Tempus Fugit

June 20, 2025

A shocked look hit Donna Hausman when I said, “28–1/2 years.” She’d asked how long since I’d retired. Where had all that time gone?! This was at a New York Public Service Commission retiree lunch. Organized by the indefatigable Jackie Brilling, around twice yearly. Forty or so attend.

Mostly from the agency’s 1970’s-80s heyday. I remarked upon our great esprit de corps back then — a sense of mission, to do good and right. Tackling tough issues (with little thanks from the public).

Mainly lawyers, accountants, engineers, economists; secretarial and clerical people too, not just cogs in a machine, but team-mates. Like Donna herself, a huge vivacious personality (she still is). Probably unusual for the modern work landscape, that esprit de corps makes it like a big family reunion.

I’m always reminded of that final tableau in Proust’s epic, a party decades after the main action, whose characters have become snowy-haired and ghost-like. Reminding us of time’s inexorable passage — as did my answer to Donna.

Her I’ve actually known over half a century, like some others there. Remembered as youthful, now elderly of course, like in Proust’s scene. And yet, aging was tougher in past epochs, so it’s also great to see how many seem (apart from hair color) hardly different from their once-upon-a-time selves.

In that latter charmed category I gratefully count myself. For now.