“Time and Tide wait for no Man”
After this past week, this phrase makes a lot more sense.
1st, we were vacationing in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Yep! Right smack in the path of Hurricane Earl which, earlier this week had wind speeds of 140 mph.
When we left home we were concerned about being able to get home in time for my High School class reunion. We were supposed to leave the island on Saturday and my class reunion, which I’ve never missed one, was also on Saturday. Obviously Earl helped us. People in the outer banks told us that if we waited too long, that we would not be able to leave. The only road in would cover over with water. It did, we’ve heard that there was as much as 2 feet of water on the road. The tide sure did not wait. On wednesday we were forced to evacuate. We didn’t try to overstay. We simply packed and left. We didn’t panic, but because we left when we were told to we actually had a nice easy trip. Later, on the news I saw that many people were caught in traffic for miles. Like the old commercial said, “you don’t try to fool mother nature”. Tide waits for no man. Neither the tide nor the storm was going to wait till we finished our vacation.
Now, to time wait for no man. At my class reunion, you sure can tell that time waited for no one. It was funny and sometimes sad how time has worked. Many people have changed drastically. I commented, “I didn’t know that I graduated with so many old people. Sad though, because many of my old friends had passed away. My class graduated almost 600 students and no class members had died during high school. Kind of a sign of the times. They no longer read the names of all the deceased members as the number had reached 42. Too many, gone too early. Time waited for no one! Former athletes complaining about there aches and pains, cheerleader complaining about how much weight they gained and people bragging about their kids because their time to brag, has passed. One of the most popular answer to what are you doing these days was “well, I retired and …..” I looked at many people that I would’ve known in school and couldn’t recognize them without a name tag. An old person joke comes to mind, “You know you’re old when the best complement you can get is “gee, you don’t look that old” “. Many people said to my wife and I, wow you haven’t changed at all. I know that karate has helped my wife and I, but that statement was not completely true. Time waits for no man but you can slow it down a little.
Many people get to my age in life and state, “I wish I had done karate” or “I took karate for a while and I wish I had gotten or stayed with it”. Many people say to me what are you doing theses days and I reply “well I retired and now I’m a full time karate instructor.” I’m so glad that I stuck with the one thing that has meant so much to me. I have so many things to thank god for. Health, family, friends and a great job.
Time and tide wait for no man. Tide got us to the reunion on time but time takes it’s toll on everyone.
Written by: Perry Culver 6th degree black belt in Shotokan and Chief Instructor at Culver Karate Club
