What can friends do to help those mired in bad times?

For weeks now, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had me seriously contemplating mortality. Mine, my close family and friends, and ... humanity.

It wasn't bad enough that state authorities were asking -- and in some cases, requiring -- people to stay at home except to run the most urgent errands (mostly to replenish food and medicine, but also fuel for the automobiles).

But then today, while I was already mired in anxiety and concern, I learned about the drug overdose death of a woman from my former home of Indianapolis. Thing is ... she was only in her 30s, and I first made her acquaintance when her family would bump into mine while we watch our sons play Little League baseball in the summer on the Southside of Indianapolis. Ashley was younger than her brother, Derek, who was close to my oldest son's age.

Derek and Ashley's parents were good people, so we enjoyed running into them and having someone to talk to on the grandstands as our boys played on the field. Joey and Derek even spent nights at each other's home on several occasions. And there, alongside her parents, or playing with other small children, was little Ashley.

That goes back almost 30 years now, and we lost touch with Derek, Ashley and their parents not long after the boys moved on from Little League.

The familiar phrase "Oh, but for the grace of God go I" is running through my head repeatedly. From what my daughter tells me, Ashley had two sons of her own, and they are still pretty young -- preteens at the oldest, probably.

So what is to become of them? Ashley's boys lost their father figure -- Ashley's husband -- two years ago. Also to a drug overdose. And I'm told they all lived with Ashley's parents not far from my former home in the Garfield Park neighborhood. So they have their grandparents. But they no longer have their mother. And that's the part that's killing me. Mothers are so vital in a home. I lost mine 43 years ago; that's a lot of time to go motherless, but the difference here is that I was a few years removed from living in my parents' home. Still, the "home" was not the same after mother died.

I don't know all of Ashley's story, especially the why or wherefores behind her drug usage. We all have our minefields to dance around on that perilous path through life. Whether it's addiction, medical ills, domestic violence, financial difficulties, depression. Whatever it is, there are people and professionals out there you can talk to -- and possibly even help you -- so you don't have to do it alone.

Just be careful how and who you give such advice.

I say that because just yesterday, in a casual and brief email exchange with a guy with whom I go way back -- to high school years, in fact -- I learned that he apparently still wrestles with some issues that date to his first assignment in one of the military branches, a period during which he feels he was mistreated and handled unfairly.

The subject came up when I asked him if he was discouraged that I tried to correct some issues I had came across in a published project of his. I didn't want to discourage him with what I intended to be helpful and constructive heads-up because his project is actually quite impressive and has made lots of people happy. He said he wasn't discouraged; he explained that he is such a perfectionist who easily frustrates that when he slips up, something akin to flashbacks from that military assignment tends to mess with his mindset.

So I rolled the die and responded with a risky suggestion -- that if he hadn't already done so, that maybe it would help if he talked to a professional counselor about it. I told him I did so after my divorce nearly 30 years ago, and found that it helped me not beat myself up with guilt, frustration and unsettling feelings of failure.

In my heart, I had a sense that with him being a military person, my suggestion probably was not going to be welcome advice. And indeed, I got no response. I'm thinking it was his way of telling me that "What you suggested is so ridiculous that I'm not going to dignify it with a response."

OK. And so it all begs the question ... what can we do to help people in these predicaments? Maybe just listen?

Other ideas anyone?

Slippery Noodle Inn CDs take me back to some fun nights of live blues in Indy

It has been over a year (a year and a half, to be precise), since I last added to this blog, and so much has happened in the interim. There are so many places I'd like to go for my homecoming post here, and unfortunately, too many of them are upsetting (think in terms of today's politics).

So instead, I decided to start with something upbeat. In the mail the other day, I received the three-disc milestone anniversary CD produced and issued by the Slippery Noodle Inn live blues bar in my former hometown of Indianapolis. (I moved to Raleigh, N.C., two and a half years ago.)

I moved to Indy in October 1978, and I sheepishly admit that I came upon the Noodle (as the locals refer to it) late. I did not set foot into the oldest, continuously operated bar in Indiana until 1992. An news associate working at the Indy bureau of the Associated Press (which worked out of the same Star-News building where I worked) tried to coax me and a small group of Star co-workers to go there two years previous, in spring 1990, but for whatever reasons, that never materialized.

When I finally landed there on that cold January weekend night in 1992, the venue was crowded and

live music was pouring from its two weekend stages -- one in the front, the other in the back. I saw the familiar Slippery Noodle Inn logo (right) -- outlines of the Blues Brothers -- for the first time.

