'Twas Ever Thus

 

As another sixty-somethingth Christmas approaches, I’m reminded of how fortunate I am to have stuck around this long. For my family and me, on balance, this has been a good year.  We’ve managed to stay mostly healthy, we’ve stayed afloat financially, and we celebrated our daughter’s wedding amidst some extraordinary and challenging weather-related events. If we avoid looking beyond our happy little bubble, life is good. 

But if we peer into the abyss that is the real world, things are a bit more grim.

Around this time last year, I wrote about the challenges we had faced as a society in 2022, and expressed optimism about the likelihood of a kinder, gentler 2023.  “Green shoots,” I said.  I was wrong.  With a scant seven days left, I don’t think we’re going to get there.

Part of me struggles to understand why not, given historically low unemployment, inflation that is trending in the right direction (albeit from uncomfortably high levels), booming financial markets, ever-increasing advancements in medicine (gene therapy for Alzheimer’s? A weight loss drug that works?) and technology (AI for the masses? Free?) …and on, and on.  By many measures, the kids are alright, or will soon be.

But most of me knows full well why not: two major wars are dragging on, humanitarian crises abound all around the world, and the bifurcation of our country along multiple dimensions seems to worsen daily.  We are facing a mental health crisis, an immigration crisis, near-daily mass shootings, and the highest suicide rate since 1941.  “Devastating storms” are now a nightly segment on the national TV news.  Our journey toward a despondency borne of tribalism and mistrust has been underway for several years, and was/is still being amplified by the effects of the pandemic and by the pathetic, deteriorating state of political discourse in this country.  The Atlantic recently published an article called “How America Got Mean.”  As much as we may want to believe otherwise, these things are not getting better.

So, this is the part where I’m supposed to switch gears and deliver a heartwarming holiday message of hope for a better future.  I’m not sure I’m all-in on that, but I’ll offer a few observations:

One of the benefits, or perhaps curses, of getting older is the acquisition of longer-term perspectives on many things.  What we once may have called déjà vu feels more like “wait a minute, I’ve seen this movie before.”  Fashion, for example, is famously cyclical. Bell bottoms become boot-cut jeans, mom jeans, skinny jeans, ripped jeans, relaxed-fit jeans, flood jeans, bell bottoms.  “Vintage” is in, until it’s not.  Shag carpets were back, for a minute and a half.  History neither repeats nor rhymes, but it does inform.

Today, we face a ‘housing affordability crisis.’  Houses are in short supply, prices are high, and this is all exacerbated by “high interest rates” on home mortgages.  As of today, the average interest rate on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage is 6.34% (Source: Business Insider, 12/23/2023).  Compared with rates across the past decade, that is indeed relatively high.  But… when I bought my first condo, in 1983, the average rate on a 30 year fixed was 13.24%.  That was down from the previous year’s average, which was 16.04%.  I mention this, not to minimize the difficulty that young people face today when trying to buy a home (my daughter and her husband are among them – it’s not easy); but rather to convey that the sense of despair that many feel due to what, in their experience, are unprecedented levels of borrowing hell, like everything, fits into a larger context.

I can’t in good conscience, nor do I want to trivialize the countless real problems that we collectively face.  But I will suggest that if we reflect a bit, we may find parallels in our history that can contextualize our experiences in way that both validates and also, importantly, normalizes some of our own reactions, as aberrant as they may feel within our own lived reality.  We are right to recoil in horror, to viscerally experience and internalize the inhumanity of wars that are served up on the big screen daily.  We should be concerned about what our future will look like if climate change continues to accelerate.  It is understandable that we struggle to reconcile our fear of the unknown with our compassion for others.

But in most cases, we’ve seen some version of the movie before; and in all cases, the movie eventually ended, and life went on.  To live in today’s world is to experience pain; but to lack, or to lose perspective would be so much worse.

 It’s a sad fact that the holidays tend always to magnify the suffering of those experiencing anxiety, depression, hunger, loneliness, or a myriad of other ills.  I would love to be able to say that I’m brimming with unbridled optimism for the future, but that would be a lie.  Still, there’s a small child within me who wants to believe in some version of Christmas magic.  Maybe it’s simply this:  As a parent, grandparent, and plain old “old guy,” I want the younger folks in my orbit to understand that things will eventually work out.  I do believe that.

The world is scary, but really, it always has been; the scariness waxes and wanes, changes shape, and sometimes even reverses (see, for example, widespread fear of “overpopulation” and the perceived imperative of “Zero Population Growth” in the 1970s… today, we are told, we face the opposite problem.  History inverts?) 

So hang in there, my people.  I once again wish us all a better year ahead.  And if you find yourself in despair, or you’re feeling hopeless, please reach out.  I’ll be here. 

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas (there, I've said it).

