To Old to Run?

Increasingly, I find myself reading about someone or something that has quit working, or just croaked.  And then, upon checking, it turns out they/it was younger than me.  For example, Gordon Lightfoot, the amazing singer-songwriter, just died at the age of 84 of “natural causes”.  To be fair, some folks have been croaking at well past my age of 88. But, many/most are younger.

We attended a party the other day, and, as we were sitting and chatting, someone asked, “So, how long have you been married?”  And I replied. “Coming up on 68 years this July.” And she looked baffled and said, while laughing, “So, what, you were 3 when you got married?” And then we all laughed. See, nobody else in the group was past maybe their mid-50s.

88?? Who in the hell is 88 and still wandering around, drinking wine and still driving home? It doesn’t even seem right to me.  I mean, I don’t feel like I’m in my 30’s or 40’s, but 88? Nah!.

Now we do know folks who are older. We have a friend, Sidney Tynan, who lives in Rhode Island by herself at the tender age of (almost) 102.  And she still writes a monthly paper called her “Country Newsletter”.  We knew Sidney from our days spent in India during the mid-1960s. And we have remained friends.  And we have another friend from India, now in his 90s, who lives in Florida and still works with his artist wife. And then, we have our friend who lives in Australia and who worked in India with us. He is just 4 months older, but he always makes believe he is younger.

So what does it feel like to be 88? Well, it really is just one day at a time. Mostly, one day resembles the other. Oh we have some variation. We both go to work out three days a week.  And we go out to shop on Fridays and Saturdays (the latter to a local Farmers Market). And Carol works with our local Literacy Council teaching folks to speak better English.  And then Carol spends a lot of her time making quilts for sick kids at our local children’s hospital.  Me?? I don’t do too much. I write this piece occasionally and I play around with vaguely artsy creations. I used to appear at local Art Walks, but they kind of died out during COVID.  Yeah, COVID killed off some nice affairs.  So I find myself reading a bit more and playing on Facebook and Instagram. No, I don’t do Twitter—too mindless, even for me.

One thing I am finding increasingly, is my impatience with Republicans. I cannot believe that I actually voted for a republican for my first vote—Dwight Eisenhower instead of Adlai Stevenson.  But now, I look at almost all republicans and think, Oh God, they are stuck in their minds in 1936 Germany, looking for their very own Adolph Hitler. And who is they wish to kill? Well, anyone trying to gatecrash their way into America from South America—really any people of color, though. And they seem to despise women, but they have to be a bit more careful there, since they tend to marry women.  Oh, and they really hate anyone in the LGBTQ community. They will do almost anything to make their lives miserable.

Now, being 88, I have difficulty with all this hatred. I realize I’m supposed to be far rightwing, hating along with the worst of them. But I’m just not like that, and I am having increasing difficulty with all these hatreds. I guess Donald Trump triggered all this awful stuff and, well he is old, just not as old as me, or even as Joe.

And so I now have to come to grips with this old people thing.  It would seem that the two main characters planning on running for President in 2024 are Donald Trump, age 76, and Joe Biden, age 80. Yeah, yeah, I know that Ron DeSantis is planning a run, and he is only 44. So, maybe I ought to be reconsidering. But no, DeSantis is young, but he is a young Idiot-Malenfant.  He seems to have joined the weird world of Republican Hate groups. So, No, he is not a candidate I might take seriously.

But How about Joe? Well, he would be 82 on taking office, and 86 on finally retiring from Office, assuming he remains alive.  OK, so I’m 88, and I will be way older than Joe, assuming I continue to remain alive.  And I am hearing a lot of jokes about Joe’s age.  He sometimes seems to stumble a bit in speaking and is not exactly agile physically. Still, he is pretty good for his age. And I am familiar with folks who succumb to things like dementia—my Mother for example. So, how can I continue to consider voting for Joe? Well, first, any prediction you might have for Joe, would be hovering above Donald Trump. Yeah, he’s a few years younger, but he begins as an idiot, whereas Joe still has a functional brain.

But suppose Joe begins to slip partway through his term of Office? Well, for one thing, he has a wife who would be positioned to rein him in. But even more importantly, he would have a Vice President (Kamala maybe?) capable of slipping into the position smoothly. Plus, we have all these highly paid folks who would be working for him who would also likely notice should Joe begin to slip. See, that’s the thing about an American Presidency, as distinct from Russia’s Dictator, Vlad. Over there, I assume someone would have to step in and shoot Vlad. See, we have less drastic ways of “retiring” our leaders.