After a quick swing to check out the back stage area, the person I was with and I sat in the front stage area. There, where Gordon Bonham and the Kings of Rhythm (which is what Bonham's band at that time was called) were performing. I was immediately taken by this "live blues music."

Over the next 10 years, I returned to the Noodle several dozen more times (at least), often for the last set of the two bands performing on Friday nights. I would head to the Noodle at 1 a.m. on Friday nights, because that's when my late shift at The Star ended, and the beauty of that timing, I learned early on, was the Noodle ceased collecting the $5 weekend cover charge after 1 a.m. (That would change some years later, but I digress).

The Noodle made a decision in those 1990s, when I was routinely dropping in, to enter the CD production business under the label Slippery Noodle Sound. It released albums by some of its best-known performers -- David Morgan, Gene Deer and the Blues Band, Gordon Bonham, Blue Lou and the Accusations ... and even the legendary Yank Rachell, Indy's best-known classic blues icon, who did a CD, Pig Trader Blues, in collaboration with Morgan.

The establishment also released, in 1993, a 30th anniversary live double CD featuring performances of the best-known bands to populate the stage in the 1990s. For reasons only Noodle/label owner owner Hal Yeagy knows, he released a second volume live CD the following year (1994) and a third volume before the end of the decade.

Slippery Noodle Sound took a long hiatus from the recording business after that, until 2013, when it wanted to do something to mark the 50th anniversary of the purchase of the bar by Yeagy’s parents. Hal sprinkled in pictures of his family and the bar in a montage inside the 50th anniversary CD package (above). A few of the performers who were featured in the live CDs of the 1990s — such as Harvey and the Bluetones, Gene Deer and Gordon Bonham — were still alive and kicking, and appear on the 50th anniversary CD released in 2013.

I'm listening to the 50th anniversary CD as I type this, and boy ... it puts me back in those seats where I could get as close as I could or wanted to enjoy those wonderful performances. Good times.

Kroger grocer is exiting market in Raleigh N.C.

For as long as I can remember -- certainly since I've lived in Indianapolis, where I moved in 1978 -- there has always been a Kroger grocery in the vicinity of where I lived. Next Tuesday marks my first anniversary in Raleigh, where like in Indianapolis, there was a Kroger among the grocery options ...

Until Aug. 14. That's when Kroger will shutter all 14 of its stores in the Raleigh area, citing a glut of grocery stores. A story in today's Raleigh News and Observer says the closings will result in the layoffs of 1,652 employees.

The story didn't say how long Kroger had been in the Triangle, but I know Kroger is one of the oldest grocery chains in the country, so it no doubt has had a presence here for some time.

A News and Observer story from two weeks ago opines that Kroger might not be the only grocer leaving the area, where the current grocery market seems to be shaking out with low-budget stores on the one side (e.g., Aldi, Lidl, Walmart) and "unique experience" and slightly pricier stores (e.g., Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Harris-Teeter, Lowes) on the other. Kroger, the article says, finds itself stuck in the no-win middle. Also in the mix are the popular wholesale membership stores Sam's Club and Costco.

Kroger owns the Harris-Teeter grocery chain, which is popular in this area, and the Harris-Teeters will remain open here. In fact, Harris-Teeter will take over eight of the Kroger stores here. Food Lion (which I've personally viewed as one of those Kroger-like "in the middle" store chains) has made arrangements to take over two others.

Publix also has a presence in the Triangle grocery market, but I've never visited any of those ... although I have mixed up my shopping destinations quite a bit through the years. And even though I possess a Kroger shopper loyalty card, I can't say that I have been a strictly loyal Kroger shopper in that period.

With Lee Ann's daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons heading here to visit, we needed to restock the kitchen supplies today, so ... in a mini-wave of nostalgia, we stopped at the Kroger nearest to us, which is in Garner. I took these pictures during the stop. This store is 7 miles or so from home; the nearest Harris-Teeter and Food Lion are just a mile away (we prefer the former). So it's not likely we'll be back to Kroger again.

To view a larger, sharper version of a photo, just click on the image. This is particularly helpful when accessing the blog from a mobile device.

The front facade of the store in Garner (above), which is not one of the stores that Harris-Teeter will move into. Fortunately, there is a Harris-Teeter only a mile from our home. The store shots out its discount to customers who near the main doors (below). If you look at the window reflection below the 50% discount sign, you'll see the legs of the photographer.

