Emails That Didn't Age Well

 So I have a primitive email filing system -- I just keep them "fresh" until the subject matter is no longer needed. This is true of law firm related stuff -- typically from our comptroller and my bro in law Dennis -- I keep them until we pay whatever is needed to the IRS or ourselves (smaller and smaller numbers -- especially this year), stuff I do for others (advice about legal issues) or personal matters that need following up.

Every so often, I go through them and delete and send to trash completed or resolved matters. I did that this am, and there was an exchange from July. D1 had told me she wished to do a presentation to my old college friend Dave's law firm -- he had taken over as managing partner when the firm opened their Miami office, trailing Ken Griffen and Citadel, trailing like remoras on a shark.

I sent a cheerful catch up email to Dave, after D1's calls never made it through, breezily telling him about my life and congratulating him on his change of life babies starting college -- a Cane and SMU Mustang. After a few days, he wrote back -- apologizing as he had been traveling, but would follow up, which he did, with his HR Department, though it never led to a gig for D1. I still appreciated his efforts.

I wrote back noting that, if the Big Man allowed, in 13 years I would be taking a GRANDson to college, even though I was just 2 years older than he, since I was a child groom. Well, less than a month later, Dave was dead -- burst aneurysm on a plane home from a vacation in Italy.

Yeah -- that email exchange didn't age well.

I was talking with Paul last night -- he's in Peru with Patricia and her family. He had some down time, and we discussed our grown kids, as we typically do, and how we raised them and their challenges and blessings, and how going forward...

And we both laughed -- because we knew that "going forward" was sort of a funny concept, believing, as we both do, that Man plans, while the Big Man laughs...

Oh, we'll continue to advise and spoil them, of course, but have zero illusions that we have any control.

The wonder of FaceBook (tm) Memories is that it, well, recalls stuff for you. And yesterday was the Yahrzeit of Alan H,  Paul's dear law school friend. Alan was a true Readers Digest "Most Unforgettable Character," the best example of a loveable scoundrel I ever knew.

He was a gambling addict, and was disbarred for stealing from clients through his trust accounts as a result. He was still, though, a TON of fun to be around, and we did some productive business together, though he tried to shave us at the end of one large workers comp case -- resulting in us banning him for a number of years.

Still, he had 2 grown kids and grandkids he adored, and they adored him, and a roster of friends who always had a great time when Alan hosted a party or dinner. Just the other day, Wifey and I were walking in the Grove, and passed the former site of Mezza Note, an Italian place famous for turning off the lights at 10 and the women patrons dancing on tables. Alan hosted his firm's holiday parties there, and they were some amazing times. Mezza Note is some shared, boring workspace now...

Alan's gone 7 years yesterday, and was 69. I went to his memorial service, and Paul and Patricia flew up to Scranton for his burial -- his family had deep roots there. Paul recalls the bitter November cold as they lowered the coffin into the frozen ground...

I keep in touch with Alan's 2 kids on FaceBook. Max lives in Miami with his Israeli wife and 2 kids -- in Alan's old apartment. Ally lives in Park Slope and is out of Central Casting for a typical self hating, voted for Mamdani, limo liberal. Max served in the IDF, and always apologizes to me for his "idiot sister."

Who knows? Maybe all the youts are right, and Mamdani turns NYC into a free bus, lower rent Utopia, showing up all of us old, crusty realists. Nah -- Havana on the Hudson is on the way, I'm pretty confident, with the accompanying exiles to South Florida, much like Cubans in the late 50s who believed Castro was the answer ended up in Hialeah.

But that's politics. This am I am reflecting on matters of mortality. RIP Dave and Alan. Dead in their 60s. Not very old.