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.
Crotchety is another way of saying Sensitive, I suppose.
