Uncategorized Archives : Page 20 of 25 : The Aging of Aquarius

The loving “ism”

Racism; deplorable. Sexism; unacceptable.

Ageism; adorable.

I recently annoyed some friends in an email chat group by expressing my irritation at the proliferation of jokes about old people. They think I’m overreacting. It’s no big deal, people have always made fun of old folks, right?

People still tell race jokes, too, but at least we know that’s disrespectful and wrong.

Look at what I just found at a website called “Old People Are Funny.”

If an old man falling on an escalator is funny to you, go ahead and close this window and go to that site, instead. It’s a damned giggle fest.

Black birthday balloons! Hoo-hah, how funny is that?

Look, I know it’s mostly in good, innocent fun and we should always, at all ages, be able to laugh at ourselves. It’s not that. No, what gripes me is the fact that many people, maybe all of us eventually, buy into the notion that getting old means we’ll be doddering, slobbering, laughable old fools. So, we simply assume the role, sit down in the rocking chair and watch the world pass by without so much as waving to it.

The jokes take us by the hand and lead us there

And, it’s not even the jokes that bother me as much as the allusions to how “cute” old people are.

I just received an email that had a link to a video of an elderly man and his wife playing the piano together. They weren’t doing anything amazing. They weren’t playing Flight of the Bumblee in rounds and different, harmonic keys. They weren’t playing the notes with their noses, toes, elbows and tongues. They were just playing a little tune together. Isn’t that cute!?

Why? What’s cute about it? If these people were in their thirties or forties instead of their eighties it wouldn’t be adorable. Nobody would have turned a camera on them in the first place.

I simply think we should treat old people the same way they were treated when they were young adults and middle-aged. Give them the same respect we afford people we take more seriously. Judge them by the content of their character and the wisdom of their years rather than the number of them.

And, by God, when an old person is being a pain in the ass, unload on ’em! Don’t give them a pass because of age.

It’s hard to text a sigh.

I know I’m being silly. Well, I don’t think it’s silly but I know a lot of people do. And certainly, part of my concern is personal and yes, I am offended at the idea I will soon be marginalized by stereotypes. Please don’t ever refer to me as a “senior citizen” or some other gentle euphemism. I will simply be old and wear my age as a badge of achievment, thank you.

I will laugh, I’ll converse as intelligently as I’m able and I’ll keep writing as long as I can. But I won’t be cute, okay?

Old dog, new economy

I’ve been spoiled my whole life. Never been poor.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of, no more than being poor is. It is simply our circumstance for a million reasons, including dumb luck – good, tragic or in-between. I’ve never been truly wealthy but until very recently I never had to pinch pennies, either.

And, brother, I did not!

About a year ago I lost my job and spent three months collecting unemployment checks. It put a temporary dent in our lifestyle and knocked a huge hole in my self-esteem which we won’t deal with in this report.

(You’re welcome.)

I did eventually get a new job but at just 25% the salary I had been used to for the past twenty years or so. 25%! Now we’re talking lifestyle dents Geico would just write off as a total loss.

And then — this is the really funny part, the Oliver Hardy-like, slap-yourself-in-the-face consternation moment — I recently lost that new job, got yet another, newer one, and am earning yet less!

Isn’t that a hoot!?

I just bought a big bag of dry kidney beans.

Dry kidney beans will be the metaphor for this epiphany and maybe my entire life.

When my best high school buddy, Ray Hunter, and I moved into our first apartment in 1969 we went to the grocery store and bought a lot of stuff we didn’t know how to prepare, including a big bag of dry kidney beans. Ray’s mom always had some so we considered it a mysterious staple, a necessity. We also bought two steaks to celebrate our new independence and our first meal in our shared home.

We bought chuck steaks and tried to fry them.

Since that glorious, giddy evening at Albertson’s forty years ago I have never again purchased dry beans or chuck steak. I figured they were a terrific waste of money.

And now, at 58, I’ve learned something drop-jaw amazing:

Did you know kidney beans in the can cost more than twice as much as if you’re willing to buy them in a bag and simply soak them in water overnight?

I know a lot of things about a lot of things but that’s something I didn’t learn until today. More to the point, though, is that even if I had known that, until now it wouldn’t have mattered a — well… a hill of beans to me.

I recently bought the Albertson’s generic-brand of Grape Nuts® and it was three dollars less than the same size Post® brand box! THREE DOLLARS SAVINGS ON A SINGLE BOX OF CEREAL!

For the first time in my adult life there is no such thing as “junk mail.”

I anticipate the daily arrival of retail coupons and supermarket ads as if they were Christmas cards or love letters!

I’ve learned to make beef jerky for our dogs in the kitchen rather than spend twenty bucks for it at the pet store!

The crockpot is my best friend!

