Time is a lot shorter than we imagine.

In looking at the old newspapers I sometimes put up here, I saw in a local paper that the building that I work in was sold this past week. . . 100 years ago.  It made the front page as it was one of the few "skyscraper" buildings in town at the time.  Maybe the only one.

That is, news of that sale hit the front page on December 31, 1920.   The building was 103 years old at the time. The new owner soon changed the name of the building to what it is today.

Yesterday I had a man in the office who was 93 years old. He asked about some details of the building and lawyers who had practiced in it in the past.  We spoke about the sidewalk out front and that some odds and ends.  He noted that out in front, on the street, "there were probably horses back then".  

No doubt there were some.

He was ten years old when this building was 13 years old. That struck me at the time.

The building was built in 1917 and first occupied in 1918.  I don't know when he first saw it, but it would have been in its early history.  That's stuck with me.  I can recall things easily back when I was ten.  He may have recalled this building when it was only a little over 20 years old, maybe even earlier than that.

For that matter, I recall this building being here, and my father having business in it, over 40 years ago, maybe 50 years ago, when the building was less than 50 years of age itself.

I've worked in the building for 30 years.  It was 73 years old when I started working here.  The man I was talking to was 63 then.  My father would have been 59, two years older than I am now.  He died at age 62.

Time just gets away from us.

The last dialogue from True Grit.