Author Archives: jwlef1

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Why am I so tired of this political drama? Every day there is something new and some new political spin depending on which side you support. I make a real effort not to discuss politics with friends and relatives. I just don’t think it’s important enough to risk the relationship.

I wonder if this is what happened in Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Russia. People just got so tired of the ongoing crisis that they just said the hell with it. Something I read recently wondered how a supposed Christian nation like Germany could allow the persecution and atrocities it did. This was especially true since the Nazi party was a minority party. Only 5-10% of the population was ever card-carrying members. Yet no one really organized enough followers to stop them. I know that during that time Germany was going thru financial crises related to the depression and the aftermath of the war. The Nazis provided wonderful political theater, but somewhere people must have questioned where it was all going. Maybe there really were many and maybe they just stopped caring and let the dice roll. It’s fairly easy to criticize them now and say, “Why did you let this happen?”

Supposedly after the discovery of one of the concentration camps by American forces, the US commanding general rounded up citizens from a nearby town and forced them to come and see what had been going on. Their universal answer was “We didn’t know”. I wonder if they were just simply overwhelmed with the constant drama and just got to the point of not caring.

I think part of this for me is that I cant understand how anyone can believe some of the “fake info” coming out of the party in power. There are constant lies and exaggerations. Supposedly only 30% of the population believes every word that is said and refuses to accept any differing views no matter how much scientific or factual data is presented. Almost no effort is ever made to correct. When they are confronted they make every effort to discount the questioner or change the subject. When my sons were young every time I tried to discipline or correct my youngest son, his defense was always to try and get me to turn on his older brother. This really seems to be what’s going on now.

Maybe the real answer is to try and focus on the positives. This has the potential to be a really spectacular fall. Our family is awaiting the birth of a new grandchild. Our grandson is pretty focused on what happens when he loses a tooth and suddenly finds money under his pillow the next morning. The ongoing wonder in a child’s life doesn’t depend on daily political drama. Every day is a new day with the possibility of wonderful new adventures. This sounds so nice and some days I really can appreciate all of it. However then the reality of this time seeps thru again.

I remember when the president was elected. I didn’t vote for him and was upset that he won, but I was willing to give him a chance. I remember talking about this with my friends and saying “I’m willing to give him a chance if he will only just shut up”.

Of course that hasn’t happened.

I don’t know if it ever will. Somehow in the midst of this I have to keep trying to find some joy and wonder, but I don’t want to just let everything slide. I think the only thing I can do is to try and stay politically aware enough so I can never say, “I just didn’t  knew what was going on”. I am not ready to storm the walls or burn down the winter palace. I am ready to keep reading and trying to understand what is going on.

I’m willing to hold my family and love them and laugh with my friends. I am not ready to close my eyes just yet. Maybe if we all try to at least keep our eyes open, we can be ready when the time for real change comes.

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So what are you afraid of? I don’t like stinging insects and try to avoid them as much as possible. Probably my most terrifying encounter with a large bumblebee occurred over 30 years ago. I was driving one of my sons to some event. It was a warm spring day. I had the car window open and was going about 50 miles an hour. Due to the weather I was wearing shorts and a tee shirt. Suddenly a large bee came in the window and landed in my shorts. I screamed and stood up while the car was still moving. Thankfully the impact had killed the bee, but I didn’t know that. I was able to pull the car safely off to the side, get out and shake the bee out of my shorts. All of this while my son was laughing hysterically. He still laughs today whenever this is brought up.

I also don’t like to fly. Up until a few years ago I would avoid this as much as possible. Since I’ve retired we have gone on quite a few vacations and it doesn’t bother me as much. I think increased exposure has helped greatly. I remember going to a lecture about phobias many years ago. The presenter talked about exposing people to their greatest fears and helping them through it. One of his famous cases involved a woman who was afraid of live lobsters in grocery stores. She was terrified that somehow they would escape their tanks and attack her. Now this sounds foolish, but it certainly wasn’t to her.

