retireddaze

Export to PDF | Export to DOC

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.

Export to PDF | Export to DOC

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 !!!

Export to PDF | Export to DOC

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.

Export to PDF | Export to DOC

Chance. Recently I’ve had a lot of contact with my extended family. One of my cousin’s granddaughters was getting married and this signaled a gathering of the clan. One cousin came in from the west coast. He and I were raised together until we were ten. His family then moved to California but we would still see each other periodically over the years. He was married in April of 1973 and we were married in June. He has three grown sons and I have two. He has been retired since 2008.

We talked about all the amazing variables in our lives. So many things have happened and we are still alive to talk about it. He could have been sent to Vietnam but thru an almost miraculous series of events, landed in Germany. He had a brother die in childhood of a rare cancer. Both of my parents died young. We both worked at the same places for many years. He stayed with his employer for over 35 years. I worked at two different places for 20 years each.

We talked about getting old. He turned 71 today. I did last month. He said that no matter how you feel about getting old, an awful lot of people never had that chance. He is really right about that. If I think of the classmates I had who died in the war, or those who died early of illness, accident or addiction, it is quite a large group. I know people who we all thought would be happy and successful who have ended up divorced and barely scraping by. I am satisfied with the choices I have made, but thinking back the least little thing could have made my life much different. I met a girl on a camp out and on a whim asked her to dance. Forty three years later we are still together. What if I hadn’t? I taught for three years and then went to graduate school and entered my career. I could have stayed teaching or ended up in a business career. I would have missed all the wonderful people I came in contact with. I never would have learned from them. I would have learned different things, but maybe not have had the same rich experience. I wouldn’t have had my two wonderful sons. Maybe I wouldn’t have had any children, or God forbid, had daughters. I have always said I don’t think I could have handled that!

The smallest events, the wrong turn, the mistake at work, etc, could have turned everything in a different direction. I would often tell my patients not to compare themselves to others. They would look at relatives, even movie stars, and lament that those people had no real problems—certainly nothing like what they were experiencing. No one knows the crises and forces of others lives. I know men who came back from the war and went right back to the lives they had, and others who came back so damaged emotionally that they never really returned. Some of the damaged ones didn’t even see much combat, but there was usually one event that they could never work thru. One man had a very successful professional career until twenty-five years after the war there was a unit reunion. When he went something made him remember one of his best friends who was killed in a mortar attack. What bothered him was that he had turned one way and his friend had turned another. He had buried that memory for all those years until it came back so strongly that he was unable to sleep or return to work. He was able to work thru much of it but he kept talking about his good luck and his friend’s misfortune.

So we are all products of chance and the variables of existence. This brings me to the wonders of the Chicago Cubs. The last time the Cubs were in the World Series I was six weeks old. I was born in August of 1945 and the Cubs began playing the Detroit Tigers in October of that year. I have seen all the professional Chicago teams win at least one championship except for the Cubs. Now I admit to being a rabid White Sox fan and in Chicago you cant be for both the Cubs and the White Sox. It is against the natural order-at least the Chicago natural order. However I hope the Cubs win for the sake of their fans so maybe they’ll start talking about something else. The Cubs were always the team of the rich kids while the Sox were the poor working relatives. It has gotten worse over the years with development of Wrigleyville and the deterioration of the south side. It is a good metaphor for all of us aging Sox fans. Now we are the ones saying, “wait until next year (or maybe even longer)”. Virginia McCaskey is George Halas’ daughter. She is the principal owner of the Chicago Bears. She is now 93 years old and is furious that her team has deteriorated so much. She always has hope, but “wait until next year” certainly doesn’t sound very hopeful to her. She might not be here. I think I need to continue to focus on being grateful for the “chances” I have had. I still need to work on being more positive about what I have than what I don’t and maybe I do need to learn how to celebrate this poem

These are the saddest of possible words:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,

Tinker and Evers and Chance.

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon^[a] bubble,

Making a Giant hit into a double^[b] –

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Franklin Pierce Adams

Export to PDF | Export to DOC

This week I turn 71. Where is my walker and hearing aid? I can’t believe they are still letting me walk around. I should be strapped into a wheel chair and dripping urine. One of my wife’s relatives had Alzheimers and had an electronic bracelet to help find her if she got out. My family often jokes about putting a chip in me because I get lost so easy. Last week I downloaded Medscape’s Checklist for Dementia. I didn’t notice any significant changes, but I’m afraid to give it to my family. I still remember my youngest son’s threat to put me in a nursing home and not tell anyone where I am.

Gees !!

What the hell is going on that I am turning 71? When I was in my 20s and 30s, 70 seemed very ancient. Now I am past that. I still see people who are very active. Our two current presidential candidates are in this range. Trump is 70 and Hilary is 68. Bernie Sanders is almost 75. So why does this seem like such a strange birthday?

I keep focusing on a line that one of them said: “We have more yesterdays than tomorrows”.

I still need to focus on today. I think the more I think about getting old, the older I will get. Birthdays used to be a time for celebration. I often couldn’t sleep the night before my birthday because I was so excited about the presents I would get. When I was in second and third grade, a girl down the block would throw a surprise birthday party for me. Then we moved away from there and I never saw her again.

If you think about it , what are the important birthdays in your life? 13? Now you’re a teen-ager. 16? Now you can drive. 21 ? Now you legally drink. 30 ? Now you can’t be trusted, or at least you can begin to think of yourself as grown-up.

When I turned 40 my wife threw a surprise birthday party for me. Somehow she got hold of a wheel chair and I had to sit in it while I opened all the joke presents. One of her friends hired a belly dancer. I still remember this girl dancing in front of me while I was in the wheel chair. I think she thought I was disabled. At the end of her dance I stood up and she almost fell over and said, “My God, you can walk!!” I still wonder if she thought her dance cured me.

50 ? Your kids are getting older and really don’t need you as much. 60 ? My God how did this happen? 70? Now I am three score and 10.

71 ? —————————————–?

I keep thinking of all the wonders that have happened in my life. The atomic age, moon landings, a few wars, cures for Polio and other diseases, important elections, etc,etc. My parent’s generation was the greatest generation. My generation, the boomers, has been one of the most important in history because of our sheer numbers and because of the decisions we have made. 10,000 of us will turn 65 each day until the 2030s.

Now I have noticed that things that used to interest me don’t excite me as much any more. I keep looking for new things. Maybe this is the beginning of a second childhood. Recently I took a drivers education course. Our insurance agent said that it would give us a definite break on the cost of our policies. It was fairly interesting and I’m glad I did it. However about a week after the course I was driving and realized that I hadn’t turned off my turn signal for about two miles after I had turned it on to switch lanes. I rationalized that I didn’t hear it because I had the music on too loud. I’m sure the people behind me understood.

Maybe I’ll get a tattoo? Now that really might be an idea. How about “71 and still lost “? How about a heart with “71 and still pissing her off”? “71 and not Fu#+*#% Done !!” Yeah I like that. Now where would I get it ? On my arm ? Maybe—this is really something to think about. If anyone has any more suggestions let me know.

Of course this could be all the evidence my family would need to put me away.

Better look at the Dementia check list again.