t know why. It was a puzzle because there aren’t that many places where I leave it after my nighttime adventures. I went back to bed, a little sad.

The ritual cleaning for company came to me courtesy of my late wife. The notice of coming guests triggered, depending upon the season, a spate of yard work to prepare the lawns and gardens, followed by the cleaning and organizing of the interior. Nothing could be left to chance. We dusted, we vacuumed, we wiped things down. Primarily, I was the keeper of the exterior, but military service and being the oldest son of a mother of four boys who thought her sons needed to do chores, uniquely qualified me for interior cleaning as well.

Durn. An unexpected grayness has settled over me. I’m not sure what to make of it. As I said, it’s unexpected. I had what passes for a good night’s sleep. Most likely, it is a valley between the excitement of doing one thing and the coming of anticipation for the next. The existence of those twin peaks tends to make what comes between seem empty. Although, when I’m in a gray day it colors everything. So, it’s hard to tell. Sometimes it’s merely a day that sneaks up on me.

Fulfillment. My mower is back up and running. I replaced the flat idler pulley and installed a new belt. We’re not done yet. I still need to replace the bearings in one of the spindle assemblies. There’s a wobble and the blade cuts unevenly. I needed professional advice, however, before undertaking the task. I got it. And I think I can do it. I just need to take my time and use the air driven impact wrench.

When I built my workroom, I asked that all the locks be keyed to the same key. Then I forgot that request. Which explains why, ten or so years down the road, I stumbled upon a cup full of keys with only the vaguest idea as to what they might unlock. Then I remembered the workroom. So, yesterday I spent a good portion of the day testing all those keys and reworking seldom-used locks. I’m trying to get back into the habit of locking things up when I leave the house. Not something I like to do, but it’s the prudent thing to do.

It never ceases to amaze me how little I know, especially when it comes to digital technology, a field in which I assiduously have tried to keep up because I felt it was key to surviving in a changing business climate. I learned HTML, Basic, a large number of software packages, the Pick operating system, and anything else that would help further my education or my career. But this week I hit another void in my learning.

It’s a gray day in the country. I’ve had a day and night of slow and steady rain. So, far one inch has fallen. I hear tell more is on the way. I’ll let the rain gauge run until the event is done, whenever that might be. There’s a chance of showers all the way through Friday. This is going to be an oddly cool July methinks.

My small-town life has closed in around me once again. The party is over. The kids are off to their lives. Friends off to theirs. It’s me and the house and the cats, and the latter is company of the vaguest sort. It’s times like this when, if you had a partner and lost them, you miss them once again because there would be a recap to ease the transition. But that’s definitely water under the bridge, although not that much. In three weeks, it will be six years since my wife died. Sometimes it feels like forever and sometimes it feels like yesterday.

I’m having post-birthday thoughts. By most metrics, I’ve had a long life. I’m five years past the lifespan of the average US male, and one year away from how long most US women live. Mostly I think it’s luck and genetics. In fact, it’s probably all luck and genetics. I didn’t pick my parents, and I can recall two instances where death nearly came knocking but turned away. Both involved cars, and both were in my relative youth.

On the occasion of my eightieth birthday yesterday I had one of those revelations that sometimes visits me and helps bring my life into sharper focus. In this case it had to do with friends and how I view them. Previously, I’ve seen my life as a journey across the landscape of time, picking up friends along the way and losing some too. There was always this idea of having left something behind.

I thought I was getting a new phone yesterday. I thought wrong. The phone was ordered in Houston. I was to pick it up at a local store just down the road. I arrived. It was there. The clerk scanned my ID and went to clicking on the computer. At the end, came the message to call home. He called. He talked. He handed me the phone. I talked. Then I was told I couldn’t have the phone, the transaction was flagged.

I’ve found myself sitting a bit too much lately, and I think it might be contributing to some of my back issues. I’m taking steps to rectify the situation. A friend’s daughter is helping me find a physical therapist, and I already have a good massage therapist. Now I just need to be my own get-up-and-go therapist and get moving. It also occurred to me, however, that in addition to dealing with an aging body, I might also be wrestling with a mild depression.

I stayed home for most of Independence Day. Read. Worked in the yard. Talked to the cats. I think you can call that independence. When the sun set and the time came, I walked into town for the fireworks. I arrived just in time to hear the end of our national anthem and see the evening sky begin to light up with a colorful display of pops and bangs. I expected more people, but there may have been other vantage points.

Independence Day. Alleluia. The day we threw off the yoke of British tyranny, and a bunch of guys prepared to be hung if it didn’t work out. Luckily, for them it did. We celebrate by popping off fireworks, so it will be noisy this evening. I might walk into town to see what the local folks have planned for the main event. I can see it from my yard, but it’s better close up.