Somebody stop me before I buy a Flowbee® and start cutting my own hair!

Saving money is wildly fun!

I’m clipping coupons, I’m rifling through cookbooks I’ve never opened, exorcizing all references to specific brands.

Bless me and yet save me, I am a born-again-for-the-first-time penny pincher!

And I promise —

…I swear to you!…

— when I start turning my underwear inside out I will seek help.

A child for life

Late on Christmas Eve my grandson spotted an intruder in our home.

I suppose intruder isn’t exactly the right word since this old man was welcome and expected. Still, we never know what time he will arrive and he never bothers to knock on the door or announce himself.

Isaiah was awakened by his dad about 11:30. They crept silently down the stairs and peeked around the corner into the parlor.

And, there he was! The man who keeps us tethered securely to our childhood sense of miracles, joy and wonder.

As we watch helplessly, first our children and then theirs grow inexorably closer to grownup problems and occasional tragedy. We want nothing more than to hold them on our laps, suspended in time forever, but they just won’t sit still.

Some may argue that showing a child Santa Claus in his own home is an artful deceit that grooms him for disappointment. I beg to differ.

I never saw Santa in our house but he always came. I believe in him with all my heart.

On cold December nights I would perch in my bedroom window and scan the sky for a flying sleigh pulled by magical reindeer. I was no fool, even at seven or eight. But I believed it was possible to see Santa on his journey because I wanted to believe.

To this day I look at the sky every Christmas Eve and wonder where the old elf is at that moment. And while I’m looking for him I see something else, something I see nearly every night of my life and yet rarely notice.

I see the heavens.

All of God’s stars are there and somewhere among them is the One that made all this childhood joy possible and ageless.

And every Christmas Eve I am a child again. A child for life. And so shall my children be thanks to the miracle of one night every year.

Dearest family and friends,

So many of you have warmed our hearts and graced our home with your beautiful Christmas cards, family photos, personal notes and newsletters over the past couple of weeks I confess I have been enjoying them with a dollop of guilt.

It has been a tough year for Carolann and me financially and nothing stresses the heart and soul more than worrying about how to buy food, juggle the bills and remain employed with some degree of security.

And, most importantly, to always wear the infectious, beaming, loving smile our loved ones richly deserve.

I don’t want to belabor the subject or start whining. Good grief, I have riches a kingdom couldn’t buy: good health, honest love, and many hearts happy to see me waddling down a sidewalk or hallway in approach with my Popeye-squinty smile.

Carolann, of course, lights every room and heart she enters, and she bursts into them all.

So, I hope it’s a small comfort to you to know that we are digging deep to get ourselves out of relatively modest debts with our modest incomes.

I’m not quite “pushing sixty” yet but I am pulling fifty and we want to retire eventually. We’re trimming our sails, even to the point of cutting out 44-cents stamps.

This is your Christmas card.

We hope you’re not offended that you can’t hold it in your hand or tape it over your fireplace.

We love buying, wrapping and giving gifts and cards as much as anybody. But, for now we hope you’ll read this and know it serves as a personal prayer from Carolann and me to each of you:

Bless you and yours. And please know that you have all our love for these sacred holidays and the new year to come.

God bless us, every one!

Dave and Carolann

Things you’ll remember: Part Two

Nothing lasts forever. Except, perhaps, forever.

Before I got onto that honey bee tangent I was talking about the things from our lives which are rapidly passing into memory. And, in a mere generation even the memory will be gone.

Technology does that. It creates new ways of doing old things and mind-blowing new things most of us could never imagine. That’s cool stuff but what’s even better, I think, is that technology sweeps us all forward in a stream, rushing past ever-changing landscapes.

Take my profession, for example: broadcasting. It is rapidly become anachronistic.

For my forty years of experience and supposed expertise I can’t for a minute understand why music radio stations still exist. Who needs them? The human factor, camaraderie and entertainment, were distilled from them years ago. Now we’re left with mostly mindless jukeboxes that play songs they merely guess we might like to hear (and commercials they know damned well we don’t want to hear.) The fact that we all carry our own radio stations containing thousands of songs of our own selection in a device the size of a matchbox seems to have been missed entirely by my industry.

Talk radio is still viable but only because there is money yet to be made in it, which soon won’t be the case because technology has given everybody a pulpit: a microphone, a web cam, a podcast and a blog.

I am a lamplighter in the twenty-first century.

Luckily for me, I am approaching retirement age. My younger colleagues need to get scrambling to learn new ways to earn a living. And honestly, as much as I have loved my career I won’t bemoan its passing. That’s the way things work in a world driven by creative human ingenuity. We dream, we strive, we achieve; we move down that stream.

