...where everybody knows your name...

Okay...I'll try to keep this light....

What does a severed Home Vacation Team do on a Friday night? One goes out to dinner with friends and the other has a sullen beer at a brew pub. For the latter member, the beers are good, but they offer no solace for the loneliness.

July 24th is a particularly rough day for me. It is my father's birthday. He's been dead since 1997. It is also the anniversary of my mother's death in 2001. And, it is the day I last made love to my wife. It was like a going away present. We divorced soon thereafter.

That being revealed, the beers tasted particularly good. I only had two..don't worry. I can't drink a lot. But the sting of the day had not dissipated with the brews. I had parked in New Jersey and walked across the bridge into New Hope, PA and the night was cool, the sky was clear, the river dark and mysterious. Walking across that bridge I felt so lonely and the sadness consumed me. I haven't regretted my life for a long while, but tonight it was pathetically on the surface. I smoked a cigar while I walked; usually a soothing event, but the cigar like the night tasted bitter and acidic. I got back into my car, but did not go directly home. I played music loudly as I slowly drove north on route 29 to Bull's Island. I sat in the dark parking lot there for a few minutes feeling sorry for myself before returning home.