I Don't Have All the Answers, and I Don't Pretend To

I was just standing out in front of my office smoking a cigarette. The office park is kind of nice, lots of trees and flowers and greenery. I saw a Cardinal fly from one tree to another, and I was a little shocked. It made me suddenly reflective. I started thinking of all kinds of things that I miss. Here is a short list:

• Being able to go for a five minute drive and actually see deer in the forest. I used to be able to go to Belle Isle to get a small dose of nature, but then they went and corralled all the deer into the zoo, which is never open.
• I miss going to a restaurant with my grandpa and him asking for a window seat (overlooking the street) so that we can "watch the boats go by." He'd always laugh after saying it. The waitresses never got it.
• I miss the wall murals that would change every week in City Club. Somewhere around 1996, the murals got really lame. I remember standing along the wall facing the bar one night and saying to Lori, "wasn't this the Last Supper with skeletons as the Apostles last week? Now it's Mexican wrestlers. I love it."
• I miss Denny's at 4am. Not the silly folk song from Wally Pleasant, but actually being at Denny's at 4am. I miss the simplicity of it...drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, talking, hangin' with the waitresses because we were the only people there.
• I miss when a bunch of us went to that diner that used to be at Warren and Cass for breakfast, and Timmy only had a dollar, and wouldn't let anyone buy him anything, so he ordered the 'extra egg' off the menu for 86 cents.
• I miss college radio and getting away with playing the Bouncing Souls, Wu Tang Clan, Sloan, and scratching on a Grover Washington record all back to back, just because I could get away with it.
• I miss acid that was actually one ion away from being PCP (so it was PCE), and not really acid at all, but I didn't care because it made the stars move in concentric circles when I laid on my back in the sand at Lighthouse Beach.
• I miss the days before I knew how to cook, when food was simple. Now I can't even make Kraft Macaroni & Cheese without adding pressed garlic. Okay, I can't make anything without garlic.
• I miss my Henryk Gorecki "Symphony No. 2" featuring Dawn Upshaw CD that John Alien borrowed five years ago and still hasn't given back. Instead he just jokes about it those rare times that I see him. Cracker.
• Speaking of John Alien, I miss stupid late night employee hijinks at the Majestic. It never seemed like running down the lanes to knock down the pins head-first was a bad idea. I'm glad it wasn't me.

I'm sure there's more, but there's this little flashing red light on my phone telling me that I have an unheard voicemail, and those people just don't quit. If I don't call 'em back soon, they'll start emailing me, too. Time to punch back in and deal with it.