Madiba

The wall-to-wall news coverage of Nelson Mandela's passing has been interesting. I've learned more tonight than I ever knew about the man.  He truly was amazing.  

Living in my little bubble, I hadn't thought about Apartheid for a long time, and for whatever odd reason, a very specific memory was triggered for me tonight: I was a young boy, in maybe 5th or 6th grade (hard to say exactly) when we learned about Apartheid in Social Studies class.  I remember finding the practice so strange; but what I find even more strange now, in retrospect, is the completely matter-of-fact way in which the information was presented to us. 

There it was, in our Social Studies textbook, right alongside countless other then-current factoids about faraway places.  Italy was shaped like a boot.  The capital of Iceland was pronounced ‘Ray-VEEK’ (not even true.)  Women of the Muslim faith had to wear veils (of course, we knew no such women personally… they lived in distant lands, which was why we learned such things within the context of geography lessons.)  The Dutch had wooden shoes.  And in South Africa, there was a set of laws called Apartheid, which required Negroes (yes, that was the word used – it was considered more respectful than the available alternatives at the time) to be segregated from white people.  Now turn to page 183 and do the exercise at the bottom of the page.  Just like that.  Yep, people around the world do all kinds of strange things, don’t they?

Perhaps even more strange, and this may just be a function of selective memory coupled with old age, I don’t recall our teacher ever connecting the dots between Apartheid in South Africa and the then-raging Civil Rights movement in our own country.  Malcolm X was murdered in 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.  I would have been in fifth grade in 1969.  The wounds were fresh, the connection clear; yet I don’t recall any elementary school teacher of mine going near that Third Rail.  It just… wasn’t done; not in that particular place, at that time.  I suspect that, had some brave teacher reached for the ‘teachable moment,’ they would have invoked the wrath of a community of  like-minded, overwhelmingly white parents.  Stirring the pot, and all that.

If there’s any conclusion to be drawn here, it must be that we have come a long way since those troubled times.  That we have a black president would have been unthinkable back then.  And, though we’ve heard his praises sung incessantly today, it is nonetheless true that we have leaders like Nelson Mandela to thank for the progress we’ve made.

Rest in peace, Mr. Mandela.  

Funny as a Crutch

I don’t like the new Michael J. Fox Show on NBC.  There, I’ve said it.  Does this make me a bad person?  I would like to think not, yet I feel a vague sense of shame in owning up to it.  We’re supposed to like the show, right?  Because it stars Michael J. Fox, whom we’re supposed to like because he’s so darned likable, and because the show represents his personal triumph over Parkinson’s disease; and because it is, in fact, a show about a guy with Parkinson’s, whom, by definition, we’re supposed to be rooting for.  Or something like that.  Right?

So I’ve been trying to figure out why I really just can’t stand watching it.

First, there’s Michael J. Fox.  I have nothing against the man, but I’ve really never cared for him as an actor, nor have I liked most of the stuff he’s been in.  Family Ties?  His character, Alex Keaton, was an annoying little precocious capitalist in a syrupy sitcom.  I don’t much like syrupy sitcoms (hmm, that may be reason #2 for not liking the Michael J. Fox Show.)  Back to the Future (1, 2, or 3)?  Nonsensical science fiction comedies (I’m not big on science fiction or comedies, generally) the popularity of which I’ve never understood – with the lone exception of the DeLorean car, which was extremely cool.  The fact that the DeLorean functioned as a time machine, not so much.

But my dislike of the Michael J. Fox Show runs deeper - a fact that has bothered me, leading me to question why; and here we get into some dicey territory.  Various sources have stated that it’s not intended to be autobiographical; that it is intended to be autobiographical; and that it’s semi-autobiographical.  Well, the plot involves a guy who returns to an on-air TV job as a news reporter following a hiatus, having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.  You be the judge.  Whatever.

The sitcom family in the show lives in a huge New York City brownstone that, in the real world, would cost several million dollars.  Not bad for a television news reporter facing huge medical bills.  But OK, all of the fictional families on TV seem to live large, so I’m willing to suspend disbelief.  So this character, Mike Henry, surrounded by his too-perfect, loving family in his amazing New York mansion, manages to soldier on despite his disabilities.  You’ve got to respect that.

But then the jokes start.  The Parkinson’s jokes.  He plays the disease for laughs.  Drops ketchup or something into his perfect son’s lap, accidentally-on-purpose, and says something to the effect of “oops, it’s the Parkinson’s.” Am I the only one who fails to find that funny?

So maybe I’m not grasping the edginess of this particular brand of self-deprecating humor; or perhaps in coming out as one who dislikes the show, I’ll be seen as bigoted against the disabled in some way.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

As for self-deprecating humor, I’ve been an active practitioner for most of my life.  It’s a defense mechanism that has enabled me to survive countless stressful, untenable situations. This may strike a chord with those who know me well.

And as for my street cred with the disabled world: while I have never personally experienced having a disability, I have been extremely close to two immediate family members who have. 

When I was a child, my father lost his ability to walk following a botched spinal surgery.  This was during the 1960s, prehistoric times in terms of disability awareness.  He had one of those ancient, huge hospital wheelchairs (think Betty Draper being wheeled into the maternity ward) that he hated, and chose instead to struggle with walking, leaning on canes for balance, most of the time.  I vividly remember, as a little kid, Dad calling ahead to restaurants and asking whether they had more than a couple of steps – these were days long before wheelchair ramps and such. He’d explain his reason for asking by saying “I’m a little crippled up.”  If the answer was yes, we simply didn’t go to that restaurant.  End of story.  He accepted such things with dignity and grace.  It was simply how the world was, and it was his reality.  Although Dad was able to laugh at himself in general ways, I don’t recall him ever joking about his physical limitations. He certainly didn’t find humor there – none of us did.  He had an expression that he’d use to describe a joke that had bombed: it was “funny as a crutch.”  This was just an old saying, a colloquialism as far as I could gather, not specific to his circumstances, but it certainly seemed to apply.

