retireddaze

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In 1969 I lived in San Francisco from December thru March of 1970. I was working in a hospital on an internship. I worked on a general surgery floor and had contact with all types of patients. It was a valuable experience, but what I remember most about that time was my experience in the city. I remember the people, the culture, and the music. It was still a very free time and San Francisco was the center of that universe.

People led very open lives with no real boundaries. Drugs were cheap and harmless until later when amphetamines and cocaine took over and people began to die.

The memory of that time was brought back this week when I went to a Dead and Company concert. This group is made up of three members of the original Grateful Dead band and two or three guest musicians.

Last summer all of the surviving members of the band had the Fare Thee Well concert in Soldier’s Field. The ticket price for that concert was ridiculous but even so it quickly sold out. The Band members are aging but were surprised at the response (and the money they made). Due to that they decided to continue with this version of the group.

My son had asked if I wanted to go and I agreed. I drove to his house and he drove the rest of the way. We stopped and ate at a McDonalds. I hadn’t eaten there in years. It seemed different and certainly more modern. Now we eat a lot of Chicken and Broccoli and healthy stuff, but damn that burger tasted good. I had forgotten how much I like fast food. The whole night was bringing back memories.

Now the last concert I went to was about 20 years ago. It was a Peter, Paul, & Mary Concert at Ravinia. This was certainly different. From the time we parked and began to walk thru the parking lot I saw scenes of the past. Guys were running around shirtless, showing off their tattoos, or wearing some tie dyed material. Women were breast-feeding their babies. People were partying, throwing Frisbees, drinking and doing whatever. There were a few people trying to sell clothing and many people asking for tickets. Once we finally got in the Band had started. The music was great and I really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed looking at the crowd. There were a lot of 20s and 30s there. There were also a lot of 50-70s. I saw a lot of guys I would stereotype as old bald guys with ponytails, but I also saw some well-dressed folks who really were there for the music. There were also an awful lot of people there for the alcohol and the drugs.

I hadn’t been around that group for quite a while. I knew this was going to be different when the guy next to me pulled out a pill bottle full of marijuana and casually began to fill his pipe. My son elbowed me and told me to be cool and not say anything. As the night went on the dope increased. By the middle of the second set you could see waves of smoke all thru the place. There was one fairly obnoxious drunk but he was gone fairly quickly. I looked around and saw everyone dancing. Age, sex, clothing didn’t matter. We were concerned that one guy was so far under the influence of something that his dancing approached the level of a seizure. Everyone seemed to be having a very good time. I know I did. I’ve been listening to tapes of the concert ever since.

I missed the music. It is an important part of my life and at times I have let it go. I did like the folk music of the 60s, but I also liked bands like the Dead, the Who, the Allman Brothers, etc. I think I stopped really listening when glam rock came in and then the whole rap scene, which I could never get into. I know there is a whole generation of alternative music that I am totally ignorant about.

Did you ever wonder what the sound track of your life would sound like? I once told my wife that I wanted the Rolling Stone song “You Cant Always Get What You Want “ played at my wake. I still remember the “Big Chill” and thought that would be a cool way to go out. I think I told her that in my late 30s or early forties. Now I probably want people saying rosaries but maybe they could still hum a little Stones? I think I’ll put that in my will. Maybe now I’ll change the tune to Jack Straw so folks can sing the chorus “Roll On, Roll On” as they carry me out.

Whatever.

I just need to keep remembering some of the important stuff I have forgot.

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So recently I’ve been throwing things out. This is difficult for me since I know I am on the hoarder spectrum. I will find clothes that I haven’t worn in years but still don’t want to get rid of. In any case I opened one of my dresser drawers and found an old watch in several pieces in the back behind old rubber bands and business cards. I showed it to my wife and she asked about it. I told her that my mother gave me that watch on my 21^st birthday. This was about three months after my father had died and both she and my father wanted to give me something special for that important birthday.

It is an old Hamilton watch and I hadn’t worn it in over 40+ years—maybe even longer than that. It was a dress watch and back in those days I was pretty casual. When I told my wife the story,  she said we should get it fixed because of the family history. I agreed and sent it off to a jeweler.

