![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/082626-1a.jpg\")
\nThere will be plenty more swirling about Dolly and her legacy today.<\/p>\n
\nThere will be plenty more swirling about Dolly and her legacy today.<\/p>\n
There should be.<\/p>\n
Yesterday afternoon, her passing stopped what we were doing here at Socotra House. The sausage soup show went back into the Galley, the Dance-Off changed direction, and for a little while we joined millions of other Americans remembering a woman who somehow managed to belong to all of us.<\/p>\n
This morning, though, Miles has an eye appointment at 0900, and that imposes a certain discipline on the production schedule.<\/p>\n
It also seems appropriate.<\/p>\n
We spent part of yesterday trying to get a better look at ourselves and take stock.<\/p>\n
The project started innocently enough. The little cast of characters who have accumulated around the Socotra Conference Table had begun changing appearance from one illustration to the next. Rocket occasionally turned into somebody else entirely. Holly gained and lost pounds at an alarming rate. Splash wandered between generations. We decided some adult supervision was required.<\/p>\n
That produced a Cast of Characters.<\/p>\n
And then something unexpected happened. Once we got their faces reasonably straight, they began demanding their histories back.<\/p>\n
Miles wasn’t simply the thoughtful fellow in the hat. He had commanded a Navy P-3 squadron.<\/p>\n
Rocket had flown Tomcats and apparently still considers himself a Top Gun, although these days his principal weapons system is a grill and half a Wyoming cow.<\/p>\n
Splash had been a Phantom NFO whose memorable introduction to carrier aviation included a catapult shot that did not proceed precisely according to plan.<\/p>\n
Deirdre had a life before the Galley. Holly had survived academia. Willie had survived the Army, the Joint Staff and consulting, which may qualify as three separate campaigns.<\/p>\n
The younger crowd arrived with histories still being written. Kelly came east from Michigan State determined to make a difference and is discovering that sometimes the difference makes us first. Lao crossed the old Michigan rivalry from Ann Arbor armed with mechanical engineering and somehow wound up in the strange new world of cyber, data and data centers.<\/p>\n
And then there is Sarah, young, thin, energetic and fresh from the bakery and restaurant world, accompanied by her elegant and observant mother Joline.<\/p>\n
We haven’t worked out who likes whom yet.<\/p>\n
That seems more entertaining to discover as we go.<\/p>\n
The Boomers around the table have accumulated careers, marriages, airplanes, wars, mistakes, triumphs and stories. The younger people are busy accumulating theirs. Somehow they all get along.<\/p>\n
Mostly.<\/p>\n
Yesterday reminded us that generations eventually pass. Dolly belonged to ours, but somehow managed to belong to several others at the same time.<\/p>\n
So today we’ll get our eyes checked, straighten the pictures on the wall, put the soup back on the stove and keep moving.<\/p>\n
There are still stories to tell.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra<\/p>\n
www.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There will be plenty more swirling about Dolly and her legacy today. There should be. Yesterday afternoon, her passing stopped what we were doing here at Socotra House. The sausage soup show went back into the Galley, the Dance-Off changed direction, and for a little while we joined millions of other Americans remembering a woman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34053"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34056,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34053\/revisions\/34056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}