Keep the Faith!

I remember an adolescent/off-color joke. The Young Bull and the Old Bull are looking down from a hilltop onto the pasture, below. Young Bull opines: "Let's run down and hump that Cow." The Old Bull slowly gets moving, looks back and corrects: "Let's walk down and hump them all."

I know, I know. Bovine sexism is no better than any other type. And I am against sexism, age-ism, racism and and the acting-out of all other forms of nastiness to those who have done no harm ... those individuals, that is, that have chosen to do me or others gratuitous harm.  I have, however, been uncomfortable with policing language and, I suppose, tried to teach my children to measure the damage done rather than words, themselves. I admit it: I grew up in a religious home but on the streets of working-class neighborhoods and feel quite comfortable peppering my language with so-called curse words. Let me elaborate with examples ...

When my older kids were three and four in 1970, we lived in Nova Scotia and would travel to visit family in Rhode Island ... about a dozen hours away. These were the days when kids would lurk freely and untethered through the back area of station wagons and it was our habit to leave Nova Scotia around midnight with the kids sleeping in back and drive until the sun rose ... about half-way to Grandma and Grandpa's home in Maine. Sun-up? We'd stop at a truck-stop and have breakfast. So, there we were, surrounded by truckers ... and our younger child sits up in our booth -- rising to all three years of his height -- and announces:

When I get to Grandma's house, I'm not gonna say ... "Fuck, Shit, Forni-cake, ... "

Little kid went on with a list of the forbidden words to the roar of the beefy truckers ... Yeah! I think the little one got to "Motha-trucka," as well. I cannot recall feeling the least-bit uncomfortable. Words are words and even some actions are devoid of nastiness or aggression. I suspect it wasn't M who taught our kids that if you pulled off part of a straw's wrapper and blew on the exposed end, the wrapper could fly for "the whole nine yards" and that, damn-it, that was fun! 

And a quick second story. Our third child, born about a decade later, never cursed in front of Mom and Dad. After a while, it was beginning to be a bit annoying, continually hearing the word "shoot," when we damn-well knew "shit!" was intended. We finally took action:

"Next time you use the word "shoot," we're gonna wash your mouth out with soap."

We were successful, it would appear, as that child's kids feel quite comfortable speaking the King's English like the drivers who back their Lorreys up to the loading docks at Buckingham Palace and, chances are, like the Queen huh-self does when her Princely kids and grandkids get caught with their royal pants down.

On my way to my point: All this talk about not cow-towing to Political Correctness among the Republican candidates for the American Presidency is, indeed, a bunch of Young or Old Bull Shit -- you choose. For me, it's not about the words. I don't give Two-You-Name-Its about what you call me ... but, dammit, treat me kindly ... with respect ... with decency ... as a person in my own right. I have no difficulty with T-Rump using foul words ... but ridiculing McCain, Mexicans, Moslems, Fiorina, Jeb or W. Bush, Rubio, Cruz, Meghan Kelly, anyone's spouse, Women, in general, the President of the United States, ... and inciting others to ridicule or attack these same folk? That shit doesn't flush.

But now back to the Young Bull and the Old Bull. The media pundits are full of regret that they got it all wrong about this bombastic demagogue who keeps saying:

"I wouldn't say this person's a shit but some might ..."

and things of that ilk that are typical of school-yard bullies. But what makes any of these Young Media Types think that they did get it wrong when they predicted that T-Rump might be able to Get It Up and Keep It Up for quite some time ... maybe he Tweets every "Four Hours" to tell his Doctor that he's even surprising himself. But what makes anyone think that he could win the election. Even if 60% of the US of A thinks of themselves as Republicans, there are only roughly 40% of those who support this Clown and his Beastly Bravado. 40% of 60% is 24% ... 

No. I suspect the pundits got it right. A solid majority of Americans don't want decisions about their and their children and grandchildren's futures decided by this Fool with -- maybe, just maybe -- a goodly amount of Street Smarts and/or Business Savvy.

So ... Au Nom du GrandPere ... in the name of all those who are old enough to be called Grandma or Grandpa ... "Chill ... and let's walk down the hill and hump'em all!"

