PANDEMIC POTPOURRI

During these days of social isolation I find that I think of friends more often.  I'm also thinking more  of friends with whom I have not communicated in nearly a lifetime.  That part, however, may be a function of my age more than this present pandemic - as in the older one gets the older the memories get that bounce around in the mid-night mind.

It occurs to me that as I age I begin to live more and more in the mind and less and less in the physical activities that have been a huge part of my life in the past.  So it comes up for  me to realize that if I find that I am bored (and I am finding this more and more these days) the antidote just might be activity.  Any activity.  Don't think too long about what to do, just do something.  It's the motion that counts.

One of my favorite activities is cooking, which leads, of course to eating.  But it's the cooking that excites me most - the actual pots and pans projects around the stove.  If you're reading between the lines, you are realizing that though cooking is such fun and at some level necessary, it can be devastating to one's waistline.  I'm not a great cook but a willing one.  I've learned that there is a kind of poetry to cooking - a little of this and a little of that, and don't fret the rhyming.

We're trying to downsize and prepare this house for the market.  It has yet to be discovered just  how big an impact this pandemic will have on the real estate business.  A large part of downsizing and decluttering is getting rid of stuff.  Did you know that there are, I think, four or five Goodwill stores open in the state and one of them is about 20 minutes north of our house.  Taking things there is more like re-purposing rather just throwing things away as in taking them to the dump, so to speak.

We drove into the parking lot and there was a long line of people waiting, at six foot intervals, to be let inside the building and a line of cars waiting their turn beneath the donation porte cochère.  It seemed that the whole town was there.  Watching the cars in front of us unload was fun.  One woman seemed to be getting rid of a lifetime's worth of Christmas decorations.

Everyone wore masks and many wore gloves.  Quite a few employees also had face shields.  The whole experience was imbued with calm and orderliness.  It was encouraging.  It's highly likely that we'll take anther load there today.  It's like going shopping in reverse.  These days you take entertainment where you find it.

TODAY IS THE 121ST BIRTHDAY OF MY FATHER

Today is the 121st birthday of my father, John Murdock Henderson. He has been gone for nearly half that time. He died in the “dark ages” of prostate cancer research. Subsequently I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and a series of radiation treatments were prescribed. We check the PSA every six months. The number gets smaller and smaller. To say it’s a cure is a bit gutsy but it’ll do for the time being.

My mother named me Gerald. When she took me to register for the first grade Jeanie Watson, the principle who also taught my mother asked her, “Ruby, what’s your son’s name?” My mother said it was Gerald. I spoke up and loudly said, “No Mama, my name is Jerry!” - the only name I had ever been called. It was spelled with a “J” to match a favorite uncle’s name. Big Jerry - little jerry. I asked my father why he didn’t give me his name which I loved and still do to this day. I mean, John Murdock! What’s not to like? I know - I may be just a tad biased. It seemed that my mother had read a story in which the protagonist was named Gerald. She liked it. What could a kid do?

My father had six sisters and five brothers. His mother was a McQueen, a woman of Scottish descent. She had an uncle John Gunter who lived to 104 with a Yankee mini-ball in his chest. I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything except that it would have been nice if my father had inherited uncle John Gunter’s longevity gene.

He taught me to fly fish, hunt and drive. He believed I mastered the first two but he never believed I could drive a car. He was mostly concerned with my failure to leave enough room on the right side. When I was driving his body was in a constant cringe - trying to move the car away from the edge. He never said a word to me about sex. I dearly loved him.

Once somewhere in Kansas he was constantly complaining so much that I slammed on the break and got out of the car told him to go on. I vowed I would never get into a car with him again. I’ll walk, I cried. I began walking - in 1940’s Kansas! There was nothing in Kansas. Well, obviously mother prevailed and we drove on to Colorado and enjoyed a nice family vacation.

As a young man he was a telegraph operator on the Union Pacific Rail Road in Kansas. He met a man who taught him to cut hair and subsequently he spent the rest of his life as a barber with a thriving business in Baton Rouge. He was an honorable man. Honest and loyal to his beliefs and friends. He was an actual Christian. More importantly than all the above he was a committed family man, a loving father and husband. Whatever I tried he supported and encouraged me. I had permission and freedom as a child then that would be virtually impossible today. I was lucky and probably blessed.

John Murdock Henderson is seldom far from my thoughts.

TODAY IS THE 121ST BIRTHDAY OF MY FATHER

Today is the 121st birthday of my father, John Murdock Henderson. He has been gone for nearly half that time. He died in the “dark ages” of prostate cancer research. Subsequently I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and a series of radiation treatments were prescribed. We check the PSA every six months. The number gets smaller and smaller. To say it’s a cure is a bit gutsy but it’ll do for the time being.

