As I took the HighWalk home, finally
fully activated for the day, I thought about my father's stories. He
had lived through the final wave of automation and public
restructuring... when he was young, you were still expected to work
every day, sometimes three or four full hours. Dad found it a
nagging obligation to exercise in his free time, and he said he
wouldn't have done it if he thought he could stay healthy without
making it a habit.
This was one of the many ways our
generation gap showed... by the time I'd finished my tracking cycle,
the manual labor work week was compressed to only a few hours a week.
I had no idea what it was like to have my time usage dictated by an
employer; my peers and I had so much free time that were able –
indeed, we were forced – to really put some effort into creating a
productive structure for ourselves. Balanced, holistic fitness
routines flourished as we found three- or four-day-long pockets of
spare time to distribute.
Varn, my late father in law, said it
was becoming a world of gym rats, which is a sentiment I've never
fully understood.
I still missed Varn. He was a
nostalgic, romantic old professional-class patriarch, with a house
full of small, interesting objects that he'd secured on long-term
exclusive licenses. He liked collecting, which is harder than it used
to be, with all the strict license-enforcement lately. He mostly got
them transferred at refuse markets and deprecation sales. When the
old man died, I tried to keep a hold on his stuff... I applied to put
posterity locks on thirty-five of his licenses, all the collected
curiosities he had accumulated, which was totally excessive. Nobody
wanted that many useless licenses lying around.
Maybe I'd go back and read some of
Varn's old notes later. He'd become quite a productive memoirist in
his last few years.
I got home to find the house very
quiet; Marge was sitting in bed, reading on her Tablet, which she was
accustomed to doing after lunch. I retrieved my Tablet from the
bedside table and sat down on the bed to go through it.
General Interest News Items: 14.
High-priority news items: 0.
Dependent status: Janie is out with
friends. Last update: Arnold's creperie, 17th Street.
Message from Janie, recorded 9:28
AM: Be back by 4, daddy. I'll have my homework done before dinner.
Dependent notification: Janie has a
new appointment today. 6 PM – Trend Michaelson. Location: Your
house.
I glanced toward Marge. “Hey, hun,
Janie's meeting somebody today... a Mr. Michaelson? Do you know who
that is?”
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