When my daughter was very young, she acquired several disabilities as a result of a freak accident. But times had changed since the sixties; society had made significant progress in addressing the needs of the disabled, and the disabled had, in turn, become much more integrated into the mainstream.  You can bet that my wife and I became strident advocates for our daughter, working closely with our school system to ensure that she had every appropriate accommodation to allow her to succeed.  The experience was exhausting, often highly emotional, and to my recollection, almost never humorous.

Which brings me back to the Michael J. Fox Show. Here the writers (and, presumably, Mr. Fox) have chosen to put Parkinson’s disease out there, front and center, as a comedic foil.  A small part of me applauds the bravery of that choice: take THAT, Parkinson’s, you won’t defeat me, you’re nothing more than a joke.  But a larger part of me objects.  I simply don’t find very much of the show to be funny.  The sophomorically obvious attempts at self-deprecating humor just aren’t doing it for me. It doesn’t help that every episode ends with a homey little parable, delivered by Mr. Fox as a voice-over, summing up the inevitable life-lesson-learned. I half expect him to close with “Good-night, John-Boy.”

If the writers are going for hipster-ironic edginess, they’ve fallen far short.  They might have gotten there with the chronic-neurological-disorder-as-comedic-device if they hadn’t been constrained by the limitations of NBC prime-time broadcasting standards, or by Michael J. Fox himself.  Let’s face it, he’s Alex Keaton, he's Marty McFly, he’s Mike Henry, but an edgy, ironic hipster he is not.

If you’d like to see an example of this concept – a disability worked for laughs – that actually works, I encourage you to check out one of my favorite blogs, Smart Ass Cripple.  It’s real, and the writer, Mike Ervin, is funny as hell.

 

The Wastrels

Our electric utility company has decided, for reasons not quite transparent to me, to provide us with periodic infographics like the one above, illustrating how poorly we are managing our consumption of electricity relative to our neighbors.  This pisses me off, and I’m not really sure why. 

My first reaction, politically incorrect as it will appear to my “green” friends who nobly seek to guard the earth’s finite resources, was along the lines of “Screw you. I have paid my bills on time for the past twenty years. That makes me one of your best customers.  You should be giving me a volume discount.”

Upon further reflection, I began to question the utility’s motives.  Like tobacco companies that sponsor “don’t start smoking” campaigns, it strikes me as more than a bit disingenuous that this particular company is beseeching me to purchase less of its product.  Are we not operating in a capitalist economy?  Don’t more sales translate to more profits? 

To discern the motive behind any company’s actions, one must follow the money. I am imagining the internal PR machine within National Grid’s corporate bureaucracy, calculating the ROI of a “go green” campaign.  How many top-line revenue dollars can be sacrificed, to be offset by gains in other channels such as fees for “energy audits,” or the free advertising that flows from positive publicity about a socially altruistic, environmentally friendly, tree-hugging energy retailer? 

Is this a bad thing?  Not necessarily, but please, National Grid, spare me the sanctimonious messaging; you are in business to make money.  Period.  If you can save the earth while making more money, it’s gravy; but no private sector, for-profit company operates on altruism.  I know this.  Don’t insult me.  

I actually found this particular infographic to be pretty humorous.  Wow, we really are bad people, aren’t we?  Just look at that blue line – we are off-the-charts bad!  So, as I tend to do when I come across humorous visuals, I posted it to Facebook.  Then things got interesting.  Three of my friends commented within a couple of hours that they had received virtually the same helpful notice from their electric utilities.  One friend, a woman in another state, with a different electricity supplier, opined that electric companies must send the same sort of message to everyone, as a “scare tactic.”  I’m not sure why they would want to scare us, but they may well want to aggressively sell us their “energy saving products.”  Hmmm.  

A couple of friends suggested specific steps we can take to reduce our consumption – install fluorescent bulbs, get an ‘energy audit’; well-meaning suggestions, but I’m pretty certain that these moves wouldn’t make a significant dent in our monthly bills.  The truth is, I’m pretty sure I understand what’s driving our consumption: we are pigs.

I was raised in a very frugal household, taught at an early age to turn the lights off when leaving a room.  I’ve tried to instill this habit in my now-grown daughters, to no avail.  A couple of decades of my ranting notwithstanding, they still seem blissfully unaware that a light switch can be used to turn a light off, as well as on.  And that’s just the tip of the energy iceberg.

To be clear: I’m not putting that nasty blue bar on the chart solely on the shoulders of my family.  I, too, am a pig.  I refuse to be uncomfortable in my own home.  That means I use the heat and the central air conditioning whenever necessary to be comfortable. It has ever happened – albeit rarely – that I’ve used both in the course of the same day.

I will not do the Jimmy Carter sweater thing.  I’ll economize in other ways – I’m probably wearing the same jeans right now that I had on the last time you saw me, however many years ago that may have been – but I will not compromise on thermal comfort. I know people in this town who live in seriously large, elegantly decorated McMansions, who keep their thermostats at 64 degrees all winter.  They must be my green-bar “efficient neighbors.”  Good for them; I'm just glad I don't have to live there.

Our house is tight and well-insulated.  We had it built, so I know what’s in the walls.  Our systems are modern and well maintained.  The truth is, we don’t have a “problem” to solve.  We’re just pigs – fat, dumb, happy, comfortable, and paid in full.

But kids, really – please turn the damned lights off.  Now. 

On Demons

I recently talked with three people, each of whom is going through a difficult time due to personal circumstances.  I’ve known these people forever – two are close relatives and the third is a childhood friend.  I wanted to reach out, to help them in some way, but there was nothing I could do that would materially help their situations.  Their challenges are quite different, and they each face their demons alone.  I can only wish them the best, and hope that they know I'm here for them.

