Tag: aging

The Sound of Two Hands Slapping

jono55

Robin was in Durango on Wednesday night, while I hung around Paradise to attend an Indivisible meeting on the Disappeared Ones. The meeting went well and at present I am out on the backyard deck where the overwarm day is cooling off right on schedule. The ongoing violation of constitutional protections is one of the more repellent programs Cluck has put into play. It’s straight KGB stuff, Gestapo stuff. The clay that authoritarians use to mold their citizens into subjects.

I took some time to read more tonight about the courage of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, who kept coming back and asking the question of the brutish government “Where are our children?” They came back even when they were being beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and in some cases becoming los desaparecidos themselves.

Cluck is now breaking the law and disappearing people every day, using the masked thugs of ICE as his henchmen in our own version of the brutish Argentine government of 1977. There is no safety under such a president for any of us. To think otherwise is foolhardy.

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Mothers of the Disappeared, by U2

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Since Robin was away, that evening I went out to supper alone. At the next table was a family consisting of mom, dad, grandma, and three young children. The adults, as far as I could tell, spent way more time corralling their imps than they did enjoying their food.

It wasn’t that the kids were unusually naughty, it was that their energies couldn’t be contained on a chair. My takeaway from watching this drama was twofold. First, that kids in a restaurant can be amusing to watch if they are not yours. Second, I am grateful that I don’t have any small kids of my own any longer, and thus am able to eat serenely while others lose their cool and their appetites.

I still shudder thinking back to the time when my own kids were in their feral stage and the carpeting under our restaurant table looked like a picnic that had exploded. I’m quite sure that the waiters of that time looked on our arrivals with resignation and our departures with relief.

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This is the time of year when visiting the Grand Mesa must be done cautiously. Right after the snows have melted up there, the gods turn loose one of the great plagues of mankind. Instead of saying “Release the Kraken,” however, they smile and whisper “Release the mosquitoes.”

The top of the Grand Mesa, billed as the largest flat-topped mountain in the US (or world), is very different from the valley floor. The types of trees and the abundance of lakes make it much like northern Minnesota. And the month of June in that fine state is another place to find all manner of tiny bloodsucking demons whose names start with the words Culex, Anopheles, or Aedes (there are actually 112 genera of mosquitoes).

Twelve years ago when Robin and I were looking for a place in Colorado to settle and were visiting Montrose we used one afternoon to explore the Mesa just a bit. Taking a short hike proved challenging in that we could not stop to breathe once the beasties zeroed in on the carbon dioxide in our outbreaths. Slapping frantically we ran to the safety of our car, slammed the doors shut, and vowed never to go back in early Summer again.

My father used to awe us children when he would allow a mosquito to light on his arm and completely fill itself with blood, turning its abdomen quite red. We could not imagine ourselves doing such a thing, but watching his recurring performances was both horrifying and fascinating.

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One of Us, by Joan Osborne

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Here’s something anyone of my tender years can use to strike awe into kids. They already know that we were born before digital cameras, before computers, even before television moved from the lab into our homes. So reciting those items won’t stun them one bit. But here’s the phrase that will be absolutely incomprehensible to them and will bring them to their knees, slack-jawed and unbelieving:

“I was born before ball-point pens.“

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Cool Water

jono55

The lightest of snowfalls last night, right around suppertime. If you blinked, you missed it. No need for shovels, brooms, or leaf-blowers. Just enough to remind you to turn up the collar of your coat and to wear a cap. This week I will dig out my backpacking stuff from wherever I put it, and begin spring preparations for overnights in the area.

Robin and I are very aware that being seniors we seem to be more sensitive to dehydration. When we were in our twenties we would take off on hikes without carrying water and seemingly never miss it. Now we never go anywhere outdoors without having a plan for our next drink. Get even a little behind and our energy flags significantly,

I use the Sawyer filters because they are relatively inexpensive, lightweight, durable, easily maintained, and reliable. Sort of a can’t-miss product. Takes care of everything but viruses, which is more than adequate for our surroundings.

