Macy's 2020?

     Across Flower Street they're working on the Macy's.  It's now close to two years and counting to upgrades their flagship store, and still they won't be completed until Christmas, if then.  I asked one of the construction workers, an older gentleman, who arrives at the coffee shop about the same time as I do (6a.m.) "When will you guys be done, 2020?"  trying for a laugh.  It's 6 am.  Loosen up his sense of humor?  Guess not.  Guy got mad.  He must have thought I was trying to be cute, degrading both him and his job.  "Oh, we’ll be done real soon.  2020, you’re kidding right?"  Like it was an affront to his work ethic.  Then mumbled something (blasphemous, no doubt, I heard the words  ‘total jerk’)  under his breath and moved up to the counter.

     He usually comes in, orders a small coffee, sits in one of the lounge chairs, for at least an hour, then saunters back across the street.  Supervisor of some sort, I guess.  Never takes off his plastic hard hat.  Six stand around and watch one guy with a jackhammer, while they eat their breakfast burritos off the nearby (I think I’m having a coronary) Taco Truck, parked in the red.  Paid by the hour, big surprise.

     On my way home this morning, I got thinking about;



     How many 'readers' do we lose every day, faces glued to cellphones/internet/ Facebook/ Twitter, etc.,  Before Bill Gates and Company didn't these people have newspapers in their hands, or maybe a paperback book?  The percentage drop of readers in the last forty years?  30-40%?   So the question I ask myself is whether what I'm doing;; writing  stories and doing my novel, as fast as I can before I shuffle off;  Is writing becoming a lost art, like handmade shoes?  Will fiction be available in the future?  Those in print simply yellowing unread on some bookshelf somewhere?  I write them because they're fun to do, creating characters, who do and say things I want to do and say.  I can be the hero in them on the page.  But is reading itself a lost art?

     I guess it's like just about anything we do in life, 100 years from now who will remember us?  Not many, unless you become President, and your name is in the  history books  (Oops, on the internet).   A pure guess, one tenth of one percent of one percent of us will be remembered 50 years from now.



   (This is depressing as hell. How did I get off on this?)



   Time to get back to my characters.   What will they be up to next?  Saving  the world from absolute and total annihilation.  What else?



     Sooooo, until next time, with happier thoughts, promise, (as I sir and sip my Jim Beam and Ginger Ale) thank you for your support.