What Promise Once Held

It occurs to the present author, the present author being one who is closer to the age of 30 than the age of 20, a both thoroughly distressing and utterly contemptible reality, one might add, that one finds that the amount of potential expected from one declines as one grows older. It is to be said that, one day, while the present author was still in elementary school, a man who the present author new and was a business partner of the author's father, boldly exclaimed that said present author, i.e., me, has "the kind of brain that ends up at Harvard or MIT." That the present author's brain ended up at neither, or, really, any higher institution of learning, rendered the praise ultimately unfulfilled. Such praise, however, is a facet of childhood; one can be an athlete, or go to a good college, etc., etc. But as the years coast by into middle age, one finds that such expectations are gradually lowered, and much celebration is to be had for the simple act of getting out of bed.