Is Rodney Dangerfield Getting Any, These Days?

Just checked ... bad joke ... Poor Rodney's Dead? and 'I didn't even know him well.'

Been one of those weeks. A series of disrespectful encounters. Are Last Quarter Players more sensitive? more vulnerable? easier prey to the young and shiny and to other oldsters, alike.

As I was pulling out of a parking lot and some guy made a point of noting with his middle finger -- as he was cutting me off, accelerating from a standstill -- that he had the right of way, I did feel belittled, as if it never crossed his mind that I might turn around and kick his middle-aged carcass about the lot I had just left.

Cool your Jets, Howard! 

(Is that what y'do with Jets? I forget!)

Then there was the young Doctor, medicating one of my visitors who wanted to talk on the phone. After getting permission from our shared patient, I agreed to speak with her 4 weeks ago on the next Thursday at 115. I called. She wasn't there. I left a message. She called back two weeks later and asked if we could talk. Made an appointment for yesterday at 115; call me, I'll be here. She didn't call till 150. "Sorry," I said, "I can't talk now." "What about 430," she replied. OK. You got it. She called at 520. I explained:

"My Dear Doctor. 

It's important at your tender age to know 

the difficulty of keeping Old Men waiting: 

when you finally get to them? they've either wet their pants or are dead."

We did speak. Maybe she got the message about the fact that the word "appointed" kind of appears in the word "appointment." I remember a Podiatrist who kicked me out of her practice for not being willing to leave my copay with her secretary after she failed to keep the appointed time by 90 minutes for a second time. I explained that like Emile Zola, I was one of those Old Men who "had come to live loudly" and would gleefully do so in the waiting room, if my copay were not returned. And SHE kicked POOR LITTLE OLE ME out of her practice.

Other Old People tend to disrespect other Old People, too, and younger folk, too. Lord only knows the stories that Cougars tell about inept young lovers and Dirty Old Dogs tell of ingenues. How many an oldster has forgotten how complicated life was in the Second and Third Quarters and pisses and moans:

"Y'Nevah call me."

I do remember my Dad in the Fifth Quarter (Old people can't and don't always seem to count) believing that if the Answer Machine picked up, I must be ignoring him. He would address the machine:

"C'mon. Pick up the phone. I know you're there."

Years later? Maybe I get it.

"Those Third Quarter kids of mine expect ME to text or twit?" 

The word TWIT has a different connotation from the Fourth and Fifth Quarters.

Then, there are the other old folk who have given up the need for deferential verbal pragmatics ... that is for allowing you to finish even a few brief sentences before they rudely interrupt. I was waiting for a meeting to begin, talking to a Third Quarter Shrink when a Fourth Quarter one pulled into the parking lot with open window. He Com'heres us and we walk over to his open window. 

"Listen to this guy. I'm from New York but I don't speak English like 'dis guy."

I could hear the radio interview. One of New Yawk's Finest speaking the King's English, as I first heard it spoken on the streets of Brooklyn. Was this 75'ish Shrink not only gratuitously interrupting an ongoing conversation between two others but actually making fun of a Policeman because of an accent. Wasn't surprised, then, when in our meeting he interrupted me. I found myself annoyed and remembering a time he showed up at my office on his bike in one of those spandex biker-costumes. I remember, people used to advise nervous speakers to imagine the audience naked. I found it easier to picture him in Spandex ... hell! "half foot shorter but from far? Lance Armstrong, in the flesh," I thought. (Now, that's unkind, Howard.) I left it with a brief comment, as I remembered him in his modern-day Zuit-Suit:

"Are you REALLY gonna keep me from finishing my sentence."

Then there was the time that I was thoroughly misunderstood by a near and dear. Life just ain't gettin' any easier.

Maybe this all explains a crotchety Old Person like me writing a blog: If a reader misunderstands me, at least I get to finish what I'm doing, before they take their turn in setting me straight. And if y'thinks an Old Man is easy to set straight: Don't believe it; ask his wife and spawn!

"I'm done, now. Thank you for being quiet!"

"And, Sorry, Rodney; I get it, now!"

It's All Happening Too Fast

I hear a lot of the over 60 crowd complain that time has passed by in a flash ... too fast a flash. Saturday night, a little girl who grew up with my youngest was at dinner at my youngest's home. Her 41? year old husband was talking of the same experience thinking of his two boys, running about with two of my younger grandchildren up over our heads "happened just like that" -- as he snapped his unarthritic fingers. Yup! I remember when his wife and my daughter would be walking around in their diapers in our contiguous back yards in the Summer talking like two parrots on a perch ... making not a whole helluvalot of sense but having a great time.  Now, his wife talked a mile-a-minute and my daughter looked prematurely addled; she made sense but not at a speed accessible to my slowed down Central Processing Unit or, apparently, to her friend. 

Oh and I looked at my calendar: I'm gonna go to a meeting on Thursday and there's this fast talking lady there, as well. I identify -- when in these moments -- with Nipper from the RCA Voice of the Master commercials ... my head cocked to the side and wondering what she is really trying to say. I've considered that maybe she's quietly communicating the sudden appearance of an itch right on her forehead which her Mother taught her wasn't polite to scratch in public. I have -- need I add -- considered other options but I mention this one remembering a time when I actually was bold enough to stop her:

"Nancy, I know this may sound odd 

but I keep thinking you have an itch to scratch right above your eyes 

and wondered whether -- when you slow down -- 

the need to scratch that itch may become more urgent."