The strange thing is that it did trigger memories. I was given that watch exactly fifty years ago. I still find that number difficult to accept. Last fall I drove thru a university I had attended and realized that I had started there fifty years ago. Fifty is not that large a number but fifty years is a very long time.

I know this blog has a recurrent theme of aging, but maybe it’s not so much aging as time passing and memories surfacing. How many ticks does it take for a watch to measure fifty years?

Yesterday in church the priest began talking about his parents and how they helped him experience God. He asked what our memories of that were. I began thinking of my childhood and the almost magical view of God I had. I don’t think this was totally due to my parents. I think the nuns and priests I was exposed to then had a very large part in this. I remember when I was in 5th or 6^th grade I would have to wear three or four medals and two scapulars to bed. I would literally clank every time I rolled over. This was because I had been told that if you wore these things you were guaranteed entrance to heaven. So if I died overnight I had a lock on the pearly gates. My parents never tried to dissuade me from this type of thinking. My grandmother from Ireland lived with us. She prayed two rosaries a day for her dead husband and had many more prayers throughout the day. Our house was filled with holy cards given as prizes and rewards from the nuns at school. We also had countless holy cards from the many family funerals.

I remember my parents had this large crucifix hanging over their bed. One time I took it down and found it had secret compartments to hold candles and holy water. I was told that this was for emergencies if someone got sick and the priest had to be called. Apparently many families had these special crosses.

I think death was always a presence in our family. My grandmother’s first child died of complications from scarlet fever and pneumonia when he was nine or ten. My mother’s sister had a child who died of testicular cancer at eight or nine. My parents lived thru the trauma of WWII. My mother was sure my father was going to be killed. She couldn’t sleep and lost a great amount of weight during that time. She also spent much time praying.

I think there was always an expectation that something terrible could happen and we had to defend ourselves as best we could. Polio was a real fear for the parents of that time. I think the vaccine began to come out in the mid 1950s and everyone hoped it would work. One of my cousins told me that there was one day she came home from school and it was like a plague had struck the neighborhood. There were police cars everywhere preventing people from leaving because a few children had been diagnosed with the disease. Given the time, culture and our family history, it’s no wonder that I had such a magical view of spirituality.

So now we are in the second decade of the 21^st century. We are constantly exposed to new marvels of science and technology. However there is still a sense of uncertainty about the future. Instead of Polio, we have terrorists and lone wolf gunmen, and new strange viruses. Every day there is something new. Politicians are trying to get votes by focusing on this fear. The media pushes it because it sells “If it bleeds. It leads—etc.” There is an epidemic of anxiety, depression, and insomnia. It is difficult not to get sucked into all of this. I think I have grown beyond my medals and my scapulars, but I still gather comfort from small prayers. I think I always will.

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I remember talking to a patient who worked on the line at Caterpillar. He was talking about how proud he was of one of their new earthmovers. The company cafeteria was in the midst of the assembly plant. Rather than pictures of their own machines, they had actual earthmovers, tractors and bulldozers from their competitors. All employees were encouraged to examine the competitor’s machines and compare them to the ones made in the plant. My patient had a real pride of ownership over the machine he worked on and the contribution he made to it. Freud’s famous quote about work and love keeps coming back, but what is rolling around in my head right now is the meaning of life.

Sometimes people think they have to accomplish great and wonderful things to have a meaningful life. When that doesn’t happen their whole lives begin to feel empty. I remember seeing attorneys, physicians, CEOs of large companies who thought their lives were meaningless. One very successful businessman broke down in tears in my office not because of business failures, illness or family problems. He was going bald and couldn’t handle going on in life without a full head of hair. He had developed all sorts of catastrophic expectations as to what would happen. He thought his business would collapse, his friends would shun him and his wife would leave. He had great difficulty putting his life in perspective.

I remember another woman who was in a terribly abusive marriage. She had left her husband once and then returned because their children were young and she didn’t think she could support them. She would, of course, have very bad days re this decision. Yet she would have really good days too because she loved to cook and to bake. She brought in a number of Blue Ribbons that her cakes had won at county fairs. She told me that even her husband was proud of her for that. Another couple I saw was childless but raised mastiffs. The wife would talk about these huge dogs and describe them as her “family”. Both she and her husband had serious physical and financial problems, but as long as they had their dogs they were happy.

What gives meaning for one person may be meaningless to another. It can be foolish to compare your life to another person because you have no real idea what that life is like. Once in the hospital I saw a couple about the wife’s serious illness. She and her husband had been married over thirty years and had raised six children. They had a good marriage despite the fact that the husband worked 12-hour shifts in a factory and she worked similar hours on opposite shifts in another factory. They would see each other briefly in the morning as the children were getting ready for school. The central focus of their lives was their marriage and their children. Someone looking in from the outside would find it hard to say they were happy because of the intense business of their lives, but they were.

Germany has one of the shortest work weeks in Europe. All workers get an automatic four week vacation every year. Pay is uniformly very high and unemployment is low. The Wall Street Journal had a recent article about the fact that despite the positives, many workers there are suffering from “Das Burnout”. Their expectations of their lives don’t match the reality. Sometimes there is a fantasy that there are people who never have bad days. Their lives are filled with one exciting episode after another. This is obviously not true. We all live thru a range of emotions from ecstasy to utter boredom. Some days are wonderful and some experiences are beyond compare. Then there are the other ones we would all like to forget or at least to ignore. It’s important to keep believing that a bad day or a bad week month or even year doesn’t mean a bad life. I don’t believe Thoreau’s quote : “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them” is true. Sometimes the song is hard to find but it is there for everyone. You just have to keep practicing singing until you find it.

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Recently I have been thinking about death. This has been triggered by a number of things. Prince, an artist I liked, died suddenly. Merle Haggard, old country outlaw that he was, died on his birthday. Alan Rickman, a very fine actor, also died suddenly. However what troubled me the most was the sudden death of an ex patient. She was just 40 y/o and died of a pulmonary embolism. She had been on a disability for years that really affected her life, but she was trying to be happy. She had a loving family who really enjoyed her. Sudden death is always totally unexpected. .

I think we all believe we will live forever. Death seems like it happens to other people, but not to someone like me. In my culture death was always present. I still tell people that before I was 12, I had probably been to more wakes than anyone I knew. The Irish Catholics have rituals about death. There is the wake full of friends, relatives, and comforting words. In the old days, wakes were at least three days. I still have vague memories of my grandfather’s wake. My cousin and I were only five years old, and we were allowed to run around the funeral home for all three days. Wakes were gradually reduced. My own father and mother’s were two days. It is now only one day. The day of the funeral starts from the funeral home with a procession to the Church. There is the funeral mass and then the long procession to the cemetery. Now there are internment chapels. In the old days we would stand around an open grave as the priest said the final prayers. Now we all enter these beautiful buildings and say our final good byes. After that there is the funeral lunch. The lunch is now usually held in restaurants and includes family style food and drinks. After the lunch a select few are invited back to the family home for continued talk, drink, and more food.

This is the way my family has dealt with death in my lifetime. I know no matter what I do, this will happen to me. Recently I received a brochure from the Cremation Society of America. They were looking for business. They even offered a free cremation with a tasteful container if you joined as a family. Funeral homes now aggressively advertise and recommend pre-planning your funeral. I once jokingly told my wife that I wanted a funeral like in the movie “The Big Chill” with speakers blaring “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. I don’t think she is in favor of that. I said that quite a few years ago but now death is certainly more present.

I think what bothers me now is the reality of how fragile life really is. This is not a forever thing. It can end at any time.   I still remember my mother never getting over my father’s death. I still see my grandmother praying two rosaries every day for my grandfather.

I have had quite a few patients threaten suicide and an unfortunate few who succeeded. I always tried to get the ones who were thinking about it to contract with me not to. I saw the family members of suicides totally crushed. They always thought if they could have just done one more thing, said one more thing, their loved one wouldn’t have died. I wanted my patients to hear about this . I always told them that their lives didn’t just belong to them , but also to those who loved them. The effects of a suicide can last generations. I remember treating a man in his sixties still trying to understand his own grandfather’s suicide. I had patients try suicide because a relative had and suicide became an answer to a difficult situation.

