Masonry and Decisions

One helluva curious day. Some visitors to my office. A meeting with spiritual kinds of people. Four/five hours of working as a sort of stone mason .... carrying and mixing bags of cement ... ending with a path from my youngest's new office to the bathroom entrance. Showed my son-in-law with whom I've done many "projects" (calling them projects is like young Docs calling colonoscopies or cystoscopies "procedures" ... betimes, I'd like to "procedure" those youngins, m'self ... giv'em a little bit of their own medicine, aye!) with my philosopher son-in-law who arrived in the family with little appreciation for either the shear joyful madness of invention that comes along with "winging it" or a belief system that had a sufficiency of Faith that "projects" of this ilk might be complete. By the time the Last Quarter rolls around, one acts "as if" the only thing that can intrude on completion of the project is an unexpected myocardial infarction. Much still to do but the path Deo Volente (God Willing or Im Yirtzeh ha'Shem) is done.

By the way ... Did you know that with the percentage population boom from us Old Farts, there came the creation of the 60 pound bag .... less than 85-94 pound bags of mortar, concrete and Portland that twinged my back for its first three Quarters. It's as if some Marketing MBA knew that 60 pounds in the Fourth Q feels much like 85 pounds in the Second and Third.

All this having been said, I woke up, today, with a memory of some old guys and feeling, if not my age, then my back -- whatever! Yesterday was a good day.

Moments like these (liturgies, camaraderie, helping kids, cooking crazy-good stuff for Grand-spawn, playing with Portland Mud-pies, ...) take on new meanings in the Fourth Quarter. Woke up with this memory of walking in a retirement area with M, my Oldest, his wife and the youngest of the 3rd Gen
Spawn. They went in to an ice cream store and I sat down with a bunch of mostly guy-retirees. One made fun of me for still working.

"What y'waitin' for, Kid? 

For the Wheelchair, Walker and the Viagra?"

Get it while y'can." 

Cute, I thought. Members of my Generation of Fourth Quarterniks quote Janis Joplin or Freddy Mercury.

Another was sitting with his arm around two women, roughly his age.

"This is Tuesday and this Hot Lady is My Gal Friday."

Right! this time, I thought, cheekily. This guy has a hard time gettin' up from the bench never mind rising at playtime. Others bantered about where they came from ... apparently, most had arrived here from Chilly Toronto and were enjoying their new somewhat warmer playground and new and old playmates.

A third oldster looked less ebullient. He was without some one woman to play with. He was sitting right next to me; he had just broken up. He ashamedly whispered that his Lady had aged and now only wanted to sit at home in front of the Tube and he was thinking that Tube and Tomb could be pronounced the same by someone with even the slightest speech impediment.  Maybe they'd get back together but he doubted that his guilt would trump his wish to continue living. Who knows what Old People will do? (Watched an Old Episode of the Brit-Com "As Time Goes By" ... Lionel gets followed home by a Shaggy Dog and all fall in love with the Scruff.)

John and Yoko said it:

Christ, y'know it ain't easy,

You know how hard it can be,

The way things are goin',

They're gonna crucify me.

I guess we quote Lennon and Ono, too. (LOL)

Ach du lieber! Life, in every Quarter, has its tough decisions. The Young Docs likely have a pill for that, too.