Barry and Me

At this stage in my life, I’ve had to let some things go. Strength ebbs, friends and enemies move on or die off. Wisdom may abound, but the brain cells do not flow as easily, and neither do my words. They’re still there. It just takes a little more digging, hemming, and hawing.

 

I’ve noticed that Barack Obama has that same issue, and it makes sense as we are the same age.  He has always had a facile tongue and eloquent elocution, but he does it a little slower than before. Good thoughts, big ideas with subtle nuance but they come out slower with longer pauses between the words.

Me too.

Barry (that’s what his friends call him) and I may be a step slow but we are in step with each other, forging our paths a little more deliberately than before.

We are the same.

Well, he can still play basketball even at our age, while I never could at any age. And he still speaks to tens of thousands, holding them spellbound, while I once spoke to, uh, tens of people.

But I think it’s safe to say, we are both accomplished. He was a President of the Harvard Law Review, a US Senator, the President of the United States, currently a respected Statesman who just opened his presidential library in Chicago

While I was a small-town preacher, who once carried the honor of having the highest GPA in fifth grade spelling. After stepping away from the ministry with as much dignity as I could muster, I moved to the emeritus position of deli worker and then kept moving up to accept the position of cashier at a respected grocery store. 

Plus, we both married well, and are espoused to tall good-looking babes. 

So, we have traveled our parallel paths. However, I guess I’ve gotten off track before I even started up the old mental locomotive to say what I wanted to say. Perhaps I should fire up the engines now and start creaking down the tracks.

I’ll try not to leave Barry in the dust.