This got me to thinking about the universal nature of demons.  We all face them, and we each deal with our own, in our own way.  Some of us are tortured, for whatever reason, more than others.  In the end, hopefully, we find a way forward.

The silent veil of night is pierced by an alarm clock.  Awakening each morning is, and always has been, his very worst moment, the low point of his day.  Rising in total darkness is unpleasant in its own right; the shadows will soon extend to include his entire morning commute.  And his evening commute.  This marks his annual reversion to a mole-like existence in which the sun exists only on the weekends, and even then, low on the horizon, casting long shadows.

His demon simmers, just below the surface of his outward self, as always.  He had been relatively free of its grip for a while, owing to some combination of extreme busy-ness and friendly chemicals.  But fall has returned, and this is its time.

He is acutely aware of losses, large and small.  Poor decisions, ill-timed investments, loved ones gone too soon, squandered opportunities, friendships long abandoned, long-gone youth, and ultimately, the loss of his capacity to care about any of it.  All gone, finis.

He has always had great difficulty with vision.  Not eyesight, but the ability to imagine a future beyond today.  Now this lack of vision also clouds the past.  Decades that should be reflected in a lifetime of pleasant memories exist only in foggy recollections of random events. He struggles to summon meaningful contexts.  Regrets alone become clearer with time.

To others, he appears as different people, chameleon-like.  Some find him gregarious, others reserved. What they do not understand is that they’re watching a play unfold.  Lines are recited, movements controlled, choreographed.  He is not insincere; this is simply all he has to give, and going through the motions thoroughly exhausts him.

At day’s end, he wants for little more than to engage in some minor self-destructive behavior, to self-medicate, to retreat to the relative peacefulness of his bed.

 

Our youngest child has left for college. There is quiet now - the absence of ruckus, of disarray, of drama.  This is new.  The nest is empty.  The house feels big, for the first time in a long time.  My wife and I rather like it.

Our children are children no longer.  Grown and gone, however temporary their absence, I’m left to ponder what I’ve given them.  Materially, they can’t possibly have any complaints.  They have all that they need and then some.  But we all know that that’s just stuff.  I have failed them in ways that count.  My serious nature, my stoicism, the demon that has robbed me, has robbed them as well. 

I have tried – truly, I have – to lead by example in matters of character.  Although I am deeply flawed, as are most of us, I am honest and true to my word, always.  It’s a point of pride.  Whether that will resonate, or truly matter in their lives remains to be seen.  I should have found a way to be more “fun.”  I didn’t.  Now there is a distance for which I hope, someday, to find a bridge.

My thoughts are with those who continue to wrestle their demons.  May they – may we - find the strength to prevail.

The New Rat Race

A colleague, Kristin Woodman, whose values as a corporate manager I respect very much, recently wrote a thought-provoking post on her blog.  The topic was work/life balance.  In it, she asks why so many of us who are in leadership roles fail to practice what we preach when it comes to taking time away from the office, enjoying the unplugged, relaxing vacations that we have earned.  You can read her post here:

http://www.kristinmwoodman.com/2013/08/24/work-life-balance-and-the-great-leadership-hypocrisy/

This got me thinking about why I am too often personally guilty of engaging in the “great leadership hypocrisy” that Kristin describes.  I do take time off, but I'm almost never entirely "off the grid."   

At face value, “Do as I say, not as I do” presents as a fairly straightforward, classic phenomenon.  In other contexts, the central issue and root cause are pretty clear: the parent who is a smoker is physically addicted to nicotine, lacks the resources [motivation, capacity, support system, whatever] to kick the habit, and is acutely aware of the consequences that will prevail if the child fails to heed the warning never to begin smoking.  Do as I say, or you’ll end up like me.  ‘Nuff said.

The work/life balance behavior modeling scenario is far more subtle and complex.  Weaved into this tapestry are the following:

Demographics:  The Baby Boomer cohort elevated workaholism to an art form in the 1980s. As they entered the workforce in droves, their sheer numbers upped the ante with regard to finding a job and advancing within a career.  Sociologically, this group, in typical rebellious-youth fashion, rejected the laid-back “hippie” value system of many of their predecessors, becoming instead a particularly competitive generation of workers.  The three-martini lunch was out.  Yuppies and Bimmers were in.  Boomers, throughout their lives up to and including the present day, have had to compete more aggressively against their generational peers for finite goods, whether those be job promotions, houses in coveted locations, or anything of general appeal to their particular age group.  The result?  Continual, relentless “raising of the bar.”  It’s no surprise that we see this reflected in rampant credentialism; the Bachelor's Degree long ago became the new High School diploma.  These days it seems that the M.B.A. is the new Bachelor's Degree.  Run faster, work harder, be scared. 

Did I mention demographics?  It isn’t that the Boomers are an evil bunch, though it is interesting to follow all that has been written about the numbers of Gen X-ers and Millennials who, in typical rebellious-youth fashion, rejected the uptight, striving lifestyles of their predecessors in favor of living more balanced lives.  Although it can be argued that some of the cross-generational shift in priorities was driven by economic necessity (all those Boomers who continued to hog the good jobs well into their golden years had crowded out many who arguably should have been their successors,) I believe that each of the generations in play within today’s workforce has a great deal of wisdom to share with the others, especially on topics such as work/life balance, if only we can bring ourselves to listen.   

Technology:  So much has been written on this topic that anything I may add will surely be unoriginal.  The introduction of computer automation, of the internet, of wireless technology, of countless other technological advances over the past 50+ years has tended to follow a common arc: initial rosy predictions of vastly increased leisure time made possible by the unimaginable efficiencies to be realized through these wonderful new inventions become perverted, with outcomes being diametrically opposite initial expectations.  We have become a nation of people tethered to our jobs, “on call” 24/7, not necessarily because we want to be, but because the fact that we can be has created nearly universal expectations that we will be.

