When I’m sitting in my top-floor perch overlooking the water, hammering away at the keyboard, words flowing onto the screen, music is a constant. It helps me, the music. I don’t know why, but it does. Sometimes it brings me to tears, almost always it relaxes me and gives me clarity of thought, allowing the words to soar like the occasional bald eagle flying into sight as I look out the big bay window.

Today the music was Bob Dylan; his scratchy voice belting out the music to his “Things have changed.”

I didn't realized until I looked it up, but Dylan is fast-tracking it toward 70 years of age. He’s been around a long time, commenting in his unique way on social issues as he sees them.

“People are crazy and times are strange

I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range

I used to care, but things have changed.”

We are indeed a strange lot, the human race. But also predictable. As we go through different age zones, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and upward, we move away from the current, first grazing on the edge of the social mainstream and then landing on shore far away from the main action.

As Dylan says, we get out of range.

As much as I would like to be flowing in the mainstream of life’s river, I am not, and probably can’t less I look weird. It’s like in sports, the young kids these days look bigger, stronger and quicker than they did even 10 years ago. They may be all of that, but it’s more likely that I am now landlocked while they are swimming with the current going down stream with the vigor that has departed from me.

When I play catch with Michael, our 12-year-old, I now have to shout out once in a while, “don’t throw the ball so hard.” He’s likely not throwing any harder than he did last year, or not that much more. Yet I find myself flinching while thinking if I miss the ball it’s going to hit me right between the eyes.

It’s reflexes that are betraying me. Where once I would not think twice about catching a ball thrown hard, now it just seems hard because I’m not picking up the ball and reacting to it until it’s almost on top of me.

I tell him some day soon he has to find a buddy to throw to, because I don’t know how much longer I can do it.

So my age-o-meter has moved up several pegs and the mainstream has drifted around the corner.

“I used to care, but things have changed,” Dylan sings, and then plays a few sad chords on the harmonica, the sound drifting off into dreamlike haze.

As I have aged, the things I cared for with passion are not always present anymore. I have drifted away like the sound of the harmonica, closed the door and moved on.

Once I read four newspapers. Now it’s one – the Kitsap Sun.

Once I knew the Seattle Mariners’ farm system better than anybody. I now can swing through the Mariners’ press guide and don’t recognize any of the names.

The current Mariners are not performing like expected coming out of spring training. For nearly 30 years I cared about those expectations, had sleepless nights thinking about them. But no more.

Times have changed.

My past passion, my past experience tells me that the M’s are leaderless and that is the big problem. But it’s not my concern. Time has changed. My age-o-meter has moved down the road and their problems are not mine. I don’t care. Let somebody else write about it.

Not me.

The Sonics are gone. History. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

So what?

Will it make me less happy to see them on TV playing in the uniform of the Oklahoma Robber Barons? Not really. I feel bad about the people who will lose their part-time jobs with the organization, but when the wealthy want to get more wealth it often comes at the expense of others not so fortunate.

So what else is new?

Dylan mouths the harmonica, skats a few notes and then intones, “Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff, too. Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through.”

A lot of water has passed through in my nearly 40 years of writing about sports. Most of the water now is flowing in the mainstream, far from where I stand. I slowly walk around it, wondering where it all went. Where did the time go?

Was it really over 30 years ago Rick Walker was leading East High to back-to-back state basketball titles?

What happened to Chuck Semancik and Ground Chuck?

Ron Wilson died the other day.

Really?

There was another guy with a load of passion – for football. Coached it for over 50 years. The mainstream was always at his feet. Now he’s been swept aside. Football without Wilson?

Really?

Eddie, Gary, Tommy, Dean, where have you gone?

Gone to the river looking, but the river is dry. Gone to the field searching, but nothing there. Raced to the mountain to find, but couldn’t climb.

Eddie, Gary, Tommy, Dean where are you?

The mainstream has passed us all, my childhood pals, and the memories of those summers of our youth. They are gone, to where who knows? If they are on the river, I can’t see.

Fell in love the first time at 16. Most peaceful feeling in the world. Nothing like it.

What happened to her?

“She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind,” says Dylan in “Not Dark Yet.” Trying to make sense of it all as I am. “She put down in writing what was in her mind. I just don’t see why I should even care. It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.”

Time moves us all. Sometimes we struggle against it, sometimes we don’t care and give up. Met an old friend one day at the park. He turned, looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t want to live any more. There is nothing here for me.”

Three years later he was gone from the river.

Tick-tock, says the clock, time to fade away. Fade away we do.

Last month, Harvey Korman faded from view. Took his laughs with him. Time to go, so he went.

Tick-tock.

“Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose

Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose.

People are crazy and times are strange

I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range

I used to care, but things have changed.”

Gas prices have climbed to over $4 a gallon, a drive-in at a fast food joint is like a drive-by shooting, you take a hit whether you like it or not. The only thing not going up is a walk up the street.

“Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day

It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away.”

Autumn Saturdays years ago spent walking the sidelines at Husky Stadium, watching terrific hitting by the Dawgs, pounding opponents with a fury not seen in recent football campaigns at the cut near Montlake.

A clear picture of USC great Charles White taking an awesome hit by four Huskies right at my feet, White quickly jumping up, football still in hand, and with a big smile saying, “Nice hit” before he jogs back to his huddle.

Time wages on. Where is White?

Where are the real Huskies of the late 1970s and 80s and early 90s?

“Mama, take this badge off me

I can’t use it anymore

It’s getting dark, too dark for me to see

I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door”

Have a great month.

You are loved.