Now I, at the tender age of 88, still function pretty much the same as I did in my 60s or 70s. I think there has not been much deterioration in my brain functioning. And so, although I am well aware of the aging problems, I don’t yet see that as a major deterrent to Joe running for office.  Would I be happier were Joe only 70, rather than 80, well maybe.  And so, do I think maybe he should not run? Well, no I do not.  It still comes down to Joe Biden vs. whoever the republicans select to run against him. And they seem to have no leaders who are not of the Fascist mindset. I am not sure how or why the republican party as a whole has slipped into the world of 1936 Germany, but there it is. If we want to continue living in a democracy, then folks, we are stuck with the Democrats and likely, with Joe Biden. It is so split that I think we dare not vote for a republican for major national office.  I do not know any longer what happened to those thinking people, of ethical/moral character who were/are republican, but they all seem to have gone into their respective closets.  They are no longer available as aides and counselors helping to keep the American ship afloat.  Maybe someday, they will return and kick out the Trumps, Marjorie Taylor Greenes, Kevin McCarthys and Ron DeSantis’ of this world.

Ahh, that would be a wonderful world indeed.

Fond Hope Springs Eternal. And maybe I will still be alive to see that happening. Who knows??? The Shadow Knows.

Still Aging In Place

 Increasingly, I have begun feeling like I am somehow “outside” of wherever it is I am in. Even if I am sitting within a family group, with, say, kids and/or grandkids I have begun feeling as though I am sitting somewhere else, but still observing them.  Sometimes, I am almost startled when one of them actually addresses me directly by asking me a question, or commenting on something about me.  And then that state of being (or maybe non-being) is enhanced when I am reading the news, or a news e-mail, or listening/watching the news on TV or radio.  Why? Well, inevitably the reporter or the article begins discussing one of our republican friends, and then I feel like I have just arrived from outer space, and they are discussing something I simply do not understand. The other day, for example, I sat and watched the Governor of North Dakota address the NRA at their convention. And she told us that she had made sure to arm her two-year old grandchild with both a rifle and a shotgun. I mean, you just never know when another two-year old brat is going to do something threatening, and her grandkid might have to shoot that other kid. Well, sort of like that dude who answered his door, gun in hand (don’t we all answer our doorbell with a gun in hand?) and then when he saw a young Black kid, he began firing his gun.  I mean, clearly that young Black kid was going to harm him, so he was simply protecting himself. Right?? Or that other dude who saw three young ladies enter his driveway in their car, and then began to back away, but he of course had to open fire on them.  Obviously, the girls meant him harm, even if they were backing away.

And then there is that whole set of characters who profess to represent the Republican Party. Take Marjory Taylor Greene. She actually said that the California wildfires were caused by Jewish Space Lasers. And then she failed to back away and laugh.

Oh and that January 6^th thing at the Capitol? They are now portrayed of course as simple tourists who wanted to visit the Capitol, but were being denied their proper tourist rights.  Now, as you watch that event taking place, don’t you begin to feel as though you have just arrived from Mars and you really don’t understand what you are witnessing? I sometimes think I am actually in 1936 Germany and I am wondering when Adolph is going to show up (Oh, that’s Ron DeSantis, not Adolph Hitler approaching the podium?)

See, it isn’t a specific person, oh like Donald Trump. It’s that there seem to be so many of them. An entire political party has actually entered the realm of 1936 Nazi Germany, or maybe just 2023 Crazy America. But how did that happen, and will it (and I) ever return to something approaching normalcy? I’m 88 for Christ sake, and I can’t take much more of this.

And worse, it seems to be the case that Americans in very large numbers have joined this Crazy Party, yet how could that have happened. See, I still remember voting for Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate for President in 1952. Can you even imagine what Ike would be thinking were he present at some rally where Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis were rambling on about one of their latest thoughts concerning America? Would that Ike not also begin wondering whether he had somehow been transmitted to a Foreign Land on Mars? Surely this could not be Florida within the US of A.

