“I knew I wasn’t young any more, but it never came to me I’d gone so far down the hill. Long as a man’s young he can take trouble in stride. Time is with him no matter how bad a jam he’s in. Then one day it slaps him in the face. It’s not with him any more, it’s workin’ against him. His friends fall away . . .  scattered, or dead, or just changed. His kids are grown up and gone from him. All the old principles that he anchored to, they’ve come a-loose; nobody’s payin’ attention to them any more. He’ an old grayheaded man livin’ in a young man’s world, and all his benchmarks are gone.” — Charlie Flagg in Elmer Kelton’s The Time It Never Rained

My youngest son and I had finally decided that the best way to reach and pick the chironjas (orangelos) was to extend the ladder as high as it would go, place it beneath the clusters of citrus, and reach up with the fully extended pruner pole. This required us to locate the ladder’s footing as best we could on the steep shoulder on the edge of the jungle precipice. The tree is one we had obviously neglected to have pruned over the years. Not only is it impossibly tall, but it grew on the edge of a steep bluff.

The chironja, a cross between an orange and a grapefruit, is thought to have originated in Puerto Rico. It is very juicy, can be eaten in sections, like grapefruit, or squeezed for drink, like oranges. It is popular in our household, especially at breakfast. 

I climbed the ladder, intending to step onto the second to last step as I had done so many times heretofore. However, this time, especially as I raised the extended pole, I felt myself swaying just a bit, but “up there” that little bit was magnified into more than prudence would allow. So, I stepped down one level and harvested what I could, regretting that I could not do what I used to do.

Nevertheless, we figured it out and, between my sons and I, the chironjas will have been harvested in the next few days. Plus, the tree will be pruned, we now being in waning moon.

As I descended the ladder, I remembered having read in The Time It Never Rained, “Then one day it slaps him in the face”. The fact that time is not on your side can become very clear by means of an everyday action such as climbing a ladder. Those more wise among us know that time is really never on our side: we are encouraged from early age to “number our days”, and although most do not, yet in the lives of many, they do come to that point when reality becomes impossible to ignore.

A friend tells of the time he was “slapped in the face” as to his encroaching years. He was about to do something that he had “always done”. One day, he could not. He says it was an almost one-day-to-the-next thing. After the initial, momentary shock, he recognized that those particular days were over. And now it was up to him to make the remaining days — which can be many still! — count.

Beyond the physical activities that are naturally curtailed, there remain what Charlie Flagg called “the benchmarks”.

By God’s grace, those will remain, because the principles and ethics that are moored on Eternal Truth will outlive us all. My prayer is that they will endure in the lives of our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and on to a thousand generations. Our offspring will do the right thing in the end, “if they’ve been brought up in the proper way”.

After Charlie uttered his lament, Manuel, the boy, now a man, who came to respect and love Charlie, replied, “The good benchmarks are still there, Mister Charlie.” 

Yes, the good benchmarks are still there, and they will be there till the end of time.