Even on the short overnight camping stays that Robin and I will be doing, we check out each item before heading out as if we were embarking on an expedition up the Amazon River. Failure of an essential item can have consequences ranging from highly inconvenient to quite unhealthy. Many of the camping and hiking areas here in Paradise are out of cellular range, and as we’ve not invested in satellite phones, falls, burns, dehydration and the like are ours to deal with as best we can. Ergo – gear reliability is an important quality.

For a hiker, Paradise is … well … Paradise. We have countless mountain trails to explore, ranging from short walks to epic journeys like the Colorado Trail. We also have the opposite situation, where instead of climbing we descend into the canyons especially to the north and west of us.

One of our personal favorites is Dominguez Canyon, with its trailhead about an hour’s drive from Montrose.

Though this is a desert walk, there is water available in a creek, so staying hydrated is not difficult, as long as we remember to take our water filters.

Is wilderness water safe to drink without filtration? Here’s a stat to make one think otherwise. It is estimated that 90% of the surface water in the U.S. is contaminated with giardia. I’ve not had giardiasis myself, but have cared for many patients who did. To a woman (or man) they did not find the experience delightful. There is nothing about taking a long walk in a hot and rocky country that is improved by having sharp cramps and profuse diarrhea.

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Everyday Is A Winding Road, by Sheryl Crow

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From The New Yorker

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You can’t make this stuff up, folks. Our King/Fuehrer/Emperor Cluck decided that the Gulf of Mexico is not a grand enough name for something adjacent to his realm. So he has re-named it the Gulf of America. The rest of the world is scratching their heads and wondering to themselves, is he really that bonkers?*

Google and Apple, on the other hand, revealing to all and sundry that they have the spine of a planaria**, immediately changed their maps to reflect this new unreality.

A day later, the Associated Press, which does business all over the world, had failed to make the change in their maps, and their reporters were banned from presidential events forthwith.

Never mind that it is only Cluck and his sycophants who call it the Gulf of America. Although this is only his latest delusional piece, we’ll be dealing with it for a while until he is out of office, and the name it has had for centuries can be restored. In the meantime I think I won’t be vacationing off the Texas coast any time soon. I’d be worried that if I should need a life guard and holler “I’m drowning in the Gulf of America,” they might not come to my aid quickly enough, not being up with the times and all.

* Answer = yes
**A microscopic flatworm familiar to high school biology students, at least to those who opened their textbooks.

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Give A Little Bit, by the Goo Goo Dolls

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Dark shadow passes

Raven flying in snowfall

True black in true white

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Last evening we had friends over for dinner and spent a very pleasant couple of hours sharing a meal. Robin and I prefer hosting small dinner get-togethers of six persons or less. We find that conversations run smoother, everyone gets a chance to talk, and the occasional blowhard* is easier to control.

As the evening was winding down, we began sharing our physical complaints, adjustments to aging, and which of our acquaintances was in dire straits at the moment. As the misery toll mounted, I realized that the entire past hour’s discussion would not have happened if we had all perished before the age of forty, as in the good old days, like the year 1000 BC, perhaps. When life was “nasty, brutish, and short” there was no need for or profit in these mutual commiserative sessions.

“Nasty, brutish, and short” is a phrase that appears in Thomas Hobbes’ book Leviathan . It refers to life without government and the state of humanity in its natural, violent, and brutal form. 

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Back then we would simply be rubbed out, perhaps by being careless in the vicinity of a leopard and whoop! End of story. But these days, living into our seventies, eighties, or beyond (partly due to a scarcity of leopards), we have the dubious luxury of comparing aches and pains and thinking we’ve had a discussion.

*Often yours truly, I admit

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From The New Yorker

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Coming In From The Scold

jono55

Well … after long and ponderous pondering I have decided. IMHO Michelle Obama gave one of the best political speeches that I have heard in a long while, at the Democratic Convention. And I am not a Michelle Obama fan.

She has always reminded me of the scold who barely walks through the door of your house before she begins to criticize and nag. Your hair … too long or short. Your clothes … not clean. Sit up straight. Chew your food. Those spots on the glassware … tsk, tsk, tsk. You could hardly wait for her to go home.

