Jimmy Buffett once sang, “The days drift by, they don’t have names.” I only think of this now that I posted a photo I’ve always liked of me and came to the conclusion that it was taken exactly 27 years ago when I was 27.

That seems such a long time ago, and yet, it seems like yesterday. My, so much has happened since that day. Let’s see, if I jump into the old WayBackMachine….

The year would have been 1985. I had just become the PR Specialist for Associated Grocers, my first real job in public relations. I went from making $12,500 a year to $30,000 over a weekend. A good thing, since I was only a year away from my 10th year high school reunion and had promised myself that I wouldn’t attend if I was still slaving away in my dead end mailroom job with the company.

My daughter was four. I was two years out of my first marriage and definitely single. Well, I may have been in a relationship, but my brain said single so I will go with that for now.

The photo in question was taken on my second trip to Grand Cayman for Pirates Week. It was only my second time out of the country, and lo and behold, it was a week of piratical mayhem in the Caribbean.

Good times for sure. I won’t bore you with all the details. They’ve been chronicled here and there and just about everywhere in the book I wrote. It’s in RobZerrvations, too.

There’s something about the tropical air, being in a pirate costume and drunk on a warm breeze and copious amounts of Coconut Rum. I was a bit of a rogue, I admit, chasing tail and letting it chase me.

Eventually I would try to lure said damsel back to the Den of Iniquity we had set up in international waters. There, we could get away with things we often couldn’t in the states. The other rogues in the Den would become scarce, part of the Code we lived by. 🙂

I really wished I would have appreciated and taken advantage of the Den of Iniquity in these heady days of my youth. I didn’t know that I was actually relatively good looking back then and I had a deceptively innocent way about me, backed by a lot of testosterone and charisma. It was a perfect storm for swooning.

Back in the states, my own Den of Iniquity saw more potential than action. I did much better in exotic locales, the swaying palms, coconut rum and perhaps just a touch of heatstroke to improve the odds. It helped to be a pirate too. Thankfully, the Seafair Pirates were a busy lot domestically, so there was at least opportunities to try to lure a lass back to my abode, my Den of Iniquity.

I must say that for a Den, it was pretty nice. I had fairly good taste for a guy, kept it clean and tidy and the fridge and bar were always stocked. There are upsides to being a “girly guy.” There were also upsides to Seattle in the 1980s. Traffic was still transient rather than 24/7, so I could make it to the Den quickly and easily from wherever we happened to be.

Eventually I settled down again, and again. The Den closed, giving way to a nice little home with a dog and kids. I didn’t really miss the Den of Iniquity that much and seemingly my roving eye days were through.

But as we know, the Den was opened for business one last time. I captured a lass 17 years my junior, not that I really think much about the age thing, as we have discovered in other ramblings. But capture her I did, luring her into the Den of Iniquity from which there was no escape. That led to five more years of domesticity, though I’m not sure who captured who or whether it was for pleasure or pain.

And then I was back on the road of love once again. Only this time, I found I didn’t have a Den of Iniquity to fall back on. Somewhere along the way, the divine gods of love had razed it. In its place they had built a Den of Antiquity.

I didn’t ask for it. It was just there. Somewhere in the intervening years, I had stopped being irresistible to women in their 30s who, well, how should I say this, have very little in common with me. To be fair, I only seriously dated two women that were much younger than me, most of the others were older, sometimes far older. As I said, age seems, or should I say, seemed irrelevant.

This last dalliance in the Den of Iniquity cured me of many things. I found that having something in common is essential to a relationship. It’s far better to have someone nod their head in agreement when you mention a cultural icon in your past than to look quizzically at you and you feel compelled to explain yet again that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings.

As such, I am pretty good with my new Den of Antiquity. Though I appear to be past my prime in certain areas – child making being one of them – I have found solace in the fact that I don’t have to put on airs that I no longer want to put on. I can just be me, for whatever that’s worth, and I think it still has some magic left.

I guess it’s good I brought my charisma, impish grin and piratical ways into the Den of Antiquity with me. Yes, I’ve put on some years, but lurking behind this graying moustache is that same rogue in the photo. He’s been touched by age but not by time, and he can still rekindle that burning flame of desire to live life to its fullest and unapologetically. And that is a very good thing.

In the Emerald City, seeing that the Den needs a good vacuuming,

– Robb