Looking Back ... aghast!

It's approaching the Four Year Anniversary ... of my beginning to write down these thoughts about living in the Fourth and Last Quarter of Life. 

It was the 16th of October in the year 2011. 

And no god spake unto Howard, saying:

"Write down ye thoughts, Brother!"

It was four years ago, some 9 weeks after the fall in the Garden that changed my habit of occasionally writing a ditty ... a bit of doggerel ... about the accumulating years on my Birthday Cards into this more frequent and formal -- still sometimes humorous but occasionally and arguably MORBID -- set of reflections on my dotage. I began:

If you're reading this, I'd like to think you were open-minded 

and moving through your fifties or sixties. 

If a good long life is 84 years (four score and four .... 

about the time it took a fledgling democracy to produce the Gettysburg Address), 

then the Fourth Quarter begins at 63 or thereabouts. 

Need I add that we have no way to know for certain how much time we have left 

(one of the curses of awareness ... knowing that we don't know) .... 

My grandchildren are keenly aware that I'm 

-- in the order of things -- next to go, so to speak ... 

that I'm an orphan ... 

that I strain when I do hard labor around the house and 

that grandma is forever warning me not to work too hard (more about that later) ... 

and that I'm a little slow on the comeback (more on processing speed, later, too).

Zo! Now, being maybe 3 Blog Postings away from my Happy 4th, it seems fitting to spend some time reflecting on these four years. I am committed to rereading the 400+ postings over these weeks ... I am a little fearful of what I'll find. If I'm true to my age, I fear, there shall have been a great deal of repetition ... telling the same story over-and-over, again ... Sorry, if that turns out to be true. M and my kids would tell us how my Dad would retell his jokes and his stories about being an older soldier in WW2. Similarly, I wish I could say that there hadn't been any changes in my functioning ... but there have been. My Driving has deteriorated ... ask M. My body has acquired new consultants ... among them, a kindly Cardio-Electrophysiologist who looks like he could date my oldest grandchild ... and others, too. My Pill Hotel has grown additional floors ... My Central Processing Unit has slowed ... and the Photographic Memory I once has dead spots on its hard-drive ... kinda like the Starter-Motor on a '56 Packard. 

So, off I go ... Older than all the Republican Candidates for the 2016 Presidency ... still near the same age or younger than the leading three Democratic contenders ... Hillary, Joe and Old Man Bernie. 

Off to reread my ramblings ... a little afraid of what I'll find.  

Spotty Contradictions

The Last Quarter  

A Spinning Compass  

Pointing now to the Past full of Kindnesses  

and 

Now to Old Sins from and against those Near and Dear  

--- Now and Then ---

Have I given up on figuring out the Sum of Kindness and Sin? Maybe that's part of being a Denizen of Quarter Four. The Kids say: It is what it is! I guess: It's gonna be what it's gonna be!

The new technology is pretty cool. My youngest Grandchild and her Parents gave me a wristband that calculates my steps and my sleep ... My sleep? It tells me how long I've slept and how long I've been restless and how long awake. Is it good to know these things? Maybe. I get to go to a website each morning ... I just did ... and find out the Sum of my steps and Sleep and more. Soon, I suspect, it will calculate details of our sex lives ... duration? thrusts? peak moments? Peek-a-boo!

The Pope is coming to Philadelphia ... Wish I was going to join the throngs of devotees who will follow his words. He does seem like the Good Shepherd. Instead, on Television, I get to watch those devoted, first, to this political whacko and, then, to another. Have I become jaded? Is the whatever off the rose? I dunno.

Here, in Amerika ...

Can there really be a Candidate for President 

who thinks he has nothing to do 

but claim magical powers to heal the scars of the 7 Billion?

Can there actually be multiple Candidates for President 

who proudly pronounce their ability to smash unions?

How many Candidates for President are there 

who think there can is reason not to elect a President 

whose idea of The One God is a hair-different than the WASP ideal? 

How many Candidates for President do, indeed, tell me what they really believe?

Hell! How many Talking Heads are willing to tell me what they believe?

I listen, each day, and have little to no idea what is articulated belief and what is Spin? Spin has become OK. Spin is Reality and Reality is Spin!

