On Sunday, I had lunch with an old student of mine, Ryan.
Ryan recently graduated from UCSB, and he is just now starting
up his own graphic design firm,
Gryphin Graphics.
Ryan’s a really nice guy, and he’s got a good head on his
shoulders — I think he’s gonna do great.

Although Ryan is full of energy and enthusiasm, he is starting
to slow down a bit. “I
used to be able to go out dancing and stay out there for
two hours straight,” he said. “Now if I don’t keep in shape,
and eat right, I can only dance for half an hour before I
get winded.” Good Lord, my students are showing signs
of age. I don’t even know what to think about that.

I also have a nice story that I should have mentioned in
yesterday’s entry, but I forgot.
Somehow it got swallowed by the miasma of hatred that bubbled
up when I started up on the Windows 2000 topic. Well, here goes:
early last week, Nancy sent an email out,
asking if we wanted to attend an Jewish Singles Hiking Club
event on Saturday. I responded, “Why go with them? Let’s just
go on a hike on our own.”

Nancy admonished me, saying that it is always good to meet
new people and “expand our circle of social influence” or
some such. At this, I turned very snippy — I gave her my standard
spiel about young Jewish men and women being completely undatable.
But in spite of that, I grudgingly agreed to go. That’s me in
a nutshell — I’ll do what you want eventually, but I’ll make
you regret you ever asked in the first place.

So Saturday morning I arrive at the appointed spot at the
appointed time — and lo and behold, the crowd was almost
entirely composed of senior citizens. The hike, as it were,
would consist of a four-mile, three-hour jaunt across the
Stanford campus. “You look cold, dearie,”
said a nice lady who did not in the least remind me of my late
grandmother Ruth. “Would you like to borrow this sweater?”

I smiled politely and waited for Nancy and
Mike to show up. They got out of the car
about 75 yards away and frantically beckoned me over. “Ummm,”
said Nancy. “So we were thinking, maybe we should go hiking
on our own.”

So we did. We even stole away the one other person under 55,
a nice, quick-thinking young woman named Rita (“Ummm… are
you guys going off on your own? Can I come with you?”)
And we had a great hike up in the foothills, with perfect cool
weather and lots of green foliage. And Rita brought almonds
and raisins.

In any case, the lesson from this experience is clear.
The road of the single person is a dangerous one, full of
pitfalls and traps for the unwary. Woe to ye who dare tread
it. Woe, I say! Whoa.