Time's Not Waiting For Dieter

Time ain't waiting for Dieter, that's for sure.

Time didn't wait for Eddie and Ernie either. They bounced around under that name in the 1960s, and tried to make a living at least into the 1970s, but they were so obscure that even the dates of their deaths are vague. It doesn't look like they made it much past age sixty. This cut was their biggest hit on the R&B charts. I doubt if they ever made much of a dent on Billboards list. There is no justice in music.

One thing that they got right, “all time will do is make you old.” Jeez-Louise, my friend Dieter is finding that out the hard way. I saw his Thai wife pushing him around our old condo in a wheelchair the other day. Poor guy is wasting away, too weak to be heard from more than a few inches away. He's German, and like most of his Landsmen he keeps his own counsel on most things. He's not giving up the details of his current ailments. Whatever it is, it's winning. Gone by Christmas is my guess.

It's a shame, too. He's a good guy, a late-in-life divorce victim like me. Thailand is a great brier patch for guys like us. We lived in the same condo building for seven years, and we always got along. Arms length, in the German style, but very friendly. My German sounds great, but it's weak. Dieter had the knack for speaking slowly and using a simplified vocabulary. He could understand me fine, my accent is first class. He was retired; he had been a Panzer Offizier in the modern German Army. He was a big, bear-like Faust of a man who could put you in the hospital by shaking your hand. (I developed a technique for self protection. When he stretched out his hand, I grabbed it hard by the fingers. He couldn't get a grip, and I was spared.)

Now he's getting his ass kicked by diabetes, or lupus, or something, God only knows, but it's one of those sudden collapse kind of things. Losing weight, losing teeth, got the bags attached, skin getting blotchy. So yeah, gone by Christmas.

But how about that Eddie and Ernie! Everything that I've heard by them is great, all the way great, no half-steppin. Music is a tough business. This life business gets pretty rough, too, unless you're lucky enough to die in a teenage car crash.

Too cynical? Up to you. If you believe that any of this has any meaning at all, go for it! Me, I doubt it. I'm with Anne Frank on this one: “everything that we've done comes to nothing.”