Global competition:  Another shopworn topic, but one that must be mentioned in connection with the question of why we engage in self-flagellation when it comes to taking time away from our duties.  All that technology has enabled outsourcing of all manner of service sector jobs on a grand scale.  There’s a widespread perception that {choose a country – China is a current favorite} is about to eat our lunch.  American companies, quite understandably, have responded by introducing countless initiatives aimed at becoming “lean and mean,” doing more with less.  If the Baby Boomers hadn’t already killed the three-martini lunch, the emerging markets labor force certainly would have.  We are no longer just competing against each other, we’re competing against – or learning to exploit the availability of – cheap labor in faraway lands.  How do we accomplish this?   By proving our value every day – keeping nose to grindstone, being available 24/7, not taking ‘off the grid’ vacations…

And there it is.  In the end, we are simply running scared; running further, faster every day so as not to fall behind.  Breaking the cycle, especially for those in leadership roles, requires acts of bravery.  As perverse as this seems, it takes courage to indulge in a bit of relaxation. 

The Days are Getting Shorter

Ah, summer.  My absolute favorite time of year.  Absent obligations, I would happily spend every waking hour (and most sleeping hours) on a beach.  Unfortunately, the notion of assuming away obligations brings me back to Economics 101, in which every lesson began with “assume perfect competition.”  That’s one hell of an assumption.  It’s impossible – perfect competition doesn’t exist in nature.  Nor does a life without obligations.

The rub is that my “obligations” each summer seem to become more demanding in direct proportion to my increasing desire to do as little as possible. 

I have pretty much wasted the month of July (my favorite month within my favorite time of year.) Oh, I did a few things that were fun, but for the most part I worked – fulfilling job-related obligations, meeting the needs of tenants in my role as a part-time landlord, maintaining the family fleet, and doing what has felt like endless yard work. I went swimming exactly once.  And I own a beach house.  That’s just pathetic.

I remember, as a kid, counting down the days in June in anticipation of school vacation.  It was the ultimate gift – two and a half months of freedom!  Like clockwork, we would head for the lake the day after school ended.  There we would find my uncle, who each year would wait for precisely the right moment to deliver his line (around about June 22^nd, for maximum effect): “Well, the days are getting shorter…” 

I wanted to kill him. 

At work, I am a victim of the Fortunate Dinosaur’s Paradox:  I’ve worked for the same firm for so many years that I’ve amassed an embarrassingly large number of earned vacation days; but my responsibilities prevent me from taking them in significant chunks.  In theory, I could take the entire months of July and August off.  In reality, were I to do so, I’d be spending the month of September on an unemployment line.  So instead, I typically take what I can, when I can; and dutifully check in via e-mail while I’m away.  I will be doing this next week.  Not exactly an exotic, off-the-grid safari, far from civilization, but I WILL be on that beach, dammit.

I wrote about this phenomenon a few years ago, in another forum.  In keeping with the cheesy journalistic tradition of posting “rerun” columns while on vacation, I will re-post my entry from August 17, 2009 here. I am following my own advice; so should you!  I’ll see you on the other side.

“No Excuses”

8/17/2009

This is for all my workaholic friends... you know who you are - all you good Company Men and Women. Monday morning bit pretty hard today, didn't it?  I know, I was there and I spoke with some of you.  There you were, huddled in your flourescent-lit office spaces, waiting for all those weekend corporate-network-security-patch pushes to finish up, when it hit you: it's August 17th!  It is late August!  And you've done nothing!  Nothing!   I saw the look on your faces - like you'd found a dead moth in your Starbucks latte.

You never saw it coming, did you?  You missed the memo.  No surprise, given how busy you are.  Who has time to think about vacations, anyway?  Vacations are for lazy people.  The disengaged.  The unemployed.  Hobos.  Besides, there'll always be time to figure something out.  Plenty of time left.  I'll sleep when I'm dead, right?

And the job... how can you leave the job for a whole [day, long weekend, {gasp} week]?  What if there's no signal for your BlackBerry at [the lake, the beach, the mountains, the cruise ship]?  It would be irresponsible.  It just isn't done anymore.  It's... unpatriotic.  They need you.

Now, don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating sloth, or dissing those who have a good work ethic.  I work pretty hard myself, most of the time.  But ask yourself: can you personally take credit for your 401(K)'s bounce back from the edge of recessionary oblivion, however partial and unrewarding?  I'm betting that had more to do with [the cash-for-clunkers program, the consumer confidence index, the triumph of greed over fear, the price of... well... eggs and stuff] than with the sweat of your own personal brow.  The thing is, stuff happens, with or without you.  We all want to believe we're in control, but you know what?  Well, you already know where this is going.

Here's a little exercise: Subtract your age from 74 (if you're male) or 80 (if you're female.) That's how many summers you have left. [source: howstuffworks.com, USA life expectancy, 2001]

So, this is the final boarding call.  Summer's heading off over the horizon.  A friend in Vermont reported seeing colored foliage at the top of Killington Mountain today (thanks for THAT, Willi!)  It's now or never.  What are you saving those vacation days for, anyway?  Christmas with the In-Laws?

I'll see you on the beach.  And if I don't... well, you can't say you didn't get the memo.

 

 

The Mona Lisa Smile

 

"Ginger"  ~1999 - 2013

 

It had all the trappings of a clandestine drug deal: we had planned to meet after dark, in the parking lot of a remote convenience store in a nearby town.  We arrived first, and waited.  A rusty old Volvo wagon pulled up next to us.  A woman emerged from the car, wearing grimy clothes.  She had what we had come for: a young, mixed-breed dog of unknown origin that she had rescued from a “kill shelter” on the South Shore.  She had described her to us by phone as a “Miniature Golden” and had given her a name: Ginger. 