Well, here we are again. 2022 is drawing to a close. Not gonna lie, the past few years have been psychologically brutal for many, if not most of us.  You know all the reasons why.  One could make the argument that things are getting worse now, not better: There’s a trifecta of viruses going around – the resurgence of COVID, the plain old flu, and “RSV” whatever that is.  There are shortages of multiple medications.  Children’s Tylenol is the new toilet paper. Inflation has soared, even as Jerome Powell and crew, woefully late to the party, continue to jack up interest rates.  The resulting, inevitable widening of the so-called “wealth gap” continues to stoke societal bifurcation and thinly, if at all veiled class warfare.  And let’s be honest, how many of us could even have placed Ukraine on a map before February of this year?  Yet the atrocities there are depicted on the TV news night after night, stirring recollections of this old-timer’s youth, when one might have asked, who among us could have placed Vietnam on a map prior to the Johnson Administration’s escalation of that war?

And yet…

I see green shoots.  Call it the spirit of Christmas, if you will, or perhaps it’s just a reflection of very real collective exhaustion; but I am seeing signs, some barely perceptible, of an emerging kinder, gentler time.  I think – I really believe – we are witnessing something akin to a fragile truce in the Culture Wars. I first noticed this in the political realm.  [Spoiler alert – stop reading now if you’re going to get all twisted about political opinions.]  Several weeks ago, one of my far-right Facebook friends, IRL a friend from high school who is a bona fide alt-right conspiracy theorist type, posted that Donald Trump had finally lost his vote. My friend may be Captain Obvious at this point, but it was a notable concession nonetheless.  At the other end of the spectrum, when was the last time you read anything about “the Squad?”  It feels to me as though Bernie and AOC and the rest of the extremist lefties are slowly fading into relative obscurity.  We can, and no doubt will, argue about where the delineation lies, but in broad, general terms, I believe we are witnessing a renewed appreciation of the merits of centrism, perhaps of moderation in all things.  There have even been a couple of instances of bi-partisan cooperation in Congress lately, including the recent passage of the “Respect for Marriage Act.”  While hardly a Kumbaya moment, it’s been years, it seems, since we’ve seen anything other than hard-core party line cement-shoes votes.   

Outside of the purely political realm, I have recently been noticing something quite remarkable: People are freely saying “Merry Christmas” again. Now, before you react negatively to that, hear me out. For the past several years, there has been a perceptible, just-below-the-surface rancor around holiday greetings.  And let’s be real, the fact that there would be rancor about this particular thing (that being, ostensibly, expressions of good will toward others) is disappointing at best, and clearly reflective of societal dysfunction. So, it went like this: some time back, “Merry Christmas” fell from favor, as it was seen by some as excluding those who do not celebrate Christmas. “Happy Holidays” became the politically correct alternative.  So far, so good, whatever floats your boat.

But then, as with so many other things in the past few years (see also: COVID vaccines), holiday greetings became weaponized, politically charged. There were only two sides, two extremes. You had to choose. You were a Merry Christmas person or a Happy Holidays person, setting aside for the moment that there have always been Happy Hanukkah people and Happy Kwanzaa people and Merry Festivus people and non-celebrants and all manner of others; this, like everything else in recent American life, became an angry, bilateral battle of wits. And so was born the ridiculous notion of a “War on Christmas.” During this ugly time, nobody seemed willing to accept a well-intended greeting at face value. The words, when spoken, were spat out as though gauntlets were being thrown down: “Happy Holidays” was delivered with a glare. “Merry Christmas” was returned as though with an unspoken “fuck you.” Absurd, combative memes abounded.

But recently, seemingly from out of nowhere, a level of warmth began to re-emerge. At first I thought it was a fluke, but the pattern repeated: I came face-to-face with someone in daily life – a supermarket cashier, a neighbor in a parking lot – who simply smiled (and to be clear, I am distinguishing a smile from a grimace) and said “Merry Christmas!” And in those moments, I was actually taken aback by what would have been, at any point in the first fifty years of my life, an utterly unremarkable encounter.  It was… nice.  Nothing more and nothing less.  

Not having lived under a rock for the past decade, I of course began questioning all of this. Yes, I’m a privileged white male, culturally Christian but non-religious.  What if I’d worn other shoes?  What if I were Jewish, or Muslim, or Seinfeldian?  Would I have / should I have been offended?  And the answer was clearly a resounding “no.”  Because – and this is perhaps the most important part – it was clear to me in each case that these “Merry Christmas” wishes were delivered without a trace of irony or challenge. They were simple and genuine expressions of good will.  Only the most unobservant or thin-skinned person of a different belief system would have found reason to take offense. 

