If you live almost anywhere in the southeast, you’re going to have planes flying over all day and night, coming or going from Atlanta. It isn’t unusual to sit on my patio in the evening and spot three or four commercial jets overhead at any given moment and, of course, a perpetually drifting web of contrails. It isn’t unusual in normal times, that is. These days I can sit on my patio and gaze at an empty blue sky for what seems like hours; it’s even small cause for excitement when the occasional lone flight does happen by. “Oh, look! A plane!” I know the flipside of this and other commercial inactivity is economic hardship. I have been lucky so far. Making a living from royalties, I get paid today from sales generated weeks earlier, but I fully expect soon to be sharing the pain of struggling newspapers, an industry that never really recovered from the downturn of 2008. However, God help me, part of me enjoys living in a quieter world. I might as well, if it’s happening anyway.