Ginger had not had the benefit of a bath – she smelled awful.  The woman handed me a filthy leash, and Ginger proceeded to drag me around the parking lot.  She was young, strong, and wild.  Untamed, almost, but clearly not aggressive.  There was a moment when our eyes met, and I swear we formed a bond.  I glanced at my wife and young daughters.  They seemed skeptical.  I said “we’ll take her.”  The woman, whom we later took to calling the Crazy Old Dog Lady, drove off.  Ginger was ours.

Ginger, we quickly learned, loved to swim.  She was drawn to the water like a magnet to a steel post. Always impetuous, she’d leap off of our boat for a swim without warning.  We bought her a doggie PFD (life vest) which actually did save her life once.  We were anchored in Wellfleet Harbor off Billingsgate Shoal, a spit of sand that separates the harbor from Cape Cod Bay.  Someone tossed a lump of bread crust, the remains of a sandwich into the water.  Ginger dove after it.  She swam the short distance to the sandbar, paused long enough to look back at us as if to laugh, then ran into the water on the Bay side, whereupon she – and I, who had donned my own vest and swam out, crossing the sandbar, to retrieve her - got caught in a rip tide.  A kindly fisherman in a skiff hauled us both out and drove us all around the shoal back to our boat.  Our little adventure found its way into the local newspaper, in a story spun to illustrate the value of PFDs for pets.

We’ll never know which dog breeds contributed to Ginger’s heritage, but they somehow came together to produce an attractive dog (in our estimation, anyway.)  Her coat was thick and golden in color.  Even in old age, it never greyed.  My wife has always said that Ginger had eyelashes with built-in mascara, and a Mona Lisa smile.  We never knew what she was thinking, or what she’d do next, but she always seemed to be having fun.

Ginger was with us for fourteen years.  The past year or so had been difficult for her. Her hind legs had all but given out, her vision and hearing had diminished, and she panted heavily most of the time. She was on multiple meds to alleviate other ailments.  Still, there was that “smile.” I imagined, and still do, that her spirit was very much alive.  And so it was that we agonized for months over what to do – whether to “put her down” (God, I hate that expression.)   Yesterday, the decision was made.  With our family gathered around a stainless steel operating table in a veterinarian’s office, we said goodbye.

Now, having the perspective of a day’s hindsight, I’m left still wondering whether we did the right thing.  All I really know is that I miss her presence.  We were lucky to have had her, and given her rocky start in life, I'd like to believe she was lucky to have had us as well.

There is nothing unusual about this story. This was not the first time we’d euthanized an ailing pet, nor will it likely be the last. Countless others have faced the same dilemma and have lived to tell about it.  If there’s anything surprising here, it is this last point:  I’ve been literally overwhelmed by the number of sympathetic and supportive comments generated by my simple, five word Facebook post yesterday, announcing Ginger’s demise.  Grieving the loss of a pet, it seems, strikes a powerful chord with many people.  At some level, we had been thinking we were kind of crazy for being so emotionally attached to an animal; but as it turns out, if we’re crazy, we’re certainly not alone.  Oddly, there is comfort in that.  So, to all of our fellow crazy pet lovers, including the Crazy Old Dog Lady whom I imagine must be resting in peace somewhere herself by now, thank you.

Plus ça change...

Change has overtaken us.  I’ve chosen these words carefully, to reflect the somewhat involuntary, if not exactly passive nature of the swirl of activity that has engulfed our family lately.  Within the course of a one week period, we have supported a loved one through a painfully emotional legal proceeding, visited an aging relative who had been rushed to the hospital amidst initial reports that she was “unresponsive,” and spoken several times with another aging relative who lives a significant distance away and has increasing physical and emotional needs that we find ourselves unable to adequately meet. 

We’ve purchased a seriously expensive machine for landscaping the yard, continued our efforts involving minor house renovations, and attended two lengthy events at our local high school, the latter being our daughter’s graduation ceremony (congratulations, Sarah!)  My truck has been in the shop – twice (the second time to replace a faulty part that had been installed the first time.) 

We are actively discussing how and when to “put down” our beloved but elderly dog, who has become incontinent.  She seems hardly ready to throw in the towel quite yet.  Yes, all this within the span of seven days.  Oh, and we still have our day jobs.  I could write several paragraphs on that topic, describing the breakneck pace of organizational changes and resulting fallout pertinent to my job alone.  But I won’t.

I do not want all this, but it’s unavoidable.  We are the poster children for the Sandwich Generation, juggling the (mostly emotional) demands of aging parents and the (mostly financial) demands of newly-minted adult children.  The treadmill just spins faster, both literally (referring to the one in our basement) and figuratively.  There are days – lots of them – when all I really want to do is jump off, do nothing, relax.  But seldom does that happen.  There just isn’t time.  The hammock beckons, but my butt is elsewhere, hustling, doing, checking off tasks on the to-do list.

Seth Godin semi-famously declared that “Fifty is the New Thirty.”  I don’t buy it.  I’d give my left nut to be thirty again.  Well, maybe not, but I’d think about it. 

In reality, I don’t envy the thirty year-olds of today.  They are victims of their position on the demographic continuum.  The leading edge of the Boomers (read: those much older than me!) who are of traditional retirement age are delaying retirement, essentially hogging jobs that should be freeing up to accommodate today’s up-and-comers.  A gazillion articles have been written, outlining the reasons for this (the real estate bubble, the market crash of ’08, sloppy handling of debt all around; Boomers treating their homes like piggy banks, tapping equity in the false belief that real estate values would only ever go up, and on, and on.) 