Amerika? The Land of the Free and the Brave. Anyone can become anything, here in Amerika. Just look at the composition of the recent debate: A child of Indian Immigrants ... a Black Man who grew up in poverty and became an acclaimed Pediatric Surgeon ... a couple of kids of Cuban Immigrants ... a Woman who rose from being an Administrative Assistant to great prominence in the World of Business ... a Billionaire who thinks the World of Himself, though maybe less of all the others for whom he, nonetheless, professes Great Love .... a number of Illuminaries -- Clerical and Lay -- who have such Faith in the Creator that they see no need for Birth Control or Science ....  

Wow! (or Whoa!) 

My wristband tells me that I was Restless for 32 minutes, last night. I don't expect the day, necessarily, to be much better. 

Maybe I'll have time to ponder a question that Maimonides toyed with about 800 years ago: If Christians, Jews and Moslems (listed lexicographically) are all monotheists, believers in One God,  that is, must they not -- of necessity -- all be singing the praises to and beseeching kindnesses from the same God?

It was quite narcissistic of me, I suppose, to have imagined -- as I suspect I did and maybe do -- that all the pettiness and hatred of the World would have come to an end during my tenure standing erect here on this planet. Children and old folk (like me, thee, the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis) are, I suppose, a bit naive.

Alas!

Trump and the Man in the Beard

M and I moved from Southern New Hampshire to Philadelphia and it Suburbs in 1974. I was to teach and run a school and make the transition from being a Mathematician to someone who works with people and their heartaches. We had taught and worked at a school there that housed about 70 very bright but very disturbed kids in the Woods of Rindge, NH. It was a mixed bag ... the area that is. NH had been run by the Manchester Union Leader in the 60's and early 70's ... William Loeb. He was a Law and Order, Gun Rights sort of guy and anti-Labor proponent. Really disliked the school. As due to libel suits (there used to be Libel Suits) it wasn't good for him to be in the state, he sent some henchmen to examine the school. I forgot the exact words in the article of the Union Leader but it was something like:

A skid-row scenario run by Hippies.

Actually, the school was run by an Olde Newe England couple, Henry Curtis Patey and Adelaide Patey. Everything that went on at this wonderfully crazy place had to be cleared by Henry. Henry had hired M to work the Library and run reading programs. I was to be a Chaplain, Math and Philosophy teacher, and builder of Geodesic Domes. Together, we did relief houseparenting and were expected to be on-campus for 144 hours each week and were allowed 4 other hours of individual leave. 

True! There was a somewhat permissive attitude on campus. For instance, the 13-19 year olds (the school population) were not prevented from hanging pin-ups of that day --pretty mild in  comparisons to today's still and moving crotch-shots), leading to a confrontation between one of Loeb's henchman:

Henchman (pointing to a picture on a dorm wall): "That's pornography."

The Kid responds: Hell! I don't even own a pornograph.

There still is -- moreso than in Verrrr-mont -- in New Hampshire a pretty Conservative minority and a lot of inbreeding, as far as I know.

All this by way of preface. Last Thursday night, The Trumpster famously listened to a man accusing President O'Bama (I can't resist making him Irish) of being not an American, un-American, a Muslim, and by implication someone who was allowing the setting up of Radical Training Camps, while he was -- with a broad brush -- demonizing all followers of the Muslim faith. Trump gave a number of reasons for not responding in the style of John McCain in 2008 when McCain made it clear that his opponent was a good family man, a patriot American, etc., even if on important principles they disagreed and he was seeking to unseat him due to those differences. Trump had said nothing.

What struck me was not only his willingness to say nothing -- he later said that he had no moral obligation to defend the President (whom he typically calls Obama -- after all, Trump has really never given in on the President being a citizen). But his explanations.

1) He hadn't heard the offensive parts.

2) Obama was carrying on a campaign against Christians.

3) He was not obligated to defend each nasty remark about Obama.

Now, the flip side of his excuses might be thought of, as follows.

1) There was a bearded young man in the audience quite a few rows further away that Trump shaking his head in disbelief and, apparently, hearing quite well.

2) The example Trump gave before a group of Evangelical Christians to demonstrate that there was a war on Christmas (I thought his calling the Eucharist "My cracker and sip of wine" was a mocking of among the most sacred of Christian practices) was that walking into Macy's at Chistmas time, one was confronted, presumably, by an attempt to make one's visit into the department store a seasonal one for all Americans and others, too). How odd! Beyond that, O'Bama comes across as a man who embraces the Gospel of Peace as laid out in the New Testament ... and its general ethos, that espoused, say, by our visiting Pope Francis.