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

In the name of full-disclosure ... I think a lot of Bernie and of the wise Bird who landed on his Lectern ... like the Dove that showed up at the Ark's window to tell Ole Man Noah that the waters were receding. Keep the Faith, Baby!

Plain Old Fun

PLAIN-OLD-FUN

(noun)

1. 1:  that which provides amusement or enjoyment that's not too complicated and either has been around for a long time or is being practiced by someone in the Fourth Quarter of Life ... or both.
2. 2:  a mood for finding or making amusement that has been around for some-say too long a time (time-tested! 😴) or is being perpetrated by some Old Fart.
3. 3 :  derisive jest that's gettin' old 😆or is being carried out by someone Old Enough to Know Better.
4. 4:  quotidian excited activity or argument in a Nursing Home.
   Personally? I don't think we ever get too old to mess around -- take that, as you may and with reference to action in any room in your house that you choose! Hell! Write your own definitions, if you like. 
   I have known people who struggle with play. Once, M and I were eating dinner with a colleague who ordered a Vodka Martini with one olive. A few minutes later, the waiter reappeared with a highball glass filled with liquid, a charming little mixer-straw and two -- mind you, two -- green olives at the bottom.  He looked at it for just an extra second or two ... looked up at the waiter and articulated slow-and-clear:
   I distinctly remember asking YOU for ONE olive.How many DO YOU SEE?
   I'm confident that the smart-enough waiter recognizing a sphinctor magnum when he saw one -- one magnificent sphinctor and not more -- returned to his kitchen, stuck two fingers into the Martini, grabbing one olive and eating it, and then without hesitation spitting into the glass and returning it to my colleague, the diner.
   This past weekend was punctuated now and then by some such fussy Old Folk but largely was a joy. I had been asked by the kindly and intellectually interested editor  who had -- with an even touch -- shepherded the book to completion ... to talk to a distinguished audience of her colleagues in the Big City and to do a book-signing for the newly re-edited paperback version of a twenty year old work of mine. I was the Country Mouse (c'est moi) thrilled to be asked by the Big Ole City Mice (I think they're called rats, y'know!) to come and strut my stuff.
   Any case? I had a good time. My colleagues do tend to have some resistance to letting down their hair and having Plain-Old-Fun; as I said, they get fussy. Still, if pressed, some of them can reluctantly be encouraged to come along for a brief ride.  I began with a picture from the front cover, explaining that while it might be that some would think me the 
   model for either or both of the Michelangelo bodies presented, I assured them that that was not the case. The ideas for the book, I explained, percolated during a talk I was listening to in 1979 ... a mere 37 years ago ... and the hardcover first version appeared nearly 20 years ago. I got a couple-a snickers about the model-thing but no real laughter.
   Tough audience.
   Then, I went on to précis the central argument of the nearly 500 page book. In brief, it suggested that Freud had made parts of his sexual-theorie of neurosis a bit too specific. Socialization had to be more than, say, Peter Arno's view of the little boy -- one close to the memory that Freud reported in 1897 in a letter to a friend. He was traveling on a train from Leipzig to Vienna and saw "Matrem in Nudam." Gee, I said: "Freud saw his Mama in Latin." Just sayin'.
   
