...but one of the last other survivors of the old Flatline, Comatose, Torpor & Drowse as it existed in the Seventies is pulling the ripcord at the end of next month. He's about the last comrade (a couple of years younger than I am) I esteem: the other two survivors are both females who hit their Peter Principle ceilings a long time ago, and whom I am determined to outlast. It's getting goddamned lonely here: now I think of it, the Eighties cohort, or all of it I was on cordial terms with, has also passed from the scene.

It's Lonely at the Side.

cordially,

Inertia (mine and the employers) and luck have combined to keep me in place, plus the practical necessity, given that since 2009 we have gradually devolved into a one-income household, of sending the checks each month to the lienholder and to the good folks who arrange for electricity, natural gas, water, refuse and digital signals* variously to arrive at and/or leave the premises.

cordially,

*Television not included among these. Of TV service I may say, paraphrasing a hoary (heh-heh) boast, "I've never paid for it in my life."