3) Maybe this one puzzles me most. Do I want someone representing my country who: 

offends women; 

corrects for the same by saying that he cherishes them or that they're beautiful;

cannot apologize for his frequent verbal flatulence;

criticizes one of our soldiers from Viet Nam 

who lived in captivity for years and served his Country for decades;

feels no "moral obligation" to defend our President 

who must for another 16 months lead the world through troubled waters;

says thigs like 

"They say they'll take care of you but I KNOW HOW to do that and 

THEY DON'T ... BELIEVE ME;" 

(I don't, BTW, believe anyone who says "Believe me.")

attacks ethnic groups by playing a statistical game ... by generalizing from individuals to the entire subgroup of those living in the United States; 

who keeps saying that he loves us and that he doesn't have to tell us how he'll make Amerika great; only that he will; and

hasn't apologized for anything.

True, even in the Bible (which he claims to understand ... maybe I'll come to believe him ... but I'd bet against it), it takes 37 chapters in Genesis for anyone to take responsibility for their actions (Judah in the story of his twice-widowed daughter-in-law, Tamar ... where Judah says צדקה ממני ... "(In this matter), She's more righteous that I am."

I won't belabor his pandering to the religious ... Gag. 

Prayer: God give me the strength to live through the horrors of the World with its 34 Wars raging AND a Trump Presidency or the finances to relocate to New Zealand.

Apology: This Old Man Blog is supposed to be about gittin' on in years .... and here I am wagging my cain at Trump der Chump, the man who feels he can be elected on Promises and Believe-Me's.

Political Trumpness? Political Correctness Reduct

Never thought of myself as "Politically Correct." Polite? Maybe ... but Political Correctness seemed to carry a different meaning ... though as I sit here and toy with finding a definition of Political Correctness, I don't find any obvious place to begin.

I was asked some years back to talk about diversity and multiculturalism to a school district .... maybe 500 people gathered together, fulfilling, I suppose, some district policy that Teachers and Staff would be exposed annually to a certain number of trainings or hours of training. The person planning it had invited me and, oddly enough, had been asked to leave their Diversity Committee for espousing a view that I was to espouse that day. Her view wasn't, apparently, consistent with the way the Committee saw Diversity and Multiculturalism. She was, by the way, the only Black Person working for the School District, as far as I knew.

The view she had represented was, I suppose, one she had developed while being my student in a post-professional training program. Simply put: I was against multi-culturalism as it was practiced. By that, I mean that the presumption that if you know some statistical identifiers about an individual 

-- say .. Place of Birth, Pigmentation of Skin, Religion of Birth, Gender -- you know a great deal about them. I gave myself as an example: I was born in Brooklyn, NY; I was pale in the Winter and quite dark in the Summer; my parents were both Jewish; and I was a long-time Heterosexual Male. I explained -- first to a break-out group and then to the whole audience -- that I had a colleague whom I had found out was Jewish. I had asked her what it meant to her to be Jewish and she explained that it meant that neither she nor her husband mowed the lawn or changed their own flat tires. I responded that I did both and changed toilets and electrical thiggamajigs, too. 

In any case, I argued, that day before the School District, that knowing still those few things about me couldn't begin to explain how growing up was in a home where other languages were spoken, where Sabbath was celebrated as it was, perhaps, in Colonial America, the Outer Hebrides and certain pockets of religious zealots about the World, and where hundreds of religious rituals dominated the changing of the Seasons. The little bits of information couldn't begin to explain what it was like to grow up under the influence of an ex-Soldier Boy from WW2, his Father-in-Law, a religious leader with a sizable following, and a Mom who was born in Hungary and was still mourning all her aunts and cousins who died under the programs of the Reich.

I went on to explain that the notion of politically correct language was difficult for me, as well. In the News, a Black School Principal had just been fired in a neighboring school district for using the so-articulated N-Word in a training about Racially Sensitive Speech. I had no problems -- I suggested rightly or wrongly -- with words. If some blonde talking head (Coulter) wants to call my people of origin "Fucking Jews," WTF do I care? I don't think well of her, anyhow, and her use of the expression Fucking Jew or Sale Juif? Really? What do I care? I'm actually far more troubled by what I perceive as her coldness and lack -- again, in my perception -- of her kindness. 