   Maybe a little titter from the distinguished audience.
   But when I began reporting how I had modified my own understanding of das keed's difficulties with Mama and Papa (again, I like Arno's take on the kid's difficulty conceptualizing sex, aggression and anxiety, in one mouthful); the audience got nervous.
   Curious how many members of the audience needed, at this point, to stress their own notions about how -- one could say -- a Martini should be garnished. One analyst kept repeating the words "Melanie Klein" ... another "Sigmund Freud" ... I hear "Laius" mentioned a bit too often, as well. These were like mantras ... or cheers in a Soccer Stadium ... this group promoting this team ... the other? another. I say:
   "Hey, youse Guys ... Don'tcha wanna get into my boat and row just a little bit with me?"
   At one point, I found myself like Nipper, the RCA Dog listening to the Voice of the Master with his/my head cocked and not really hearing the words. Then, I explained to them one addendum to my theory, namely and somewhat contrary to what one might expect in reading Freud: my colleagues historically seemed to have no problem with me and M mucking around in private but when I expressed my own ideas 37 years ago, damn-it-was that just about all the shit hit the fan. Whoa!
   Anyhow ... I was having Plain-Old-Fun and the City Mice seemed to wanna play fa'keeps. There were, indeed, exceptions ... as I noticed, particularly, the conference planner and editor and two quite brilliant speakers ... and Irishman and a Czech lady. Me, too. I suppose one doesn't write a 500 page book without a smidgeon of seriousness but, still and all, isn't there room left for Old Folk to skip down the street, or to still play catch with a ball or with ideas? What the hay! WTF!
   And what to say? Next day, M and I came back to Philadelphia ... Up in New Yawk, everybody's got a dog in just about every fight ... but credit to Howard? he got at least some of the Big Boys and Girls to let down some of their (remaining) hairs and play. 
   Good job, Howard!
   %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
   So, that's what happened when two Old Folks tried to play together in the City where the speed-limit on the sidewalks is "over 6 mph" (or get run-down), two eggs and toast cost $15 and $4.50 buys you yesterday's coffee in a paper cup in a cheap hotel! (I jest ... the audience was great even if they could be watertight ... like a clam's ass. ... ach du lieber ... The Fourth Quarter is, after all, known for its Gastro problems!)
   
   
   
   
   All this to say? We did have a good time.
   
   
   
   
   
   And, so it was that the two Country Mice went backto their Home in the Woods, in William Penn's Sylvan Green& Groaned and Kvetched Happily.
   (and for the moment) THAT'S ALL, FOLKS 
   
   

Limitations

A friend pointed out Willie Nelson's "Penis Poem," about which he notes:

"I've outlived my pecker."

He then goes on to elucidate the world about what does and what doesn't work in his pants at 75 years of age. Funny piece, I suppose. Worth a look-see.

I've been feeling tired ... Maybe, the title of this blog should be changed to "Napping in the Last Quarter" or, even: "Dragging my Ass in the Fourth Quarter."

Most days, I arise with a wish to play and a feeling that I can; not this morning. I laid in bed quite a while at a time long before GuntherDog was interested or willing to come downstairs for his morning toilet in the yard. I have a weekend coming up ... a talk ... a book-signing a hundred miles away ... hanging out with M ... meeting my Spawn und GrosseSpawn for brunch somewhere, also one hundred miles away. And I, once again, feel like Deflated Mouse and not at all like Strauss' Flying Bat ... der Fleiter Maus. Wondered if I haven't given too many people -- including myself -- the impression that I can do it all ... like the Ph**king Energizer Bunny! Fooling oneself is a dangerous thing. Frankly, I don't know how Old Man Bernie Sanders has kept it up (sorry for the pun, Mr. Nelson) for so long.

The Fourth Quarter is not necessarily dominated by no energy but is occasioned by low energy. There are two prayers in the faith tradition in which I grew that come to mind.

ברוך אתה ה׳ אלוקינו מלך העולם הנותן ליעף כוח

Blessed are you Ruler of the Universe who gives strength to the weary.

and

ברוך אתה ה׳ אלוקינו מלך העולם שהחיינו וקימנו לזמן הזה.

Blessed are you Ruler of the Universe who has livened us up 

and kept us standing erect and helped us reach this time day.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Porky Pig repeatedly opined: "Th---at's all, folks" ... at least for today.

And the Seasons They Go Round & Round

Joni Mitchell, as I recall, stopped discussing those Seasons after 20 years of age ... so much, indeed, does occur in those 20 or so years during which time we're learning that we can pretty-well figure out what we need to figure out. At the close of High School (I'm so glad I never graduated), lots of kids take on the patina of those dances we observed in Mom and Dad. Some kids go to actual dances, to Proms ... Gowns and Tuxes, Corsages and Boutonnières, drunk and out till dawn  ... just like Mom and Dad, or, at least, as their Mom and Dad may have dressed up in their costumes.

I suppose the next Quarter of Life's Circle Game, as she called this progression of stages, is spent in actualizing those things that we figured out or thought we had in the earlier one. We build our little fortresses and some of us have babies. Oftentimes, things go pretty smoothly. Kids until the age of 5 or 6 can be picked up by their pants-belt and carried off from protestations about not wanting to leave Grandma's house or not ready to leave their play ... outside ... in inside play-areas ... or on the beach. M and my first two kids were less than a year and a half apart and I must've felt pretty darn cool to be able to carry them off the beach, together.

