Getting Old

 It seems the older I become, the more folks around me keep croaking. I keep seeing pictures and notices in newspapers, or on TV of people whose names I know and who just croaked, and virtually all of them are younger than me.  The latest person was Mark Shields. From Wiki:

“Mark Stephen Shields (May 25, 1937 – June 18, 2022) was an American political columnist, advisor, and commentator. He worked in leadership positions for many Democratic candidates' electoral campaigns.

Shields provided weekly political analysis and commentary for the PBS NewsHour from 1988 to 2020. His on-screen counterpart from 2001 to 2020 was David Brooks of The New York Times. Previous counterparts were the late William Safire, Paul Gigot of The Wall Street Journal, and David Gergen. Shields was also a regular panelist on Inside Washington, a weekly public affairs show that was seen on both PBS and ABC until it ceased production in December 2013. Shields was moderator and panelist on CNN's Capital Gang for 17 years.”

I know, I know, folks are dying all around us, each and every day. So, what’s new?  Well, it’s not new, or even “news”. It’s just that, as noted I’m old and it seems that everyone I know is just slipping away. Happily, it’s mostly old doofuses like me.  But, more often than not, it’s someone I liked, Like Shields, one of the good guys of this world. Each time, I think, so why doesn’t Putin kick off, or even Trump, you know, some Mafia gangsta’s of the world. But no, they seem to hang around. Although, to be fair, there are at least rumors that Putin may have some disease that is life threatening. Hmmm, sounds promising.

On the whole, I feel reasonably good for a really old fool. I’m not really sure how the hell I got here. I keep thinking about playing hide and seek on 71^st Street near Second Avenue when I was 7 or 8. Yeah, I played on the streets of New York. It’s what we all did.  Here’s me by an apartment house on 72nd Street when I was about 6. See, I was young at some stage.

And we used to play in Central Park, which was only a few blocks away.

And then, we moved away, cuz my mum was afraid that my bro and I would get killed playing on the streets of Manhattan.  He did get hit by a truck one day and had to be hauled off to the hospital, and I was always doing something that required a cast or stitches.

But those were the days of World War II. And that horror story used to get reported on our radio, to which I listened even though pretty little.

And I grew up and I went off to college, and then got married, and then off to my working career in aerospace, and then, for heaven’s sake India for four years.

And then life went on until I retired and moved here to North Carolina and began aging seriously. See you don’t actually begin aging seriously until after you retire. Then, I guess it’s a mind game. When your brain begins to understand that you no longer play a serious role in the affairs of the world each day (inventing new computers, or selling coffee and donuts at the corner store, it doesn’t matter), then your brain decides it’s time to retire, so you begin “aging”.  And the aging thing continues as a mild change each year, hardly noticeable, unless someone hasn’t seen you in a while.  And at some point, I began to understand that I was now past the age of everyone in my family—grands, parents, aunts and uncles, siblings, even cousins, all disappeared into the netherworld.  Now, happily, I also began seeing stories about folks who were 10-25 years older and still truck’n on. That’s nice.

But then the aging thing began merging with the day’s politics. Trump showed up in America, and my world began changing.  And not only politics, but climate change began interfering. And I began thinking, so will climate change destroy our world, or will the Trump forces destroy America first? See, I have inadequate mental reserves to deal with crap like Trump and global climate change.  But what little I have left suspects that Trump is actually the greater threat to America and, therefore, to the ones I love.

I am having increasing difficulty even understanding what I hear and read about how Trump closed out his tenure by trying to destroy America, and how he is actually continuing on his path of destruction. He supports political candidates for various state offices, including that odd one—the Secretary of State. I never thought about that one, until I began to understand that those folks, if corrupt enough, could well change an election by screwing with the actual votes.

And the worse Trump looks from all the Congressional testimony into the January 6^th Trump insurrection efforts, the more his supporters seem to love him. Imagine, after all you have heard, that folks actually contributed $250 million into a fake Trump political fund. Really??? You are that stupid??? And the answer is, YES, they are that stupid.

And now I find myself day-dreaming about what I would do were I 30 again.  And my answer? Well, it’s simple, I would migrate somewhere, maybe New Zealand—they seem to have an intelligent ethical political leader. Course, so does Canada, but I’m not sure Canada would welcome Americans. How smart are we, after all? We elected Donald Trump—think 1936 Germany. But I’m not 30 again. And so, I am not migrating anywhere—and the world breathes a sigh of relief.

But I await each day with some trepidation. What will republicans do today in their quest to destroy America? And I used to think Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon were awful. By comparison, they were saints, although Reagan may have been the one who let all the crazies out of their closets.  Who knows?? The Shadow knows!

And so, each day keeps arriving, and I keep getting older, and Trump keeps getting worse, and our American system of governance seems more at risk. My answer to all such problems is to let the people VOTE.  But now, with the crazed Trumpies out there, I am no longer sure.  Still, please, all you civilized Americans, do go out and VOTE when it is your turn. We will still hope for the best, and who knows, maybe I will still be here to observe the outcome.