I still have a fear of heights. I am not sure where this came from. I used to go on our roof, install TV antennas, fix shingles, hang wire, etc. I remember standing outside on a ladder, balancing on one foot, painting the second floor of our home. However something happened and now heights make me extremely uncomfortable. I did fall once while painting inside, but it wasn’t that big a fall. Maybe that is where it started.

My wife loves heights. She always wants to go up to the highest point in every building. She loves Ferris Wheels and I don’t. She will go on them by herself while I take pictures of her. My sister has some of the same fears. There may be something to this genetic thing after all.

This is all leading up to our Alaskan Cruise. One of our sons went on this cruise last year and greatly enjoyed it. We decided to try it and went last week. I had some misgivings about going on a cruise ship, but that was fine. What I wasn’t ready for were the mountains and unbelievable scenery. I live in the beautiful but very flat Midwest. We do not have snow capped mountains in June or really any other month. Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest have more mountains than you can count. When we got off of the plane we saw Mt Rainier– beautiful but very unusual for us. My cousin and his family have lived there for forty years. They drove us all over before the cruise showing us their beautiful state. Washington is very green and very mountainous.

When we started the cruise we went to Juneau and then to Skagway. During our stop in Skagway we took a bus tour up to the top of one of the mountains. The purpose was to show us the scenery and then to experience this famous train ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railway. This is supposed to be one of the real highlights of the trip because of the beautiful scenery. My wife loved it. I found it terrifying. Exposure didn’t seem to help. We were on this fairly old rickety train going up and around mountain passes. We seemed to be on the very edge of falling for most of the trip. I tried to be a good sport and took a lot of pictures. However at one point I really stood out from the rest of the passengers. The train guide told us to get our cameras ready because we were coming up on an iconic sight to take pictures. We entered a tunnel and came out onto a beautiful sight with what seemed like a six-mile drop down the side of the mountain. I leaned over with my camera and when we came out of the tunnel I said, “Fuck” and sat down very quickly. No one said anything, but there were some odd looks. I have no idea how many pictures I took since my eyes were closed most of the time.

I suppose if I really wanted too, I could work on this fear. However if that would involve exposure to heights I’m not sure I want to do that right now. One of my old psychiatric supervisors used to say that people finally change when they really want to and they are ready, I am neither of those right now so I will just enjoy my beautiful flat land and avoid anything higher than about 3 feet.

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Life has been very busy. We decided we would put our home up for sale. The upkeep and tasks of keeping a home have been getting a little more difficult. We both realized that as we aged, this could only get worse. Our house sold in three days and we scrambled to find a new place to live. We decided to move closer to our sons and now live almost exactly between them in the wilds of McHenry County.

I must confess this has been a very strange and scrambled experience. My parents moved to Warrenville in 1959. This was a big move to what was at the time a very big house. We had been living in a small starter house that my Dad was able to get with his GI loan. Prior to that we lived in apartments and rented homes. I don’t think my parents ever thought they could afford a house of that size. After my father’s death my mother continued to live there and eventually one of my sisters moved in with her husband and children. When she moved out my mother decided she would continue to live alone in her house. During the illness prior to her death, my other sister moved in with her own husband and children to help and care for her. After my mother’s death she continued to live in the house. Eventually both my sisters ended up living in Warrenville. We moved there in 1980 and raised both of our sons there. So my sisters and I, and all our children, were all living fairly close to each other in the town my parents moved to in the 50s. It was a charming, quiet town and was a great place to raise children.

Now I find myself in strange environs. At times this reminds me of living in France. Beautiful country, but I don’t speak the language yet. I don’t know the roads and everything seems new. It also seems very quiet. I think everyone goes to bed at around 8:00PM. I keep looking out the window and see older women walking small dogs. I keep waiting for meals on wheels to begin knocking on our door.

I keep thinking about change. It is difficult learning new things and learning new places. My wife keeps thinking of this as an adventure. I am still struggling to find places to put things.