So am I suggesting that “Happy Holidays” is now passe?  Not at all.  In fact, it may surprise some young folks to learn that “Happy Holidays” and “Season’s Greetings” holiday cards are hardly a new thing – they were just as common fifty years ago as they are today.  They just hadn’t been twisted into swords in some bogus Culture War.  When the evil Red Baron called out to Snoopy, “Merry Christmas, mein friend!” he was calling a truce.  Nobody demanded a generic rewrite.  Life went on.  People smiled.

Let’s keep smiling.  Merry Christmas.  Happy Hanukkah.  Jolly Everything.  It’s all [meant to be] good.  You are all [presumed to be] good.  I wish you the very best as we move forward into what will hopefully be a much better, happier 2023.

A Year Like No Other Draws to a Close

 

Sit on your hands on a bus of survivors / Blushing at all the Afro-Sheeners / Ain’t that close to love?

It’s not exactly “Silent Night,” but as Christmas approaches, that improbable lyric has been kicking around my brain.  We’re all sitting on that bus.  Survivors, bruised and butt-hurt by the bottomless sack of ennui that is 2020.  COVID has kicked our asses.  As though that weren't enough, our discomfort (or rage, depending on our personal value systems) at the current state of race relations, and politics in general, is also front and center once again.  2020, in a word, sucks.

And yet, we try.  We do our part.  We wear our masks and stand in our much-longer, slower, socially distanced queues.  We get our sinuses probed to the point where we’re sure to have alien abduction nightmares.  We cry along with the long-suffering front-line workers on TV, who have held the hand of one too many dying COVID patients.  Ain’t that close to love?

Bowie’s line from “Young Americans” resonated with me in a fresh way when I heard him perform it the other night in a taped 1974 appearance on the Dick Cavett Show.  I’ve been entertaining myself late at night by exploring the libraries of old TV shows that are now on streaming services.  You can catch Dick Cavett on Amazon Prime.  Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, too.  Lots of old content that folks of a certain age find entertaining.  Like so many others, I’m experiencing 2020 in a way that blurs time.  I’m gravitating closer to becoming a nocturnal being who is increasingly unaware of what day it is.

My immediate family and I have been very lucky – we’ve managed to stay healthy this year, and for that we are very, very grateful.  Our personal touchpoints with the pandemic have been pretty typical, and thankfully benign.  I had the odd experience of traveling to Maryland for a reunion with old friends during the second week of March – which was precisely when the media bubbled over with panic-inducing coverage of the “Coronavirus” (or China Virus, depending on your sources).  The wearing of masks was, at that point, discouraged; reason being that only N-95 PPE masks were of any use at all, and those were in short supply and should be reserved for medical personnel.  The evolution of guidance throughout the year has been fascinating. 

En route home, I spent one night in New Jersey, where local NYC TV news outlets were blaring warnings about potential imminent closures of state borders.  The hotel parking lot was empty, as though the building had been evacuated and closed.  Except for me.  Literally, there was my car and one other, also from out of state.  It was creepy.  My one regret is that I didn’t stop to see my beloved 94-year-old Aunt Helen while I was in town.  I had planned to, but in light of the news it seemed more prudent to put it off for another time and get the hell home.  That ‘other time’ never came, and she passed away in October.

Back home, my wife, Lana (an elementary school special education teacher) was scrambling, together with her colleagues, to figure out how to teach remotely.  About a month into that, parents in the city where she works arranged a parade to show their support for all the teachers.  We decorated our car with banners and I drove, so that Lana could wave to all the families standing and cheering on their front lawns and sidewalks.  They all seemed so appreciative; it was touching.  

But as the months wore on, and schools reconvened for the Fall session, support seemed to wane.  Lana’s teaching job became a crazy-quilt of bureaucratic directives and reversals, with no constituent group (parents, teachers, students, administration, state government) ever being satisfied.  

There were no more parades.  While some parents and families continued to express their appreciation, others called to complain because they no longer had baby-sitting coverage, or couldn’t figure out how to work their students’ laptops, or wanted their particular children to receive in-person rather than virtual special education services (the scheduling of which is entirely out of teachers’ control).  This was nobody’s fault; for these parents, the initial spirit of “we have a crisis, we’re all in this together, I appreciate all that you do” had given way to “this has gone on too long, I can’t take it anymore, you have to do something.”  We are seeing that phenomenon far beyond education, in pretty much every context.  People are exhausted.  Fuses are short.

With fortunate timing, I had retired from the corporate world a short while back, which made things easier for me than they otherwise would have been.  In the early going, back when we were all wearing gloves, afraid to touch our mail or doorknobs or groceries or whatnot, I started getting up very early(!) to stand in line at supermarket “senior hours”(!!) to buy toilet paper(!!!)

