Deplaned.

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It’s a little after 1 a.m. and I’m writing from my dad’s place in South Jersey. Already sweating, and boy, are those crickets loud. You forget.

Had to rewrite a paragraph for the next “Living With Less” column — didn’t want the editor to have to wait until tomorrow — so as long as I was up I thought I’d let people know what gives here in the land of tomatoes and prisons.

For starters, I had an excellent experience flying on United Airlines. Not a single flight attendant cursed or leaped out of the plane, beer in hand.

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A sad journey.

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Less than two weeks after getting back from Alaska I learned that my Aunt Bea has an advanced, inoperable cancer. I’d planned to go to New Jersey to see my dad in the middle of September. After thinking this over for a few hours, I decided to move up the trip by a month.

The day after tomorrow I’ll be on a plane to Philadelphia. About an hour from there is my home town, Fairton, known mostly for truck farming but more recently for prisons — two have been built there since I left. I’ll visit with Bea and also with her sister, my Aunt Dot, whose deathbed I raced to in early April. Well, Dot made liars out of the doctors yet again.

Sure, I could wait until next month. But I’d rather go for a visit than a funeral, so I have been making arrangements:

 

Online news won’t save the planet.

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My newspaper didn’t show up today. A missing Sunday paper is particularly irksome because it’s top-heavy with sale and coupon supplements. Happily, another paper was delivered about an hour after I called the Seattle Times circulation department.

One of these days there won’t be a paper – and not because someone stole it, or because my carrier’s Saturday night stretched into Sunday morning. It will be because newspapers have gone the way of the dodo.

At that point I’ll be seriously bummed. So will dog lovers, bird owners and the thrift store cashiers who insist on wrapping each cup or plate you buy in sheets of yesterday’s news.

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