There were experiments we used to do with people to get them to recognize the difficulty in change. One would be to ask them to write their name with the non-dominant hand. The signature is unrecognizable because it is so difficult to do. The other seems very simple. First we would ask them to put on their coats. We would ask them to concentrate on which arm they used first. Then we would ask them to put on their coats using the opposite hand. They were usually very surprised at how difficult it was. The purpose at the time was to get them to realize the possibility of change and “getting in touch” with another part of themselves.

I know now that this was old thinking, but change does challenge. It forces us to adapt. I suppose the challenge of that is good, but change is harder as I get older. I like having the same things and places around me. Now I have to adapt and have to accept that this “old thinking” is because I am getting old.

I have vague memories of my grandfather who died when I was five. He was seventy-two. This is the age I am rapidly approaching. This seems like an ancient age. I began thinking that this was the last stop before my sons put us in the nursing home. How long until I am there strapped to a wheel chair overcome with the smell of urine and disinfectant that seems to inundate those places? My youngest son once told me jokingly that he was going to put me in a nursing home and not tell anyone where I was. Now I am getting concerned about that. I think that my initial response to moving here and seeing the apparent age of the residents encouraged this. I know when you begin to think of only one thing everything seems to relate to that. Older women walking small dogs, old men in motorized wheel chairs, all seem to mean that this is where we are headed.

However maybe not. I just looked out the window and saw a young girl with green hair walking her baby. Perhaps the key to this adventure is to notice new things and not just old things. Perhaps the new can overcome the old and make everything fresh again. The boxes we moved in with are almost all empty now. This place is beginning to feel comfortable. I keep thinking we forgot something at our old home, but then we find it. So putting old things in new places may be good for them and just maybe it could be good for me.

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I haven’t written since the election because there has certainly been almost too much to think about . There was once a myth that when elephants got old they would wander off to a special place to die known as the “Elephants Burial Ground”. There is supposedly this place stacked with carcasses and bones of old, dead elephants. In the last few years we have visited Ashville, North Carolina and have just returned from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Both cities are beautiful and have much to see, but their population seems to include a large group of older counter culture folks. In Ashville there were a lot of balding older men who had decided to grow ponytails. They would hang out in the many coffee shops and bookstores and generally seemed fairly affluent. I had a fancy that they were all retired stockbrokers who were trying to rediscover their youth and the Woodstock they had left behind. Santa Fe was different. The ponytails were older and looked tired. There is apparently a fairly large group of homeless there, but I even saw people working who looked like they had never given up on the “hippie lifestyle “ and were now paying a price.

If I think back to that time, we thought we could change the world. Vietnam was going on and the argument was that we had to stop the Communists there to protect the free world. When young people started to disagree with this, a whole new culture began to emerge. Peace/Love was the message of the day. Drugs did play a part and really began to erode that message, but the message of peace, love and mutual responsibility for each other continued.

This now seems to be ending. As I look around and see my generation wandering down to the burial ground I really wonder what will last. The election seemed like a fairly clear choice, but the choice that was made was really a surprise. I don’t think any one knows what will happen over the next few years, but the ideal of mutual responsibility is certainly gone. Everyone seems so angry. I have tried to distance myself from the news, but it is almost impossible. Every charge is met with a counter charge. Every accusation appears to cast the culprit as the worst sort of human being. No one listens. They all talk over each other. Moderate is now a dirty word.

When the campaign was going on it was somewhat frightening to hear one camp shouting, “Lock her up!!” and the other camp shouting “Abuser, Pervert!!” After the election Garrison Keillor wrote a column where he seemed to say that enough was enough. It was now time to step back, smell the roses,etc., and let other people worry about the future. I really wanted to try that but it seems almost impossible. My wife, God Bless her, is still furious and wants to march in the Women’s March in Chicago. I keep trying to say I don’t care and, as long as our new president doesn’t mess with Medicare or Social Security, it’s time to let go.