Need I say: Nancy wasn't amused. I was! And while I cannot say that my intent wasn't to be rude, I can't help but think as I toddle through the Last Quarter of Life that fast-talking Men and Women might not have something they would prefer not to discuss.

What to say: I've been pretty self-satisfied (Mea Maxima, M!) now that M who is 18 months younger than I (a mere child!) but over 65, as well, has begun to show some growing awareness that both her hearing and her processing speed have slowed. I have counted on her for many years to tell me what is being advertised on Television .... just what the Twins are talking to each other about over dinner .... and sundry other details like who a man -- besides his Urologist -- is supposed to contact if he has "an erection lasting more than four hours." I told her that it seems like in this situation I'm only supposed to contact my Doctor while I thought it was like when a guy got his first A.C. Gilbert Erector Set in the Fifties and ran out the front door to tell each and every friend. Ought to be enough to get a guy to get a Facebook page, I thought, and Tweet to tens of thousands. 

Stop being silly, Howard.

OK, OK! The truth of the matter is that I feel uncomfortable about not being able to keep up. By the time I've figured out:

 the words

 what's being advertised

what they're trying to cure

 what the evidence is to suggest that it does anything sufficiently to risk

what the side effects are

Gasp! It's just too late.

By that time, a completely new commercial has begun and M still hasn't yet explained to me why, if Xarelto puts you at risk to all kinds of horrible deaths, one should take it or the immuno-suppressant drugs that seemingly put you at risk of a variety of really bad diseases or why the people on the Cialis commercial all end up in matching claw-foot tubs that would require more advanced Barnum-Bailey gymnastics in order to couple than would be required in the back jump-seats of a 1966 Porsche 911 S ... 

Damn ... I've counted on her all these years to explain all kinds of stuff ... from who the Goalie was on the 1965 Bruins, to who lets Paul McCartney out of the Nursing Home to lip synch all his great lyrics that I could never quite make out .... like "I wanna hold yer Ham" or "I've got blisters on my blisters." Indeed, I think she once explained to me why the Moody Blues were concerned about their Beagles being washed away. 

*****************

Woof! What am I woofing about?! Truth is I'm irked with myself ... Yesterday? Removed a Winter's full of leaves and the mesh cover holding them from our pool, cut down some relatively small trees with trusty old chain-saw, and trimmed some hedges. Now, I'm walking like the proverbial ruptured duck, kvetching in pain with each step and just a little disgruntled at whoever made the decision for an Old Man to do those things. I think it was M! And GuntherDog is disgusted with me.

Sacrifice

I remember studying an ancient argument about a certain Scriptural discrepancy; two conflicting passages:

To God (belongs) the Earth and all that fills it. *

The Heavens? 

The Heavens are for God and 

the Earth (God) gave to the Children of Adam. (Ps 115)

The Sages slithered through this discrepancy with some ease:

The first? refers to the time before one offers (God) a blessing.

The Second? after a blessing is offered.** 

Holidays about sacrifice are upon us in the Judaeo-Christian sector of the monotheistic world ... Easter and its complete sacrifice of the young Rabbi from Nazareth and the the Paschal Lamb that indicates God's willingness to let slaves out of the House of Bondage ... with the Grim Reaper passing over their dwellings in Goshen ... leaving their firstborn ... alone and alive.

The House I live in? Borrowed!

My Children? Borrowed?

All my stuff? On loan.

GuntherDog? Short-term loan.

Even M? On very long-term loan! ***

However, indeed, one feels about the presence or absence of an interested deity, "someone to watch over me" ... the Mother that we all crave or the Father that keeps us in line ... the temporality of life gives it a powerful meaning (I seem to recall the Physician-Philosopher Leon Kass speaking about this matter on a speaking tour some years ago.) 

My Dad after he turned 70 or so was prone to becoming tearful at family celebrations; the recognition of this temporality, perhaps, is not only meaning-giving but loaded with sadness. Oh! I know there are those who preach that "death is just another part of life," but I have my suspicions that "on the pillow of night" thoughts may be more complex than that.

So Sacrifice? This morning, I have no facile answers. Maybe it's an attempt to work through the feelings of our mortality ... of the borrowed nature of those things we love and tend to .... by offering on the altar or the Cross some animal or some one who is felt as a source of love and comfort.

Just as a By the Way: I was rather amused, long ago, in seeing that some modern liturgists had removed from their prayer books a rather innocuous line originally from the prophecies of the visionary poet, Malachi:

And (someday) the Grain Offering of Judah and Jerusalem 

will be pleasing to God just like in the Days of Old.

The meaning, apparently, that sacrifices hold for us is quite complicated. Happy Holidays.

* I forget where that one's cited from but the arguing Sages cite it and when I was young it was popular to put before one's name when claiming it on your own inside the front cover ... as if to remind: things here in this life are, so to speak, "on loan."