I would add only that there’s a certain chicken-and-egg aspect to this as well:  our own prospects for downsizing are hampered by the very real likelihood that our college-age offspring will turn out to be ‘Boomerangs” – themselves victims of the lousy {but improving!} economy, returning to the nest that is our home in the SUVs that we still own and insure.  Dad, my gas tank is empty again.  Ka-Ching.   

And so, we soldier on.  I’m painfully aware that much more change is coming our way, and soon.  The end of days is approaching for our parents who are in their 80s and 90s, and for our dog who can barely walk.  The world awaits the college grads that we hope, one day soon, to turn loose. 

We blinked, and somehow, now we’re here.  I wish I had paid more attention.  I wish I’d been more patient.  I wish I had said the things for which, even now, I can’t seem to find the words.  And I’m grateful for the few pillars in my life that have not changed.  They are my guideposts, without whom I’d be lost.

The Gift

My friend, Jack, “discovered” a local watering hole many years ago.  It became our hangout.  We were young, single, and relatively flush with disposable income.  The place had great Buffalo Wings and cold beer on tap.  It was perfect.

Word spread quickly, and the place became very popular with the “Yuppie” crowd (for those unfamiliar, “Yuppie” was a 1980’s term, an acronym for “Young Urban Professional;” we were Yuppies, and Coffee Achievers, too – Google them for a chuckle.)  Every Friday afternoon, like clockwork, we’d hit “happy hour” with an ever-changing entourage of friends and co-workers. There were no spouses, no kids, no obligations; or so it seemed.  It was, in so many ways, a good time.

Years passed. We grew up, I suppose - acquired families and mortgages and baggage.  We had the occasional “reunion” when we were able to pull it off, but over time the gatherings became less frequent, the attendance more sparse.  It was as though we’d been a part of the cast of “Cheers” for a while, but like the show itself, our ratings had dropped, and so it was over.

But funny things happen at midlife, as we find ourselves stepping onto the turf of the Back Nine.  Extramarital affairs happen.  Convertibles happen.  Gym memberships happen.  Goatees happen.  You name it; internalization of the reality of impending mortality causes people to go a little crazy.  Sometimes, we try to find something within ourselves that we’d long ago abandoned.   

And so it was, very recently, that a few of us found ourselves back in our long-abandoned booth, slugging down beer and Buffalo Wings. Save for the prices, the place hadn’t changed a bit. The food and drink were great, as was the company.  But there was a surreal quality to the experience.  We’d become different.  We no longer looked like most of the other patrons (what are Yuppies called these days, anyway?)  Yes, of course we were older; but we had also grown wiser, and sadder – or perhaps just more somber. Oh, we’ve all had good lives to this point, and on balance we’ve no reason to complain; but we’d each borne unique crosses of one sort or another, and it became clear as the conversation progressed that the weight of our burdens and the years we’d spent carrying them had taken their toll.  I’ve always insisted that Thomas Wolfe was wrong, that you can go home again; but I’m starting to doubt myself.

I wrote most of this post in the living room of my mother’s house, sitting on a sofa that was built in the 1950’s.  She was sleeping in her bedroom, in mid-afternoon.  She is 90 years old.  I had traveled a fair distance to take her out to dinner for Mother’s Day; but she didn’t feel up to leaving the house.  Her mind is still sharp, but her body is slowly failing.  She knows this, and in characteristic fashion speaks to it directly: “I just need what nobody can give me – a new body.”  I look into her eyes and see my future.  It scares the hell out of me.  Longevity is a blessing and a curse.

My mother is a stoic and eminently practical woman.  She’s a classic member of the Greatest Generation – she’d lived through the Great Depression, and that experience had, to a great degree, formed her world view.  She wastes nothing.  Her demeanor is blunt and to the point.  She speaks her mind, and doesn’t particularly care what others think or feel.  Her background and personality, of course, played a large role in shaping my childhood.  I learned at an early age not to expect anything to be sugar-coated, and nothing was.

By the time I reached adulthood, I had come to understand that there are certain topics of conversation that are best avoided with Mom.  My wife quickly learned this as well, with a bit of trial-and-error in the beginning.  The general theme was to avoid creating the impression that were somehow profligate spendthrifts.  This was more easily said than done: buying a new car, for example, danced dangerously close to the cliff; and a car is too big to hide.  But that could be alright, if we played up the terrific price bargain we'd negotiated.  Discarding leftover food, no matter how small the morsel, led directly to a lecture about starving children in the Third World.  When I was a kid, it was always Biafra for some reason.  The starving children there must have been on the TV news a lot.  Saving the food in a tiny bit of aluminum foil in the back of the refrigerator until it grew mold and then tossing it – that has always been OK.

When our children came along, the ‘thrift’ theme was extended to include a “you’re spoiling those kids” corollary; so we stepped up our game, expanding the list of off-limits topics.  Our kids walked on eggshells while visiting Grandma’s house, lest they slip up and leave a wet towel somewhere, or forget to turn off the lights when leaving a room. When stuff like that happened – and, of course, it did – they would get the lecture and we would get that look – the one telling us that we were wholly incompetent parents raising unruly scoundrels.

This Mother’s Day visit was unfortunate, in that Mom wasn’t feeling well, but it was also unusual in a positive way, in that we actually had a real conversation, transcending the superficiality of the weather and the news stories of the day.  It was just the two of us.  Dinner had been a bust, so we’d ordered in Chinese food.  She told me about how poorly she’s been feeling lately, in somewhat graphic detail.  She asked me how old I was – she’d lost track – and she seemed surprised by the answer.  I’m further along than she’d thought.  We talked about regrets – a traditionally verboten topic.  We talked about lives that feel like to-do lists, marked by endless tasks and chores, to the exclusion of most everything else (or so it seems at times.)  I mentioned that my wife and I have had our noses to the proverbial grindstone for decades, that we'd sent one daughter to Europe and the other to college, yet we’d somehow managed to postpone our 20^th anniversary cruise for three years and counting.  What Mom said next surprised me: “you should go.  Book it now, while you’re young enough to enjoy it.  You should focus on doing things that make you happy now.” 