Kindness! That was it and that brings me back to folk who use the Truth as an excuse for being unkind. Maybe I prefer the expression "Verbal Sensitivity" to "Political Correctness." I remember attending Christmas Parties and people coming over to me (well, three people) on different occasions and saying:

This is a Christian Country. 

I don't have to wish you Happy Channukah or Holidays.

This is a Christian Country.

Merry Christmas.

I guess I coulda answered:

And a Merry F'n Christmas to you, too.

But it seemed pointless.

Lookee, here ... I'm a Last Quarter Guy ... Carrying 20 too-many-pounds ... Not enough grass growing on my head ... a CPU that just don't process as fast as it once did ... one eye that don't work so well, either ... ... I'm interested in -- even if maybe it's too late -- what Otis Reading suggested: "Try a Little Tenderness." Maybe it is too late to correct for all the hurts I've inflicted on others and others have inflicted on me in the First Three Quarters. Who knows? No one is anywhere near perfect. Certainly, not I.

But ... how do we live with the rampant unkindnesses that we hear in the cavalier and dismissive speech of one of our Presidential candidates:

Trivializing the experience of a POW ...

Singling out one group of immigrants as having a larger number of dangerous felons ...

Making fun of how people look ....

Playing the "Hormone Card" with Women ....

Allowing others to demonize Muslims 

as if they weren't Sons and Daughters of Mothers like the rest of us ...

Making fun of opponent's behaviors ...

... and maybe most difficult for me ...

Assuming people will accept his "Believe Me's" ... the last refuge of Teen-agers in trouble with their parents and scoundrels.

It was Bush I who used to speak of Kinder and Gentler Times. The Older I get? the more I wish for those times and the less do I believe that they will come. In the very end of Malachi, the depressed prophet described "The End of Days" when the hearts of the parents and children will be returned to each other and warns that if that doesn't occur, the peoples of the Earth are in Deep Shit! It's frankly embarrassing as an American to imagine that my country could be run by such people who pay no attention to how the Other feels about what is being said.

It's good to be invisible ... not one of the Coulter/Trump targets. Just a Citizen.

The Road Still Being Travelled

For some years, now, a swinging gate -- one that I had built and hung in 1982 -- has been doing more scraping on a wooden deck than swinging shut. I had the impulse to rehang it, yesterday. I did just that, in spite of the Mosquitoes, and M's quiet warning that my heart had been erratic for several hours. I had the impulse right after my youngest grand-spawn's Sixth Birthday. It is now well hung and exquisitely tensioned for just-so shutting ... and does. Just before I played at being a carpenter, M and I had come home from "the kid and the cake." Two other Grands were there and four of my "nexts." Three Grands were missing ... ... one at school and two at home somewhat far away. Tomorrow which has become today is a holiday in the States.

The kid and I had had a water fight just the day before. She shot me with a garden hose. I shot her back. I think water fights and the game of catch are the two best things in the World. I wish all the World's refugees the opportunity to play these games without having to be concerned about their kids being shot ... or manhandled. But that's another story.

Another Grandma -- not M but one the other two noted Grands share with M and I -- reported an urge to -- with her foot that had migrated (with her) from So. Africa to Texas -- kick me into the pool. She and I have been in-laws for some 20 years ... not quite as long as the Not-Quite-Swinging Gate has been scraping on the wooden deck. I remembered as she threatened me when our kids were planning to marry and we sat about a restaurant table talking things over. She had noted, thinking about them moving in together:

J: Someone could get hurt.

I thought for just a moment and noted to J:

H: I'd like to make it clear that if someone gets hurt, 

my preference would be that it be your Son and not my Daughter.

In those days, poor J and her Husband's mouths would following such quips  drop open ... So. African propriety coming up against Brooklyn pragmatics. Nowadays J and her Hubbie have grown accustomed to my witticisms. Proof? ... this proper Capetown transplant is now imagining throwing me into a pool! Good for you, J!

But that's it, Howard. Blame it all on growing up in Brooklyn. 

Yesterday was a strange and wonderful day, in general. I had taken a new Yoga class in the morning. The instructor had asked if I recognized her. I didn't. She explained that many years ago she had come to my office for consultation -- once or twice, I suppose. My office has seen many come for brief stints ... and then leave. I no longer remember each person. In the years that my gate has been scraping along ... in the years since the Yoga Instructor had visited me ... in the years since J's Son and M and my Daughter began raising their own ... and, certainly, in the 50 years since M and I began raising our brood and swinging open and closed our own gates ... a whole lot has occurred. 