The yellow and orange ticketed items are discounted items. Peanut butter had been on these shelves that are empty now.  

Above: The bakery isn't producing sweet treats anymore, but I did see some breads on display elsewhere.

Above: There were several aisles with gaping emptiness like this throughout the store.

Even a lot of the beers were being discounted. The craft brew Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (in the green cases) was marked down from $17.89 to $12.99, among the largest discounts in the beers. There were markdowns on some mainstream brands, but not this much.  

A confluence of shelf emptiness (above) and the empty packaged seafood refrigerators (below). 

Above: I think this aisle is where cookware items (knives, pots, pans, spoons, spatulas, etc.) had been stocked, but I'm not positive. 

Above and below: For now, at this store, Kroger is keeping its produce section fresh and fully stocked. We even found some organic cauliflower heads. 

Note: This post is a pickup from a sister blog, Photo Potpourri

There was a time I had to find a goal ... and the motivation

Everyone needs motivation at some point in their lives. Sometimes you need it a lot.

Like to getting up in the morning to go to work. In my latter years of employment, it was tough to get motivated to return to a place where I would weather long days and leave utterly fatigued.

In early 1991, I went through the final stages of divorce, a process that I’m sure emotionally debilitates everyone who goes through it. I count myself among those.

So in January of that year, I decided I needed to find something serious to focus on, something on which I could direct my stress energies. I settled on entering and running a half-marathon in Indianapolis. Indy had held an annual half-marathon — it’s called it a “mini-marathon” — for quite a few years already. It was staged at the end of May as part of the festivities of the annual running of the Indianapolis 500 auto race.

Several colleagues at work had been running the mini-marathon in recent years back then. They talked about it among themselves a lot, and they all seemed very proud of themselves for going the distance. I'd been running short distances for exercise for quite some time, so I found the idea of increasing my distance into a training regimen might be something I ought to consider.

This was my thought process: Up to that point, the longest “races” I had entered and finished were a couple of 10Ks, which converts to 6.2 miles. A half-marathon — 13.1 miles — is the equivalent of a little over 20K, so it would be about twice the longest distance I’d gone.

At first, that seemed intimidating. But then I realized that no one would be policing the course to force me to RUN every inch of the distance. In other words, if I started feeling fatigued, I could walk a bit of the course. So I told myself this is something I wanted to do.

So I began training. The Mini-Marathon organizers offered group training programs especially geared toward newcomers, but that required a commitment to a time of the day when I worked, so I had to do it on my own. I had a late shift at work, one that ended around 1 a.m. So I logged all of my training miles at night — in the very early morning hours immediately after work. I mapped a course that involved a nearby park and the sidewalks in the neighborhoods near my house.

I felt better and better each week. I was increasing my distance, and by the week before the race, I was going as long as 7 to 9 miles each night. That probably wasn’t enough to feel total confidence, but it was longer than I had ever gone before, and on some nights I even felt I could go a little longer. The only other concern I had was the majority of my training was done at night; the actual race would be in the early morning daylight hours. Would that affect my mental approach?

On the Sunday before the race, I made a point to do my training run during daylight hours. It was a struggle. So, yeah, I was concerned that I’d see a recurrence come race day.

I started consuming large amounts of carbs on Monday — four days before the race — and followed suit every day thereafter. I was consuming more water each day, too.

On race morning, I drove out to the finish line — the 500-Mile racetrack — where I parked on the grounds then boarded a race-provided bus that shuttled participants back to the start line in downtown Indianapolis, at Monument Circle. There was a mass of humanity there, waiting for the official start. The throng of people was a bad thing for anyone who was claustrophobic, but a good thing for those feed off the energy flowing from all those people looking to log 13+ miles in the very near future. Fortunately for me, I was in the latter group.

I brought a sweat towel with me along with a music player (I think they called them Walkman back then) and wore a bandana. I remember I had a white tank singlet (to reflect sun rays) and bright red running shorts (I'd wear that same top and shorts the following two years as well). I believe my running shoes were Nike Pegasus; I would switch to Asic gels in the next year or so.

The race started very slow for those of us in the back of the pack. In fact, I walked for what seemed like a good 500 meters before reaching and passing the start line. You just couldn’t run because there was no room to do so. I'm sure I lost as much as a minute of time on my final official clocking because of that (this was a few years before the running chip was introduced in running events).

Things went pretty well for me for the first six to seven miles, but then I started feeling the heat. So I'd prolong my walks through the water stations, or pull off to the side so runners could pass me. I probably stopped to walk three or four times, but I didn't walk for long on any of the occasions.