And there it was - the pleasure principle.  Since I was a child, I’d heard about the virtues of hard work, that I needed to save my pennies for a rainy day, how “lucky” I was to have a steady job, and on and on.  Now, spurred on by what I imagine to be her own perception of a darkening stage, my mother appeared circumspect. She went on to say, as though I needed a reminder, that life is short.  From her perspective, even a very long life goes by shockingly quickly. 

Driving back home this morning, I realized that my mother had given me a Mother’s Day gift – a new perspective to ponder.  We are going to book that trip.  We must. But beyond that, I’ve got some reassessing and re-prioritizing to do.  Change is in the wind.  It is time.

The Marathon

Midnight, and the television coverage continues. 

Three dead, as of now.  The count will likely rise by morning, so horrific are the injuries.  An eight year old boy.  A Boston University student.  I've been both of those, at times that feel much more recent than their reality. 

Copley Square.  Home of the onetime “Plywood Palace,” a.k.a. the John Hancock Tower, Boston’s tallest office building.  When I was a student at BU, a part-time job was offered on our school’s job posting board for a “building watcher.”  The then-fairly-new Hancock Tower had a few structural issues.  The giant glass panels that formed its outer skin had a habit of blowing free from their frames, crashing to the ground – a dangerous situation, to say the least.  During the reconstruction effort to fix this problem, giant plywood panels encased sections of the building, essentially to hold the glass in place.  “Building Watchers” were hired and paid minimum wage to sit on benches in Copley Square and gaze upward at the building, watching for any signs of misaligned or wavering glass panels.  I passed on this opportunity, and I have no regrets.

Until today, to my knowledge, glass panels in free-fall were the most dangerous things to happen in Copley Square.  After college, I lived on Boylston Street, just a few blocks to the west. On more than one occasion, I staggered through Copley late at night, drunk as a skunk, making my way home.  I’ve hung out there with friends at 2:00 am.  I've had celebrity sightings.  I've marveled at the ice sculptures.  For many years, I worked in an office building just two blocks to the east. And yes, I’ve watched the marathon from that very spot, a number of times.  I never felt threatened in any way.   

Today was Patriot’s Day, a Massachusetts holiday.  My wife, a teacher, has the week off.  We’re on a vacation of sorts, spending a few days at our house on Cape Cod.  When we heard the news today, we were reminded of Patriot’s Day, 2007.  We were on a real vacation then, having taken our daughters to Washington, DC for school vacation week.  We happened to be staying in a hotel across the river, in Virginia.  The day we arrived was the day of the Virginia Tech shootings.  As might have been expected, this was a major news story in Virginia. The details were inescapable, and horrifying; very much like coverage of today’s Boston Marathon bombings here in Massachusetts.

Tonight, together with our fellow citizens, we’re being asked to remain “highly vigilant.”  Tomorrow, Boylston Street will remain closed for several blocks as the crime scene analysis continues.  Riders on Boston’s mass transit system will be subjected to random backpack inspections.  With a shudder, I’m recalling the times that followed 9/11/2001. At the office building in New Hampshire where I then worked, huge boulders were placed to block vehicular access to the part of the parking lot closest to the building.  At airports, security measures went over-the-top nuts.  In retrospect, even the most cautious among us would likely admit that we got a little silly; but it was all somewhat understandable.  The fear was palpable. 

I wonder what we’ll wake up to find tomorrow. Will the hard news somehow deteriorate?  Will there be additional incidents, or devices found, or connections to terrorist organizations confirmed?  Will all public trash barrels again be removed from city streets, as they were in the wake of 9/11? 

I’m not being cavalier about this stuff.  I freely admit to a twinge of trepidation at the thought of our drive home later this week, which will take us through the long “Big Dig” Tip O’Neill Tunnel, beneath the streets of Boston.  

More than anything, today’s news has brought great sorrow; I feel for the families of the victims, the injured and the dead.  The accident of timing alone separates us.

The real marathon is not a footrace. It’s an ongoing, lifelong slog.  It’s the thing we once rather tritely called the “War on Terror.”  It has a cadence.  I imagine it will continue to ebb and flow, along with our fear and our vigilance; but it will not disappear, ever. 

Yet those who are inclined to wax nostalgic for the “good old days” need only look a bit further back to realize that nothing here is new.  Members of the Greatest Generation will recall the fear that gripped the world during World War Two. “Loose Lips Sink Ships.”  The leading edge of the Boomers may remember the paranoid atmosphere of the Cold War.  “Duck and Cover.”  The Enemy has always been, and will always be Out There.  This marathon requires strength and endurance.  Those who came before us had it.  I’m betting we will, too.

The Good, the Bad, and the Gullible

I was a nervous kid.  I was brainy, not athletic at all, lacking in self-confidence, and wary of new situations.  I believe this was in part due to genetic disposition – anxiety is somewhat of a family trait - and perhaps in larger part due to the circumstances of my youth, which were legitimately stressful in many respects.  None of this matters now, apart from enhancing the insights produced by my navel-gazing experiences in my old age.

 I bought the lie – 1:

I studied very hard in school, and was rewarded with excellent grades.  I was consistently the last to be picked for the gym class basketball team, but consistently the first to be picked for the classroom spelling bee team.  My parents, both wonderful and well-intentioned people, counseled me from a young age: do well in school, and you’ll be able to get a scholarship to a great college.  In reality, neither of my parents had attended college, and they had absolutely no idea of how the admissions process, much less the financial aid process actually worked. They truly believed that hard work would simply lead to financial reward. This was, after all, America, the land of opportunity; and in their own experience running a small business, the maxim had held true.

