Our Friend Ed is Seventy

Seventy years of concentration

Drilling down is his vocation.

He’s never let a question hang

He’s Master-of-the-Detail Lang.

Nepal, Bhutan and Papua

He’s captured with his camera,

He’s seen the world through his viewfinder

And again and again with his rewinder.

Binocs he has bought anew

Stabilized for steady view.

To measure wattage, speed and joule

He has the latest biking tool.

Election year, he reads the blog

Of every pundit, cat and dog.

Neuroscience is his addiction,

Spends no time on books of fiction.

Yet there are gaps in techno-lad –

He has no iPhone, no iPad.

An old PC is close at hand,

He’s not bought into Apple land.

Perhaps the price is just not right

For purse-strings that he holds so tight:

Each shirt and pants he’s ever bought,

In seventy years that’s quite a lot,

Is still in Lincoln on deposit

In some bulging box or closet;

Now please note the Audi car,

Eighteen years it’s plied the tar,

From Boston to the west its been

At two hundred thousand, it’s just broke in.

But silos, gadgets, notes tight-wadded

Are not the essence of our Ed.

Sarah, Edmund, Penelope

Katy, Lynne are family –

His smart and active, far-flung crowd

Are whom he loves and is so proud.

Also there’s his gutsy spirit

Ski, skate or bike, he goes for it –

Though after many thumps and jolts

His body’s full of plates and bolts.

Yet, here he is with Romney-hair

A little gray, but plenty there,

A kind and loyal friend who’ll help

Any of us who gives a yelp.

At seventy, let it be said

We’re proud to be the friends of Ed.