Response to Sktrbrain + the Sense of the Mischievious

Sktrbrain:  The areas of taboo have yet to be delineated and so the candid little cherubs are free to run amok. Not so for us -- us aged individuals.
....Perhaps the reluctance in speaking on such things as you've described above is a result of people not wanting to feel attached to someone's death, better said, to not feel implicated -- as funny as that might sound.

HHC: Thanks for interest and joining in. The taboo to talk about death, in my experience, sets in by middle elementary school ... by age 8 or less ... but this may relate to my own idiosyncratic experiences. One of my grandchildren ... 13 yo girl ... writes macabre tales that include death and murder and what have you ... in the style of HP Lovecraft or Poe but still is somewhat reticent when it comes to her Grandpas' aging processes. I find older folk, too, sometimes symbolizing rather than talking straight out ... images of manifestations before or after sleep that run the gamut from wondrously heavenly beings to flaming ones. And I don't know if that sense that if I think it, it is (a variant on Pres. Carter's heart lusting taken from Matthew 6) plays much of a role ... I suspect it's there for some. Do remember once talking to my Father-in-Law about the sadness and terror he must be feeling over his Stage IV cancer 20+ years ago and a couple of years before he died. Everyone was telling him that he had to "think positive" which I thought a great disservice to this nice guy. My Mother-in-Law, on the other hand, showed her superhero listening power and thereafter expressed her disdain for my comments in brutally direct tones. My youngest child remembers it, too; it was her 16th birthday. Obviously, if there's a prohibition against talking about our feelings for end-of-life issues, it DOES get the juices going.

Thanks, again for getting in my boat, here, and rowing with me.

On another note ... the Last Quarter does seem to give me/us the right to indulge some mischief. Something came in the mail that I had written about not understanding at all some new forms of thinking/writing. My review of this had been -- no holds barred -- mischief and a source for great amusement to me, even now, a year or more after writing it. Sat there with Marsha -- as her now-long-gone Father would say -- reading it and laughing my ass off.

I suppose it may be as simple as: "what do I got to lose?" Now, I DO know that I cannot rightly tell if the reason I find that I need a dictionary of what-the-Hell usages and semantics of the English Language to understand these new writers has to do with my incredible shrinking brain, but I do find the contemporary mannerisms of speech, especially among some folk who call themselves post-Modern or Lacanian, laughable and intentionally un-understandable. I read a sentence and wanna go out and buy an arsenal of super-soaker water guns and go after these folk ... or tie them up and have a heard of second graders tickle them silly. I recall a picture in GK Chesterton's autobiography of something called, as I recall, the Great Barrie Hoax. Barrie and George Bernard Shaw and a couple of other of Chesterton's friends dressed up as cowboys and crashed a very proper British party of "those in the know."

The urge becomes strong for me to enter the world of the absurd ... to ... (I better not admit to these urges in public) ...  to be mischievious. Just one example: I have difficulty following commercials ... hardly ever know what they're selling and turn to Marsha and quizzically wonder. Marsha is one and a half years younger and is, therefore, supposed to be 'with it' but does, betimes, look at me as if I missed the Sunday night bus to the nursing home. Any case, I have the urge to interpose myself into the TV commercials telling dog jokes ... Did y'hear the one about ... just popping my head up ... Woof!

Enough ... I'm in enough trouble, perhaps, already for writing my little review (which they put in the way-back of this publication, hoping, perchance, that it would get lost) ....

Response on Linkletter

sktrbrain has left a new comment on  "Need a New Art Linkletter Show":

Interesting how we always look to children for guidance nearly as much as they look to us. The areas of taboo have yet to be delineated and so the candid little cherubs are free to run amok. Not so for us -- us aged individuals.
I wonder what is the reluctance (or the flat out aphasia) that arises when an older family member confronts one on the subject (or a subject related to) his or her impeding death. Not necessarily what it stems from, but what it is. It's not as if anyone (hopefully not) believes that by speaking on such a matter the death will come at once, that there open unfettered acceptance of a loved one's eventual death will pave the way for such an event. ...Or maybe they do! There's a popular phrase "don't jinx it" that I have encountered many times in my life. One might be surprised by how many people mean that phase when they say it. Perhaps the reluctance in speaking on such things as you've described above is a result of people not wanting to feel attached to someone's death, better said, to not feel implicated -- as funny as that might sound.





Posted by sktrbrain to Playing in the last quarter at September 28, 2012 4:22 AM

No Narcs, just NORCS

I think it was the Capitol Steps, a DC based singing group, who in a satirical redo of some Bob Dylan suggested that a whole generation had turned 'its weed in for weed whackers.' Well, yesterday I visited a NORC ... I think it stands for Naturally Occurring Retirement Community. A township group is thinking of looking in to opening one in my Town. NORCS provide limited and idiosyncratic assistance to older folk ... Last Quarter players.