There are so many wrong things to unpack there, starting with that “senior” designation.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I squeaked past the cutoff, but I’m in denial about the old age thing.  I’ve been ripping up AARP solicitations for ten years, and reality notwithstanding, I refuse to accept the label “grandfather.”  I’m a Goom Goom, because that’s what my granddaughter calls me.  In any case, I abandoned “senior hours” fairly quickly.  I don’t do alarm clocks or early mornings anymore, so I’ll take my chances with the regular people.  Thankfully, we never actually ran out of toilet paper.

Our daughters have carried on with their lives, making necessary adjustments like everyone else.  Our granddaughter amuses and entertains us.  Her awareness of others has grown at a time when "normal" involves everyone wearing masks and keeping distant.  I wonder what she'll think when we revert to our "old normal."  

So this is Christmas / And what have you done / Another year over / A new one just begun

There it is – an actual Christmas lyric.  John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War is Over).”  A more obvious musical selection to fit our current situation.  War is over, if you want it.  The war against COVID has taken more American lives than the Vietnam War, by orders of magnitude.  But now, as then, there is hope.  Vaccines are already rolling out.  My daughter, who works in a nursing home, has been designated a front-line worker and will receive the vaccine next week!  Teachers, like my wife, will follow soon after in the vaccine pecking order.  I’m happy to wait my turn (seeing as how I’m not really a “senior” after all).

My heart goes out to all who have lost loved ones to this horrific pandemic.  Truly.  There is nothing more to say.  My wish for you is that, with time, you will find some peace. 

2021 will be better.  It has to be.

A very merry Christmas, and a happy new year / Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear.  

 

 

President Trump

Like virtually everyone I’ve spoken with today, I’m in shock.  I simply can’t believe that our nation has elected this miscreant, Donald Trump, to be the leader of the free world.  Trump’s victory represents a triumph of ignorance over reason, hatred over tolerance. His campaign has brought out the very worst in us as a people, and I fear we are heading down a treacherously dark path.

The first person I spoke with at work this morning was a colleague who had, like me, arrived at the office early. She was visibly upset and angry.  As a thinking person, and a married lesbian, she spoke of deep concerns that she and her wife shared – will a Trump presidency coupled with Republican control of both chambers of Congress spell the end of marriage equality?  Will the hard-fought gains of every disenfranchised group since the civil rights era begin a long, backward slide toward oblivion?  How can any woman have voted for Trump?  We pondered that question together and came up empty; it was incomprehensible to both of us.

What lessons has this election cycle taught our children?  That the meanest bully wins?  That no matter how reprehensible one’s words and actions may be, they won’t matter in the end?  We’ve elected this man to the highest office in the land; the only logical conclusion to be drawn is that it is acceptable to brag about having sexually assaulted women, to describe these assaults in the most vulgar imaginable language, to have all of that recorded and made public, and to still expect the job – whatever “the job” may be – because after all, every other job in the country is of less importance than the presidency.  There simply are no consequences for egregiously misogynistic words and [self-described] actions.

What can we expect in the foreign policy arena from this man whose narcissism compels him to brag about the size of his penis during a presidential debate, or to send 3 a.m. tweets about Saturday Night Live skits that displease him?  How will he behave when sitting across a negotiating table from Kim Jong-un?  Maybe, with great luck, we as a nation may manage to avoid sending our soldiers to fight and die in yet another pointless, unwinnable war on foreign soil. Or, alternatively, maybe my daughters will be among the first women to be drafted when our all-volunteer military has been spread too thin to deal with an onslaught of self-inflicted foreign threats.  The possibility is not beyond the realm of imagination.

Today, my social media feeds are awash in Monday-morning-quarterback comments about the election. Amidst the vitriol, there are many noble, conciliatory posts along the lines of “give him a chance.”  Okay.  Fine.  We will give him a chance.  We really have no choice, have we?

 

As I ponder this, I’m reminded of two memorable, long-ago presidential elections:

1980: Ronald Reagan won in a landslide victory over Jimmy Carter.  I remember being stunned.  Being 21 years old, Reagan was, to me, some ancient B-Grade film actor who had done a stint as governor of California, whose politics were reactionary, far-right, and dangerously hawkish.  He seemed, to me, a joke.  I was astounded – and very upset – by his victory.  I couldn’t believe that this cartoon-character buffoon with a head full of Brylcreem was to be our new president.  If I'd had a blog at the time, I probably would have written a post very much like the one you're reading.  For the record, I “wasted” my vote on third-party candidate John Anderson, for reasons that made sense to my 21 year-old self, which I can no longer recall.

So yes, I see parallels between Reagan in ’80 – or at least my perception of him – and Trump today; although I think we can all agree that Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan.  Still, I suppose the possibility exists that Trump may surprise on the upside.  We’ll call this the Happy Path.

