Heading Up North Friendship at 60 Robert Granader Aug 16, 2026 The Drama-Filled Finale of a Girl’s Trip to Ibiza, Planned via Group Chat screamed the Wall Street Journal headline as I sat in the cramped space of the Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City. I was leaving my own Guys’ Trip to Northern Michigan and the parallels could not have been more stark. The girls’ trip went awry when two of the women, hot and tired from a long flight, got lost and complained about some facets of the trip. Unbeknownst to them their phone “recorded the whole conversation and converted it to text in the group chat.” Thanks for reading A Life in Drafts! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. The spark was lit. Then as they gathered in their cars for dinner the first night, one person was delayed coming out, they thought she had another ride, and now she was home alone. Flames. The makeup of our guys trip was 10 men pushing 60 years of age, who live in six states. Because of the logistical challenges only the most basic information was given beyond the dates: “You can golf if you want to drag your clubs, not me, I bike. Isolated area. No city. Just boat, lake, food, drink. Have seven bedrooms, 8 beds, we can work out the specifics.” Everyone showed. One guy waited seven hours for someone’s delayed plane, another swung by and bought another’s favorite tequila, two guys spent the previous evening at Costco buying a truckload of groceries while recognizing the various food allergies, intolerances and preferences of middle aged men. This weekend wasn’t the Big Chill where Nick argued that these old friends were now strangers: “…a long time ago we knew each other for a short period of time; you don't know anything about me.” We went to the University of Michigan and one of the things that comes along with the Maize and Blue — something it doesn’t say in the brochure — is that for the next 40 years you will be tethered to this university and thereby your friends because of victories on the football field and the basketball hardwood. You will traverse the country and return to Ann Arbor to watch new young faces. And you will compare their successes to those of your teams. And so we know each other. Not everyone the same. But we showed up and together we cooked, rode off-road vehicles, were patient with those who had trouble getting up on water skis, we refused reimbursement for any cash outlays. We canoed down a river telling the stories from a time when our faces were smooth, when we cared less about sunscreen, when we weren’t worried about where the closest bathroom was, or where we placed our glasses. Our age was definitely a presence. We talked about kids in college, the ones getting married, the future spouses, the two doctors in the group were bombarded with questions on everything from elbow pain, to statin doses and a “safe” Gummy milligram count. We talked about Peloton groups, had vigorous debates over favorite concerts, and we quoted liberally with a special nod to Stripes, Caddyshack, and Seinfeld. The days fell into a rhythm, the slow arrival of breakfast, the hike around the lake, the boat, the nap, the pre-dinner-prep and post-dinner cleanup, and the drinking that lasted through the campfire. And the talks that veered from the serious to the comical as easily as the water lapped up on the sand. If there were a short story about this weekend it would fail for its lack of drama. There were no moments when someone got mad about that incident 25 years ago, the people who were/weren’t invited to the next wedding. This was not a place to heal any wounds, if they did exist. It was stripped down, bare bones — everything from the surrounding to the activities. But not the discussions. Those had depth. We were young again, but in older bodies. No one wanted drama, we wanted connection and friendship in a place without careers, money, politics or fear. And that’s what we got.

My Default is Stasis

My Wife is Action

Robert Granader

Jul 26, 2026

If there are two lines at the airport I get in one and wait.

My wife gets in one, looks at the other, tells me I got in the slow one and jumps between the two.

My default is stasis.

Her default is: There must be a faster way.

There are two types of trains to New York: The faster one (fewer stops, more expensive); and the slower one, (more stops, cheaper).

I need to be there for a meeting and so I’m on the 9:00 AM fast train.

Arriving at the station I see my train is delayed by 15 minutes. I harumph and take a seat. Then 20 minutes, then 25, then 35.

My “there must be a faster way” wife would be searching for another train.

DECISION POINT

But I am alone and I leave my comfort zone and go to the desk and ask: “Are we on the road to cancellation… or just delayed.”