A lady who had been married for 67 years and just two months ago lost her husband, handyman and bulb-changer warmly explained how these little bits of help ... well ... helped. An Elder Lawyer, 'Elder' both chronologically and by her chosen work, was trying to help her understand when the optimal time was for moving into a Continuum of Care facility ... "Now ... while you can make lots of friends to help you later, if necessary."

Some box lunches were available and some speakers talked of reconnoitering through the local Voter Id Act. Held in a Presbyterian Church, their programs move around to other churches and synagogues and get support from both Catholoic and Jewish organizations.

Nice change from listening to the pundits talk of this year in politics ... as Tom Lehrer years ago sang about National Brotherhood Week ... a time when "All of my folks hate all of your folks."

Am a bit fatigued by the level of vitriol and venom on the air ... My Old Confreres were a pleasant change for a quick lunch.

Make love, not War, Old Friends!

And it's not just kids

Does seem to be a reticense, a shyness, to talk about the vulnerable side of the street .... I have colleagues and siblings who hint at serious illness but hold back on discussing ... though they don't seem to mind, like my children do, talking about my mortality ... Some of them are Physicians with serious difficulties of their own.

I've wondered if there is an embarassment in admitting that death is always lurking somewhere in the Last Quarter ... maybe even shame in accepting that no matter how big a canvas you received to paint upon, eventually it gets full. So many important parts of life seem schmeared with shame .... certainly, illness, sex and death.

We also seem to have a natural tendency to deny other generations these courtesis ... the right to be ill, to die and to enjoy mutual pleasuring with another human being. As one of my inlaw kids said upon receiving any knowledge that 'the inlaws' were still active in the bedroom (nevermind any other rooms): Just shut the door.

Go figger those strange-tagalongs ... children, grandchildren! Interestingly ... I think dogs hasndle these matters better.

Need a New Art Linkletter Show

'Kids say the darndest things' or whatever the title was. Linkletter was chances are 55-60, tall, blonde and looked like a good American. He'd get down on one knee with his microphone and kids would divulge all kinds of homey secrets about the way they thought? but mostly about their parents' quirks and closed doors. Pretty racy stuff for 50's TV, in the days before Weather Ladies were hot all year!

My kids are 46, 45 and 36 ... Oops, Oops II, and the only one that was planned (in that order). Who planned in those days in the 1960's? Who thought about retirement issues? No wonder half a generation is scattering about to fing 3 hots and a cot and doing films about old people's death .... The Savages, Away from Her, ... Who thought about ...? Hell, who could spell eschatology and worry about its four horsemen .... Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell?

Oh, I included Heaven in the Eschatalogical Four. Well, you do still have to talk to your kids about death even if you're scheduled for meetings with the Superos ... There was a Doctor in Vienna who on the frontis piece of his first big book (it didn't sell out a first run ~ 200 copies for years) who wrote on its title page quoting from who knows what Latin speaking scholar: Flectere si nequeo Superos .... If I cannot effectively bend the Heavenly ... Ascheronta movebo ... I may as well deal with those others who live along Hell's River Ascheron.

Talking to kids about details surrounding your own death is like pulling THEIR teeth in Hell. You enter such discussions not thrilled yourself about the prospect ... (Hey! I'm writing to those who haven't given up Playing in the Fourth Quarter) ... I'm just sayin'.

Good that I'm not Bill Gates, Sheldon Adelson, or David Koch .... I was just asking about the family scroll. It belonged to my grandfather's grandfather and my grandfather carried it to the USA when he emigrated in the Teens. It doesn't have a lot of extrinsic $ value ... and there I was asking who might become the guardian of this piece of religious family history.

It was reminiscent of 30 years ago when we took our only male St. Bernard to a Doc to find out about his xenophobia ... he was particularly unhappy about visitors wearing fur. The Doc said: 'Have you considered castrating him?' Poor fellow, took his paw and covered his eyes, as if to say: Hey, Guys ... I'm vaia con Dios outa this place as soon as you look the other way. Just like that, my oldest grandchild explained how she just didn't want to talk about this. Some younger ones said: 'But you're not old.' and one of my kids said: "I just don't feel ready to talk about this."

Maybe I should donate the scroll to the producers of Raiders of the Lost Ark and buy a dusty Stetson.

Ah, That Explains the Break in Blog

The Last Quarter -- just ask Gov. Romney and President Obama -- is punctuated by celebratory moments during each of which troubles are gone and pains invisible. There are other moments, however, when the petty ailments pile up ... paranoid-like moments when it feels as if the World or its animating spirit
(Anima Mundi) has it in for me. I suppose it's easier to be a little paranoid than to believe that life is a crap-shoot. I awoke thoughout the night with back, leg and foot pain and by 3:00 am realized that my heart rate, my pulse, was way outa whack .... Yesterday it had been in the low 40's even while laying some electrical cable and now, in the middle of the night, it was over 160. I'd been there before ... the arrhythmias of the Last Quarter.