On the other hand… the other long-ago election that comes to mind was 1972, Nixon vs. McGovern, at the height of the Vietnam War.  Nixon was re-elected in an absolute rout.  McGovern carried only one state – Massachusetts.  By the time of the election, the seeds had already been sown for the Watergate scandal that would soon unfold.  Nixon resigned in disgrace.  When I first arrived in Boston to attend college in 1977, there were still many cars on the roads bearing my favorite bumper sticker of all time: “Don’t Blame Me, I’m from Massachusetts.”

The Trump / Clinton race was far from a landslide, so I doubt we’ll see a resurrection of that particular bumper sticker anytime soon.  Still, with Trump facing multiple active lawsuits on countless fronts, stemming from his business practices and personal conduct over the course of many years, it’s conceivable that he may one day soon face his own Waterloo (or Watergate,) and that history may more closely associate him with Richard Nixon than with Ronald Reagan.

Time will tell.  Until then, we can engage in catharsis – I feel better already - and, hopefully, healing.

Rinse, Repeat

“’Round here, we stay up very, very, very, very late” --- Adam Duritz, Counting Crows: “Round Here”

It’s no secret that I’ve long dreaded and loathed Sunday nights, nor that in so doing, I’ve had lots of company.  Well, tonight is the Mother of All Sunday Nights for 2016.  The Mother of the Year, so to speak.

The holidays are over – that’s the good news.  My personal and familial rituals have been completed.  I’ve passed the inspection and received my sticker, so I’m good for another year.  Another predictable, fungible year of being Jerry.

This is traditionally New Year’s Resolution season. At lunch tomorrow, we’ll find that the lines at salad bars everywhere have tripled in length. And we will know, as always, that they’ll be back to normal by February.  We humans are downright silly when it comes to deluding ourselves. We are overwhelmingly creatures of habit. I know this well, and so, some time ago, I abandoned the annual pretense of practicing self-deception with regard to self-betterment.  In the immortal words of the sage philosopher, Popeye, “I Yam What I Yam.” 

Here’s what I already know about 2016:

- It will snow heavily at some point, soon.  The winter storm(s) will be timed such that I will need to suit up in late-1990’s Gore-Tex ski clothing and snow-blow our 200 foot driveway in the middle of the night, repeatedly, so as to ensure that we’ll all have adequate egress to get to work in the morning.  Frankly, I am getting too old for this activity, so I’ll daydream about moving to a warmer climate as I go about my thankless chore, but I’ll do nothing to make that daydream a reality.  Well, I’ll continue to receive Trulia e-mail updates about Sarasota condos, but they’ll accomplish nothing except to further fuel my ennui.

- During 2016, I’ll be summoned to New Jersey multiple times by my nonagenarian mother, who is increasingly afflicted by dementia, to perform such tasks as replacing smoke detector batteries in the “That 70’s Show” house in which she still lives; or – my personal favorite - installing / removing a single window air conditioner.  Yes, a 500 mile round trip for a five minute task, necessitated by her perception that I, and only I, am capable of completing this intricate mission correctly.  There’s water in those things, you know; make sure to drain it… center it on the plastic sheet, it’ll ruin my [40 year old] carpet…     

- I’ll try to convince my wife to take a “real vacation” – like a Caribbean cruise or somesuch - during her April break from teaching elementary school, to celebrate our 20^th wedding anniversary – which took place six years ago.  She will initially agree, but as the time draws closer and I start saving trip itineraries on Travelocity, she’ll back away and refuse, on the grounds that she hasn’t yet completed her “MCAS-Alts” (Massachusetts special needs teacher / standardized testing stuff, “no child left behind” and all that) and that she’ll need to spend the week doing that work, and also that she believes she’ll come down with the flu during her break – which, eerily, will actually happen.  She’ll be sick as a dog.  There will be no trip.  In 2017, the tally will be seven years.  Rinse, repeat.

- There will be at least one, and more likely, several unanticipated, significant expenses that will effectively negate my progress toward saving for retirement.  These may take the form of home repairs, car repairs (or more likely, given the composition of the fleet, car replacement,) electronics (laptops / smartphones / TVs / whatever,) major medical bills, supporting-adult-child expenses (D2 will be in Australia for half the year; that’s got to lead to something beyond what we’ve planned for,) or supporting-elderly-parent expenses. Yes, we are the poster children for the Sandwich Generation.  One step forward, two steps back.  Again.

- I’ll continue to be increasingly disappointed by escalating, extremist posts and rants from friends and family members at both ends of the political spectrum on social media.  I’m all-in for free speech, but the distance we have collectively placed between ourselves and the civility that our society once enjoyed troubles me deeply.  Blame our political leaders if you want, but [channeling Smokey the Bear] you and only you are responsible for your use of the “enter” key.  I’ll toy with the idea of going dark, seceding from the Social Media Circus for a while… but in the end, I’ll continue to check for updates, continue to shake my head, continue to jump in… it is what it is, and I Yam What I Yam.    

