Ode to Modern Times

I never got to finish my story ... It wasn't a very good story, anyway, and one that we all of us Playing in the Last Quarter experience ... being prodded, poked and scoped by people typically much younger than us who are, themselves, Players in the Second and Third Quarters of life. My kids are Second and Third Quarter folk ... not a one of them on the bench. Each caught up in the Begats of Life and in getting somewhere. The anesthetist was in that group and still heard very well. Due to complications with my arrhythmias, I explained that I thought it best that the up periscope be done first, leaving the down periscope (which was more likely to induce atrial fibrillation in me) for the finale. ................. Damn, if he didn't get it on the first go-round. ............................ When our kids were born, I recall looking at their various parts .... 10 fingers? just like a person. 10 toes, as well. Eyes in the right place, pretty much, and on and on and on. The anesthetist and the GI doc were just like that. Dang if they didn't have all the parts, including ears that listen. I should explain. Those ears may be connected to minds that disagree but it is so very pleasant to be in contact with others who can hear. ............... Any case, I came through the procedures with everything looking pretty good and no solid explanation for my varied symptoms. .................... Must be gettin' old, Howard, must be gettin' old. Maybe the wiring harness on this Old Jalopy is falling apart .... beginning to fray. A week followed when I was tired. Tried to run a bit in between visitors to my office who seemed to want to cut me no slack. Got a Charlie Horse out of it ... not much more. Online meetings seemed full of cleverness and snarkyness, though it didn't hit home till a lady from London pointed out that our discussions were a bit much. ................................ It's back to that issue of difference. We folk over 60 ... yeah, yeah, yeah! I'm defining the Fourth Quarter as 60-80 and leave the post-80 years to Overtime. Maybe I'll get to write about Overtime, too. Lots of things have to line up for there to be Overtime ... I wouldn't wanna bet on whether a game goes to Overtime ... well ... till it's time. We folk over 60 should have learned that there are many ways to skin a cat ... and each of them may be exquisitely pleasurable (kidding about Kitty).  If 60+ years have passed and one hasn'y learned to appreciate difference and even "similarities among differences and differences among similarities" (an expression I've lifted from Yvonne Agazarian, a post-80 year old theorist about how groups form and behave ... real smart lady, in my estimation), then one is gonna be a real pain in the nether-parts. What the Hell! Life is too complex to have but one story line. ......................... Whether it be theory or the way to best run a polity of mutual concern and interest or what to call the god(s) we worship, there are just too many variables to imagine that different folks wouldn't arrive at different embellishing strokes of the Big Picture. Heartache comes, to my way of thinking, when anyone and their Others imagine that if you come to different conclusions, you both think each Other wrong. .................... People, in second guessing their choices in life and playing "if-only's" are playing the self-same destructive game, themselves. But more of that, soon. ........................ Bye