When college application time approached, I did my own research at the local library (there was no internet in those prehistoric times, and my high school’s guidance department was wholly incompetent – so I’d set out on my own.)  Based largely on its glossy, eye-catching marketing materials, I chose a college.  One college, in faraway Boston.  I applied there (and only there,) and was accepted.  The deal was done.  The “scholarship” I’d worked so hard for, the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, failed to materialize.  My mother, by then widowed, to her enormous credit found a way to finance my education.  At age 17, I drove, solo, 250 miles to Boston, to check out my chosen school.  I fell in love with the city, and in fact I’m still here – well, in the general area.  The rest, as they say, is history.

 I bought the lie – 2:

As college graduation approached, I began interviewing for jobs.  Four years culminating in a double major, magna cum laude, had failed to instill a burning passion for any particular field that didn’t require years of additional schooling, and I’d had it… I was done; I wanted out.  I wanted a job, in the “real world” (read: not academia,) ideally one that would allow me to stay in Boston along with many of my friends - a selection criterion just about as random and foolish as choosing a college based on the pictures in its brochure.  I found a job fairly quickly, an entry-level professional position with a large company.  I loved it.  I’d met my goal.

There was a formal training program.  I aced it.  Among the many company executives called upon to share their wisdom with us in these training sessions was one old guy whose name I no longer recall.  Someone had asked a question about salary and advancement opportunities.  His answer was to the effect that ‘we may not offer the biggest paycheck on the block, but here at our company, you’ll have job security.  We’ve never had a layoff here, even during the depression.  He pounded his fist on the table in emphasis with that last statement. I was reminded of Nikita Khrushchev banging his fist at the UN. We sat, wide-eyed, silently pledging our allegiance.  It was 1981.

A decade later, when the first laid-off secretary emerged, bawling, from what came to be known as the slaughterhouse (in reality, a cramped conference room unfortunately located in a rather public spot,) I realized then and there – I’d bought the lie (or rather, the one-time truth that had morphed with the corporate culture into fantasy, as the rules of the game had changed beneath our feet.)

 I bought the lie – 3:

I was recently reminded of disillusionments past (the preceding are but two of countless examples.)  Some say that history repeats. 

 

My daughter, a high school senior, is at the tail end of the college application process.  She has worked extremely hard in school, and has an impressive resume of achievements to show for her efforts.  She applied to 9 – nine! – schools.  I’m told that’s fairly normal these days.  She’s been accepted at six and wait-listed at three.  Not bad!  This should be a joyous time, filled with the excitement of choosing among many great opportunities; but it’s not.   Unfortunately we’re discovering, too late, how badly the college application and financing system is flawed.

Since she was an infant, we’ve been dutifully saving for our daughter’s education.  We’ve amassed a tidy sum.  We are frugal people by nature.  We don’t live large.  It turns out, that’s a big mistake in this twisted, redistributionist, regress-to-the-mean society.  If you’ve got it, baby, you’d best spend it now, or they’ll take it from you tomorrow to subsidize someone else. If colleges don’t do it, the government will.

It’s like this:  Most of the so-called ‘prestigious schools’ to which my daughter applied have adopted some version of the same lofty-sounding credo: “no student will be unable to attend xxxx U. because of unaffordability.”  Doesn’t that sound grand?  Altruistic, even?  Here’s the translation:  “We don’t award any merit-based scholarships; and ‘affordability’ will be determined by one of two incredibly intrusive algorithms using labyrinthine rules that would rival those of the IRS in complexity.”

Further translated: you may be at the top of your graduating class, with a trunkful of awards, varsity letters, a Nobel Prize and invitations to lunch with the president; but if your parents have made the mistake of saving and investing in anticipation of this day, you’re going to pay the full freight.  Your choice, in practical terms, will be between paying double or triple the price paid by your likely future roommate to attend a top-tier school, and probably incurring debt that your parents have tried so hard to shield you from; or taking advantage of the merit-based awards you’ve received – which have been generous – from schools that weren’t your top choices.

Meanwhile – and here’s the galling part - your equally (academically) qualified friends are getting "need based" money left and right, and will be able to attend their choice of  top-flight schools because their parents have gone the spend-it all, get-multiple-divorces, take-lavish-vacations, save-hardly-anything approach. They live in huge McMansions (not counted in determining "need" by virtue of being “primary residences” – a loophole you could drive a Rolls through) while we live in a modest house and have chosen instead to invest over the years, apart from the college fund, for our own eventual retirement (putting similar dollars in a different category.) And it's folks like us who are expected to subsidize the masses of less academically qualified but needier, or equally academically qualified but less thrifty families out there by paying the wildly inflated sticker price. We're talking $250K out of pocket over four years, minimum.  Per kid.

To be clear: I don’t oppose the concept of need-based financial aid. My problem is with schools that have adopted exclusively need-based programs.  My wife grew up poor, and would not have been able to attend our alma mater if not for the aid she received.  That said, my wife was also her high school class valedictorian.  Her academic qualifications were rock-solid. And that is my point – she worked hard to earn the privilege of attending college.  For colleges today to turn a blind eye to a broad swath of highly qualified students in favor of subsidizing only those who demonstrate having met the schools’ peculiar and distorted definition of “need” is just wrong.
         
I realize this post is unlikely to generate any sympathy.  White people problems.  Sure.   But if you try and view this through our lens, the system is badly broken, and patently unfair - and not just to the poor.

The hard lesson for my daughter:  don’t buy the lie. 

And yet, we as parents, as a society, still wish to somehow instill within our young people a belief in the inherent value of hard work.  If that belief is to continue to have any relevance, we have got to move away from this steady progression toward “leveling every playing field,” no matter how well-intentioned, and restore some semblance of a meritocracy.