- In November, 2016, there will be an election.  It will be anticlimactic.  Hopefully, casualties will be minimal.

- In December, 2016, I’ll tally up my unused vacation time, only to discover that, despite my best efforts to spend as much time as possible on Cape Cod beaches during the summer months, I will once again be left with an embarrassingly large stash of “use-it-or-lose-it” time off at year end.  Now, this is a very nice problem to have; and it’s one that I habitually share with a considerable number of my colleagues, based on observed year-end staffing levels.  While my down-time preference would have been three weeks in July on the boat that I no longer own, I will nonetheless welcome the two weeks or so at the end of the year.  This extended time way from the rat-race provides me with a glimpse into what life may be like, should I actually live long enough to retire (If I were a Vegas odds-maker, I’d place this at around 50-50.)   It looks something like this:

My body reverts to its natural circadian rhythms, which I have been mightily battling for 35 years.  For contrarian reasons that defy rational explanation, I’ve been among the ‘first people in the office’ throughout my working life.  This has translated to rude awakenings to the tyranny of a 5:30 AM alarm clock for as long as I can recall.  But I am, by nature, a night person. For a couple of weeks each December, I am afforded the luxury of watching old (or, thanks to streaming video, new-ish) movies until 2:00 am, and sleeping until 10:00 am. That’s the real me.  During my waking hours, I feel more alive, less fatigued. This is definitely a change that I need to make.  Sadly, it will end – again – tomorrow morning; but I remain optimistic that I’ll live to see a time when I’ll be able to stay up very, very, very, very late, every night.

By virtue of having the time to do so, I get organized. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve updated software all over the place (did I mention that, as a card-carrying member of Sandwich Generation Nation, I am Tech Support for three generations’ worth of electronic devices?)  I’ve shredded mountains of paper. I’ve updated financial plans and forecasts (mixed results there.)  I’ve gotten the “fleet” of four vehicles up-to-date on maintenance and car-washes.  I’ve cycled our gasoline reserves (out with the old, ethanol-laden July “summer” gas; in with the new, preservative-protected winter-formula gas for all manner of small engines, from generator to snowblower to leaf-blower to tractor.)  I’ve spent quality time with my dog.  This kind of stuff is priceless.

I’ve maximized my online reach with regard to buying stuff.  I finally broke down and joined Amazon Prime (I’d been a long-time holdout, but the free shipping finally got to me.)  Now I’ve gone a little crazy with Amazon Music playlists, updating my newest toy (er, smartphone) with music.  I’ve saved search profiles on Craigslist and several other, more specific sites, in search of the perfect boat / car / real estate investment / deal-of-a-lifetime.  Sure, none of that may come to pass, but what the hell?  It’s not gambling if you haven’t spent a dime, right?  If there’s one skill I’ve honed over the years, it’s how to spot a deal.  And so I’ll keep looking.

There’s food now. Time for decent restaurants.  And draft beer.  And good bourbon.  Contrast this with daily black coffee for breakfast, PB&Js for lunch, and Cheerios for dinner, with everyone too busy to produce or await much else, and the alarm set too early to indulge. Self-explanatory. 

Somehow, amidst all this quasi-narcissistic busy-ness, I’ve managed to dispatch holiday-related familial obligations, including the obligatory in-law and distant family-of-origin visits (with dog along for both!)  If we’ve slighted anyone in the holiday merriment process, it was not by design.  For example, we sent virtually no Christmas Cards this year… basically, only the elderly, non-social-media users in our sphere got them; so if you’re reading this, we beg your forgiveness… just think of the trees saved.

And with this, I need to wrap… it’s 2016, and it’s almost bedtime.  To those who haven’t yet heard it from me, Happy New Year.  Odds are, we’ll be right back here again, a year from now, ready to take on 2017.

 

 

Time

“Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say” --- Roger Waters (Pink Floyd,  “Time”)

I drove almost a thousand miles over the weekend, to reunite with a handful of friends I had not seen in a very long time – in some cases, 40 years.  I’d decided to make the trip despite a great deal of trepidation.  Much of the time that had passed since I’d seen most of them had not been particularly kind to me.  I thought I’d have nothing to say that could possibly be of interest to these people, high achievers all.  I feared that the connections we’d once made had grown stale.  I imagined that it might be awkward to come face to face with the woman with whom I’d shared a home and the most intimate details of life, a lifetime ago.

My fears almost won out; but in the end, the prospect of missing out on what would likely be a once-in-a-lifetime experience proved too high a price for the comfort of avoiding the unknown.  And so I climbed into my time machine, and I drove.

Recently, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, in character as Marty McFly and Doc Brown from the iconic 1985 film Back to the Future.  The occasion was “Back to the Future Day” – 10/21/2015, the date on which the film’s protagonists arrived in their DeLorean car/time machine, 30 years into the future. 