On West 16th Street, a mile or so before we turned into Indianapolis Speedway to do the loop around the track, someone behind me tapped on my shoulder. They asked if a set of keys they showed me in their hands belonged to me. I was shocked; I'd put the keys in my shorts pocket, but somehow they’d fallen out. I was so fortunate that someone noticed and got them back to me. I had no backup plan to get home.

Along that long route, I noticed a few people leave the course to relieve themselves behind bushes. I had read that when the body is stressed in exercise like I was involved with that morning, it normally shuts down the urge to pee until you’re relaxing again. (And that’s despite recommendations to runners to drink a lot of water before and during the race.) I was counting on that pee shut-off thing to work for me, and fortunately it did. Unfortunately, it didn’t for others. (Note: In all the road races I ran over the years, I never had to pull off the course to pee.)

The back stretch of the 500-Mile racetrack was brutal. The pavement is banked, and if you’re not at the bottom — along the inside section of that bank — you're running at some degree of angle. The higher you are up the bank, the more uncomfortable the slope for your running. So most runners made a point to stick to the inside, which is what I did. It was exhilarating when I saw the finish line after completing the fourth turn. I actually picked up my pace slightly until I got about 100 meters from the finish, when I broke into a sprint.

All I would think of when crossing was “Wow.” I saw quite a few people turn around and return to the yard of bricks to kiss the bricks. I think I did that, too, but to be honest, I don’t really remember. The photo leading off this post is me crossing the finish line of that 1991 half-marathon.

Within 15 minutes after my run stopped, the pee thing kicked in. I had to go several times as I cooled off and continued hydrating even after the race. I hung around a while, because there was a huge line of traffic — race finishers — stopped to a crawl trying to exit. I knew there’d be no way I could wait in the line and not have to pee again. So I waited at least 45 minutes, enjoying the view of the hallowed racetrack. I had opened blisters on my toes and the balls of my feet, and I had chafed the inside of my thighs and underarms (I’d  neglected to apply preventive Vaseline, a mistake I would not make again), but I was still floating on an endorphin high.

It was, indeed, a huge sense of accomplishment I felt on the drive home, the soak in the tub after getting in the house ... and relaxing aftermath the rest of the day ... and several days thereafter. When I received my official clock time a week or so later, it was 2 hours, 19 minutes and 13 seconds. I experienced similar senses of accomplishments after each of the next three mini-marathons I would run.

There would be one more Mini-Marathon, in 1992, on that same course. My finish time, as shown below the photo above, would be 2:12:37.

In 1993, organizers changed the course to have it start and finish downtown, negating the need to shuttle participants from the finish to the start, as it had done in previous years. The racetrack would become the midpoint of the course (a slight disappointment that it wasn’t the finish, but ... I did prefer starting and finishing downtown).

Each year, I managed to reduce my finish time by 5 minutes or so. In 1993 (photo of my finish is above), it was 2:07:31. Of all the half-marathons I ran, the temperatures and conditions were the hottest and most uncomfortable at that one.

In my final mini-marathon, 1994, the race was moved to the early part of the month so temperatures were cooler. In fact, there was a very light rain during portions of the event. I wore a sleeved T-shirt instead of tank, but still the red shorts. I cruised through the first 10 miles and was excited that I could finally log what I had hoped to do — a sub 2-hour half-marathon. But near the beginning of mile 11, I hit that dreaded runner’s wall, and my knees started to ache. I had run — no stopping — the whole course up to that point. But the wall and aching knees ground me to a walk, and I spent at least 5 minutes walking while trying to compose myself.

I jogged the final mile and a half at half the pace I was doing through mile 10 and finished (photo below) in 2:02:36, still bettering my previous times.

The knee issue persisted for some time after that 1994 race, so I passed on doing the 1995 mini, and unfortunately, I never again found the desire to go through the training to do another. I came close in the early 2000s when another work colleague got me interested in joining him. But I declined at the last minute.

My kids and I would run and finish the 500 Festival 5K run a few times in the 2000s, and while those were cool things to experience with family members, it wasn't quite the same as those Mini-Marathons in the early 1990s.

More than ample motivation to help me feel better about myself.

My current music 'funk' is 1990s music

In my previous post, I discussed nostalgia, one of two “funks” in which I am known to dwell. The other is music, and I lapse into that periodically.