Yeah, but then this old 60’s stuff starts going thru my head again. Not the Peace/Love stuff, but the mutual responsibility ideal. I have heard both sides and one side still seems to be against most of what I believe in. There is going to be a concerted effort to take us back 15-20 years. All the campaign promises that gave life to some of the most “deplorable” parts of our society still resonate. The Klan and the Traditional Workers Party are both enjoying renewed popularity. The “elite’s” are now looked down on because they have an education and don’t really know what is going on. I think the only real action is to continue to stay aware and alert because this is still not just my country, but our country.

The old movie “The Big Chill” opens with a funeral. I always thought it would be cool to have a wake like that and to have Rolling Stones music played as I was wheeled out. Now I have a different image. I am thinking of the New Orleans Funeral Marches. On the way down all the music is somber, but on the way back it is joyful. I want joyful music and I want all those old elephant bones to rise up. It’s not time to rest yet, it’s still time to work !!!

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The more I think about it, the more I realize how toxic this election season has been. It’s been going on for at least two years and the poison has been seeping into almost every area of our lives. Candidates are attacked not just for what they say, but also for their appearance, their spouses appearance and history, reputed misdeeds in the past and overall general character. There is continuing clamor about what a dire future we all face if either candidate for president is elected. The down ballot races are very similar in that the character of the opposing candidate appears to be the main focus of attack rather than their ideas.

Is this now going to be how we decide all of our elections? What a depressing thought. It can literally suck the hope out of the future. Thankfully there have been some events apart from the election that have offered some consolation. Baseball has helped. The sheer joy of Chicago Cub fans when their team wins is something to behold. Even though I am a die-hard White Sox fan, I admire the loyalty of Cub fans. They have gone thru so many bad teams, and so much disappointment, they deserve this moment. Even if the don’t win their final game, the season has been a great success. Despite all of the evil ripples caused by this election, the sight of Cub fans celebrating every small event seems to help and provide a small antidote.

The other was Halloween. I am not talking about all of the candy and marketing. I just mean the real joy of little ones in this season. We were fortunate enough to go along with our 5y/o grandson as he went “Trick or Treating”. He was a ghost, sheet and all. At time he couldn’t see clearly out of his costume, but he really didn’t care. He would go up to the different houses and say the magic words “Trick or Treat” and get a reward. He had a great time and so did we. He then went home and seemed to enjoy giving candy out to all the other children that came to his house. It was hard to say what he enjoyed more.

I remember what Halloween was like back when I was a child. We would be out all day and part of the night getting as much as we could. The costumes weren’t as important as the sheer amount you could collect. We would get home made cookies, brownies, and popcorn balls at some houses. We would pass on information on what were the best neighborhoods to go thru. No one had a thought about poisoned candy or dangerous items hidden in the treats. Parents rarely accompanied us and we were free to roam wherever we wanted. We would even “Trick” houses that didn’t have candy by soaping their windows or toilet papering their yards. It was definitely a more innocent time.

I think that is what I miss. Those days are gone. There are poisoned candy bars and dangerous homes. Even though those events are rare every parent is concerned. When we went out with our grandson, we saw almost every child accompanied by a parent. Later in the evening some groups of teen-agers were out but we didn’t see any one out alone. I think the fear of something awful happening is what drives this and probably what has driven the sheer awfulness of this election. I know that the media message has been about voter anger and desire for a change, but I really think each candidate has been trying to frighten us. There are people whose future is certainly at risk. Jobs in manufacturing, coal mining, even transportation are gone. The promise to retrain people for hi tech jobs is great, but the reality may be overwhelming. Some people have to work more than one minimum wage job just to get by. There is no easy answer for this. The promise of bringing jobs back may sound great, but what jobs will come back and what workers will have the kind of specialized training to do them? How many 45 y/o workers will go back to school to learn these new skills when high school is 30 years in the past?

When I grew up I trusted the government. Now that is certainly not the case. Whoever wins need to work on developing some sense of hope and trust and optimism. As hard as it is, I just have to keep believing that it is possible.