On the Kimmel show, there was a humorous skit in which the time travelers compared their circa-1985 expectations of what 2015 would look like against reality.  30 years is a long time, and much had changed, in ways that were not quite in line with what they’d imagined.  Adding a decade to that approximates my frame of reference and mindset as I stepped out of my own time machine, into the driveway of my old friend’s home in Maryland. 

I arrived with no expectations.  Surely I wasn’t going to find the same people I’d hung out with back in the Disco / CB Radio era.  As with Marty McFly, nothing could have prepared me for the reality that was about to unfold:  Hugs all around; a few wrinkles that I stopped noticing after about five seconds, as they faded from view, becoming invisible as if through some mysterious alchemy, leaving only familiar faces that I’d have sworn I’d seen just last week.

None of us had stayed in our hometown.  Some had relocated far and often.  Others, like me, had simply put down roots and built lives elsewhere.  We had taken a rich variety of paths.  Among us were a chemist, an engineer, a professor, a librarian, and an artist.  The presence of the professor, and the demographics of the rest of our little cohort, briefly tempted me to draw a Gilligan’s Island analogy; but no matter how I configure the cast, I end up being Gilligan, so that’s a no-go.

There were so many stories.  Those that most inspired me were about overcoming incredibly painful situations, and about personal transformations – emerging from former identities so as to become truer to ourselves.  These resonated with me, I think, because I am standing somewhere between the two.  There were truly impressive tales of success, and tears of regret.  Time, once gone, cannot be reclaimed.

Our weekend together was great fun, and I hope we’ll follow through on our promise to each other that we’ll do it again. I was moved, at an emotional level and in a way that I hadn’t experienced in a long while. To a degree, I’m still trying to sort out ‘what just happened.’  I know this: for a few days, I experienced the magic of time travel. It involved great joy as well as great pain.

Too often, it takes a tragedy of some kind to remind us to hold our loved ones just a little closer; we react, but our responses are fleeting, and our memories short.  Like the addict who knows full well that his actions will kill him one day, we become addicted to our own lives, our routines, our ways of being.  The older we get, the more true this becomes.

Time is our greatest gift, but just as the top of an hourglass slowly, inevitably drains, time is also a thief, robbing us of itself.  Our DeLoreans have now plopped us squarely back into the reality of the present day.  What we do from here is on us.  

If any of my dear friends who attended NTBC1 happen to read this, thank you for everything.

Question Authority

The Grand Jury’s failure to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo in the Eric Garner case is, I believe, fundamentally different from the outcome of the Darren Wilson / Michael Brown case, and arguably different from the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case and any of a number of other white-on-black police killings of civilians in which the officers involved claimed to be reacting out of fear for their own lives. Whether we choose to believe any or all of them is, of course, a personal decision. 

Eric Garner had no gun.  He didn’t put his hand in his pocket (not that there would have been anything wrong with that, of course, other than that it would have provided a convenient excuse for the aggressive cop, Pantaleo, and his four – count ‘em, four – fellow officers to claim that they “feared for their lives.”)  He made no threatening moves whatsoever. 

This guy's "crime" was selling untaxed cigarettes. Let’s pause right there and ask ourselves whether the crime rate on Staten Island is so low that selling loose cigarettes on a street corner warrants dispatching five officers to the scene.  Weren’t there at least one or two auto body shops laundering money for the mob that might have made better targets for investigation that day?  But, putting that aside for the moment, Garner was put in a chokehold, in clear violation of NYPD rules. No one disputes this, and if they did, the entire incident was captured on video to set the record straight. In case you haven’t yet seen the video, here it is. 

Eric Garner had asthma.  He said the words “I can’t breathe” to the officers eleven times. He couldn’t breathe, and he died.  The medical examiner labeled the cause of death “homicide.” 

That this happened is wrong on so many levels; I cannot conceive how a Grand Jury fell for Officer Pantaleo’s semantics-and-remorse story (‘it wasn’t a chokehold, it was a takedown’) so hard that they failed to indict.  Failed to indict!  An indictment is not a finding of guilt, it simply means there is an accusation that warrants a trial.  This cop was clearly in the wrong.  There should have been a trial.

I am fortunate to have friends who align themselves all across the political spectrum.  We know that we’ve chosen to associate with each other because we like each other, regardless of any political disagreements we may have (and, given the breadth of the spectrum, I am always in disagreement with somebody.)

On this issue, perhaps unsurprisingly, some of my friends who hail from the right (and who, not coincidentally, are white) have been playing down or outright denying the existence of a racially-based pattern among fatal police encounters with civilians.  They’ve been focusing on behavior patterns of the victims – which is to say, the dead. 