** I'm afraid the record for this resolution has been lost to the Fog of the Last Quarter, as well, but I suspect may be found somewhere around p 30-40 of Tr. Brachoth.

*** After 36 years in my home and 50 years with M, y'might think ... but no-o-o-o! not even M.

The Death of Curiosity

How many years since puberty? How many years, indeed, since the 6th, 7th or 8th grades (at least in the US) a time and place where secrets are leaked like we might see done by the "best of Politicians?"

Sally kissed Jimmy!

I saw them passing notes, too.

Did you know that .... ?

What a great and painful time to be alive, those early teenage years ... what a disquieting time for parents and teachers. Maybe curiosity is at its peak during those years? We've, typically -- at or just before that age -- been introduced to death. Somehow, we process that or maybe we deny it. The great secrets of sex await us. What does it feel like to join with another? To be penetrated? To penetrate? Will there be pain? Will there be the greatest of unspeakable treasures? Will eyes be opened like Adam and Eve's ("and were opened up the eyes of the two of them") or will the realization of vulnerability ("and the two knew they were naked") overwhelm them with shameful feelings related to (in)adequacy, (im)potency or (in)sufficiency.

If the values of both Trust and Mistrust are laid down in the preschool years, they have, perhaps, a broader impact when novel relationships take on additional meanings. Trusting Mom and Dad to hold us securely, to be there when we need them, etc. ... all these must be difficult for a toddler learning to walk through their own Garden of Demons and Delights. Those years, I suspect, the need for faithfully dependent caretakers gets spread around between Mom, Dad, Sibs and Others.

First love is different and not just because body and emotional parts are touched in ways that we don't quite understand. Later in life -- in the Second and Third Quarters -- one sees how how difficult it can be to maintain that Trust. Fights and Divorces aplenty! Putting all our Easter Eggs in one basket (mutatis mutandis -- all our Matzos on one plate) maybe requires certain new levels of Trust and Mistrust ... or, maybe, they're just rehashings of earlier conundrums. Either way. I don't think it has anything particularly to do with whether pants are on or off in the relationship. Friendships during this period (early teens) become all important guideposts on the way to trusting love relationships a bit down the road.

In myself, I have noticed curious changes, though, in the Fourth Quarter. I think of two related ones. 

My sense of curiosity about others near and dear to me has dampened. If a child or grandchild is unwell, I find it sufficient to make it obvious that I can listen to whatever it is they want to share ... and wait for the rest. A friend shares a confidence with me and I am far more affected by their willingness to share what they have than to fret about what they haven't told me. Freud was prone to cite Goethe's comment:

Mach es Kurz ... Am Jungsten Tag ist's nur eine furze 

(someone can help with spelling)

Make it Snappy ... Fuss not. 

On the Last Day (of Judgement), it is little more than a Singular Fart.

I find myself, that is, interested in the feeling of sharing the intimacy much more than in its details. Truth be told, the details do seem to be of interest to certain people -- we refer to them as Gossips, Yentas, Yachnas ... I'm comfortable every language has a word for them. I remember as a young man, one night each month a group of us would meet at Bev's house to discuss puzzlement about our professional work. Her neighbors would be sitting out on their City Stoops and very slowly articulate:

I ... see ... you people ... are ... back ... ... again!

Lord knows what lascivious thoughts preoccupied these ladies (LOL) ... about 3 men and another woman visiting a single woman. I guess we could've told them but sometimes leaving a Yenta hanging in the Public Square seems consistent with Lex Talionis ... with an Eye for an Eye. 

The second has to do with the other side ... a willingness to Self-disclose ... to talk about my own experiences ... maybe typical? maybe not-so? I don't particularly feel like I have my pants down when I do so ... don't feel ashamed about my sadnesses and vulnerabilities .... Most of them I see as -- if not Universal -- rather common, even if we don't speak of them very much. Just recently, I was flying and watched the movie about Alan Touring (Imitation Games?) in flight. It touched me deeply and -- with my earphones in place -- I found myself quietly weeping about his pain ... or maybe about my own. Did other folk see? Who knows? I have shared many personal hurts in these notes. Most readers are willing to serve as witnesses to these, perhaps, quotidian human experiences ... of Joy and Loss in the Last Quarter of Life. 

There are occasions when some reader contacts me ... deeply dissatisfied that I haven't shared more. To do so would -- in many of these cases -- break a confidence with someone else. In the language of my profession: the Other person holds the privilege of whether I discose about them or not. In the end, perhaps many of us (not the Gossips) are quite honored to share what was shared and to hang our curiosity on some hook we made for it during our adolescence ... or to just let it go. 

                                            Am Jungsten Tag ist's nur eine furze -- Indeed

There is a sentence in Leviticus 19 that has long grabbed me. In the tradition of cantillating this, it washes out, as follows:

1st Quarter: Don't go loose-lipped among your people.

2nd Quarter: (but) Don't stand idly by as your neighbor bleeds.

2nd Half: I am God.

Maybe Godliness is about juggling the need to protect confidences with the equal need to protect life  -- no easy task.

Happy Holy-Days to anyone reading.