“Your train hasn’t left the previous station,” he said and then offered me a seat on the slow train that leaves in five minutes for another $119.

Worried I will miss my appointment, I grab the seat.

I walk to the platform and wait for the slow train.

While I’m standing there, an announcement is made saying that my original fast train is on the way.

DECISION POINT

Do I walk back in and ask for a refund, change again?

My default is stasis…I do nothing, although I am a little frustrated with the guy at the ticket counter who suggested I pay up for a slower train.

Then another announcement is made: “Mr. Robert Granader, please come to the ticket counter.”

I run to the desk and the guy who helped me is smiling.

“Sorry about the timing,” he said. “Let me put you back on the fast train. Even though it leaves later, it’ll pass the slow train. And I’ll refund your $119.”

Goodness in the world.

We complete the transaction and I go back to the platform as the slow train pulls away and my fast train pulls in.

I take my seat. A quiet comes over the train as the power goes out. We sit. Five minutes, then ten, then twenty.

DECISION POINT

My default is stasis, I wait for an announcement.

They announce the train is out of service.

I’ve been there 2 hours.

I go back into the station and the guy is shaking his head.

“A slow train is on the way, you need to jump on that.”

I get on the slow train and for 3 hours I replay the decisions:

Could/should I have done more? Why am I like this?

It’s about belief.

My wife believes that outcomes can be improved through action.

Do I believe that outcomes are largely outside our control and that patience is the better strategy? Or am I just lazy?

What is your default?

 

When the world winks back

Hardcopy newspapers have no algorithm

Robert Granader

Jul 19, 2026

There are no coincidences anymore, as algorithms take the reins of our lives.

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When “coincidences” do occur I more often than not rack them up to my phone eavesdropping on me.

But when Art, or the written word, actually do reflect back at how I am feeling, I am connected to the universe in a new way.

We recently sold the house and moved into a “downsized” empty nest that feels bigger than our old one. We haven’t yet found our place and we’ve resorted to calling each other on our phones from one room to the next.

Why?

Then the Wall Street Journal answers me by declaring from the front page: Boomers Were Supposed to Downsize. They Are Buying Bigger Homes Instead.

I am learning about myself because of what others are doing.

Still reeling from the death of our beloved dog I recently wrote about the times, late at night, that Lulu and I would be the only ones up in the house — the only ones up in the world — and she’d stare at me as if she were worried about something. And I’d stare back looking for help with my own problems.

Then I pull open the newspaper to find a review of the book, The Dog’s Gaze, about the connection between humans and dogs. It happened to come the day I received Lulu’s ashes with a final paw print which I buried in our backyard.

And then I stumble on an article: ‘Throw it all out’: My parents’ stuff is more than clutter which is the corollary to my own article about the things we keep and the things we let go. In it, Katie Roiphe couldn’t part with a $10 poster that her father treated as if it were an original Miro: It felt like getting rid of it would blot out everything he loved or desired or accomplished. These are not rational thoughts, but it’s so easy for these objects to become an extension of the person, a part of them, in some mysterious, utterly confounding way.

For me it is this:

It can be hard to give up the ambiance of your childhood, the remnants of a vanished home. Certain items conjure sensations you have lost access to. A friend of mine has a delicate silver asparagus holder…How can this be worth keeping? … And yet it sits on a shelf. “It connects me to the dinners my grandparents threw,” she says, “romantic and obsolete.”

What does it all mean?

If you were my friend Mark, and others closer to their faith, you'd say it's God "winking at you." Others have written entire books about it — How God Speaks Directly to You Through the Power of Coincidence — as if the pattern itself were the proof.

Objectively speaking, coincidence can be explained by simple math. Take the “birthday problem”: How many people do you need in a room before a pair of them will share a birthday? The answer is surprising small: only 23 people.

I know that coincidence can be math in a costume.

But I choose magic and mystery over math.

Do you believe in coincidence or math?

It is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences … but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being