And I listen to/watch the commentary and they tear that bunch apart, but nothing actually happens to them.  Americans, actual Americans keep on listening to them and, whenever they can, still voting for them.  That is the part I fail to understand and why I feel like I am floating somewhere in outer space. How could this be? How is it possible that Americans in any number beyond a few hundred (ok even a few thousand) could possibly go to a polling place and mark the ballots to elect such people—Trump, DeSantis, Greene, Hawley, Cawthorne, McConnell, McCarthy? Really, America . . . you actually approve of such manic pseudohumans?  And you are going to refuse to control guns, while facing the largest collection of mass shootings in our history? And you also refuse to allow people to have medical abortions, or even to buy and consume abortion pills, regardless of the later effects on the lives of the women involved.  So, you’re not actually “Pro-Life” as much as you are Anti-sex, or maybe “Pro-Foetus”. Yeah, once those foetuses become actual humans, it’s ok to shoot them, right?

And so, I have begun drifting off into some outer space existence. I am no longer a full-time resident of America, maybe even of Earth, I am still technically alive, I know, cuz I can still watch Stephen Colbert or John Oliver, but I no longer recognize what I observe going on around me.

Maybe I am actually in a dream-state and I will awaken to re-enter our world and it will still be 1975, or maybe even 2010 and that dude Barack Obama is still president. Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice? Oh shit, go back to sleep Richard. That ain’t gonna happen.

Being 88

How many of you sleep 6 or 7 hours at least when you go to bed at night? Somehow, after I passed by maybe 85 or 86, my sleep habits became . . . at best problematic. What do I mean by that? Well, I go to sleep (WE go to sleep) sometime before 10 each night. Occasionally we might be awake between 10 and 11, but mostly not.  And then, I awaken, thinking it’s 4 or 5, but it turns out that it’s maybe 10:30 or 11.  Then I return to sleeping, only to awaken at maybe 2:30 – 3:00. And then, it’s every half to ¾ of an hour until sometime near 5- 5:30. And then sleep escapes out the window and I make believe until about 6 – 6:15, when I finally declare it quits.  If something untoward occurs during the night, like the other night when the heavens opened up and poured water down upon our house for about an hour, then my “sleep” is gone, because I’m thinking about whether the basement is flooding.  Now that’s the other thing. One of the things that often keeps me from returning to sleep is that my brain suddenly begins thinking about something, like, Oh I have to begin raking the leaves sometime tomorrow.

Now mind you, when I was “young” (any age below say 60), I used to be able to sleep til 8 or 9, unless I had set the alarm clock (remember those??).  Course, I also used to be able to go to dinner, have a gin and tonic (or two), then some nice wine with dinner, and maybe a brandy after dinner, and still walk away from the table and drive home.  Yeah, remember those days???  Now it’s a beer or a glass of wine with dinner and then driving very carefully home.  Yeah, such fun.

Now to be fair, I can still rake and sweep/blow all the leaves away from our drive, and cut back our now overgrown hibiscus and lantana bushes, and still manage to walk back into the house without collapsing in a heap. Oh, I’m tired and even a bit achy, but basically ok.  Happily, we decided we would not have a lawn, and so we have bushes and ivy growing instead (we actually DO NOT OWN A LAWNMOWER). And yes, the control freaks masquerading as “master gardeners” probably all hate what I quaintly call my “garden”, I love it.

But all of these are simply quirks of the aging process. Yeah, yeah, I’m probably a classic “cranky old man” (it’s how I refer to my blog by the way), but still I have managed to continue to lead a normal life and maintain fairly normal relationships with friends and neighbors.  But ever since the arrival of the “bad old days”, you know the Days of Donald Trump and his MAGAHeads, I have begun to wonder about my cognitive abilities. I simply can no longer even pretend to understand how theoretically thinking human beings could even pretend to support, no less vote for some of these cretins who now have begun populating the Halls of our Congress.  And with the midterms now nearly over, my brain is close to simply shutting down.  Think – “ordinary humans” actually re-elected Marjorie Taylor Greene. But how could that be?? She gave herself away with her first two years—Jewish Space Lasers are the cause of California’s wildfires??? Really, you said that and then didn’t back away with a big laugh??? And that Herschel Walker dude, who keeps pretending publicly that he is what he isn’t.  I’m only surprised that he hasn’t yet claimed to be the first man on the moon.  Now, he’s Black, so I assume he gets some votes for that, but unfortunately for him, so is his opponent, Raphael Warnock. And even more unfortunate for Walker, Raphael Warnock seems a man of normal intelligence and even in possession of an ethical and thoughtful brain.  And then there’s that dreadful pseudohuman running for governor of Arizona – Kari Lake. From Wiklpedia:

“Lake returned to Arizona in 1999 and became an evening anchor for KSAZ-TV (Fox 10 Phoenix). While at KSAZ, Lake interviewed President Barack Obama in 2016 and President Donald Trump in 2020.

