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Finally! It’s been a long time; seems like forever since we sat in the garage by the woodstove and talked like we knew what we were talking about.

For the past many weeks, we’ve been meeting inside the house because it was warmer. But garage ambiance is what we prefer. When you meet in the house there’s something too reverent or urgent to relax. Homes are nice for living in, but garages are where thoughts crumple into lazybone conversation.

We had nothing to say about politics.

In the past 19 years we have adjusted to losing 2,700 people at the World Trade Center (fewer than who died during the Trail of Tears forced relocation) and 1,800 during Hurricane Katrina. Both were lightning-quick strikes about which we were neither prepared nor protected.

Not quite 10,000 National Guard troops were deployed to Hurricane Katrina. More than twice that many are in Washington, D.C. today in anticipation of a massive street fight. Twenty thousand troops because we’re changing who’s ultimately responsible for the safety and welfare of our country.

In 2005 we lost a shade under 300,000 California acres to wildfire. This year it was 4,000,000 acres and it’s still burning.

Flu makes roughly 38,000,000 Americans sick each year and three years ago more than 61,000 died. Seasonal flu is quite different from a pandemic, kind of like the difference between a squall and a tsunami.

Covid-19 has made the flu look like a birthday wish.

But we didn’t want to talk about all that, either.

Both of us were stretching to come up with some wonderful subject to explore: We gave up on the pros of a Tesla because the nightly plug-in; TVs that cost more than $400 because the quality is indistinguishable from a $2000 TV; Oreos; “overnight” delivery; the giddiness our friend felt flinging buttermilk out his window to discourage a tailgater.

We leaned back in our wingback chairs (in a garage!) and talked about grass landing strips and house pets that look right at you and probably look like you, too.

It just feels better, this third week in January. The sun is coming up earlier and staying around long enough we don’t need headlights until 5:30. Next week it will be 5:45.

I gave him some chili that had simmered all day, he gave me a loaf of salt-encrusted homemade bread. We drank some beer and had long pauses. Something had shifted. It wasn’t the inauguration, wasn’t the vaccine, and wasn’t believing that old age is always 10 years older than we are.

It was neutral, hopeful, kind of like Bob Dylan singing “The Times They A-Changin’.” A feeling that things will be all right despite our best efforts. Maybe people will stop stealing mail, maybe commissioners will realize that their function is to see to it that the auditorium, the hospital, the parks, the historic district and the trees all thrive, and hire a director to see to it. Period. Meetings should never, ever, be angry or scary.

Of course, we wondered about the vinyl siding being installed on a business in the historic district that hasn’t been mentioned at any meetings, but you know, we just couldn’t get too riled about that, either.

Was it Johnny Cash who sang “if it costs you your peace it’s too expensive?”

It was.