Rick Smith/Columnist
“Live! Live! Live! Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.”
– Auntie Mame
Time flew the day a jilted Juliet threw an alarm clock from a balcony at her phony-baloney Romeo moments after catching him in the arms of the nurse.
Time flew once when a pocket watch was tethered to the tail of a flying pig, that is, if you believe in flying pigs.
And time flew on a cold December day in 1903 for Wilbur Wright during his first attempt to fly a powered plane. The clock on the dash of the plane logged three and a half seconds before the flyer played kissy face to a sand dune.
Yep, folks, time flies.
Father Time waits for no man. A “hold-on-for-a-minute-while-I-find-something-to-write-with” means nothing to the Old Man. He is neither unseasonable nor eleventh-hour. He is “what the clock reads,” predictably on time.
Please don’t take it personal. Unlike many elected officials who gain favor by exciting the passions and prejudices of the audience, time truly is bipartisan, never separating the sheep from the goats. The Old Geezer marches forward like a steadfast soldier. Constant. Irreversible.
Time is a currency. A measure of exchange. It is just like money, except there’s no extra pocket change. No money to put away for a rainy day. No floating a check until payday on Friday. We have only a certain amount of time, and this becomes increasingly apparent with age.
The question was posed: What was the moment you realized how quickly time actually passes? The answers were relatable.
“The first time I went back to my college after graduation, I realized I was standing in the midst of a sea of 18- to 24-year-olds. I felt like a blankety-blank chaperone.”
“I saw the term ‘rizz’ on social media. Rizz? I thought. I was two sandwiches short of a picnic. Yep, clueless. Who knew it was short for charisma. My neighbor’s granddaughter did.”
“I was all-over-the-place when I found out ‘The Logical Song’ was released forty-five years ago and that Kaye Murtagh, the red-headed waitress featured on the ‘Breakfast in America’ album cover, passed in 2017 at the age of 96. Cogent thoughts were suddenly few and far between.”
“When your classmates start going bald and start looking as wrinkled as beef jerky and all you can think is, ‘Surely to goodness I don’t look that old!’”
Yep, time flies. So, what to do?
Well, in a nutshell, punch the timeclock of life every day, engaging and aligning with the Creator. Make that action the order of the day. Then, BE the order of the day. And remember, this life is a trip with a one-way ticket. Make the most it.
In closing, I would be remiss if I didn’t wrap up several loose ends. Though there were no serious injuries to Romeo, the pig, or Wilbur, it is noteworthy that Romeo’s narcissism was nominally bruised. “Not to worry,” posted Juliet the next day on social media, “He recovered like nobody’s business and has promised things will be better next time.”
Will his promise hold? Only time will tell.
Rick Smith is a Jeffersonian and can be reached at theriquemeister@gmail.com.