In her last years working in the media, Lake shared false and unverified information on social media, prompting criticism^[3] and acquiring a reputation as a provocateur.^[11] In 2018, she opposed the Red for Ed movement, which sought more funding for education through strikes and protests, claiming that movement was a "big push to legalize pot"; she later apologized for the statement (saying that she "made an incorrect conclusion") and, according to the station's regional human resources director, subsequently took an unexpected month-long leave from her position at the station. In July 2019, Lake was caught on "hot mic" footage promoting her account on the web platform Parler. She shared COVID-19 misinformation on Twitter and Facebook in April 2020. Lake's statements and actions made her a divisive figure among colleagues in her last years at the station.

In March 2021, she announced her departure from KSAZ, one day after FTVLive, a television news industry site, published a video clip of Lake at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando; the website questioned whether Lake was there as a journalist or as a member of a movement. In June 2021, she announced her campaign for governor.

So isn’t voting for Lake somewhat akin to voting for Fucker Carlson??? I mean, Arizona folks, how could you???

And then, of course, Ronnie DeSantis won his claim to Florida’s governorship. Floridians apparently don’t care who they elect, since apparently the state will soon be totally under water and it will no longer matter.

Now throughout this mess of an election, the braindead Donald sits presiding over the now moribund Republican party (yeah, keep on rolling Ike). He is now tantalizing his faithful by promising to be their president again.  Course, he may just be promising to be the president of the MaraLago Braindead Contingent, his latest creation.  But he does keep them panting hard awaiting his next arrival at their door to collect his dues.

So, I’m having increasing difficulties maintaining my brain function. Apparently brains, when presented continually with bizarre images and tales, begin to falter and even imagine that weird events are the “new normal”.  So, along with Climate Catastrophe, our new Political shitstorm now every two years, my brain has begun wondering whether I have moved suddenly to maybe Mars??

Or maybe, I am in some time warp and have returned to the past. Who knows, maybe I am now German and it’s 1936 and Adolph is now yelling at us all about the need to Make Germany Great Again. See that’s what happens when you apply too much stress to an aging brain?

So see you on our lovely planned trip on that wonderful Titanic. Won’t it be fun???

Aging in Place

Folks often ask, “so how’re you doing?  And sometimes I respond, “Who knows . . . the Shadow knows.”  And that goes over the heads of most folks under, say, 70. See, I used to listen to the radio during the 1940s, sitting in our front room in our flat on Second Avenue, near 71^st Street.  And I listened to “The Shadow”, Fibber McGee and Molly”, “Inner Sanctum”, and others of that early ilk.  “Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of man. The Shadow knows.”

But then, because I really am aging, I sometimes respond, “Aging in place.” And not everyone gets that, but most do.  It means, sort of, “well, I’m hanging around, mostly in one place, and I’m getting older every day.”  Mainly, it’s a signal that I no longer make any significant contribution to mankind.  Hanging around . . . some might say, “waiting to go”.  Now the trouble with that phrase, is that you don’t really “go” anywhere, when you end this existence on earth.  No, you simply cease to exist. Which to my mind is really weird.  If there is a god, she apparently didn’t think that one through.

But, in any case, it is what it is.  But, the important thing about all this silliness about life and its potential ending scenarios, is that there is great reason to look on each day as a gift. Open it carefully, and treat it with respect. You may not get another one tomorrow, but, if you do, open that one carefully and treat it also with respect.

I have now lived beyond the point in the aging game where any of my family members survived. Mostly, the women ended it all around my current age, mid-80s. The men generally didn’t make it that far. To be fair, we didn’t know as much about preserving life during the 1940s – 1980s when most of my aging family “left” this life.

So, does any of this mean anything?

