Diary: Maybe I’m just having a bad week, or month, or…

I can’t recall a time in my life when “retirement” made sense. If you’re doing what you love, as I mostly have, then why stop?

But lately I’m starting to feel the passing of the years. Steadily encroaching physical pain plays a part (those kegs aren’t “liteweight” even when their contents claim to be), but worse is the psychological stress of the hospitality business, whether it’s the micro or the macro level. The new post-pandemic normal is abjectly abnormal, and that’s a challenge to navigate.

The disorientation is exacerbated by the dawning realization that in truth, my particular skills are supremely undervalued in the workplace (micro or macro). You know the time will come; you can only hope to delay it. It could be a problem when you start asking, “what does it all mean?”

Social media has rendered Americans null and void. Reading, writing and thought processes have gone the way of the Edsel, and instead life is a succession of flashing pictures and yammering adolescent videos meant for atrophied attention spans, repeated over and over again. Is this the way we’re intended to live?

I genuinely thought there was a place for the Old School alongside the contemporary social media rot; I still...Read more