Sometime during our Third Quarters they begin leaving and proceeding in their own Circle Games. Nasties trick of Creation? They do that just as we're losing our parents ... we begin to or actually say good-bye on both ends ... to the totable kids and to the parents we carry in their repose. Indeed Khalil Gibran was on the cusp of the Second Quarter yielding to the Third when he wrote his piece on ... or made peace with ... the Children he apparently never had.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, 

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, 

and He bends you with His might 

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, 

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

I woke up, as I have so many times in the past 30 or so years, thinking of my role as a Father. How many songs have been written since Malachi suggested that the Messianic Days for which he longed were dominated by his God's ability "to return the hearts of the parents onto their children and the hearts of those children onto their parents." I think it was the mystics of Bobov who put Malachi's closing words to an intoxicating song. Indeed, I recall being intoxicated on more than one occasion as a young man singing and dancing to those lyrics. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young asked that we Teach Our Children Well and Tim Hardin -- the guy who Bob Dylan called the best of the songwriters of that era bemoaned the fact in a song whose title has been lost to the Fog of Middle Age that what the Father feared most was that he would repeat precisely what he, himself, had done as a youth.

Song after song confirms that belief that we cannot know or appreciate our children's lives. I was reminding one of my middle-aged kids of a conversation we had had 33 years ago. He walked in the front door ... I was sitting and reading in the next room during an afternoon break in my work. I offered up: 

"Hey, how was school."

His response was pithy and to the point:

"Don't gimme any of that psychoanalytic bullshit."

There is, I suppose, in each generation a certain sense that we took ethics and values, wit and wisdom, decency and tolerance ... to their final and finished form. Dammit ... We got it figured out. We were strong, like T-Rex. We knew just about all there was to know like my friend T-Ruth. And we were about as vile as T-Rump. And we had it all figured out, solved, and tied in a bow and then our kids hit puberty ... puberty hits back ... and we get force-fed a dose of our own limitations and a spoonful of humility.

Two brothers I knew and admired ... two psychoanalysts ... both dead, now ... Harold and Abe Feldman each told me (they didn't talk much to each other when I knew them) that one of their Dad's favorite expressions was:

"In this World, y'gotta take your medicine 

but y'don't gotta lick the spoon."

Joni Mitchell, again ... ".... and the Seasons, they go round and round and the painted ponies go up and down ... we're captured on a carousel of time!" I wish my kids an easy trek through the late adolescences of their kids ... through the years of Pubic Shock and Awe!

With love ... 

On the Exquisite Sensitivity of The Last Quarter

I -- with great fondness -- recall my friend E. He died when he was in his mid-90's -- not all that many years ago. E and I met on my first day of psychoanalytic training. He was in his late 50's or early 60's and the oldest person in the class; I was in my 20's, still, and the youngest. We had little superficially in common. His two kids were my age, already, or nearly so. Our third wouldn't be born for a year and our older kids were 8 and 9. Funny, as I begin to put the picture together and realize that the older one of M and my kids is 50, now, I realize that this was 41 years ago.

E and I became friends and years later, after he had already retired, we were still doing lunch, together. In his late 80's, he would drive to whatever restaurant we had agreed upon. Then, his kids coaxed him into giving up his ten year old unmarred car to one of his grand-daughters who was struggling to get life together. In his remaining years, he mourned the car lost to late-adolescent "it wasn't my fault ... the cop-car hit me." Come to think of it, neither of my older kids ever had an accident that was their fault. One car was hit by a police van, in another "it wasn't my fault" mishap his grandma's car was assaulted by a pregnant woman who was driving too fast, and, in still another, my Citroen SM was driven off the road by one of the Rough Riders.

Ah, but back to the restaurants. It was at least on a number of occasions that E would order a sandwich and coffee. If the waiter could divine the future, he would've always brought the coffee, first, for, when he did, he would get cut a new one by E for being so stupid as to bring the coffee first. Not so bad, as on each occasion, I would excuse myself for a moment, find the waiter and slip them a fiver while apologizing for my friend's rudeness. E was -- even later in his 90's -- among the brightest people I had known but still, had he a cane, he woulda been one of those cane-shaking old men criticizing a perennially young World that was leaving him behind ... leaving him behind at something like Mach II. 

