Fiftieth Birthday

sailed out of the Port of Oakland and made its way under the Oakland Bay Bridge. At slightly after 6 A.M. it seemed like the sun washed city was hol

d I wondered how my idyllic life had simply gone to shit in the last three weeks. I had gone from being happily married and closing the biggest and most lucrative merger deal of my law firm's history to being alone and out of work. Both were my choices but the events that precipitated those choices were not of my choosing. I smiled ruefully thinking of the irony of my choice of escape from the horrific situation I