Time passes more quickly with each second that goes by

A column by John Estridge

My favorite novel, without a doubt, is Catch-22.

Written by Joseph Heller, it is my nomination for the Great American Novel. Heller’s protagonist is Captain John Yossarian. Yossarian is a bombardier on a Mitchell B-25 World War II bomber based in Italy and making bombing runs in other parts of Italy, Germany and really bad places like the heavily fortified Ploesti, Rumania’s oil refinery complex.

It is a comedy.

It is about Yossarian trying to survive the war in which many people he does not know are trying desperately to kill him. The fact he is in a war where everyone is trying to kill each other and everyone does not know anyone else on the other side who are trying to kill each other is beside the point.

I have read the novel several times. In my younger years, when I fought depression over something, I pulled out my dog-eared, battered paperback copy of Catch-22 and read it again to find my center point. It always worked.

One of the characters in the book is Dunbar. Dunbar meets Yossarian in the hospital. Yossarian always has a low-grade temperature and is able to manufacture symptoms enough that he is able to be in the hospital for a while and avoid flying missions. In the book, soldiers have to fly a certain number of missions in order to get to go back to the States and safety, but the number of missions is always increased right before Yossarian reaches the magic number.

And Dunbar is trying to live as long as he can.

And Dunbar’s philosophy is finally what this column is about.

Dunbar believes that time moves faster when one is happy. Thus, his goal in life is to remain as miserable as possible, hoping time will slow down and allow him to live longer.

While just about everyone can see many weaknesses in this philosophy, there is a lot of truth to it. Terrible events in our lives cause time to slow almost to a stop. Days seem like weeks or even longer.

And the converse is also true: While we are taking a wonderful vacation or visiting with loved ones having a wonderful time, or watching children and grandchildren grow a week seems to fly by in a matter of seconds and years maybe even less time, measured maybe in blinks.

And there is much in our culture, especially music, where the subject matter is the feeling tens of years seemingly turn into mere moments, mere blinks. I know many people hate country, but I embrace all genres of music except rap and opera. Kenny Chesney’s “Don’t Blink” as well as “Give Me Five More Minutes” by Scotty McCreery are both on my “Songs to be Played at My Funeral” playlist.

When I was the editor at the Brookville and Liberty papers, my years went by very quickly. I had a great time working there and got along well with the people who worked there or – like Donna – acted like they were laboring there.

But, what seemed to really make the time fly was the years were divided into weeks since they were all weeklies. Thus, with usually 52 Wednesdays – the publishing date for the Brookville papers — and Thursdays – the publishing date for the Liberty Herald — the weeks were numbered. We saved all the articles, photos and other needed files in the respective week’s folders. Mary Ross, who worked with all of us for many decades and still works at the paper, would set up the year’s filing system in our computer bank near the end of the previous year and have it ready to use as a new year clicked over.

Thus, the first Wednesday and Thursday were under Week One. On Thursday, for the Brookville papers and Friday for the Liberty paper, we would start saving everything we were going to use in the next week’s folders. In that scenario, it would be Week Two.

When Union County native and very good friend, Tyler Whittamore, the former Sports Editor at the Brookville papers, sat at the next desk, invariably one of us would exclaim on those Thursdays or Fridays, “My God, it’s Week 17.” Or something like that. And it was perplexing to see the time flow through our lives like that. It would always seem to us that yesterday it was Week One.

With the blog, I do something similar with my filing. I file blog articles like this: blog (name of subject matter and then the date). And it is the latter, which goes with this column. Because it seems like a second ago I typed in 9-1-2020. And, about three seconds ago, I typed in 7-1-2020.

Really, time seems to move more quickly with writing the blog because I usually post something or somethings every day instead of by the week.

Melody Gault, who I went to high school with seemingly just a few minutes ago, is retiring at the end of September from the Brookville Library after many years – fleeting moments — there. On one of her last days, she brought out clippings from published articles about the library while she was there. Most, if not all, were written by me with the photos taken by me. We took the time to look at almost each and every one, and there were many. I was amazed to look and see the dates: 2002, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2017.

Both Melody and I had the same thoughts: That seemed like only yesterday.

A great grandson, Noah, and great granddaughter, Ella, visit at our house. One of the few things I have kept from my childhood is my wooden rocking horse Buttermilk. They love to ride Buttermilk the way I loved to ride Buttermilk. They are now the fourth generation to ride Buttermilk. But it seems like only this morning I was riding Buttermilk in my parents’ living room in Liberty while mom ironed and watched soap operas during almost idyllic afternoons, which – again – went by seemingly in milliseconds.

Earlier this summer, I gave my mom’s eulogy after she passed at 93.

With the marriage – even the date of our first date, June 8, 2004, with My Long Suffering Wife Ruth – our time together has streaked past us in a maddening blur. We have so much fun together there is no time that drags. Every moment is fleeting and fast. Weekends seem to end even before we can enjoy Friday night. Vacations terminate in seconds instead of a week of seven days.

And our marriage is one where we blinked and 14.5 years have gone past as if it were hours, maybe seconds, instead of years.

While Dunbar is probably right in trying to make his life seem to be longer, I would not trade those fleeting moments being with my mom and younger siblings, watching my children grow, our grandchildren and now even great grandchildren riding Buttermilk and growing ever so quickly.

Nor would I trade those fleeting evenings where I can reach over and hold my darling’s hand.