On Tuesday night, though, she hit a home run. The speech was almost totally inspirational (although toward the end she couldn’t help herself but gave yet one more scold-lecture again). The lady does not suffer from self-doubt.

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Want to read a story about qualities that you will not find anywhere in the curriculum vitae of either man at the top of the Red team? The NYTimes served this up on Wednesday. It is important to keep in mind that in all of the years Cluck has been rooting and snorting around in American political life, no one has ever accused him of an unselfish act.

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Fire On The Mountain, by Jimmy Cliff, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Phil Kreutzman

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An eon ago I decided to annoy my father during a political season. That was in 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower ran for the office of POTUS. Dad was a lifelong Democrat, a union member in both mind and body, and he believed strongly that there was nothing but antagonism for the working man to be found in the policies of the Republican Party. Kind of like today.

So to vex him I purchased and wore a button like this one, which somehow disappeared before Election Day. I suspected, but could never prove, that my mother confiscated it from the laundry when she decided that a joke was a joke and enough was enough.

There are days at this distance in time when I wonder why my parents ever fed and clothed such an ungrateful child.

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My present favorite tee shirt slogan, spotted at the gym a couple of days ago. I have to carry a mirror to re-orient myself several times a day because my brain keeps thinking I am twenty-one and might get me into some serious mischief if left on its own. The conversation goes something like this:

Q: Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the fairest one of all?

A: You’re kidding, right?

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Twenty-One, by The Eagles

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Well, they’ve gone and done it now. The Democratic Party has done something that is neither boring nor feckless. Now we get to see if they can carry it all the way through. To have the spine to “encourage” a very old white man to take early retirement and put in his place as their standard bearer … I am almost afraid to say the word … a woman. And a highly capable and credentialed woman to boot. I love it.

A very brief example of how to do what is necessary is this clip from Harris’ address:

Masterful, but wait, there’s more. Her running mate is a football-coaching, duck-hunting, Runza-chewing bald white teacher from the middle of nowhere (Minnesota) who didn’t go to any of the following colleges:

  • Harvard
  • Yale
  • Columbia
  • Princeton
  • Brown
  • Cornell
  • Dartmouth

Then where did he attend college and how did he get there? Well, he got there on the GI bill, and he used it to attend Chadron State College in western Nebraska. If you ask the very nice folks on the East or West Coasts they have no idea where it is.

Where the hell is that?

What … Chadron State College?

No … Nebraska.

When I served in the Air Force, one of my co-draftees was a surgeon from New Jersey. He related that when he found that he was not going to be sent to Viet Nam, he was greatly relieved, but when he learned that he was going to Bellevue NE he had to get out an atlas to see where indeed that Nebraska was.

Robin and I watched Night 4 of the Democratic Convention pretty much start to finish. VP Harris hit a home run of an acceptance speech, without a single false note, at least for us. We heard our own hopes for the country articulated in inspiring words. My first opportunity to vote was in 1960, for John F. Kennedy, which was an inspirational moment for me. And now I have lived long enough to get to vote for Kamala Harris … which is exciting on yet another level. My country is growing up.

It is hard to imagine that the dissolute pair that the Republican Party has put out there as their “best and brightest” could stand a chance against intelligence, compassion, humor, honor, respect and decency. But the brand of snake oil that Cluck has been selling has a powerful attraction to some people, and the outcome of this election is not a foregone conclusion.

So I cannot decide what I will wear once my Harris/Walz sign is out in the yard and my blue bumper sticker is fastened firmly onto the Subaru. I already have the camo hat, but not a single messaging tee shirt. Hmmmm, so many choices …

  • Independent for Harris/Walz
  • Veteran for Harris/Walz
  • Buddhist for Harris/Walz
  • Old White Guy for Harris/Walz
  • Highly Unsuccessful Fisherman for Harris/Walz
  • Man With Only One Marble Left for Harris/Walz

The possibilities, it seems, are endless.

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Neil Young said “Yes” to allowing the Democrats to use his song at the convention. The same song that he sued Donald Cluck to stop using a few years ago. I wonder if anyone on either side listened to the lyrics. The title sounds positive, but all in all it’s a bit of a downer.

Rockin’ In The Free World, by Neil Young

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