They believe cops have a difficult job (no argument there – they most certainly do.)  They believe that cops, and authority figures in general, deserve to be shown respect (more on that in a moment) and that the only pattern connecting the dots between Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and all the others is the victims’ own failure to “comply with authority.” 

I’m going to offer up a partial quote, actually a passage taken from an oath that public servants once routinely recited, that I suspect my friends who hold these beliefs will find appealing.  I’ll fill in the remainder of the quote later. No peeking:

“I shall be loyal and obedient [passage deleted], respect the laws, and fulfill my official duties conscientiously, so help me God.”  Loyal and obedient.  A plug for the Almighty.  Good stuff.

If I had to summarize, in just two words, all that I learned during my four years at college, the summary would be “question authority.”  Not reject, not despise, not provoke, but question authority.  To question authority is, I believe, to actively engage in critical thinking; a skill essential to our survival as a species.

Authority is power, and with power comes responsibility.  We all have a certain level of authority within our personal domains, if nothing more than the authority to make our own choices.  We are obligated to ourselves to make good choices.  That is the responsibility we all bear by virtue of being human. 

People who occupy positions in which they have power over others, in whatever form, for whatever reason, have a concomitantly higher level of responsibility than those who do not. The impacts of their decisions and actions extend beyond themselves, and can therefore have far-reaching consequences.

When I was a child, medical doctors were considered authority figures.  They were the all-knowing, Buick-driving Marcus Welbys of the world (apologies to younger readers with whom these ancient pop culture references will fail to resonate.)  We normal, which is to say relatively powerless, humans never questioned the judgment or actions of a doctor.  We didn’t ask for second opinions. We didn’t sue for malpractice when things went terribly wrong.  Such things could never have been the fault of doctors, because, well, they were authority figures. 

So, when my father was paralyzed by a botched spinal surgery, my parents never questioned the surgeon.  He was a doctor.  Years later, when our family’s avuncular family physician – a true Marcus Welby type who still made house calls – came to the house to diagnose my bedridden father’s sudden flu-like symptoms, he declared that it was, in fact the flu, and recommended the usual remedies. Within a day, my father was dead. The aortal aneurism that Dr. Welby had failed to diagnose had bled out.  But he was a doctor, so naturally the concept of “fault” never crossed my bereaved mother’s mind.  She Respected Authority; she did not question it.

The world has grown tremendously more complicated.  As a corporate manager, I am viewed as an authority figure by those I manage.  I am constantly vigilant with regard to my own behavior, hyper-aware of that reality.  My statements and actions may have exponentially impactful effects involving other people in meaningful ways, positive or negative.  I hold myself to stringent standards of behavior, and go out of my way to ensure that my directions, my comments, my motives are not misinterpreted.  I am an authority figure, so I’m held to a higher standard of responsibility than would otherwise be the case.  This is as it should be.

Doctors are sworn to abide by the Hippocratic Oath (or, I learned by Googling, some modernized version of it.) The legal and moral obligations of corporate managers are laid out in various internal and external policy statements and employment contracts.  Police officers take an oath of some sort (“to protect and serve” or something similar) and wear a badge as a visible symbol of their power and authority.  There are countless other examples (teachers, firefighters, attorneys, EMTs, clergy members, and on and on) of professions that require symbolic expressions aimed at ensuring that practitioners are worthy of the public trust.  And, as all are human, there are inevitably “good” and “bad” professionals of every stripe – those who live up to the commitment they’ve made, and those who do not.

Power and authority can save lives, ruin lives, cripple, or kill.  Power and authority, counter to appearances, are not conveyed in full at the moment an oath is taken or a badge is awarded.  Power and authority, all of it, flows from those who are not in power: the governed, the citizenry, the patients, the students, the taxed, the voters.   

One who abuses his/her power is destined to lose it, sooner or later. This can happen at the individual level, swiftly (as when one is indicted and convicted) or it can happen at the macro level, with time, when critical mass is reached – as when, for example, the countless childhood victims of clergy abuse {perhaps the ultimate abuse of power} finally came forward, shattering years of silence and nearly bringing down the Catholic church.  Those victims were not only right, they were morally compelled to speak out and – wait for it – Question Authority.

We are witnessing another groundswell.  Whatever the underlying reasons may be – and people can and will continue to disagree as to what they are – there have simply been too many incidents involving unjustified, fatal white-on-black encounters with police. We are reaching critical mass.  We have already seen rioting.  We will see more. The Eric Garner case will ultimately prove to be a tipping point.  It was clear-cut, unambiguous.  It was documented with videotape.  And still, the guy with the badge walked.  I question his authority.  So should we all.

“I shall be loyal and obedient to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich and people, respect the laws, and fulfill my official duties conscientiously, so help me God.”  --- mandatory Oath of Loyalty for public officials, enacted into German law, August 20th, 1934.