...........

Truth be told? I should get me a cane, just as E shoulda. This election year, I feel particularly sensitive. Each time one of the candidates for the American Presidency accuses another of voting for something that was part of a larger legislative bill that they felt compelled to vote for or, alternatively,  of voting against something that was packed into a larger bill which most good-willed folk might feel obligated to block, I want to shake my Grandfather's cane and scream at the accuser. Each and every time I hear a candidate misrepresent another's behavior, I feel -- even if quietly -- enraged. I tell myself that the USA could solve its debt problem if tickets were sold for public beatings of politicians who misrepresented to the American public. Yrs, indeed. This Old Guy would pay to watch the misrepresenter get his or her ass whipped!

Maybe, as a younger man, I would have shrugged off such politics ... well ... to politics. As the shadows grow longer, I feel more and more sensitive to the quotidian sins of the World. And more generally, when any A asks whomever B a simple question and B tries to bite-off A's head -- especially, if I'm A -- I get really pissed inside. Maybe Playing in the Last Quarter is closer in levels of sensitivity to being a child ... vulnerable and at least a bit  more needy than once-upon-another-time in the First Three Quarters.

Crotchety is another way of saying Sensitive, I suppose.

"On the Rivers of Babel" ... We Wept

Oh, my Lord, what of "The City on the Hill?" What of the dreams we never let go of after the Civil Rights movement?  How can it be that playground bullies are sought out ... guttersnipes and confabulators/prevaricators are followed? "How shall we sing the song of the Lord on foreign soil?" Indeed, how? Waking up to the Primary Election results here in the USA ... Oh, my! My generation of Fourth Quarter types? Many of us mourn, this morning!                               Psalm 137 1By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, we also wept when we remembered Zion.		אעַל נַהֲרוֹת | בָּבֶל שָׁם יָשַׁבְנוּ גַּם בָּכִינוּ בְּזָכְרֵנוּ אֶת צִיּוֹן:
2On willows in its midst we hung our harps.		בעַל עֲרָבִים בְּתוֹכָהּ תָּלִינוּ כִּנֹּרוֹתֵינוּ:
3For there our captors asked us for words of song and our tormentors [asked of us] mirth, "Sing for us of the song of Zion."		גכִּי שָׁם שְׁאֵלוּנוּ שׁוֹבֵינוּ דִּבְרֵי שִׁיר וְתוֹלָלֵינוּ שִׂמְחָה שִׁירוּ לָנוּ מִשִּׁיר צִיּוֹן:
4"How shall we sing the song of the Lord on foreign soil?"		דאֵיךְ נָשִׁיר אֶת שִׁיר יְהֹוָה עַל אַדְמַת נֵכָר:
5If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget [its skill].		האִם אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלִָם תִּשְׁכַּח יְמִינִי:
6May my tongue cling to my palate, if I do not remember you, if I do not bring up Jerusalem at the beginning of my joy.		ותִּדְבַּק לְשׁוֹנִי | לְחִכִּי אִם לֹא אֶזְכְּרֵכִי אִם לֹא אַעֲלֶה אֶת יְרוּשָׁלִַם עַל רֹאשׁ שִׂמְחָתִי:
7Remember, O Lord, for the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem, those who say, "Raze it, raze it, down to its foundation!"		זזְכֹר יְהֹוָה | לִבְנֵי אֱדוֹם אֵת יוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם הָאֹמְרִים עָרוּ | עָרוּ עַד הַיְסוֹד בָּהּ:
8O Daughter of Babylon, who is destined to be plundered, praiseworthy is he who repays you your recompense that you have done to us.		חבַּת בָּבֶל הַשְּׁדוּדָה אַשְׁרֵי שֶׁיְשַׁלֶּם לָךְ אֶת גְּמוּלֵךְ שֶׁגָּמַלְתְּ לָנוּ:
9Praiseworthy is he who will take and dash your infants against the rock.		טאַשְׁרֵי | שֶׁיֹּאחֵז וְנִפֵּץ אֶת עֹלָלַיִךְ אֶל הַסָּלַע: