All
Grown-up Now?
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
We know the definition of a teenager:
that is, we human creatures who put up with all the trials and tribulations, the
invasion of an acne army and moaning growing pains, between the ages of 13 to
19. We know a baby is a small human in diapers with an insatiable appetite, and
a tweener is somebody between a baby and a teenager; 'too young for this' and
'too old for that'. And it is assumed an adult is anyone with enough cumulative
heartbeats to legally purchase and drink liquor, smoke cigarettes and gamble,
be qualified to vote (if they want to), sign a contract, and do generally anything
to enhance or defame the human image.
But when are we officially considered
a grown-up? You know; someone who is full-sized, full-fledged, fully developed
both mentally and physically and qualified for an enhanced lifestyle. Is that
retirement? Is retirement the natural passage between adulthood and grownup hood?
There are so many things they didn't tell us when we were handed a birth certificate
and declared to be a human, and this is one of those transparent smudges in life
we cross with no instructions or even a amusement-park-type map for directions.
Maybe people must qualify to be a grown-up: A mental test must be passed
or anyone can claim this status of nobility. To be really qualified I bet there
are questions like: Do you know who Rosie the Riveter is and the Yankee Clipper?
Do Pearl Harbor and Air Raid Sirens shatter your memories? And to be a little
less qualified I bet there are questions like: Can you define 'I like Ike', Rock
Around the Clock, Ozzie and Harriet, and the Brooklyn Dodgers? Do you remember
dancing the Twist or the Bunny Hop in Pegger pants, or pedal pushers, and a turned
up collar, and for some of us, with our greasy hair shining under the revolving
mirrored globe hanging from the gymnasium ceiling, while listening to music on
the Hi-fi?
The physical qualifications are easier to ascertain. If
your well-weathered face doesn't qualify for the cover of Elle or GQ magazine,
you're in. Now you might be able to run a marathon race, but more than likely
if your bones ache going from the front door to the car, you're in. If you believe
gravity is the worst element in all of nature's wonders, and the southern environment
sunshine is the best, you're in. If you purchase canned food and you quit purchasing
food in jars because you can no longer open the lids with your hands, you're in.
Social qualifications take on the traits of a Bill hop-scotching through
Congress. What being grown-up is to one person is different to the next person.
(You see, lobbyists have already taken a nibble out of the process.) Responsibility
seems to loom as a defining guideline for grown-ups: Learning to take responsibility
and consequences for your actions. Learning to treat people as you would like
to be treated yourself. When you realize the entire world does not revolve around
you and that it will go on tomorrow, with or without you, you are now socially
a grown-up. Come On! Is this grownup hood or the Boy Scouts?
Then
other critical questions arise: Is anyone ever completely grown-up? Does everyone
really want to be a grown-up? Do we have to go through all this trouble? Can we
be grown-up and still be an adult and have the energy and attitude of a teenager?
Maybe just being a plain old adult is better. If I admit to being a grown-up,
will somebody fix the bathroom mirror that makes me look like my grownup father?
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The
Aging Battle
(The Immortality Dream)
By: Patrick M. Kennedy
The anti-aging, age-defying, longevity, staying young, never aging, and the most
extreme, the never-ever dying goals in life, have spawned industries that create
solutions and concoctions that materialize in the form of lotions, oils, skin
creams, growth hormones, mud baths, secret herbs, nutritional supplements, and
laser beams, etc. They are short-term answers to the age-old problem of a longer
life. Last year, 2004, Americans spent $20 billion on various anti-aging products.
To this date there is absolutely no scientific proof that any commercially available
product will stop time or reverse aging, no matter how many lobbyists the pharmaceutical
companies put in Washington; of course optimistically, anything can still happen
in this scientific age.
Let us examine the core of the
aging problem. There is only one legitimate, workable counter-attack in the battle
against this process: Stop all the intimidating sweeping hands on clocks and rip
the calendar numbers off the walls. Ignore everything and anything that announces
the date or time such as newspapers, TV and the Town Crier. Mainly, don't celebrate
birthdays.
Age is the duration of time one has existed.
And after all, aging is in actuality the passing of time, isn't it? That steady
arrow that silently moves in an undisturbed motion invisibly passing in front
of our eyes through life on ball-bearing castors. It's the movement of the planets
and tides, hopeful buds popping from the earth in the spring and tree leaves drying
in the autumn like weathered skin. It is the organic process of growing older
and showing effects of increasing age. 'No time, no aging,' it's as easy as that.
Unless science can stop time we have a problem.
If Juan
Ponce de León had discovered the Fountain of Youth in Florida in about
1513, we wouldn't have to worry. If we each had a portrait similar to the Dorian
Gray picture that cracked, wrinkled and aged for us, we wouldn't have to worry.
A sip of the elixir of life potion and the resulting immortality would be fun.
But, NOT! It's a fact and historical consensus proves it: Without a doubt 9999
out of every 10,000 humans unsuccessfully inhibit the aging process. And that
lonely 1 in 10,000, it is rumored, manages to beat the process and shows up as
a same-old rehashed politician. The odds are against all of us: We either pass
to the other side or become a politician.
As has been
acknowledged, after all, aging is the organic process of growing older and showing
the effects of increasing age; graying, wrinkling, sagging, and shrinking. But
there are some positive qualities to aging, like acquiring desirable qualities
by being left undisturbed for some time, you know, like good bourbon or tasty
cheese or becoming a ripe banana or pomegranate. Maturing, as some people look
at it, is the process of developing an entity until it reaches perfection. Somebody
forgot to define perfection in the eternal human life process. It can be anything
in the eyes of the beholder in this twilight zone between being and not.
The immortality dream can take on many concepts when mixed with personal and debatable
reality. "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying
of the light," said Dylan Thomas. "Time to turn back and descend the
stair, with a bald spot in the middle of my hair--," said T. S. Eliot. These
are observations on facing the phenomena of life and aging. "Look younger,"
says every beauty magazine on the drugstore rack: This is nothing but sales gibberish.
Unfortunately, eternal youth can not be found in a bottle or a jar, or even in
a poem, but is a myth perpetuated by the anti-aging agents of profit. But, anything
can happen.
Becoming a robot is one way to attain perfection
and beat aging, but how can someone walk in high heels or sneakers with those
club feet. The touchy-feely part of life is discombobulated. Wigs, weaves, plugs,
dyes, skin grafts, wrinkle removers and plastic surgery don't make anyone younger
but can make anyone feel younger; and they come close to the ultimate answer:
robotic renovation - that is, becoming a mechanical device that sometimes resembles
a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human tasks on
command or by being programmed in advance. I've seen some individuals who feel
plastic is fantastic and believe they will never die because they can never decompose.
But being a robot, or wanna-be robot, leaves out the option of tasting that fine
bourbon and cheese, or eating a banana.
But again, something
may eventually happen because we believe time is eternal, hope is not lost; maybe
the scientific community of anti-aging gurus can clone time's eternal properties
into the human DNA.
Packrat
Assets
(Moving
our Hodgepodge of Memories)
By: Patrick M. Kennedy
Sometimes we must do it. Most of us consider doing it shortly after we withdraw
from our labor for subsistence. We must make our change of life complete. It is
a financially advantageous thing to do and maybe a good thing, too, we justify:
That is, the dreaded act of relocating from our Colonial full-family model 4-bedroom
1.5-bath middle-class home (stuffed with a hodgepodge of memories stacked and
stored in many closets, bedrooms, an attic, a basement, a garage, and a yard,
and countless dusty nooks and crannies) in a nice lawn-groomed neighborhood, and
move to a down-sized dwelling in another neighborhood with homes stacked one on
top of the other with less space. It will make us happier; we fanaticize, and
give us more time to do the things we want to do; we anticipate.
It is an intimidating chore, this moving, we soon discover. Somehow, after all
these years, our collection of memories has magically materialized into solid
and heavy structures and shapes, and just possibly, there aren't enough boxes
on earth to transport them, or a truck strong enough to drag away the bulk called
our packrat assets. And concurrently, putting toothpaste back into the tube comes
to mind. Some memories will have to be forgotten.
The
unpacked boxes in the attic have gathered dust there since our previous move.
We strongly consider leaving them unopened and add them to the charity pile near
the curb; and we nervously do, unopened, dump them in the garbage. What are we
going to do with semi-rusty garden tools and a gas-eating, smoke-spewing lawnmower
let alone a snaking never-could-coil-it-anyway rubber hose? We can't water and
mow the carpet in our new and tinier abode. We know why we kept the photos and
artwork, but why the 1987 phone book, and TV Rabbit Ears? We must have considered
at one time of stuffing them and hanging them on the wall as souvenir of our first
boob tube.
More books than shelves. It is an accepted
extraterrestrial law (which is more powerful than Murphy's Law) and known by cosmic
travelers for eons, that whenever someone moves from one space to another space
the books that fit in those shelves before, don't anymore. I've begun to tell
small children to read a lot and read everything, but give away the books when
you're done with them.
We must also determine if all
the T- and Sweat-Shirts, and baseball caps for the Grateful Dead and Give Peace
and Chance and other advertising infinitum souvenirs, and so forth, are all worth
moving again: Especially since they are quite a few sizes too small for us to
ever wear again and are of in the basic condition of cleaning rags. And as we
look at our other rags (clothes) we decide we have stockpiled too many coats and
sweaters for the warm weather environment, and are head-nodding affirmative in
our belief that we purchased shoes by the pair and not by the dozen. Rabbit genes
are involved here somehow, we believe.
Additional cardboard
boxes are always available at any of the local moving-truck rental spots. They
are sold in multiple sizes and shapes for encasing any conceivable item and cost
from $1.10 to$7.25 each. The key here is we must be sure that what we pack in
a box is at least worth the price of the box or we are losing money. And that
poses another hitch: Establishing the difference between assets and junk is like
defining the difference between a rock and a boulder, and we found, all have the
properties of being dirty, ugly and heavy.
A yard or
garage sale is out of the question. Many of these small items are only as valuable
as the memories attached to them, and we decided those were not for sale. Our
boxes and piles of donations to charity are slowly growing at the curb into an
estate of its own. We see a bird picking pieces out of a wicker chair to build
a nest. We are pleased that some part of it will be useful in a new home.
They say the earlier years of life lay the foundation for
the later years and it is important to build on that foundation. 'They' who said
that most likely haven't moved their assets lately.
Zen
vs. Nap
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
A glazed donut
smothered with a dark chocolate and garnished with a rainbow of sprinkles vs.
a sugarless/non-raisin bran muffin: Like asking me to choose between riding on
a trike with a square front tire or in a stretch Limo with a complimentary bar.
Since exchanging my occupation machine routine for a serene state of eternal retreat,
I've had to make so many new choices between happiness and health … 'one
leads to the other' I've been told … but to me they're like animate forks
in the road through life that interweave around each other. One leads to the other
and they mirror each other just like a couple married for countless years.
How do I best treat my body and mind to become a healthier
and yet happier person? I asked my inner self who at the time was busy reading
the TV schedule.
Meditation, of course, or Zen as some
people refer to it, is a subject often linked to the state of true happiness (I
guess as opposed to ordinary happiness being a small fib). Zen meditation refers
to a condition in which the body is consciously relaxed and the mind is allowed
to become calm and focused: 'Continuous and profound contemplation or musing on
a subject or series of subjects of a deep or abstruse nature'. This could easily
describe my state just before I take my afternoon Nap on the couch. Do toes count
as subjects of abstruse nature? A Nap, as you are aware, is 'a sleep for a brief
period, often during the day … to doze': and it also has another meaning;
'to pour or put a sauce or gravy over a cooked dish'. I could easily be a cooked
dish when I vegetate on the couch during my afternoon siesta, but not for this
purpose of pursuing happiness in the psychic sense.
I believe for me the Nap option is closer to the phenomenon of meditation. Both
these approaches to true happiness, Zen and Nap, position the mind (and body)
in a relaxed state in order to become calm and focused. If I tell my friends I
take a short Zen period every afternoon, would I be far from the truth? And I
would appear to be a deep person since I am seeking happiness using a universal,
trendy, contemplative method. Besides, Naps aren't that far from true happiness.
I have free-flowing happy dreams in old style Technicolor; although mostly in
slow motion and vivid flashbacks these days, and unfortunately I must I sit in
the senior discount seats.
Breakfast is another and the
first genuine challenge in the choices between happiness and health during the
day (besides pushing or not pushing the snooze button on the alarm). There's that
bran muffin again. Add a bowl of oatmeal and black coffee and I have a breakfast
as exciting as a one-horse race: How about ham or sausage or bacon, eggs, hash
browns and toast. I hover over this platter of happiness at least once a week
at Ma's Café on the corner of cholesterol and glucose. I have to admit
this weekly weakness trashes the health aspects of happiness but raises the joy-of-life
happiness to a temporary level of ecstasy.
I've found,
since being allowed to make my own decisions and not wedged into a rut, seemingly
commonplace everyday choices can be earthshakingly important options in the quest
for a healthy and happy life (WOW! is that a mouthful of gingersnap words), such
as to walk or to drive (depends on the weather); cola or diet soda; (with or without
spirits); regular or decaf; a few laps on the treadmill or a session of Tai Chi.
Now Tai Chi is my game at my speed … slow, fluid and
gentle, and can be practiced outdoors, if I don't mind looking like a fool. It's
a physical meditation I'm told. I've seen some neighbors practice it down the
street in the park (it must be practice because it never looks completely refined).
They say it can help with everything from blood pressure to increased bone density
to lowering stress. That's a lot for an exercise that imitates a stork stuck in
the mud. They claim it gives them a better perspective of their life challenges
and problems; and I can say that would be an indisputable fact each time they
lose their balance and fall to the ground flat on their back. Everything looks
up from down there.
But I return to the original question:
How do I best treat my body to become a healthier and yet happier person? And
my fence-walking answer is simple … chocolate flavored bran donuts with raisins
and sugarless sprinkles.
A
Second Heartbeat
(Or a Cuddle Buddy)
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
A crony recently
advised me that I needed another heartbeat. I immediately threw my hand to my
chest hoping for another … and again another after that. 'But the doctor
says I'm in great shape', I gasped. 'Not a transplant, idiot,' he put in plain
words, 'a second heartbeat, a companion.' Because I am a single senior and tired
of eating TV dinners and take-out food my mind immediately flashed brilliant colors
of Las Vegas ladies and gala parties, but I knew with all that going on I may
need a third or fourth heartbeat to keep up the pace. 'A pet,' he clarified, 'a
second heartbeat, a cuddle buddy, someone to talk to rather than your impassive
walls.'
My walls do just hang their and hold up the pictures
and doorways. My friend probably had a point. I had to give it some sober thought
… and thorough research … so I started analyzing my way through the
animal kingdom … starting with the most common heartbeats …dogs and
cats.
For the most part dogs seem to be slow on the uptake,
but loveable and active, and they come in a variety of sizes and colors. I figured
size related directly to food consumption and dumption (if there is such a word
to tolerably describe the process of following an animal down the street with
a plastic bag in hand), and color related to shedding to match the carpet. Cats
are too mysterious and I am positive each one stares at me with the intention
of trying to possess my human soul. That scares me. I have enough trouble keeping
my soul pointed in the right direction without it being attached to a cat. But
cats do have a lot of fun and are fun to watch, from a distance. They run around
the neighborhood, unleashed, and chase birds and an array of imaginary wildlife
they eyeball from an ancestral crouch.
But cats and
dogs are old hat and everyone has one, I figured, so a visit to a local pet store
might reveal a menagerie of other heartbeats.
Birds are
colorful, small and easy to maintain and can chirp or chatter or sing. Canaries
are small and sociable, as long as you don't touch them (sounds like some people
I know), and can live up to 25 years. 'Wait a minute,' I worried, 'I may have
to include the canary in my will.' Macaws are beautiful, but large and they can
live to the age of 50 … another inheritor to my vast estate of packrat artifacts.
And a plain old parrot, if taught to sing O Solo Mio like Enrico Caruso, will
be a real pain in the brain in no time. Besides, where do you put a birdcage in
a SUV while traveling across country?
Do snakes have
heartbeat … a heart? Does a fish have a personality?
When is the last time you had the opportunity to cuddle and pet a rat, or even
escort one down the street on a leash? I was told a fancy rat, I supposed as opposed
to a Cinderella-before-the-Ball rat, is an ideal pet for the ages 8 and up with
adult supervision. (Being over 8 I didn't know who I could ask to supervise me
in my pet play time.) They grow up to 10-inches long with up to an 8-inch tail.
My O' My! That's a foot-and-a half of rodent fun and maybe I could escort mine
on a leash down the street - if I want to lose all my neighbors as friends and
be attacked by cats … and 'you should have two rats', I was told, 'they are
smart and can learn tricks …but they have large front teeth and need something
to chew on.' Between the tangled leashes and my gnawed finger stumps, I passed
on the rat(s) as a second heartbeat.
Then there is the
reptile family of pets. There is a variety of reptiles beyond the slithery snake
group. How about a Crocodile Greco, a Panther Chameleon, a Blue-tongued Skink,
or an Argentine Horned Pac Man Frog? All are genuine animals and not Sci-Fi creatures.
And you know what? These pets eat live insects and worms that also must be fed
nutrients before they are fed to the second heartbeat. I passed again.
While considering the second heartbeat I also reflected on some of the secondary
responsibilities. Cleaning up after any second heartbeat will be an olfactory
challenge no matter what the source: Cats are not clean animals - have you cleaned
out a cat box lately? Little doggie-poop baggies are just disgusting. Stained
and dirty newspaper bottoms and littered water that must be changed, and sweeping
the floor of a reptile cage littered with insect carcasses could be downright
memorable.
There are a few other outlandish things to
consider, such as, a decent burial for my second heartbeat in a Pet Cemetery;
before that Veterinarian expenses; related to that I recently read that I may
have to send my second heartbeat to be consulted by a member of the IAABC (International
Association of Animal Behavior Consultants). I saw a sign in a pet shop I was
browsing that advertised 'Have your pet's photo taken with Santa'. Come On! But
the one I read written on a bathroom wall made me feel a little queasy, 'Keep
our city clean. Eat your dog!"
There you have it,
and as a man of strict indecision and sticking to it, I decided my friend was
right and decided on two second heartbeats to keep me in high spirits: a spaniel
puppy and a wirehair kitten.
Dressing
Down
By: Patrick M. Kennedy
And
I was positive I knew what I looked like in the mirror all these years. But, to
say it wildly, the other oxford dropped when someone asked, "Do you know
what you look like in those clothes? Are you comfortable? It's a barbeque, man.
Loosen up!" I had to admit I'd ventured out on very few shopping expeditions
for new rags since I embarked on my finer life of leisure. I began to feel like
an eight ball at a beach ball party.
Someone then suggested
I wear a brighter and more colorful shirt for a photo shoot. I can catch a hint.
I figured I'd better examine my closet and I found it looked like a typical day
in the Pacific Northwest; a dull assortment of grays, blacks, whites and occasional
shades of blue…my dress-up clothes for many years that served me perfectly
well in the cubicle world. The only traces of a rainbow in my closet were the
neckties, which I pledged I would never knot to my neck again; at least I knew
that much about casual wear. A light bulb lit up in my brain, wearing my old work
clothes as party clothes wasn't socially acceptable and a major fashion modification
was in order.
After that degrading comment about my casual
rags I scrutinized the attire of my friends at the party (men only, because women
always have two or three floors of wardrobe to choose from at any department store,
even work clothes, while men's clothes are strung along racks between the tools
and the shoes), and I deduced that casual clothes for men materialize in three
fundamental styles: The golfer motif, which depicts the impression that the displayer
of this costume is arriving at or coming from the 18th or 19th hole; Hawaiian-loud
designed attire says vacation is my game and I've been around and I don't want
you to forget it; or then there's the racetrack bookie garb that falls between
an imitation of Cary Grant and the used finery purchased from a pawn shop. Believe
me; any combination of two of these styles creates chaos in the GQ world.
I decided it was time to dress down and I ventured into unknown
territory to shop for my new rags; I wandered the streets of the city rather than
the aisles of the clotheshorse arcade. I stumbled on a store that specialized
in sneakers where just about any creature from the animal kingdom or any barometric
condition on the weather map could encase my feet: choosing from the basic activities
of walking, running, cross training, basketball, skateboarding, casual or courting.
Being a single guy I opted for the latter; it seemed like an all-purpose shoe
with a sort-of-flat sole and a conservative gray color … hard to kick the
habit.
Working my way up the torso new pants was my next
objective. I remember when jeans were simply called blue jeans and had the little
watch pocket in the front and a leather label on the back under the belt. Now
they are called denims, Levi's®, Wranglers®, and an assortment of cowboy
(girl) descriptive action adjectives and fashion designer dialog. They carry descriptive
styles like boot cut, pre-shrunk, cargo, carpenter, relaxed, easy fit, form fit,
loose fit, straight leg (What? As opposed to a broken leg?), patch pocket, paint
splatter, boomer (now if that means baby boomer, they might fit me), and adult
cut; baggies were out because they dropped below my love handles.
I had to make a fundamental style decision, that is, do I want to look like an
adult type or a preshrunk-relaxed-easy fit type of casual person? I assumed the
obvious and bought the adult style, which I quickly splattered with paint and
dragged behind my SUV a few miles to make them look in style. Of course, there
are alternative choices such as casual slacks, khakis, cords, and wash and wears,
but I decided to hold off on buying those until I lose my extra weight at the
gym.
I was beginning to get into this fashion-plate mood
and decided to venture up the body parts and cover my middle-aged spread around
the bread basket. Since I live in warm territory, and because the color of my
jeans and sneakers were close in color to my work clothes, I decided on a clashing
rainbow collection of polo, golf, tennis, and sport shirts; long and short sleeve;
pocket and non-pocket; with or without a moose, alligator, brand name and golf
club embroidered on the chest; multi-colored and plain; and one size larger than
usual to cover all the good-time meals I'd eaten in my previous life.
Hats are a mood thing and my mood is usually not to wear one, unless it's raining
too hard or the sun is shining too bright. I could hold off on jackets and sweats
until the weather cooled to room temperature.
There,
it was done; I'd bit the bullet and shopped till I dropped. I selected a set of
sporty clothes that I'll wear to the next barbeque. It's a different approach
than the three styles I'd observed on others. I looked into the mirror again and
recognized that I'm now a retired teenager: Next, a pony tail, tattoo, and pierced
ear.
Help
Wanted
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
Hat in hand,
I must carry out the most multi-faceted and degrading action-reaction performance
devised for humans since the beginning of the Industrial Age: A job interview.
The unexpected is always expected. Humility is the strongest asset to bring to
the table. I know that. I must be pleasant and have a silk suit and tie on my
tongue with a button-down brain cluttered with pearly smiles and polished pleases.
The interview process, usually, in the past, in my case, unfortunately, after
the interviewer, typically a fresh very-young graduate in Human Resources from
Matchbook Trade School, after glancing halfheartedly at my resume, seems to consist
of two questions: Why do you want this job? And, can you find the door? My gray
hair trips me up every time.
While waiting – sweating – in the
waiting room before this interview, dwarfed by youth, vitality, and the latest
fashionable outfits, reality hits me in the face like the bottom side of a frying
pan. It must be a weighty enough task for a young person to apply for a job or
plan a career in these days of high-speed mutation: but what about me, a senior
and proven useful individual? I just want a meager supplemental income to keep
the corporate collectors from my door while at the same time doing something with
my idle time. I squirm in my folding chair and feel like a no-nonsense tennis
shoe at the Governor’s Ball as the tasseled loafers pass me by.
I remember
what President Clinton so eloquently orated to an audience a few years ago, “By
the time our young people reach your age, they will be working jobs that haven’t
been invented yet.” Great! I see a lot of young people around me who have
fingered through the yellow pages shopping for the Acme Trade School so they can
master those yet-to-be invented jobs, or have applied at a local community college
and asked, “Can you enroll me in all the classes for a job that doesn’t
exist right now, but will pay me those ‘big bucks’ twenty years from
now. And by the way, I’ll take my $1500 tax credit in cash.” They are
at least smart enough to know that whatever they learn today will be obsolete
tomorrow because technology is moving too fast. I feel their distress. I didn’t
know the Pres was also talking about me.
What about me? I’m available,
a neat dresser, experienced, and actively in the job hunt, but I’ve found,
though, the openings for a trained and proven professional range from Superstore
Greeter to Café Swamper. I guess they have determined any old person can
shake a hand or swing a mop or drive a delivery van. If all else fails I can always
resort back to delivering the morning newspaper like I did when I was 10 years
old.
Despite all I continue the game. Two dailies thumping my door: Opportunity
knocking? Wonderful! Men Wanted. Man Wanted For. Circle and call. Circle and call.
I do the expected newspaper routine. “Not today, sorry! All filled up today,
call again tomorrow or after you reincarnate as a younger version and own a bigger
car.” I can’t demand. My resume and applications are probably stashed
in file drawers all over town between chopped olive sandwiches and Mercy Missy
Napkins. Because I have a young sounding voice I finally land this interview.
Looking around I begin to wonder if this is actually an interview, or maybe I
was invited as an example of what could be if they don’t play the interview
game by the inflexible rules. My folding chair squeaks from the squirming.
Our
great nation has fabricated a Great Society by blending all the melting-pot of
newcomers, and has created some wonderful children so-far: The Beat Generation
of Zen.; The Age of Aquarius or Where are we?; The Boomer’s Generation of
Now; The X-Generation of Whatever; And they all boil down to the Skip Generation:
Us, the cream at the top of the pot. The 500 skeptically intelligent and superficially
compassionate people we’ve elected to rent homes in Washington D. C., and
who qualified for their jobs by passing a political opinion poll in the comics
section, are no help. They throw around a lot of words to get votes. We haven’t
been defined yet. Our jobs haven’t been invented yet; they haven’t trickled
down yet, because we don’t need work, they say, we’re not expected to
work, they believe. We’ve been skipped.
A pleasant voice finally sings
in demonic harmony through the room calling my name. I rise and a recent-undergraduate
young lady beckons me to follow her through the gates of hell, the interview room.
As I follow her, pleas echoes through my mind, ‘Please don’t ask me
my age. I’ll have to lie, and then I’ll have to explain how I could
be in the Army and Grade School at the same time. Don’t ask me my favorite
song or singer because that certainly will date me as a Civil War Veteran’.
In the cubicle I am the perfect interviewee. My tie is straight, I’ve swallowed
my gum, my cell phone is turned off, I’ve laid out the correct resume (out
of four I’ve had to concoct depending upon my experience as related to the
prospective job), and I answer all her questions while looking directly into her
eyes and avoid the trap, the distracting movie posters hung on the walls.
Then:
“Thank you for coming in. We’ll call you when we have an opening you
qualify for.”
“…But?”
Deja
Vu Driving
(Haunting
Habits Happen)
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
There are times when
I really must do things different than I did for so many years. But things happen.
Recently my Chevy took over my life and dictated my destination. Have you ever
had that happen? I was heading home from an insignificant event, coupon shopping
at a supermarket down the road, when it happened. I wanted to make a left at the
next light to shop at another market that had wonderful savings on vitamins and
tissues: A cheap price and it was the last day of the sale. My car ignored the
left and continued on until it turned right into my driveway. I'd missed the turn,
missed the sale, and didn't realize it until I started taking bags out of the
back seat.
What happened? I scratched my head, which
I know solves all my problems, and realized that that was the route I drove home
every workday for years. My Chevy was on auto-mode into that old routine. It drove
home on its own. Like a faithful horse it had that feeling it had been here before
and out of habit followed the beaten path. Some call it sort of an eerie Déjà
vu phenomenon. I call it a habit not broken. My Chevy just didn't know any better.
Notice, I don't blame my memory, I blame the whole thing on the car. I also blame
the Déjà vu God of Order in Life who is as overpowering and as intrusive
as cheap cologne.
I'm all for order. It can be a good
thing sometimes, like if I'm looking for matched sox in the dresser drawer, but
enough is enough. For example, I finally realized a while back that I no longer
must set an alarm because of the habitual pattern and many years of waking up
at 6am; I still do, no matter how hard I try to sleep in. It's a routine I can't
break. I eat lunch at the same time every day, hungry or not. The remote appears
in my hand and TV news goes on the same time every evening. The experience of
being controlled by the Déjà vu God of Order in Life is usually
accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity (read boredom) and also a sense
of eeriness or strangeness. This I know from personal practice. I found through
research that the previous experience is most frequently attributed to a dream,
although in my case there is a firm sense that the experience genuinely happened
in the past. My work history proves this last point. The only thing missing is
my cubicle and desk. I don't want to be here. You know what I mean?
I also found that these haunting habits aren't just created through work-related
patterns; they can spring from any repetitive action. A friend of mine owned a
cat for years and each evening before bedtime brought it in from the wilds of
the back yard to sleep in the warm house. After the cat jumped through its ninth
life cycle by unsuccessfully challenging a wild raccoon, my friend still hopefully
ambled to the door before bedtime, opened it, and looked around. 'Just checking
for burglars,' she would justify. In the corner of the kitchen there still sat
the lonely clean food bowl and a sand box. Visual habits, a place for everything
and everything in its place, are just as hard to break. I still trip over the
ottoman that was there before the invention of the recliner.
Then there is the haunting habit that never happens. Another friend spent work
days in a bank data-processing department. Her job was to put out the fire if
a system or cash machine crashed. She anxiously waited but never broke into an
intense work mode unless reacting to a crisis; then she went into full throttle
speed to solve the problem. Since retiring she is still anxiously waiting, and
waiting, but not reacting because the problems aren't there: A habit not happening.
Is this good or bad?
All habits are not as bad as smoking:
Like brushing my teeth; washing my hands after a workout at the gym; and eating
soup with a spoon and not a fork. But I want to have that soup for lunch at 2:00
and maybe drive to a market too far. Better yet, drive around the city until I'm
lost then find my way home. The opposite of haunting habits, I find, must be memorable
adventures.
A light bulb lit up over my head. Small
sojourns into the world of the unknown around the city are what will make this
retirement thing a little easier to cope with. Big adventures like trips to Maui
and New Orleans are nice, and costly, but the little book store or small café
across town once in a while can make the day: The road unknown and the parkway
to somewhere else suddenly became inviting. It will take me a while to retrain
my Chevy to seek the unfamiliar, but once I brush the Déjà vu voodoo
dust off its steering wheel and take charge again, good things will happen. They've
happened before haven't they?
My
Gastronomic Chemistry Set
(The
Battle for the Body)
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
Analyzing the components of my meals using my gastronomic
chemistry set is essential for concocting a wall of defense against the assault
on my health or a longer lifespan. Being a senior citizen and wanting to graduate
to being a wise old person is a constant challenge that makes it necessary to
carefully pick and choose my poisons. This full-time battle against all odds involves
not only the woeful time spent at the table, but also the pre-research and calculation
processes I must perform to decide what and when to eat; and if it is good or
bad for me, what it will cure, what it will prevent, and what body part will fall
off or be added by its consumption.
I prepare oatmeal for
breakfast because it is a heart-healthy fiber that supports my body's fight against
BAD cholesterol; not because the glob in the bowl is a mouth-watering delicacy.
I use non-fat milk because it is what it says it is, and instead of sugar I use
honey, since it is rich in antioxidants that prevent cancer and adds a golden
color to the glob. I remember when I ate honey just because it tasted good. I
add a few blueberries or raisins to the glob, if I have any; they also help fight
the BAD cholesterol. Salmon also helps the heart but I just can't see it on my
oatmeal this early in the day. I sprinkle a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon on it,
more decorative color, to improve the glucose metabolism that keeps my body from
being taken prisoner by diabetes 2. I do all these things because I was told to
do so by my supporting army of published nutritionists, and I add a glass of orange
juice since it contains everything good, including the sun, as does any fresh
fruit. It also lowers blood pressure.
Eating has become a
full-time struggle to protect myself against the invasion of bad things. Now I'm
not an expert, and I'm not a member of the accumulation of experienced researchers
and nutritionists who rally around to protect my body, if I were I'd have to write
a book to qualify, but I do bring a lifetime of eating experience to the table.
Lately I've had the paranoid feeling that everything I consume is a life threatening
plot against my longevity. Believe me, this isn't half as much fun as downing
hash browns, ham or bacon or sausage, and eggs with buttered toast. Many days
I've been tempted to sacrifice a few hours of the unknown future for a single
meal of joy; and some days the temptation wins. But don't tell anyone in my army.
There are so many convoluting, contradicting, and proven studies
and marketing statements that it's hard to boil them down to fit into an ideal,
yet non-intrusive, nutritional lifestyle.
Let's take 'Cool
… Clear … Water'. I've always been told to drink eight 8oz. glasses
of water per day. Recently that has been revealed as a myth, probably started
by well diggers, because we only lose about 1 liter of water a day through sweat
and bodily processes; about four glasses. What is the world coming to? If nutritionists
can't figure out water, how can I believe them about steak? That raises the questions:
How much to drink, when, and what? By the time I feel really thirsty, they say,
I'm already dehydrated. Bottled water doesn't contain enough fluoride to prevent
cavities in children (not my problem anymore), and some tap water may contain
health-harming bacteria or parasites. A filtration system under the sink that
performs reverse osmosis (RO) is a great answer while I'm at home, but a better
answer would be a RO built into my body so I can drink from a public fountain
or out of the river. There's a $1,000,000 idea.
The scariest
part of the day: What's for lunch? Here my gastronomic chemistry set is used to
analyze the rations I'm about to eat, and choose what I will not eat. Hot dogs
and the usual processed meats I use for sandwiches, besides being fattening, contain
preservatives, additives, and other chemicals used for processing including toxic
nitrates and nitrites, or chemicals that are formed during processing, and can
pull the trigger against my nervous system. They are snipers in the body also
knocking off elements sensitive to insulin, and thus provide another chance of
being taken prisoner by Diabetes 2. Soup is good, home cooked is better and some
canned are OK, but there are so many flavors and recipes that thorough research
is involved to avoid fats and retain nutrients. Eating fast food is a notoriously
and highly publicized bad-bad no-no exposed for a multitude of chemical outlaws.
A salad bar never fails the fast food test unless it is loaded with pepperoni
and sausage from the pizza bar or covered with chocolate syrup from the desert
bar.
Dinner can be one hope in this siege against my body
surrounded by an army of destructive elements. That is if I avoid: red meat and
pork, which poke red flags along the colon; pizza, which has more artery hardening
fat than a cheeseburger; potatoes are good, but with butter or gravy are fattening;
pasta carries a guarantee to make love-handle bulges on my sides; chicken and
turkey sans fatty skin are OK if not deep fried or smothered in a fattening cream
sauce. Fish is great and filled with the impressive sounding element Omega-3 fatty
acids that are good for all things heart related. Fresh vegetables steamed or
slightly boiled are good chemicals but taste like vegetables that are steamed
or boiled. No butter again. Fresh vegetable salads are the best if tainted with
vinegar and olive oil.
Dessert is OK if it's non-fat, non-sugar,
non-white flour, and served with the perfect taste and texture of cardboard or
Plaster of Paris. Dark chocolate contains those helpful antioxidants. What can
I say about Jell-O?
My gastronomic chemistry set, as you may
see, is merely a lifetime of knowledge I've collected over the years in my fight
for life. After a while it becomes a habit to me, and should be for you, sort
of like breathing … and that's not a bad idea either.
Asset
or Liability?
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
When you dripped out of the shower
this morning and looked into that steamy full-length mirror, were you looking
at an asset, or a liability? A while back a friend and I were leaving the city
dump and I asked the attendant at the scale, "What is the fee for dumping."
She answered, "$20.55 per ton including tax." That meant, my friend
quickly figured, it would only cost a little over $2.00 to leave your body here
at the city dump instead of disturbing the soil someplace. That led to a conversation
and exploration into the value of a human body, that is, the entire material or
physical structure of the organism humans carry around every day.
We found too many statistics and studies conducted to determine the chemical value
of the human body. They range from the $.89 value we were taught in school, excluding
of course the cost of extraction the elements, inflation and the fluctuating stock
market for the price of chemicals, to a $4.50 value including the skin. Apparently
a Japanese team meticulously measured the square area of the skin on a human body
and determined it was between 14 and 18 square feet; depending upon the body size.
They also determined using the approximate price of quality cowhide, about $.25
per square foot, the skin of the human body averaged out to be worth about $3.50.
Now that means the other day when I was participating in one of my asset building
activities, softball, and I scrapped my rear sliding into second, it cost me a
several pennies off my asset. The question is: Did that negate the afternoon of
asset building?
But this is a mere pittance of the real value.
New studies have found you can feel like 45 million bucks, instead of a million,
on a good day. Replacement body parts are only a fraction of the value. A lung,
heart or a kidney is worth only between 50 and 100 grand. The brain has no value,
sometimes even an active one. But throwing in the DNA, antibodies, male sperm,
female eggs (Here again women are worth more than men.), and especially the bone
marrow, these elevate the value up into the comfort zone, that is if you believe
insurance companies and hospitals. Put the items on E-bay and you will probably
watch the value climb from the comfort zone to the stratosphere. There is only
one drawback to the economic process of this evaluation: All prices are based
on living tissue and I don't know how long I could sit still for having the DNA,
or other things, extracted from my body, molecule by molecule.
But getting back to earth, we had to determine whether the human body was worth
more than a plug nickel other than to a chemist or surgeon. There are value scales
other than the scientific. To fly your body from New York, NY to Melbourne, Australia
and back, first class, makes your live body worth $16,906 to the airlines for
taking up one seat on a 747. If you feel you have an economy type body, it is
only worth $3,197 for a less comfortable seat. Being too close to the subject,
we didn't venture to ask the cost of a departed body on the same trip. But to
ride a bus it is only worth about a buck or so. To sit that same body in a VIP
seat at the Broadway show, The Producers, for 2 hours and 40 minutes it will cost
you $200 plus $40 service charge, whatever that is.
Looking
at all the figures we determined that our body-asset is like a small business.
Any balance sheet, even for our body-asset, has expenses subtracted from the actual
value. We figured haircuts, perms, manicures, body waxing, cosmetics, shaving,
some visits to the dentist, and the like, were minor maintenance expenses that
improve the package, but not the product. Plastic surgery, we figured, was in
a neutral zone between body maintenance and mental maintenance. Doctor appointments
and operations were major and necessary maintenance expenses to keep our asset
an asset and not a total liability. Physically working out the body in one form
of exercise or another was positively split between minor and major expenses;
looking good on the outside, and feeling good on the inside … with a dash
of mental maintenance thrown in.
What to eat? What to eat?
This is a totally different subject and deserving of a full examination. But in
a nutshell, and by the way nuts are good for you and your cholesterol level, if
you follow every recommended diet and believe every scientific study, you'll wither
your asset away from the confusion. How to exercise? That's another profit making
decision to be studied in your spare time, and a personal preference.
The bottom line comes down to the fact that the body reflected in the steamy mirror
is our primary asset and it must be taken care of while we haul it around. Eat
correctly and exercise smartly and we have a long-term asset; don't and we have
a short term liability. Sooner or later, you know, we will be asked to quit carrying
it around and exchange it for a no-maintenance Casper the Friendly Ghost type
body that won't be reflected in the mirror. In the meantime, watch your asset.
Bad-Hair
Days
By: Patrick M. Kennedy
Most
of us want the high-quality kind of luck that brings a random chance for prosperity
and good fortune. It just takes one lucky day in a lifetime to be someone else.
Some people have it, but most of us don't. I have bad-hair days, we all do, and
I believe in all justice we should do something about it, because some of us have
them most days of the year. You know who you are and I don't mean those with frightening
combovers, split ends whipping you on the back like a cat o'nine tails, or frizzy
curls undomesticated and maddening. I mean that for many of us who pat the decades
on the shoulder as they pass us by believe good fortune has been left outside
in someone else's sunshine - while it rains all over us inside. "It's just
one of those days", has become a daily mantra.
We are the victims
of Murphy's Law. It is a fact and not just an old saying, "If anything can
go wrong, it will." There should be some kind of cosmic balance to this phenomenon.
I'm of the notion that there are so many of us on this side of the scale that
we have normal-hair days, and those on the sunshine side are freaks of nature.
While THEY win the lottery or are four steps ahead when the truck barreling down
the street hits the mud puddle near the curb, we lose and get splashed. That's
the odds-in-your-favor existence that's always left to glow under someone else's
sun.
But, like I said, we should do something about it, and I don't think
a march on Washington DC would do the trick; besides most of us don't have the
extra change for airfare anyhow. And I don't think we should duplicate the actions
I read about one woman. She received a bad haircut at her local salon: This is
a bad-hair day in the real sense of the word. The next day she came back with
a pistol, demanded her $100 back, shot up the beauticians car, and went down the
street to another salon to have her hair repaired. My guess, she probably is will
be spending a lot of bad-hair days in the gray-bar hotel.
There is quite
a variety of old sayings that try to smooth ruffled feathers (hair). "We
have to play the hand we're dealt." "It all evens out in the end."
And my favorite, "What goes around comes around." What the heck does
that mean? Does it mean on days when I feel like a dog chasing its own tail, I'm
OK? Does it mean that someday I will catch it? Then what? Will I find the pot
of gold at the end of the rainbow or just another good saying? These are all nice
feel-good sayings that function as pacifiers, but only work about as long as it
takes to shoot up a beautician's car.
I think we should ignore that disgruntled
Irishman, Murphy, and follow the advice of another distinguished philosopher,
Simon. Simon says, "If anything can wrong, and does, pay no attention to
it and chalk it up to experience." I know there are some of us who play the
same Lottery numbers every week, and the one week we forget to buy a ticket, they
draw our numbers. Now that's a bona fide bad-hair day and hard to ignore after
you've jumped up and down on the coffee table and created a piece of pulp art.
But, all in all, it is a real character building experience - isn't it?
Luck is all relative anyhow. If I win $100 at the local casino, I say "WOW!"
If someone in the stratosphere of Mr. Gates or Trump wins the same prize, their
reaction would probably be "That's nice, another drop in the bucket."
These are both acts of good luck, so I guess luck is just in the eye of the beholder.
Some of us see others gliding along through life like a silk butterfly in a slight
breeze without a care in the world. Most of us feel like a caterpillar crawling
along in the fast lane of a freeway. If we can only make it to the off ramp we
may turn into a butterfly. "Hope springs eternal", I guess.
All
in all if bad-hair days build character, and that's what we like to tell ourselves,
then most of us have positive qualities to spare; and I'm a candidate for sainthood.
We've endured the worst of days and are now trying to enjoy the best of days.
There's nothing we can do to change it now. I look back at the scrapes and scuffs,
black eye, and a broken arm; a car accident or two; sickness here and there; the
lost loves; the lost lotteries; the fact that Ed McMahon never delivered my million-dollar
check; and the reality that I was born and grew up less than tall, and know I
must take it all "with a grain of salt". I know I'll move on. I'll comb
my hair every day, shampoo when I feel like it, get a haircut once a month, pretend
my hair is good, and croon a little show tune, "Luck be a Lady tonight."
Hunting
the Elusive Hobby
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
Now I could be talking about hunting for
the Old World falcon, an elegant bird of prey, or simply called a Hobby, but I’m
not. These are elusive birds that dine on insects and small birds, and sometimes
dragonflies, but I’m not. I am talking about my pursuit of an auxiliary activity,
outside my regular occupation, that I can be engaged in for relaxation. While
hunting for this perfect hobby, I, at times, felt like that dragonfly, because
I had to flit from here to there to discover the ideal and most enjoyable way
to use my spare time. My regular occupation these days of course is in the past
tense, such as, I once was a worker bee, and so keeping my mind alert and my body
fairly active are my only objectives.
Hobbies I found come in many shapes,
forms and activities, and to choose one I had to delve into a NASA sized research
project. I discovered the list of options to be infinite and with all the properties
of a can of worms. Some come under the category of keeping idle hands, the devils
workshop, busy and creative. These would include for example: model building;
painting in oil or water; carving in wood, stone or clay; needlepoint; jewelry
making; and on and on. Others can be categorized under legs on the move because
you have to walk, ride, dance, or tramp. This category combines physical health
with mental health. Not an entirely bad idea. And another category would be keeping
the brain waving and lively. This consists of activities like: collecting anything,
playing chess, electronic games, cards (i.e., poker or canasta); genealogy; gambling;
reading; and yes, even writing.
As an ex-worker bee I have a creepy need
to fill my idle time with activity. I can’t just sit around and listen to
the rust build up around me. I get anxious, like I’m doing something wrong
by having nothing to do. I think early in life I must have been bitten by the
work-ethic wasp, and it has stuck. I finally understand the problem, and realize
now I must find the perfect solution, a hobby—but where to start?
The
local hobby superstore was a bonanza of information and ideas. I strolled down
the crisscrossing aisles and immediately my work synapses snapped signals to my
pleasure genes hidden deep inside my libido. The aroma of glue and the small,
slicing tools hanging on the racks brought visions of a cluttered workbench. I
was in love with everything and I could envision my home beautified with the creations:
Model airplanes flying from wires attached to the ceiling. Better yet, remote-controlled
model airplanes screaming across the skies over the neighborhood schoolyard; boats
floating in my bath tub and in the community pool, or just casually sailing across
my fireplace mantle; or model cars from every age and every country covering every
spare road and highway in my home. Wow! There’s not enough time to do it
all, but I will try.
Unfortunately the rules and boundaries of a home invaded
my fantasy. We need the kitchen for cooking, the dining room for eating, the bedroom
for sleeping and dressing, the bathroom for other stuff, and the living room for
entertaining (although we may allow a little space for one or two models). That
leaves the closets. There is also some room left in the basement and the attic.
My planes crashed, my boats all sank, and the cars were stuck on a freeway someplace.
My glue gummed up the kitchen sink and I suddenly had small-tool cuts on my fingers.
I moved on to the next category of options which proved simpler. Dancing
was immediately obliterated from the equation because I hadn’t danced since
Chubby Checker asked me to do the Twist. Tramping the woods and camping seemed
like a pleasant pastime, but it is mostly done on weekends, when it doesn’t
rain, which is mostly in the summer and in the mountains, a far drive away. What
about the rest of the year, and week. Now walking is easy, but I do that anyhow,
and I don’t consider it a hobby, but a necessity. Gardening is good, and
I’ll leave it at that. Running is just walking faster. I don’t want
to do that.
Bike riding is another subject and one I can wrap my legs around.
I’ve noticed bikes being ridden everywhere, by every one of every age, and
I’m part of the ‘everyone’ species. City, country, day, night,
fast, slow, stop for ice cream or chase the sunset, an extension of walking, only
with wheels: It has it all. With 24 speeds, a crash helmet, water bottle, a neat
little pack on the back rack, and riding gloves like an Indy racecar driver, it
all sounds great. I moved this hobby to the top of my list—especially after
visiting the local bike shop and seeing all the models and colors and accessories.
I should be in good enough shape; after all, I walk don’t I?
I figured
in fairness to the collection aficionados I shouldn’t dismiss this category
altogether. There may be some fun here, and definitely another method for passing
the time, as well as meeting people of similar interests. The other people element
is an important secondary benefit of getting any hobby. Stamp or coin or comic
book collecting, it seems to me, is something that should have begun in childhood
and build itself into a passion, sort of like gambling, but I can’t see that
happening overnight. Collecting dolls eliminates about half of us. Although collecting
action figure dolls eliminates the better half. Antiques are nice. Collecting
old cars is something I could really get into, but my garage is too small: About
as small as my budget.
My choice was obvious. I would have to combine two
or more hobbies into one. Some options were immediately out. I couldn’t bring
together candle making and knot tying; or jewelry making and collecting action-hero
toys (well, maybe not); Stamp collecting and bowling don’t seem to fit within
my personality profile; and dodge ball and acting my age would never be a good
mix … although I’d like to try dodge ball, just once.
I thought
bike riding and collecting something could be combined; throw in traveling and/or
camping, take a few notes for writing, and a hobby could emerge. Reviewing the
combinations is endless and could be a hobby in itself, but is best left to each
individual’s quirks. But Watch Out, if a medium-sized falcon mistakes you
for lunch. You’re hunting the wrong hobby.
Eating
Smart
By: Patrick
M. Kennedy I’ve spun a lot of miles under my vehicles
in my days as I’ve traveled the country, and the most important question
I ask myself after ‘How far is the next gas station?”, or “Where
is the next restroom?” is, ‘What can I eat and still make time?”
A fast-food drive-through eatery always looms alongside the highway, but is that
smart and will my arteries harden before I get to my destination? Refolding maps
is hard enough without deciding on what to eat while driving 70mph past the menu.
On
the more serious side, a colorful crop of graphs, charts and pyramids bloom and
are printed on a regular basis that categorize and dramatize all the food qualities
recognized by man. We should be familiar with these. It must be some kind of rule
for prolonged existence. They have been cranked out by the government, as well
as other health and profit conscience parties, to educate eaters on the benefits
of eating correctly, thus living longer and more productive lives. (This is important
to the government because it collects most of its taxes from living humans and
to a flam-flam few other parties who collect profits from the same group.)
Humans,
referring to you and I, are the logical targets of this information bonanza because
most of the other animal groups have their diet thoroughly and naturally figured
out without by-the-numbers education. They munch through it on a daily basis.
Giraffes chomp on treetops and lions gobble up giraffe meat. Dogs eat dry or canned
food, and canned food eats…that’s another story. Big fish eat little
fish. It’s a cliché as well as a fact. The animal kingdom has a regular
diet program called a food chain that has evolved and been tested through the
ages, and it works. Most are still alive and eating, reproducing on a regular
basis and looking darn healthy. And to be perfectly clear, in this definition
Taco Tommy’s just off the freeway is not considered a food chain.
We
know Eating Smart is the current mantra pounded from print, infomercials, PBS,
and an occasional snake-oil salesperson that comes through each city, gathers
a crowd, charges a fee, spouts some spiel, and tries to sell us a book. Does that
mean eating Smart Food? What is Smart Food? Are we to eat Rhodes-Scholar rutabagas,
or PhD peas, or morsels of IQ like iron or iodine spread over Quail or Quiche:
So many decisions beyond the bacon-burger with cheese served at the quaint little
drive-in along the highway.
Eat to live longer is the complete notion, but
isn’t that a given? If we stop eating, we die! Even a pretzel-poppin’
nincompoop knows that! It is a simple nutritional reality known since the Garden
of Eden. Why was the first residence of man in a garden of smart food occupied
and shared by the original snake-oil and apple salesman? It was a tempting taste
of the future.
But let us get back to that bacon-burger with cheese and
stack it up against the Smart Food Guide Pyramid pushed by the government and
its allies. First, we start from the bottom, the bread layer. The burger has that,
twice…two buns…another on the top. It is recommended by the perfect-food
pyramid and is packed with complex carbohydrates and essential vitamins, though
it calls for whole wheat instead of white bread in the pyramid, it is close but
not with the full nutritionists blessing. The next level up is the vegetable group.
We can unquestionably confirm that the burger stacks up well against the pyramid
in this layer: All those garden bits and pieces like onions, tomatoes, lettuce,
pickles, ketchup, mustard, and maybe a gas-blasting jalapeno. What a potpourri
of healthy stuff, i.e., smart food: A regular Garden of Eating.
Meat and
cheese overwhelmingly satisfy the next level of the pyramid. A quarter pound,
or more, of ground meat, and a serving or two of American cheese, provides a daily
supply of all the carnivorous protein, vitamins and nutrients needed by man’s
body since menus were illustrated cave drawings of food on the run.
Now
holding to the pyramid pattern, neatly at the top of the perfect-pyramid burger
is a serving or two of bacon. It contains a little meat burnt to the proper charcoal
level, and a little oil (grease) to assure things run smooth. And also lurking
at the top of the pyramid are the sweets and spices, because we know that any
reputable burger bar has mixed in a hefty helping of sugar and salt in that special
sauce used for added flavor.
There it is. We can find smart food anywhere
if we look hard enough with a vivid imagination. The conclusion we must come to
is that a bacon-burger with cheese served through a window is in effect smart
food, but the party pooper group of three-piece-suit nutritionists from the USDA
recommend it as a dish only 2 or 3 times a month, not a day. Now that’s dumb.
Who wants to endure a burger famine for 27 days a month? Anything sounds better
than Rhodes-Scholar rutabagas, which any breathing human animal would probably
eat only 2 or 3 times a year, and try finding a drive-through supply just off
the freeway. Smart Food is a smart idea for people who have the time to investigate
it, cook it, eat at a kitchen table, and write a book or tape a video, but should
only be a life-surviving hobby for us, the animal kingdom group referred to as
Homo sapiens.
Single
Senior Show
(Or: Dinner after the Wallflower Parade)
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
Eating fine food in a quality restaurant is a dream for all citizens
who have worked a lifetime for it. So occasionally I have the urge to enjoy a
quality meal while indulging a setting with tablecloths, linen napkins, and silver
not plastic tableware, please. Eating it alone is the nightmare. You see, I know
what it’s like to be the focus of attention as I cross a dining room like
a wallflower parade with a of string of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my
shoe, trailing me like a bridal train, and people gawking at me, or worse, averting
their eyes so they don’t display any impression of an I-know-him glance.
That’s what I feel like, sometimes. I’m a single senior, and this lightning
strikes me whenever I participate in a social occasion of any kind.
The
most uncomfortable event, and probably the most frequent, is at a stylish restaurant.
It inescapably begins when I approach my first adversary, the hostess, with mild
apprehension, because the first embarrassment typically is manifested when I say,
“One for dinner, non-smoking, please.” “Only one?” she asks.
“Yes, Please.” Then the exaggerated yanking of one menu from the rack,
and a full body twist, “This way, please,” and the show begins.
I
know the spotlight is on me and I can feel the buzzing of gnats as they surround
me, attracted by the nervous sweat rolling down my brow and back. Every eye in
the place is directed at me, I’m sure. ‘Please get me to my table as
quickly as you can,’ I silently plead with the hostess from the paranoid
caverns of my mind. Then, after weaving around every table so I have been fully
displayed, I arrive at my table. “A table for six, don’t you have anything
smaller?” I appeal to the hostess. “This is all we have, unless you
want to take a table in the bar?”
They always ask that.
They always want singles to be with other singles in the bar, drinking, so maybe
we, some day, will be couples and can become a full-table bigger-tip customer.
“No, thank you, this will be fine.” I want to explain to her that all
bars smell like dirty ashtrays and carpets soaked with spilt cocktails, and that
truly spoils the taste of the fine dinner I am about to pay a good hunk of change
for.
“OK. Your waiter will be, Smiley, and will be right
with you.”
“Thank you.”
Now
the second embarrassing adversarial event takes place. Smiley’s ally, Busboy
Bill, charges the table and meticulously, with the grandiose flair of a Las Vegas
magician, salvages the clean place settings of the five friends and family who
obviously must have snubbed my dinner invitation. One, two, three, etc., the napkins,
silverware, water glasses and placemats are scooped up and paraded across the
room to the little nook in the corner where waiters and busboys congregate to
plan my social demise. It happens. It must. These degrading rituals can’t
be an accident. It has to be a social behavior created by generations of service
workers, or taught in Restaurant 101. Who knows?
“Can
I bring you something to drink?” asks Smiley. “Just coffee.” “Just
coffee?” “With cream, please.” “Nothing from the bar?”
There it is again: the bar. “No thank you.” From that time on the dinner
goes just fine, except the eternity between when I’ve ordered the meal, and
the point when the meal arrives. What to do? In a small diner or café I
usually whip out the daily paper or a paperback and read it while sipping my coffee.
Here? No way. It would be like waving a red banner, Lonely Person! Lonely Person!
During
the meal, the eating part of it, after it parades in dish by dish, I get the usual
courtesy drop-bys from Smiley, “More Coffee?” “Everything OK?”
“Will there be anything else?” And invariably on each of these occasional
visits, my mouth is full of food and I must either nod my head or spray a mouthful
of it across the table if I say “More coffee, please”. They must also
instruct waiters and waitresses how to do this with faultless timing at Restaurant
101. This is where universal sign language enters. I point at the cup and nod,
yes … or no.
After the meal is complete I need, must obtain,
the check so I can calculate the amount of a tip and escape out the front door.
Smiley walks past me with 6 desserts somehow attached to all hands and arms and
strides a beeline for a family at another large table. I move my plate away from
me to signal that I am done. Smiley brings a pot of coffee … to another table:
I need coffee, too. I don’t get it. I place my napkin atop the fragments
of food I’ve left on the plate and nudge it to the edge of the table …
and wait. Busboy Bill is more attentive and captures the plate, silver, cup, saucer,
and water glass, and remaining are a couple of peas I’d accidentally brushed
off my plate. They somehow have become plugged into an electrical outlet and develop
strobe-light characteristics, which are attracting the critical eyes of everyone
in the area.
Smiley passes again. I try a casual wave. Once.
Twice. Then I realize I must make a dash for it. I put enough cash and a proportionate
amount of gratuity, undeserved I must say, on the table and attempt to sneak out
around the happy diners, past the hostess, and toward the front door, hoping all
the time I don’t get stopped and accused of an act of Dine and Dash. And
again, all the time, of course, dragging the same toilet paper train behind me
that I dragged in. I must keep, it so I can display it at my next stop, the theater,
alone.
Is
FREE a Fixed Price – Or a Down Payment? By:
Patrick M. Kennedy Offers for FREE goods and services are
being delivered daily to my mail box and sent to me by e-mail, overwhelming me
on TV, and falling like snowflakes from my magazines. As a frugal individual I
pay attention to saving a buck or two. If I accept as true these offers, I may
never have to spend another penny, on anything. But what is FREE to me? I’m
not imprisoned or shackled, and I’m not under the control of another’s
will, except by my Better Half, of course, who imposes house arrest, so set me
free mostly doesn’t apply here … I hope. That only leaves the option
that someone is going be a kind spirit and give me something at no cost, no money
that is, complimentary, gratis … I hope.
For example, the other day
a standard 4x6 pre-addressed postcard fell from a magazine and floated to my floor
like a graceful and disarming dove. After it alit from its flight, the blazing
red letters rose from the card like a ruthless hawk and cried FREE. I had to inspect
the details of such a blazon command. 10 issues of the magazine FREE for the mere
action of ordering a subscription for 30 issues at a low cost of $29 plus change.
At the low per-issue rate the card advertised, it was just like getting 10 issues
for FREE. I believe it was more like a down payment. Some deal, huh? Maybe the
same company would sell me 10 acres in Manhattan and give me one for free. Fat
Chance!
On TV the telemarketer rambles his spiel, “A FREE bottle of
magic liquid cleaner… just buy one bottle and we will send you a second one
FREE … and we’ll throw in two FREE bottles of shoe dye, the color of
your choice, a FREE sponge on a stick, two all-purpose rags, and an entry form
that entitles you to enter a contest that offers a FREE trip to Orlando as first
prize. And if you order now, the telemarketer continues, for each future order
you will receive 2 bottles for the price of 1 … for life” WOW, I cry
out, all this for just purchasing one 20 oz. bottle of supernatural cleaner for
the dirt-low price of $10 plus change. Now I no longer wonder why they immediately
fill the TV screen with flashing phone numbers, replicas of credit cards, and
attractive dusting housewives; because the announcer is definitely and uncontrollably
laughing up his sleeve off camera after the pitch.
Now another scam (excuse
me, offer) that is closely related to the magazine offer is the book-club offer
printed on an attractive brochure personally addressed and slipped into my mailbox:
First book, FREE; second book, FREE, third book, FREE (WOW!); fourth book at the
Regular Price plus Shipping and Handling (OOPS!). All this for just signing up
for a years supply of other and more books that I may or may not order or want.
FREE in this case is definitely a down payment on my future reading activities
and an iron clad guarantee of less space in my bookshelf. I like to imagine I’m
just as frugal with my bookshelf space as I am with my cash … but I really
believe I fall short of both.
Now in most cases Shipping charges I can see
and understand. The product has to get from there to me, somehow, but Handling
charges are a mystery. Does this mean they wear clean or latex gloves during the
packing process? Does this charge guarantee the product will not be dented, torn,
wrinkled or maimed, and the order will be complete, correct and properly addressed?
I doubt it. I believe this handling charge is how they handle the lost profit
on the FREE part of the offer. I’ve seen some Shipping and Handling charges
range from 6 to 30 bucks, depending upon how fast I want their FREE product, when
in fact postage glued to a brown envelop would be sufficient for delivery. Go
figure!
Some things are really and truly FREE … excluding the obvious,
air. E-mail offers of FREE newsletters are a windfall for the penny pinchers like
me. I just sign up for the weekly/monthly/daily e-mail delivery to my inbox of
a newsletter explaining the values of modern poetry and its effect on the environmental
extinction of concrete libraries, and the filling in of mud flats in Nevada, or
something along that order of madness. The neat thing is the newsletter will also
offer bargains on everything. That’s all. But to sign up I have to fill out
3 web pages of personal information: likes and dislikes, shopping habits, income
level, sex, etc., and recommend my friends. Hmmmm! No outlay of cash for me, so
it must be FREE, and since I now loiter in semi-retirement I have oodles of time
on my hands to read every word of every offer generated and sent to me in my personalized
and valuable FREE newsletter. Is this a fixed price, or a down payment?
Some
other things are FREE: Samples of products delivered to my home by a charming,
bright-eyed, gray-haired lady; Catalogs, for obvious reasons, are FREE; CDs with
multi-purpose programs to install on my computer are FREE (but SAFE?); Kittens
are FREE if I want to take one home; Coins are FREE if I want to stand on a street
corner with a cup in my hand; FREE tips; FREE hand up; and FREE peanuts or popcorn
at the bar where I will contemplate and categorize all the FREEEEEE stuff in the
world.
But here is some FREE advice; the most important and generally FREE
item is my will or self control. I can or can not, will or will not, or must or
must not, fall for FREE offers from even the most attractive offerer person.
The
Enemies I Buy By:
Patrick M. Kennedy I, as a red-blooded and very experience
human being, have always had the self-belief that I was smarter than a toaster.
I know the younger generation with all their gizmos and thingamabobs could fry
me in a one-on-one contest of technology trivia. But I always thought my discount-store
inventory of appliances was a safe haven. I know it’s a hard choice between
saving money, and saving sanity. But things happen.
This morning
I was rudely attacked from the blind side by a blood-curdling scream that interrupted
my canoe ride through a softly tinted forest on a serene stream. My nighttime
dream world had been shattered like a cheap mirror.
My first
reaction was self-defense. I grabbed the pillows and crushed them to the sides
of my head, for self-protection, to muffle the eventual mushing of my brain by
those ultra-violent sound waves. It took a few seconds to clear the fog and readjust
my wits so I could analyze how I’d been thrown from my serene stream into
the front row of an acid rock concert in hell.
My second reaction,
an automatic motor function, was to open my eyes, blink, then adjust to the daylight
and investigate to see if the room was spinning around me or me around it. My
third reaction was descriptive, ‘Dagnabit!’ If you haven’t figured
it out, my first enemy of the day was a whirly little electronic black-blazer-butler
Made-In-China hammer located somewhere inside my newly purchased inexpensive snooze-alarm-radio
clock. My fourth reaction was to moan, ‘why is it screeching, and how do
I turn it off.’ I hadn’t turned the alarm on in the first place the
night before. I can sleep in these days. That’s what I’ve worked for.
I must have placed one of the ten or dozen knobs and switches in the wrong position.
I don’t punch a clock anymore, but this time I did.
To
fix this little box of horrors before the next morning, I set each switch in the
desired position, just like the multi-language instructional pamphlet suggested,
secured them into position with a lump of Scotch Tape, and said a little prayer
to Thomas Edison, who I’m sure, is the God of electronics.
The
coffee pot is a mostly harmless, but a sometimes sneaky, enemy. I ran water into
the coffee pot, placed a new clean white filter into the little basket with the
magical hole at the bottom, measured in the proper ratio of coffee grounds per
cup of water, poured in the exact amount of water, anticipating a little extra
boost to help me forget the morning’s dashed dreams, closed it all up, and
pushed the brew button.
I could hear the babbling and singing
of the coffee maker. About once a week, or so, it’s an accepted disaster,
one of the sides of the nice new white paper filter will collapse and allow pure,
unsaturated, gritty bits of ground coffee to pass through the magic hole and into
the pot. And So! The first cup I pour in that morning looks like a mud puddle
in a freshly turned garden plot with dirt floating around the edges like baby
bugs.
Again, I have three choices of defense to act out here:
First, I could yell Dagnabit! Which I already know solves nothing; Second, I know
lumps of Scotch Tape won’t work in this situation, so I can either repeat
the steps above for a new pot; or Third, I can give ground (no pun intended) to
the enemy and attempt to dab up the grit from the suspicious liquid with the corner
of a paper towel. Next time, I muttered, I’ll remember to inspect the filter
like my Army Captain used to scrutinize my footlocker.
In the
meantime, the new toaster, the one with the unpretentious knob that assigns Light
to the left, and Dark to the right, and neither means anything anyhow, smoked
like a three-alarm fire in the corner of the kitchen cabinet, contentedly and
warmly creating black tiles of bread. Enough said! I won’t get into the color
of the butter as I took up the challenge and tried to spread it with non-crumbling
agility across the flat sides of the tiles. This enemy is easy to defeat, but
may take a whole loaf of bread. Starting from the left I toasted slices of bread
until the exact color mix of $700-dollar-an-ounce gold and charcoal was attained.
Then, with a dab of enamel paint (nail polish will do) I marked the spot for perfect
toast … just in case someone turns the knob. Toast quality is personal choice
and not an exact science.
The bowl of oatmeal gruel in the
microwave had just bubbled and exploded. This enemy is a subtle sniper. The muted
hum of the electromagnetic waves rattled my breakfast into an edible temperature
zone and lulled me into a sense of false security. The muted crack of an explosion
rocked the morning air like a sniper’s gunshot. I’d overlooked the warning
sign: Cover All Food. The inside of the zap contraption looked like my enemy had
layered stucco on the walls with a paint gun filled with my gray matter. I’ve
forgotten to put a cover over the bowl. Never do that. Just a paper plate over
the top is easy, and disposable.
My enemy started to resemble
me.
Warning here, Juicers are armed land mines if the lid is
taken off too soon, unless you want to wear a shirt with an orange spatter pattern.
I think this remedy is obvious.
These lessons are disturbing
for someone like me who is trying to be a non-morning person and sleep in, relax,
read, etc. My enemies are lurking in every doodad convenience gadget I buy at
the discount store. It’s part of the deal and clearly printed within the
barcode I can’t read, also on the label I can’t remove from my appliance
without a blowtorch or strong acid. I’ve found, just because these appliances
are cheap and have been designed with all the friendly colors and curves, it doesn’t
make them friendly, or trustworthy.
Well then, if you can’t
beat them, join them. I’ve learned to fix and work around all these appliance
attacks, and pass the information along to friends. It has built for me the reputation
as the Appliance Guy: There are many enemy appliances lurking out there, this
is just a sampling. I don’t make much money, but free coffee and lunch in
exchange for that small appliance repair or hint can be an entertaining hobby,
and if you get good at it, you can make lots of friends.
Yard
Sales Inch by Inch
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
Finally, the apples of
our eye have moved on to clutter up their own homes, and we may now think about
moving to smaller and cleaner abodes, or southern and warmer climates. It’s
the natural order of life. And this without a doubt means a yard sale, to clear
out the clutter, must be considered. As enterprising senior citizens with the
genes of a pack rat, we must scatter treasures atop folding tables and across
lawns to grudgingly part with precious icons from our materialistic histories.
But first, we should examine this commercial experience so we can understand it,
and possibly make it a constructive and profitable event. We need a plan that
will be meticulously crafted and followed, and probably just as meticulously abandoned.
There are several areas to be scrutinized before setting up this scavenger boutique,
and a little of my hesitant advice may help.
Advertising Fun:
Hanging the letter-size posters everywhere is a requirement before any yard sale.
What to say? Junk Sale sounds too trashy. Closet Clutter Sale reeks of desperation.
Good Stuff For Sale sounds too iffy. Pre-used Trash Sale is too honest, and too
negative, and definitely not very inviting, and Pre-loved Trash Sale…sounds
too cute. Keep it simple stupid and just call it a Yard Sale. A map and an address
must be included on the poster. Bright-red arrows painted on cardboard and tacked
on telephone poles at the nearest busy street are a big help. Just make sure the
wind can’t blow them upside down. Also, an A-frame sign on the curb in front
of the house can stop any potential customer. A chain across the road isn’t
necessary. Get the apple of your eye to help with this if you must.
Money:
Pennies on the dollar is a fair swap for your time and material while planning
for your less-than-cluttered future, and is a straightforward and obvious motivation
for a Yard Sale. And what to charge for items? It’s a give-and-take situation
and the master business plan of all Yard Sales is to barter.
How
much change should be on hand? How about accepting checks? Take them on trust
or not? Since it is all junk anyway, if the check doesn’t clear there still
is a positive transaction because the customer has carted away another unwanted,
unused item that took up space in the garage or attic.
Physical
Layout of the Sale: How do you post the prices on the items: Big, small, or none
at all? Everything listed as OBO (or best offer)? Or should there be a secret
price list that only you know about and can reference? How many display tables
do you have? Need? Should you put mats down on your beautifully manicured lawn
so it won’t look like a cow pasture the next day? Should you open the garage
door and put stuff in there? All these are legitimate multiple-choice questions
with so many answers they can’t be listed here.
The Inventory:
Rule One – Everything goes since you are moving out of town. Rule Two –
Everything worthless goes.
Some have suggested that all the
items should be cleaned and polished: Another option is to leave all that clean-up
labor to the buyer. That’s part of their fun. Besides, when I buy things,
I always want to clean off all their germs and replace them with mine. It gives
the item more of a personal touch.
The Customers: Some early
arrivers are looking for that unnoticed antique article of artwork they can snap
up for a few pennies and a belittling snicker. Remember that a sale is a sale
and anyhow, you never would have known the value of that old needlepoint anyhow.
The
bargain hunters, the wheeler-dealers, the price whittlers, the I-want-something-for-nothing
shoppers will make your day. They bring the real spirit of a Greek Market. The
best solution is to participate in the game and negotiate to make the sale a win-win
result. It just feels good to bicker with a person one-on-one instead of handing
a bar-coded plastic artifact to the clerk at the local discount store.
The
real shoppers are the young couples setting up a new household, and the teenagers
who have finally been booted from their homes by their parents: Like you possibly
just did. These are the real customers. They have a limited vocabulary and a limited
bankroll, but also have an empty house or apartment to furnish, thus about half
of everything you display is needed.
Pre-Pre-Planning: If you’ve
really thought ahead to the unmentionable, that is, the reality that some items
might not be on the Yard Sale shoppers’ list, you have already called an
organized charity to pick up the remaining items, and then found out, My God,
even the most desperate charitable organizations refuse to pick up some of the
items! And then you also found out, of all things, that these organizations specialize,
or have a list of items they do and do not take. You must call two or three of
them.
It’s Over: After the Yard Sale is over, there are
going to be plenty of items left over that even the most addicted Yard Sale shopper
couldn’t purchase. The reality is, the dust gathering process has restarted
with a vigorous flamboyance enhanced by the parting potential customers spinning
their tires in the dirt driveway. And a further reality is revealed, as the sun
sets, that all this time, unknown to you, all your precious icons of personal
materialistic history are just dust magnets attracting all the particles from
the cosmos. You probably will have to move them to the dust magnet headquarters,
which is called the dump.
Home
Page
The
5th of July
By:
Patrick M. Kennedy
Yes, the 4th is Wham Bam
Bang and Sizzle Independence Day and it is packed to the horizon with picnics,
parades and band concerts all over the place; with decorations of red, white,
and blue stuck to everything. But the 5th is the first day of the next 364 where
the practice of freedom is really celebrated. A day to mull over what went before,
and what will be from now on; sort of like a day playing country-store checkers
after a day of an international chess competition. The fire crackers have cracked
and the rocket red glare is no longer in the air where the odor of burnt sulfur
hangs around like an irritable family member. The ground is carpeted with paper
confetti scattered by the fireworks and parades. But remember, the 5th is also
the birthday of P. T. Barnum, the self-proclaimed prince of humbug; the day the
Salvation Army was formed; the Secret Service was started on this day; and in
1946 the first bikini was worn in public. I don’t know if any of these events
have a connection, but if so, let’s celebrate again! And some of us do.
This
day-after day has always had a special meaning to those in the slower lane. The
4th of July conveniently this year falls on a Monday and provides another glorious
three-day weekend. But those of us in a not-working-every-day phase of life say,
“Who cares?” Mondays disappeared from the calendar a long time ago.
We no longer have to suffer through Blue Mondays because it was the first visible
benefit after the last day of work. A favorite question on Monday morning in the
elevator use to be, ‘is it Friday yet?’ And the normal response was,
‘the third best day of the week, after Saturday and Sunday.’ Many of
us in the past took the 5th off of work solely to gently recuperate from the 4th.
The
5th inescapably suffers as it is the day after the giant rotating backyard BBQs,
this year your house and next year someone else’s, with all the trimmings,
all the friends and neighbors, and all the merriment mess. The day after everyone
has contributed their favorite casserole, salad, snack and dip, or a suspicious
glob of something in the middle of a platter surrounded by a concoction even more
puzzling. Some bring their favorite meat or fish to smoke and broil in the open
air barbeques, and everyone tries to top everyone else in the taste department;
which makes for a wonderful feast. Many even drag in their own portable barbeques
and lawn chairs so there’ll never be a shortage of hot-coal surfaces or cool-comfortable
seats under the trees. Ice chests brimmed with cooled beverages and tasty snacks
are lugged in and spread to convenient spots around the back yard; and even in
the house for those odd bodies who desire to dodge the sun’s rays.
Following
the afternoon and early evening filled with food and beverages, as usual, a short
parade is organized to march to and then re-gather at the high-ground point in
a nearby park. The fireworks show begins at the edge of darkness and provides
a spectacle full of oooh and aaah highlights, and concludes with the eye and ear
shattering flurry of fire in the sky. The day is done for most of the partiers
after that, especially those with kids, but some retreat back to the house and
backyard. A few of the beverages hadn’t been tapped, the kids are gone, and
a poker game seems to break out in the kitchen. Conversations and cards are dealt
and replayed, and rehashed and reshuffled; food is eaten until the platters are
clean; and one-by-one the players retire to the living room as the game diminishes
down to a couple of winners.
And the celebration of the 5th
of July begins a slow crawl to life.
“Remember when …
Remember where we used to … Remember the time … Do you know … Can
you recall … Do you think we’ll ever?” The warm radiance of the
slight beverage buzz, or it could be the ambiance of old friends recalling memories,
fills the room along with the morning sun and the flies seeking leftovers. Old
friends who hadn’t gathered for a while, for some of them a year, take the
weight off their feet and relax in a comfort zone built by years of experiences
together, and slow down. The distractions of the present are left at the door
like dirty boots.
Someone always brings up the issue of those
who aren’t here this year. So-and-so has made a break for it and escaped
south to warmer weather and the stories of “I wish I could …” and
‘Maybe I’ll …” begin to be fictionalized and exaggerated.
Another soul mate has passed to the other side since last year and a rousing toast
of beer bottles clang in a ring around the group, and an equaling rousing round
of memorial stories bend the ears. “Remember the time when we all hopped
that freight car and …” and on and on the conversations spin, like a
great habit: A déjà vu day that really has happened before and will
happen again.
Yes, the 4th ignited the roasting fire, but
the 5th maintains the warmth of the celebration. It is one of those rare days,
year after year, when old friends gather and randomly reminisce. It is an annual
day-after day, sort of like the 26th of December and the 2nd of January and the
Tuesdays after Labor and Memorial Days.
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