But the thing that made my day was hearing from a woman who I last spoke to in 1954. How's that for ancient? She was practice-teaching speech and drama at my high school. I played the stage manager part in our senior class production of Our Town, the Thornton Wilder play that was a big hit on Broadway, later done at least twice in movie versions. She called to invite me to my sixty-somethingth high school class reunion. I have not attended any of my reunions, because to do so would violate my hermit principles, but I thanked her for bringing me up to date on a number of my old classmates. Not only that, but she inquired after my sister, who was two years behind me in high school, so I was able to call my sister and tell her she was remembered from all those years as well.
This was another impressive example of the tracks we leave behind in our lives. You go on doing whatever you do, every day, trying to mind your business and make things come out right at the end of the day, and you almost never ask yourself 'Is anyone watching what I do? Does anyone care what I do?' Well the answer is yes, they do watch, yes, they do care, no, you don't live in isolation. What you do when you think nobody is watching, you are setting an example to humanity, so goddammit set a good example. If it is your lot in life to suffer, please for chrissake have the decency to suffer nobly; or if it is to prosper instead, prosper nobly, be thankful and gracious to those who tolerate you from above, and be generous and gracious to those who study you from below.
Knowing this might have made a big difference in the life of Richard Cory:
Richard Cory, By Edwin Arlington Robinson
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Selah.