I have a beneficent envy for those who manage to maintain a level of productivity into their late 70's and 80's. Just finished a review of a volume by an older fellow ... first name Otto. Left Europe with his family in 1939 for So. America when he was 11. Emigrated to USA some 20 years later .... and has continued to contribute to his field .... to hang out right there on the top. The book I was reviewing was a collection of published and soon-to-be published professional papers. 83 years young. Somewhere, need I say, I know that Otto has suffered ... burying a wife of many years maybe 5 years ago ... told when he came to NY that he better not bring any of his So. American ideas if he wanted to get ahead ... told that by the leaders of his field.

And it was three years ago that my Mother died ... maybe that's when one feels like s/he's entered the Last Quarter .... when you're an orphan. Talking Wednesday about Jonah's dilemma of doing something for Others .... for people not his own ... God's way of teaching him about this. Gotta go.

Ugh!

Hard to have sleep disturbed ... I have visitors whose sleep is more corrupted than mine .... younger people ... older people ... ghosts from the past ... devils from the future inhabit the night landscape .... mine about aging are there ... With all this, my bikes wait, the road and running shoes wait, as well. I'm aiming to get back to the Playing of Playing in the Last Quarter. A persona did appear ... a friendly fellow who we've called Melmo who mostly talks to grandchildren .... he's just 4 and not more than 64 ... he sleeps pretty good but still ....


Witnesses
On the bottom of his closet, like two soldiers they stood
A layer of dust demanded “You’ve seen these before”.
Witnesses for what he now couldn’t and once could
When he bought them.
Was it nineteen sixty four?


One at a time, he picked each up, turned it around,
“Look! The pattern on the toes is just the same,
The leather’s still good, the color still brown,
And inside
The author hadn’t changed his name.Yet they spoke of different times and of a different man
Who wore them then more than a quarter century ago.
These shoes were now witnesses to god’s sinister plan,
That from vibrant forms,
Takes man and transforms him to Lore.110 July 1994
Witnesses

On the bottom of his closet, like two soldiers they stood
With With all this, my bikes waitA layer of dust demanded “You’ve seen these before”.
Witnesses for what he now couldn’t and once could
When he bought them.
Was it nineteen sixty four?

One at a time, he picked each up, turned it around,
“Look! The pattern on the toes is just the same,
The leather’s still good, the color still brown,
And inside
The author hadn’t changed his name.

Yet they spoke of different times and of a different man
Who wore them then more than a quarter century ago.
These shoes were now witnesses to god’s sinister plan,
That from vibrant forms,
Takes man and transforms him to Lore.
0 July 1994
Witnesses

On the bottom of his closet, like two soldiers they stood
A layer of dust demanded “You’ve seen these before”.
Witnesses for what he now couldn’t and once could
When he bought them.
Was it nineteen sixty four?

One at a time, he picked each up, turned it around,
“Look! The pattern on the toes is just the same,
The leather’s still good, the color still brown,
And inside
The author hadn’t changed his name.

Yet they spoke of different times and of a different man
Who wore them then more than a quarter century ago.
These shoes were now witnesses to god’s sinister plan,
That from vibrant forms,
Takes man and transforms him to Lore.

Been a Long Time

It's been a half year or more since I sat down to write to this Blog ... to this Toast to Life in the Last Quarter of Life. It's been a stormy time. Saying goodbye to my wife's Mother ... my Mother -- for better or for worse -- for 47 years. Watching my wife say good-bye .... Saying good-bye is a long process, one that requires great expenditures of work .... There have also been threats of illness in the family ... some have passed ... some continue. As I've said to myself and whoever was listening here ... the Last Quarter isn't for the feint of heart ... no Sissies, as we'd say in the 50's.

A man woke me up. He visited me and told me of his wife ... I'd never met her but she was one of those folk who like to say "no" before they say "yes." He was one of those people who likes sense ... likes things to make sense. They would fight a great deal. Someone once said: 'A Man and a Woman? The Soft Spirit of God (the Sh'chinah) hovers between them.' I suspect that was an aspirational goal!

It occurred to me -- maybe because he was a religious man -- that one may differentiate two types of laws in Scriptures ... those that make sense, that can be reasoned out ... like laws about the common good ... prohibitions against murder and stealing that make grouped living possible. On the other hand, there are laws that make no sense, such as a prohibition against wearing mixed-fabric woven clothing. If one follows such a law, one is doing it as a sort of gift to one's God ... or god, if you prefer. God asks that I follow ... like a young lover would follow their lover ... never asking why.

Poor Jeremiah who was never permitted to marry by his God describes the early relationship between his people and his God ... "I remember," he says in the name of God, "the kindness from your youth, the love (I received from you) when you were a young bride. You followed me through an arid land in a land that had not yet been planted."

In loving relationships -- and maybe it's easiest when we're young -- we do for the other to satisfy what they want ... what do kids say in their regal playgames: You're wish is my command.

Poor Jeremiah ... no one to satisfy his wishes.