Lately, I've been in a 1990s music funk. Fourteen years ago, for my kids' Christmas presents, I made them each 10 mix CDs containing major hits from their prime growing up years, which was the ’90s. I've held onto the digital files (mp3s) I used for those, and I also have a half-dozen copies of the discs I burned for them. Actually, the discs are discards -- I tossed them from the finished package in the final stage of production when I realized I had duplicated songs in one or more of the kids' collections.

I reached for a few of those the other day and put them into my computer media player, and when the tunes started playing, I found myself smiling. A rush of memories swept over me. When Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now" came on, what came to mind immediately was a moment the kids and I were in the minivan on I-465 in Indianapolis, returning home from a summer day at the Fourth Estate (a private recreational grounds owned by The Indianapolis Star at the time). In that flashback moment, that song was playing on the minivan radio, and we all chimed in to sing along.

When Sophie B. Hawkins' "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" came on, I thought of my oldest son, because I remember him saying how much he liked that song. When Mariah Carey's "Anytime You Need a Friend" came on, I recalled a 1990s conversation about contemporary music that I had in the cafeteria of my kids' grade school with one of the teachers. She said Carey was one of the few contemporary artists she really liked.

And Haddaway's "What Is Love?" made me think of the Saturday Night Live recurring comedy sketch in which that song was the background music for a couple of loser guys (played by Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan) trying to pick up women at a cheesy disco (the sketch was later parlayed into "The Roxbury Guys" motion picture, which itself turned out to be a cheesy loser of sorts.)

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Before the '90s music funk, I had been mired in a prolonged funk with my New Age music list on the computer media player. New Age is a recurring music funk of mine -- probably THE most recurring of them all. I listen to it a lot. It relaxes me and puts me in a happy place mentally and emotionally. It brings back fond memories ... of relaxation. To that music. I guess that's doubling down on the funk, huh? Artists on the list include George Winston, Danny Wright, Wayne Gratz, Oystein Sevag, Eric Tingstad, Joe Yamada and Kevin Kern.

A few years back, I remember being in a nine-month-long funk -- yes, nine solid months! -- of various works by Mozart -- mostly concertos, sonatas and symphonies. I'd listen to Mozart on the car CD player during the commute to work, as well as at home while working on the computer. I don't turn to Mozart for any length of time often, but it really hit me the right way back them.

Falling into a nostalgia funk

Lately, I've been in a serious nostalgia funk. It's one of two "funks" I get into a lot, music being the other one. (I might delve a little into the music funk in a subsequent post).

I've been reflecting back on so many different things in my life -- high school, college, post-college work years and family. When that happens, I often find myself on the Internet, trying to find people who were important in my life.

Actually, some of that time on the Internet isn't entirely random. About a year ago or so, I began a "project" to compile a sort of "where are they now" narrative of people who were in my freshman class at a private high school in Milwaukee but did not stick around at the school to graduate (they transferred out to other schools before senior year).

My freshman class numbered 91; by the time we graduated four years later, the number had nearly halfed -- it totaled 47. Three students joined us sophomore year, and one of those left after junior year. That left me with 45 people to chase down.

I'm somewhere between a third and halfway through the endeavor. Along the way, I've come across some very neat stories. Some people, especially with those with very common names, have been difficult, or in one case, almost impossible to find. I'll keep trying, though. I'm tempted to buy a subscription to newspapers.com, which a couple people have told me is a good source of locating things, especially obituaries. (From my online searching, online obits are plentiful and have been around since around 2005 or thereabouts, but before that, it's difficult).

In my search for information on those 45, I've also learned about four deaths -- again, so far. There are seven deaths -- that I know of -- among the 47 graduates, so I realize I'm likely to come across a few more among the 45 as my research progresses. I say "that I know of" about deaths among the grads because some guys have sort of vanished. They never responded to reunion invitations.

I've also recently purchased a yearbook featuring the graduation class of the public school I would have attended if I had not gone to a private school. Most of the kids with whom I went to grade school (also a private school) in Greendale, Wis., attended the village's public high school. It's been many, many years since I've seen any of them -- in most cases, not since we left St. Alphonsus for the last time.

Some of my Internet searches also have included some of the people I have worked with through the years. I've had four employers since I left college -- one radio station, one weekly newspaper (both of those in Wisconsin) and two daily newspapers, one in Iowa, the other in Indianapolis.

Doing this is the best way I can think of to stay in touch with my past ... and remembering people who intersected my life along the way.

