{"id":58460,"date":"2025-06-02T00:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T00:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58460"},"modified":"2025-06-02T00:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T00:02:08","slug":"time-is-relentless-and-merciless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58460","title":{"rendered":"Time is relentless &#8230; and merciless"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n\r\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Reminders present themselves to me with stunning regularity &#8230; and they all say the same thing, which is that time is not my friend, that it marches on without mercy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>\u00e5How do I know that? For starters, I know when I was born and that date tells me I am 75 years of age. I am actually still upright a touch longer than your average American male. I also know when the reminders knock when I see obituaries of friends. I heard this past week about the passing of a friend my bride and I knew in Amarillo. Kathy Anne is gone now, but I am going back up yonder at the end of the month to celebrate Caroline Woodburn&#8217;s life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>I am acutely aware that I am not providing a flash for those who are older than I am. They&#8217;ve known the obvious longer than I have. However, it is worth mentioning only because I am enough of a realist to understand what we all know to be true &#8230; that death is a part of life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>I have lost several longtime friends over the past calendar year. The rate of demise is accelerating. I am not a Pollyanna about this fact of life. Indeed, when I don&#8217;t hear from peers of the same age for any length of time, I begin to presume the worst. For instance, a high school classmate of mine &#8212; a fellow to whom I&#8217;ve grown close since we graduated from high school in 1967 &#8212; went quiet on social media for longer than usual. I called him to see if he is still alive. He is! I told the reason for my call and he assured me he is in good shape except for the usual old timers&#8217; issues that plague all of us. We both laughed out loud.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The reminders keep arriving. I am an old man. I don&#8217;t expect to check outta here any day soon. However, as we all should understand, all of that can change &#8212; <em>snap!<\/em> &#8212; just like that.<\/p>\r\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reminders present themselves to me with stunning regularity &#8230; and they all say the same thing, which is that time is not my friend, that it marches on without mercy. \u00e5How do I know that? For starters, I know when I was born and that date tells me I am 75 years of age. I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58460\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Time is relentless &#8230; and merciless<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10124,4816],"class_list":["post-58460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-kathy-anne","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58462,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58460\/revisions\/58462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}