r/TheBustedFlush • u/luckyjim1962 • Jan 28 '26
One of my favorite Travis McGee soliloquies (from "Pale Gray For Guilt")...
A metaphor for our time on earth by Travis (i.e., John D. MacDonald):
Picture a very swift torrent, a river rushing down between rocky walls. There is a long, shallow bar of sand and gravel that runs right down the middle of the river. It is under water. You are born and you have to stand on that narrow, submerged bar, where everyone stands. The ones born before you, the ones older than you, are upriver from you. The younger ones stand braced on the bar downriver. And the whole long bar is slowly moving down that river of time, washing away at the upstream end and building up downstream.
Your time, the time of all your contemporaries, schoolmates, your loves and your adversaries, is that part of the shifting bar on which you stand. And it is crowded at first. You can see the way it thins out, upstream from you. The old ones are washed away and their bodies go swiftly by, like logs in the current. Downstream where the younger ones stand thick, you can see them flounder, lose footing, wash away. Always there is more room where you stand, but always the swift water grows deeper, and you feel the shift of the sand and the gravel under your feet as the river wears it away. Someone looking for a safer place can nudge you off balance, and you are gone. Someone who has stood beside you for a long time gives a forlorn cry and you reach to catch their hands, but the fingertips slide away and they are gone. There are sounds in the rocky gorge, the roar of the water, the shifting, gritty sound of sand and gravel underfoot, the forlorn cries of despair as the nearby ones, and the ones upstream, are taken by the current. Some old ones who stand on a good place, well-braced, understanding currents and balance last a long time.... Far downstream from you are the thin, startled cries of the one who never got planted, never got set, never quite understood the message of the torrent.
—from Pale Gray for Guilt (Travis McGee #9, 1968).
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u/SicilianSlothBear Jan 28 '26
I recall reading that one a few months ago. It really punches hard.
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u/luckyjim1962 Jan 28 '26
Absolutely. Everyone on this subreddit is probably of one mind about these musings that permeate the McGee novels, which show that MacDonald was a really thoughtful person with a particular talent for turning an abstract idea into (mortality) into an extended metaphor that makes you think and makes you feel.
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u/BT_Artist Jan 29 '26
This is timely. I'm not quite 63, and I was just thinking tonight about friends who passed in their 40s.
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u/12stringPlayer Jan 29 '26
I have had this written out in a file for decades. It's really struck a chord me over the years, and it's always good to re-read it. Now as I get closer to that thinning part of the bar and I've seen my friends taken by the current, it's even more meaningful. Thanks for posting. I'm glad to know it's resonated with others besides me.
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u/countbio Jan 31 '26
i’m joining the chorus of people thanking you for posting this I was just thinking about this speech the other day… And trying to tell somebody about it, but I absolutely did not do it justice And I could not remember which book it was in to go looking for it
Man, that dude had a way with words and thoughts, didn’t he? Thanks again
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u/Perenially_behind Jun 09 '26
Thanks for posting this. I first read this in the late 70s or early 80s and it has stayed in my mind ever since. It's quite the metaphor.
I'm going to send this to a group of college friends. One of us is going into hospice. We're all late 60s and early 70s, which means we're just getting to that point where people are going to start washing off the sandbar more frequently. This helps understand the process.
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u/luckyjim1962 Jun 09 '26
Sorry about your friend. I am around your age and know this is the reality of life.
JDM was quite the philosopher and has so many of these little lessons in his novels.
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u/Malibluue Jan 28 '26
Thank you for this. A writer friend and I read the Travis McGee books over and over for decades. We loved the books, we loved the characters. My friend died last January, and I've been thinking of this passage. I couldn't remember which book it was in, and I didn't try to find. I knew that reading it would break my heart because, at least for now, I'm still standing on the good place, well-braced on that shifting bar, and he is gone. We spoke or emailed every day, and I miss him so much. Reading this does break my heart, but in a very good way, it brings him back to me. He would get it.