The day the email 'dinosaur' kicked me real hard

While putting together this post, a big part of me felt like Rip Van Winkle. I haven't posted anything here since 2011! In that interim, I've been dutifully maintaining a photography blog ... and clumsily launched and tried to maintain a craft-brewery enjoyment blog.

I could use today's post to catch up on some of the above, but instead, email is what compelled me to log a new post here after seven years of idle activity.

I joined the cyber world in 1997, when I obtained my first computer and opened an email account with American Online, much better known today as AOL. 1997 also was the year my oldest son graduated high school, and it was the year The Indianapolis Star -- where I worked from October 1978 to April 2012 -- converted its newsroom editing system to digital pagination.

But I digress. Back to email ... A newsroom colleague was responsible for getting me to check out AOL once I told her I had just obtained my first computer. Kim, who worked on the photo desk, told me she was an AOL member, and she handed me a floppy disk (yes, that was the popular technology for digital storage back then) containing a program to give me a free trial on AOL.

This was back in the days of dial-up; your access to the Internet was dependent on your telephone line, and "access" -- at least in terms of what we experience today, thanks to fiber-optic cable -- was incredibly slow. So getting booted offline inadvertently was a painstaking process. You often weren't able to get back online for 5 to 10 minutes or so.

Sometime after the new millennium, AOL saw that its members were converting to the newer higher-speed access options -- DSL (digital subscriber lines) and cable, and taking their email business elsewhere as well. That meant fewer people viewing the ads AOL used to generate revenue.

So in order to keep members coming to the AOL homepage and using its email service, AOL notified members it was waving the monthly membership fee (which were around $20, as I recall) to members who had high-speed access ... and wanted to keep their email accounts with AOL. I was one of those who didn't want to mess with starting a new email account, and notifying all of my contacts (including bank, credit card, etc.) of the change.

AOL's email service has served me pretty well through the years. There have been occasional annoyances, but I became very familiar with its functionality and adapted to any oddities if or when they developed.

When hotmail, juno, yahoo and gmail emerged, also offering free accounts, I explored those options. I opened an account with yahoo, but really didn't use it much. In the past seven years or so, I've been teased a few times for clinging to what several folks describe as a "dinosaur" in email.

AOL email has been an "issue" for me only one time that I can think of. A few years ago, not long after I left the newspaper, a former work colleague, who had left the newspaper several years before me and eventually launched a one-person own public relations and marketing company, contacted me and asked me to do some document editing for her business. I did that for a few years, but during that period, she had trouble receiving and sending emails at my AOL address.

Mind you, she had her own email system, and on several occasions I suggested that perhaps it was her system that was causing the trouble. She countered that she has had issued in the past with AOL email accounts and that she has had no issues with email from other email servers. So, in the spirit of compromise, I opened a gmail account, and we used that briefly to communicate and exchange documents.

Not long afterward, she decided to cut costs and no longer use me to do editing work for her. I wasn't offended; while I usually found lots of small things in virtually everything of hers that I read, there weren't too many instances when I caught major issues. There were some issues, for sure -- and she appreciated it -- but VERY huge things were few and far between.

The very first instance when my relationship with AOL was put to the test happened a couple weeks ago. I couldn't get into my account. I was flummoxed; at first, I thought it was an AOL glitch, so I waited overnight hoping that everything would be cleared up by morning. Alas, the problem remained the following day, so I got on the phone to try and clear it up.

The conversation I had with AOL people was one of those laborious exchanges that made me want to pound my head against the wall. When I finally reached someone who knew what the problem was, it was about 45 minutes after I first dialed the number. It turns out ... that AOL's "terms of service" -- the agreement I signed off on when I first joined AOL 21 years previously -- prohibited members from having more than 5,000 emails in their various boxes (in box, out box, sent box, etc.). I had well over that amount (the actual number is way too embarrassing).

AOL agreed to give me 24 hours to clean out the mailboxes or, they said, I'd get locked out again. I worked furiously for the next several hours to rummage through all my "valuable" emails (there actually were a lot that were expendable; it was a matter of separating those from the ones I really wanted to hang onto).

I don't think I technically got myself under the 5,000 threshold, but I do think I came within a few thousand. I braced myself for getting booted from AOL again the next day. I told myself if AOL indeed kicks me off after being with them 21 years, it would me ample motivation to put the dinosaur to rest and move on to something more current.

But the next day, I was still able to access my email. And so, I'm somewhat relieved to say I'm still one of those apparently few remaining Internet users who use AOL for their email.