I know that for some people life seems unbearable, but death is forever and cant be taken back. As hard as it is think of those who love you. They wont get over it. Don’t kid yourself.

Now as I am in my seventh decade, my own denial system is still at work. Some days I still think the future is endless. Then there are those days when reality hits. Thankfully my health is still pretty good. I have a supportive wife and family. I still enjoy life and look forward to tomorrow. I keep reminding myself about the importance of focusing on the now. The sudden death of friends and people I know ,or am familiar with,  keeps interrupting that.

I know I still have a lot of work to do on this for myself. Maybe the answer is to  keep trying to live well so that no matter what I can have some positive memories no matter what or when.

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Last year around this time I met this rather strange old man at the gym. He began talking to me while we were both in the hot tub after I had worked out. He said “Do you like a good joke?” He then told me two or three double entendre jokes, which were really not funny. He then launched into his life story. He was 74 and married to a 50-year-old woman. His first wife of 40+ years had died and he had remarried. His current wife was an old customer of his. After the marriage he had moved in with her and her adult children and was still supporting them. He was somewhat estranged from his own adopted son who had not been in favor of this marriage. I was polite and listened, but it really was almost like work.

I didn’t see him again until Wednesday when he again approached me in the hot tub with his line “Do you like a good joke?” He then told me the same ones he had told me a year ago. This time I didn’t stay around long enough for the rest of the story. An older woman entered the pool and he began talking to her about his 50 y/o wife. He seemed sad and probably lonely, but I really didn’t want to hear his stories.

Today while I was swimming he again approached me with “Do you like a good joke?” He then started to tell me the same jokes until I cut him off and began to swim. As I was swimming I noticed that he had cornered a young man and was going thru his routine. The kid looked really uncomfortable but really didn’t know what to do.

I continued my workout and went to shower and dress. As I was getting dressed, I heard the old man in another part of the locker room starting again. He had cornered two or three guys and was trying to tell them the same old jokes he had told two or three times already.

I was really irritated by this as I left the gym. Then I began to think who the hell do I think I am? This guy is only four years older than me and is probably very lonely. His home life sounds pretty desperate and he is trying to make some social contact. He keeps using a routine that probably worked for him at one point in time. There are guys who still think that to be one of the good old boys you have to start by telling a dirty joke. It might still work in a bar, but it doesn’t work really well in the kind of mixed gym we go to.

How do you make social contact with new people? One of my old patients and I would laugh over cheesy pickup lines:

“Hi, I’m a fashion photographer. Would you like to be in my next photo shoot?

Are you a 90 degree angle? Cause you are looking right!

Hey gorgeous! I’ve just finished studying the book of numbers. But I noticed I don’t have yours.”

(The one that I would probably use is: “ I’m single and desolate. Can you help me?”)

However this is really not a joke for older people. Many of our friends are dead or gone or focused on their own families. Sometimes I have noticed my own sons rolling their eyes when I tell them stuff because they really don’t want to hear it. Maybe they are starting to think of me like I was thinking of the guy at the gym. One of my friends said that he never wanted to be like his parents and just talk about his ailments. He now knows that he does it quite a bit. Older parts just don’t seem to work as well as they used to. We do repeat ourselves and our memories are often dysfunctional if not totally absent.

Bette Davis’ famous line : “Old Age ain’t for Sissies” still rings true. A couple of years ago my brother-in-law’s sister had asked for our help in moving some things into her apartment at a retirement center. I still remember carrying stuff down this long dark hallway that had many apartment doors. They were all closed and very quiet. It was almost like a mausoleum. She died a year later in a nursing home. It was a very good nursing home, but no matter how good, they all have patients strapped into wheel chairs and there is always a smell of urine. Old age can be a very lonely time. There is a very solid body of research that shows increased social contact can delay Dementia and Alzheimer’s in the elderly. There are senior clubs and “senior outings”, but I’m not ready for that yet. I don’t feel like a senior. I’m still too much into rock & roll, but maybe, just maybe, I should start thinking about this more

So I will try to not be such a judgmental jerk to the guy at the gym. I just don’t want to hear his jokes any more.