Last week Carolann, our seven-year-old grandson, Isaiah, and I were singing along with Christmas songs on the car radio. When Feliz Navidad came on we all had a bit of trouble remembering the lyrics. (That’s pretty funny considering there are literally just six words in that song plus a seven-word English translation.) Specifically, we were all butchering “Prospero Año y Felicidad.” When the song ended Carolann was repeating the words aloud so that she might remember that new year greeting en español. But Isaiah had a simple solution:

“Play it again, Nana.”

He couldn’t imagine a device that played a song one time, and one time only.

Goodbye, radio.

Things you’ll remember: Part One

I just read an amazing article about the Top 25 Things Vanishing From America.

Some of them are obvious: fax machines, homes without cable TV, drive-in theaters, etc. These are mostly gadgets and ways of doing things that technological advancements have improved into oblivion.

Pit toilets is on the list. I won’t miss those, will you?

Other things on the list will be certainly missed by those of us over fifty who will soon bore our grandkids with wistful reminiscences that begin, “When I was a boy…” These include newspapers, magazines, barbecue charcoal and the family farm.

Kiss ’em goodbye.

The decline of the worldwide honey bee population is the one that startles me the most. Imagine one-third of all humans disappearing from the face of the Earth in just the past sixteen months. It sounds like the plot of a science fiction horror flick but that’s exactly what has happened to honey bees, apparently.

When I was a boy…

…we feared for our bare feet in suburban lawns, parks and playgrounds that were all infested by hundreds of the vicious, stinging insects toiling in the white clover.

They were everywhere, remember? Who didn’t get stung at least once every summer? Who among us didn’t capture them in jars we prepared with fresh grass and flower buds for their enjoyment?

Your grandkids will probably never do that. Very likely they’ll never be stung by a bee. Their kids may never even see one.

I’m sure technology will find a way to compensate agricultural industries for the loss of the honey bee. But I think it’s very sad, just the same.

When a bee stung us we cried because it hurt, but a large part of the pain was in knowing that while we would survive in discomfort to eventual full recovery the bee, itself, would die from its defensive attack.

That’s a metaphor our grandkids really need.

Up on the housetop reindeer pause…

(This is a re-print of my blog of two years ago. It’s a warning I issue to friends and strangers alike every year at this time. Please take heed. Stay off the roof!)

December 8th is an anniversary for me. This year it will mark nineteen years since the day I fell off the roof of our house while putting up Christmas lights.

I only fell eight or ten feet and I managed my fall. Knowing that I couldn’t prevent it I intentionally jumped and hit the ground with a tuck and roll strategy to minimize the damage. I shattered nearly every bone in both heels and ankles. After five hours of reconstructive surgery I spent a week in a hospital. I was in a wheelchair for the next three months while receiving painful physical therapy three times a week. And now, nineteen years later, I still walk with a noticeable limp and am in constant pain. If I spend a full day on my feet for some special occasion — a family outing at Disneyland, for example — the pain can be so excruciating I can’t sleep. On my best days it’s just a constant, nagging reminder of one really bad decision I made a couple of decades ago.

And I’m the lucky one. I could have easily broken my neck or back and been in that wheelchair for life, paralyzed from the waist down. I could have died. People do, even from a fall of just eight feet. The doctors at the ER told me ‘tis the season. They get many such cases every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And there is one thing all of us have in common: We’re all, every one of us, smarter than the fools who will take a tumble.

Absolutely none of us think we might fall off the roof when we go up there. I know you. You don’t think so, either. You’ll be more careful than I was. “Thanks for the heads up!” you’re thinking.

That was my attitude, too.

That morning, December 8, 1990, Carolann phoned me from a friend’s house to say she saw a sign in our neighborhood for a guy who would put up Christmas lights for $20 but I said, “Oh, no. It’s my job. I’m the dad!” It cost me thirty THOUSAND dollars and a lifetime of constant pain to put the lights up that year.

And there are the dreams.

You have occasional dreams of being able to fly? I have frequent dreams of being able to run again, to run like the wind in a baseball outfield as I did when I was young or just to chase after my grandsons at my current age. I can’t do that. I have to call after them and hope they run back to me.

All for the sake of Christmas lights.

I met my wife when we were teammates on a competition dance team. I haven’t been able to dance with her for nineteen years now. Oh, we can slow dance but we can’t do the show-off stuff, the fun spins and fancy twirls that brought us together in the first place.

Thanks to those damned Christmas lights.

Frankly, I get tired of telling this story so I’m not putting much effort into it. Some of you have no plans to go on the roof so it doesn’t matter. The rest of you are going up on the roof no matter what I say.

Personally, I’m not going to fall off anything higher than a bed or a barstool from here on out. You all do what you like.

I really hope you have a wonderful holiday season. I mean that sincerely.

Merry Christmas; Happy Hannukah…

Advanced parenting

My son Jeremy stopped by yesterday and today at our request for assistance.

