Saturday, Jan. 20–Honestly thought I had hunkered down beyond reach of reality. Well after dark and long logged-off of the world-wide web and all its local pages, I was watching a closely-contested football game played on the other side of the continent. Deep freeze here, downpour there.

My own split-pea soup hit the spot, and the cheese and garlic croutons just enough to go with it, along with a few Ipswich English-styyled Pale Ales to wash it down and serve as dessert. Yes, when I’m not busy fighting city hall, saving the world, or nitpicking the habits or speech of our hopelessly devolving United States of Algorithims, I’m your stereotypical American guy, never more content than when kicked back watching sports and drinking beer.

And so I was last night, reclining on my bed when the phone rang and I made the mistake of hitting the mute and picking up:

“Hey, John! It’s Chaz!”

He always intros himself as if he’s trying to get my attention from across a very wide street. If he didn’t live in New Hampshire, he might not need a phone. His use of my formal name indicates he’s known me for over 40 years, 55 in his case. Hadn’t talked to him since Christmas Day.

“Just wanted to wish you a Happy Final Year of Constitutional Democracy!”

I laugh: “May well be just that.” He can talk as loud as he wants, he speaks my language.

“If Trump wins, this will be the day a year from now that he becomes president.”

I’ve been hunkered down almost all of four days of a Dakota-like cold spell and tend to lose track of days even when I am not, so I glance at the calendar.

“Oh! Inauguration–“ Television shows a Packer defender dropping a pass right between his numbers with an open field in front of him, and I stifle a groan. ”You think Joe and Jill will attend it?”

“You mean turn themselves in?” He went on to say he knows a lot of people in and around Peterborough–a place that in past elections has been kind to Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders–planning to take Republican ballots and vote for Nikki Haley.

“May be a mistake. I think she has a better chance of beating Biden than Trump.” I then noted how Haley’s ads paint Biden and Trump as the same side of a scale that she has swapped to serve her purpose: Changing young voters’ perception of the election from Republican vs. Democrat or right vs. left to young vs. old. Pretty much a summary of my recent blog.

Chaz’ response was something I had missed: ”Have you noticed how she says that ‘chaos follows Trump rightly or wrongly wherever he goes’?”

“A lot of pundits”–those I hear when there are no football games to be seen–“have noted that phrase. It’s a mealy mouthed attempt not to offend Trump voters.”

“It’s more than that.”

“How so?”

“How can chaos follow anyone or anything rightly? It makes no sense.”

I look at the unexplained chaos on the television, feeling like a defender who dropped a pass put right between my numbers. ”Shit! How did I miss that?”

We commiserate awhile longer, and he entices me with mention of a St. Patrick’s Day gig that his trio, Grove Street, has landed, likely to be joined by a bassoonist that I’ve been craving to hear again since I last was up that way last spring. They play several tunes I know, so it’ll be a quintet for a few green and gold numbers if I make it.

Meanwhile, Green Bay’s green and gold went down the gold-rushing panhandles of the San Francisco 49ers. Had it not been for my friend’s call, this would have upset me. Instead, I’m pre-occupied. Not by the realization that I missed Haley’s double-talking finesse, but by a realization that will never allow me to get entirely beyond the reach of reality no matter how hunkered down I may think I am:

Planning for St. Patrick’s Day in the middle of January is a sign of final years. Not of Constitutional Democracy, and maybe not the final year, but for a guy who has dissed plans and improvised his entire adult life, and who will turn 73 the day after–Hangover Day, as I have long called it–old age can no longer be denied.

And why should it? I ask as I hunker down on this bone-chilling Sunday afternoon, about to inhabit my kitchen where I’ll make a shepherd’s pie before kicking back to watch the Lions host the Buccaneers followed by the Bills–if they have their stadium shoveled out–and the Chiefs.

As another New England joker once wrote, I still believe that I “have miles to go before I sleep.” But along the way, I have a mute button. And it works both ways.

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