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Reset Forty-Two, Day Ten
Jul. 12th, 2022 07:27 amThe peak heat Monday brought both enervation and ennui. Later it brought an evening nap, which has partly made up for the losses of sleep I suffered over previous days. I woke from the nap well after midnight, feeling very sad, perhaps from some sad dream I'd had but didn't remember. One good thing is that the neck pain which plagued me Sunday did not return. Other than that, I could easily have done without Monday.
At one point in the day something I came across on the Internet reminded me of something that happened over sixty years ago, and I went looking for information about it. It was a plane crash in Toledo in October, 1960, which killed about half of the members of that year's football team from California Polytechnic Institute in San Luis Obispo. One of the guys who died in that crash was a fellow named Bill Stewart, who was a senior at my high school the year I was a freshman.
My first day that year I was wandering around during the lunch period looking for a place to eat the sandwich I'd bought at the canteen, and Bill made room for me at a shelf outside the cafeteria. He introduced a few of his friends who were with him, and talked to me for several minutes. After that I saw him at lunch frequently, and he was always friendly and considerate, and never teased me or talked down to me, as many older students did. He was just an extraordinarily nice guy. I never saw him again after he graduated, but I was heartbroken when he was killed in that plane crash two years after I'd met him. It seemed so completely unfair, and still does. Having been reminded of him Monday afternoon, maybe I dreamed about him during my nap that evening, and that's why I was so sad when I woke up.
But I live in what is virtually a different world now, and it's a long way from suburban Los Angeles and 1958. The air may be cleaner in the sultry mini-metropolis, but its harder to breathe. Age. I got to do that. It's not great, but I can deal with it.
At one point in the day something I came across on the Internet reminded me of something that happened over sixty years ago, and I went looking for information about it. It was a plane crash in Toledo in October, 1960, which killed about half of the members of that year's football team from California Polytechnic Institute in San Luis Obispo. One of the guys who died in that crash was a fellow named Bill Stewart, who was a senior at my high school the year I was a freshman.
My first day that year I was wandering around during the lunch period looking for a place to eat the sandwich I'd bought at the canteen, and Bill made room for me at a shelf outside the cafeteria. He introduced a few of his friends who were with him, and talked to me for several minutes. After that I saw him at lunch frequently, and he was always friendly and considerate, and never teased me or talked down to me, as many older students did. He was just an extraordinarily nice guy. I never saw him again after he graduated, but I was heartbroken when he was killed in that plane crash two years after I'd met him. It seemed so completely unfair, and still does. Having been reminded of him Monday afternoon, maybe I dreamed about him during my nap that evening, and that's why I was so sad when I woke up.
But I live in what is virtually a different world now, and it's a long way from suburban Los Angeles and 1958. The air may be cleaner in the sultry mini-metropolis, but its harder to breathe. Age. I got to do that. It's not great, but I can deal with it.