He’s almost thirty-three years old. He’s a husband and dad, he’s got a degree in mechanical engineering from Cal Poly and years of experience as a professional theater technical director. He’s a former Disney Imagineer and is currently a lighting and special effects specialist for the Disneyland Hotel.

I, on the other hand, am the unanimously acknowledged mechanical idiot of the family. Give me a picture of a hammer and three to five minutes of non-pressured peace and quiet and I’ll give you a fifty-fifty chance of correctly selecting the business end of the hammer.

I’m a smart guy. When I was eighteen, forty years ago, I tested for entry into the Air Force and scored above 95% on all areas except mechanical. I got 65% on that one and believe me, it wasn’t much tougher than the hammer problem.

All we needed Jeremy to do was install a new garbage disposal and help Carolann with her Christmas decorations and tree lighting. (Yes, we start early. Don’t bug me about that. We like Christmas.)

And so, he did.

While Jeremy lay under our sink with a crescent wrench (I’m just making up these tool-thingy details, you know,) I sat on the floor and talked just to keep him company. When he put the lights on Carolann’s Christmas tree we listened to the Beatles’ Abbey Road album together and discussed the group’s history, strength and weaknesses.

During the Beatles Anthology early years recordings, I scrubbed the kitchen with bleach and ammonia.

When the work came to an end and he had to leave we hugged and smiled, having enjoyed a special father-son day of doing chores together. Except now, in some ways which don’t bother me in the least, my son is my dad and I am his son.

What goes around comes around and when you still enjoy each other’s company there’s no need for defining roles.

Dad; Son.

We know who we are.

Where’s my TV Guide?

I suppose this falls into the category of not appreciating the marvels of modern technology just as we all curse the microwave from time to time for making us wait four minutes to do what it took our moms all day to do. But, dammit, I want to know where my TV shows are and when they start again and why they just up and disappear for six months at a time after only four new episodes!

Back in the days of three networks and your fuzzy, local “educational channel” The New Fall Season was an exciting part of autumn that sort of made up for having to go back to school. All the new exciting shows and new episodes of our old favorites splashed across our snowy black and white screens one after another all on the same week!

Now it seems that shows come and go like unexpected guests. When I find one I really like it disappears and I don’t know if it’s gone for good or if it’s just on “hiatus” and will pop back up in January after I’ve forgotten what it was all about.

And, that’s another thing… Why all the serial dramas? If you don’t see the very first episode and be sure to watch them all in order you can’t figure out what’s going on except that everybody in the show and everybody else who watches it is keeping some big secrets from you. It’s like walking into a movie theater ten minutes late and missing the exposition.

I know, I know…

Unlike my “good old days” I’m not only watching TV in glorious, High Definition, forty-seven inches of vivid color, I have three hundred channels from which to choose and a wonderful machine that lets me watch whatever I want whenever I want and skip all the commercials.

I just want to know what happened to Men In Trees.

Spontaneous felicity

There is nothing in life more exciting than impulsive action.

It’s that phone call you get on a dull Saturday afternoon from a good friend directing you to “grab a toothbrush and a clean shirt, we’re headed to Tahoe to raise a little hell!”

It’s deciding to call a few people and tell them to come on over right now because you’re going to grill some meat and make some margaritas.

It’s deciding to go east instead of north.

When our boys were still young Carolann and I took them on a cruise. That’s a pretty exciting vacation for an eight and twelve year-old. But when we returned to port in Los Angeles after a week of great food and fun on the Mexican Riviera the letdown was palpable in all of us. We were happy, just not ready to end the vacation. Not quite. So, rather than drive straight home to Sacramento as planned we decided to take the boys to Disneyland as long as we were in Southern California anyway.

Off we went!

That evening in our motel room, as we tucked our happy, tired boys into bed, that letdown feeling started to return. I picked up a map and looked at it for a couple of minutes.

“You know,” I told my wife, “the Grand Canyon is only four hundred miles from here.” And that’s where we spent the next night.

Carolann and I have done this at least three times. We’re great vacationers. We’re just not good at ending them.

Once we were sitting in the Honolulu airport waiting to board our return flight. When the announcement came that the flight would be delayed we took it as an omen, blew off the reservation, phoned work and told them I’d need another couple of days and then we left the airport for another day and evening in paradise.

Another time it was a driving vacation that took us to Idaho, then north to the fabulous Canadian Rockies and across to Vancouver. On schedule to return home in time to go back to work in two days, we suddenly headed west instead of south because driving the Oregon and California coastline is so much nicer than I-5. And it added a couple of impulse days to our vacation.

The luxury in spontaneity is in breaking schedules and commitments. It is reminding yourself that you are free to do as you please whenever you wish.

It has been too long. I’m ready to do something impulsive again.

The problem is, you can’t plan to be spontaneous.