I put a flippant title on this, in full knowledge that hey, that’s a decent pun and I’m depriving myself of a comic page title down the road. Although I’m pretty sure if I scoured through the now over 500 pages of Zombie Ranch I’d find at least some repeats by this point, since in my arrogant youth (well, 30-something youth) I presumed I would have endless reserves of wit to keep the hits coming. But it’s what, 2009 then and 2024 now, and that’s… 15 years? Yowza. This comic isn’t old enough to register to vote yet but it’s getting there. When we talk of “generations” the definition can get fuzzy but I personally think of it as about that amount of time, the time it would take for a baby born to become an adult, give or take a few cycles. It’s the time when babies start becoming moms and dads of babies of their own, and their moms and dads therefore become grandparents, and maybe the now great-grandparents are still kicking around at the upper end. Although Dawn and I have no children, I am certainly of the age now where I could have been a grandparent (without any statutory laws being broken), which in turn puts the generation I grew up with as my immediate adults to that “great-grand” status. The big problem being, of course, that’s around when the dying starts. The past ten years have seen my mom and her two sisters pass away, basically that whole maternal side of the family. Their respective husbands live on and although I share only blood relation with my father, I am quite fond of my two uncles. All of them have had some scares recently but recovered… well, except… Look, y’all know I don’t bother you about the personal life much, but I’ll just say this month about why we’ve been delaying. One of my uncles was found collapsed in his home, and was diagnosed with a stroke, and although it’s a kind of stroke where he still knows who we are and such, he’s probably never going to walk again. And since he is also childless I’ve been taking point as the relative who lives closest because everyone agreed he was no longer going to be safe living on his own and needed to get into assisted living. What has unfolded in these past several weeks has been such a spoon-bending tragicomedy of bureaucracy as to make me feel at times like I was experiencing my own bouts of dementia, and I extend thanks to Dawn and also all of you for your patience. It wasn’t a funeral thankfully, but a little voice does whisper “not yet” and remind me that this is a time when the people I grew up with as such vibrant adults are going away and will continue to be going away, in many cases with more whimper than bang, and I will continue to be on the frontlines of that whereas in the past I insulated, separated by a generation from the generational trauma and drama alike. It’s a sobering thought. One to make you reach for Chuck’s stash and have a nice stiff drink.