The First Three Quarters were quite full. The Fourth Quarter continues on its own yet to be determined path.

Today is a holiday in the States ... Labor Day. Maybe, I'll get to shoot the Littlest One once more with a hose. 

Cheers!

Sharing a "Better Said"

I always wanted to go to Iceland ... and ride a Harley through the Black Hills ... Don't suspect that I will ... I've tried to say such things in this Old Man  Blog but the following piece in the New York Times hits the mark for me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/opinion/sunday/the-summer-that-never-was.html?emc=edit_bg_20150901&nl=booming&nlid=15432467&_r=0

A Doctor, One Funeral and a Party

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The Doctor

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Went to see my Neurologist ... Nice guy ... did thorough exam. After 40 minutes:

"Let's check your memory and stuff."

"OK!"

The Doc who is not much younger than me -- maybe on the cusp of the Last Quarter -- went to get an ipad explaining that his medical group had developed a test and it was pretty good at finding evidence of Mild Neurocognitive Deficits ... stuff like not being able to retrieve names ... overly slow processing ... forgetting to unzip your pants zipper when appropriate ... etc.

So, he got his ipad ... messed around with it a bit ... and then admitted that he couldn't remember the password to get into the program. He walked around the halls asking others; nobody seemed to know. What to say?

The neuro-impaired leading the neuro-impaired.

In the end, he gave me a paper and pencil test and confirmed to his satisfaction that I was no more impaired than he. I think that may have been reassuring ... I'm just not certain! 

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

The Funeral

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I noted in our last dance that my friend Boris had died and M and I were going to the funeral. The Funeral? Actually, the Memorial Service; that is to say, Boris was not there. His wife and kids were greeting people as they arrived ... the deep sadness they felt was background ... perhaps to the thought that Boris hadn't suffered for long. "So good to see you!" His widow and kids spoke. His ex-doctoral students ... some 20 people received their PhD's under his direct guidance ... relatives, colleagues, friends. His wife, son and daughter kept it quite upbeat. The wife and a cousin filled in a bit of History ... one of those self-made cool histories.

Bori was born in Siberia in 1939. His Mom died when he was 8 months old and his Dad was killed fighting the invading Nazis when he was maybe 4. A cousin's family took him in and they and millions of others trapsed around Europe, until the war ended in 1945 when they bounced around in Displaced Persons Camps and finally arrived in the States (detroit) when Boris ... speaking neither English nor Russian ... was maybe 11 years old.

At that time, Boris was put in the First Grade ... taught himself English and managed to secure a PhD in Applied Statistics (I think) by the time he was 27 or something. The family talks were followed by Friends, Colleagues and especially his Students. Boris was a good friend, concerned guide, and rigorous Scholar. Lots of the people were obviously torn up by his sudden loss. His human impact on these people was right there ... tears ... expressions of deep loss.

M and I got into the roadster to drive to the family home for a short time; I needed to get back to the office. After some quiet and wiped tears, I suggested to M that I was not against her being devastated at my funeral ... lots of tears from her and the kids would be fine. There would be time for her to get back to life quickly. No "Burial at Ur," where the early anthropologist Wooley found that a great man had been buried with his wives and cattle. No. But in the days immediately following my death? lots of tears ... lots of tissues ... all that would be good.

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The Party

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That was Friday. Sunday was for us different. All but one of our Grandchildren would come to eat, be with each other and play in the pool, as many had done before ... 3 of their parents were there, too. Two of the parent-Gen were taking the sixth grandchild to school 300 miles off. She was missed by all. And my oldest son was rear-ended in his Porsche ... not a good day for him.

But the glee of the 5 grandchildren playing in the pool ... Grandpa tossing a number of them in.

Life is good.

Life is good. Sadness followed by glee followed by more sadness and glee. Crying and Laughing and Playing. Not holding back. Maybe the highpoint of the Sunny Day was the Littlest-of-the-Grandspawn's discovery of the Power of the Hose. Little Chloe, 6 years old next week, discovered that being the one with the hose gives you Power ... power over your big cousins and power over Grandpa. The look on a little kid's face when she has everybody's attention and her finger pressed against the trigger. Wow!

Hanging around for the Fourth Quarter has its advantages!

A Doctor, a Funeral and a Party! How much better can it get?