Some moments in this thing called life

I was walking alone on a sidewalk in downtown Olympia one evening a couple of weeks ago when a man who looked to be in his 20s approached me. He asked whether I had any “white.”

“Huh?” I said.

“White,” he said.

“White? What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s, you know, white.”

“Oh. White,” I said, patting my pants pockets. “I don’t have any white.”

I called a friend whose job requires spending a lot of time around criminals and he said “white” probably refers to heroin.

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I was at a funeral recently where a guitarist sang the song “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell at the end of the service. The first t...