Well, what it means to me is that we might want to consider leaving the place at least slightly better than when we entered it.  And by “better”, I obviously don’t mean financially “better”. I mean, somehow, kinder, or more humane, civil.  Now it is clear that individually we can’t simply make war, or poverty, or Donald Trump disappear. But collectively, assuming we continue to care, we of course can make such things happen.  Mostly, we make such momentous occasions happen by the simple process of voting.  All of the idiot, lazy louts who failed to show up at the polls in 2106, because “their candidate” didn’t make it onto the ballot. And they weren’t going to vote for Hillary. So, instead, they sort of voted for Trump, simply by not showing up.

So, we all need to do our bit. Even if you decide to vote for the “least-worst” you still need to do that.

And, even beyond that minimum activity, life offers lots of ways to make our world a slightly better place.  For example, the Cabarrus County Literacy Council recruits lots of volunteers like me to tutor folks who wish to learn English as a Second Language, or, as in my case, who wish to learn to read. I currently tutor a 58 year old man who simply never learned to read, despite having acquired a high school diploma. How could you acquire a high school diploma while being unable to read?  Well, mostly, he used to guess on tests, had his sister help him with homework, and relied on his teachers simply passing him through each class. No one either knew or cared that he couldn’t read. He somehow learned to cope, with his brain filling in something when he couldn’t read. But, I am working with him to remedy that deficit. And, I am making his life slightly better. My wife used to tutor a man in DC who couldn’t read, but he worked in his company’s mail room. He operated by recognizing people and he knew their first initials. But now he was actually learning to read, so he might be able to read to his grandkids.  Again, she was making his life a bit better.

So, it turns out, there are lots of little things each of us can do to leave this world a slightly better place than when we entered.

But, I am also increasingly aware that, as we “age in place”. We need to understand that aging thing and what it means to our earthly body.  Knowing that none of us can live forever (too bad, huh god??), we all still need to become increasingly aware of the changes that could make our few remaining years more or less difficult.

Our friendly neighborhood orthopedic surgeon tells us he has one big rule—DON’T FALL.  Easier said than done, huh? Well, one of the things I have noticed increasingly is that our propensity to fall seems directly related to paying attention. You know that thing about “Multitasking”?  Many people think they multitask all the time. We talk on the phone, while writing an e-mail.  We chat while driving, or maybe we listen to the radio while driving.  Or, we walk up or down stairs while our mind wanders. But the science says, conclusively, that our brain cannot actually multitask. What our mind does instead is rapidly switch from one task to another—we “serially monotask.” Now mostly, we get away with the charade of multitasking.   But often we “come a cropper”. While we are chatting on our phone, we fail to see the guy stopping in front of us suddenly, and we fail to stop before ramming into him.  But if we are “aging in place”, we often open ourselves up to falls. We walk downstairs while thinking of something we need to do, and we fail to notice that we are not yet at the bottom step, and, so, we tumble down the last two steps, perhaps banging our head on something hard.  Or we pay too little attention to the rug in front of us, and we fail to pick up our feet enough, and, so, we tumble.

These little occurrences increasingly dominate as we “age in place”.  There is, of course, no real “solution” to these little events of the aging, except, perhaps, to being more aware.  If we pay attention to the little things and stop the myth of multitasking, we really can avoid some of the nastier side effects of the aging process.  I think of the simple process of walking up and down stairs. Normally, we pay no attention, and instead do something else mentally while we walk.  But if instead, we focus on this simple process, holding on, really looking, we can in fact reduce the number of those nasty things called falls.

And if we pay attention pretty much all the time to what we are doing, we can avoid at least some of the nastier side effects of aging in place.  I have the habit, for example, of carrying too many things at one time, instead of making more than one trip.  I guess, when we are 25, we can pull off such stunts. But less so when you hit that magic 80 mark.  Note please, when you are in your 80s, you are old by almost any standard.  And when we hit that stage, we need to quit pretending.

We need to pay attention. In the early morning, when the sun begins to arise, go and observe the effects. It is glorious, but one must put down one’s phone while observing. When you walk in a garden and see an especially enchanting flower, or butterfly, again, stop and observe. Don’t multitask. Monotasking has real advantages, but even more so as we age.

Aging, it turns out, is not for sissies. It needs to be treated with respect.  Pay attention aging folks, pay attention.

Oh, and do go to the polls and VOTE. We really do need to rid our world of Donald Trump and his gang of thugs. Please, vote, and even there, pay attention to what you are doing.