My mother named me Gerald. When she took me to register for the first grade Jeanie Watson, the principle who also taught my mother asked her, “Ruby, what’s your son’s name?” My mother said it was Gerald. I spoke up and loudly said, “No Mama, my name is Jerry!” - the only name I had ever been called. It was spelled with a “J” to match a favorite uncle’s name. Big Jerry - little jerry. I asked my father why he didn’t give me his name which I loved and still do to this day. I mean, John Murdock! What’s not to like? I know - I may be just a tad biased. It seemed that my mother had read a story in which the protagonist was named Gerald. She liked it. What could a kid do?

My father had six sisters and five brothers. His mother was a McQueen, a woman of Scottish descent. She had an uncle John Gunter who lived to 104 with a Yankee mini-ball in his chest. I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything except that it would have been nice if my father had inherited uncle John Gunter’s longevity gene.

He taught me to fly fish, hunt and drive. He believed I mastered the first two but he never believed I could drive a car. He was mostly concerned with my failure to leave enough room on the right side. When I was driving his body was in a constant cringe - trying to move the car away from the edge. He never said a word to me about sex. I dearly loved him.

Once somewhere in Kansas he was constantly complaining so much that I slammed on the break and got out of the car told him to go on. I vowed I would never get into a car with him again. I’ll walk, I cried. I began walking - in 1940’s Kansas! There was nothing in Kansas. Well, obviously mother prevailed and we drove on to Colorado and enjoyed a nice family vacation.

As a young man he was a telegraph operator on the Union Pacific Rail Road in Kansas. He met a man who taught him to cut hair and subsequently he spent the rest of his life as a barber with a thriving business in Baton Rouge. He was an honorable man. Honest and loyal to his beliefs and friends. He was an actual Christian. More importantly than all the above he was a committed family man, a loving father and husband. Whatever I tried he supported and encouraged me. I had permission and freedom as a child then that would be virtually impossible today. I was lucky and probably blessed.

John Murdock Henderson is seldom far from my thoughts.

A YEAR AGO MY BROTHER DIED

A year ago Ken, my brother, died.  He was preceded by his wife, Audrey, who died shortly after falling from her high-lift wheel chair, having forgotten to fasten her seat belt.  Ken busied himself in his church but loneliness soon overtook him.  He slipped into dementia and soon died.  It seems that their lives were so intertwined that for him, at least, there was little life apart from Audrey.

Ken came along about four years after me.  I can remember him lying in his crib.  I had a small rubber hatchet and I tried to chop him with it before mother intervened.  I'm sure there are many more happier episodes to remember but that's the one that sticks.  I never learned how to be a nurturing older brother.  It wasn't a conscious decision.  Our lives from the beginning seemed to run in different directions.  We loved each other.  That was clear, but we were never close.  Four years.

Through the years we visited, mostly around holidays.  Audrey was a hugely successful cook and  brought her South Louisiana Cajun specialties to the Thanksgiving table often.  When distance prevented more frequent visits we talked on the phone.  After our parents died there was little to share but we talked a few times throughout the year.  My life took me away and he remained in place.

I wish I could remember where I read it that as long as your name is remembered you are still alive.  Sounds like magical thinking to me but I wish that talking about Ken would bring him back.  Then all those names of all those loved ones, many gone before they should have, come to mind and my eyes cloud with tears.  Ken - I miss you.

TO SEE OURSELVES . . .

A current popular pithy piece of high minded wisdom goes like this: What other people think of me is none of my business. Of course, you say, that's obvious. Really? Well, sort of.

Most of us grew up with something like school yard rules of behavior, ethics, protocols and politics. Before any important undertaking it was wise to check out what the "troops" thought about it. By important undertaking I mean something like - Hey I wonder if Sadie would go to the movies with me. Peer feedback was critical. I can remember getting ready for school and making sure my dungarees were rolled up just the right amount, showing just the right amount of sock and my swoop daddy pompadour - (Yes wiseass, I had one.) - was just right and pasted down with a dollop of WILDROOT CREAM-OIL CHARLIE.

What I'm saying is this: It's next to impossible not to be concerned about what others think of you. We all know how futile it is to worry about what someone else thinks but we do it. We want to be loved, even admired. We want to be an early pick for someone's team. I'm not sure that those feelings don't follow us from the school yard to the social institutions of adulthood.

Over the years various of my friends and family have gifted me with rather uniquely generous gifts for birthdays, Christmases and Father's Days which give me pause to reflect on what they think of me and how fortunate I am to have them in my life. Still I am always mildly surprised to hear that someone had been thinking of me. It feels good.

Thoughtful generosity is not usually a physical gift. More often it's something else. Evidences of connection - remembrances - inclusion - acts of love. It's what makes life on this planet worthwhile.

IT'S CLEANLINESS THAT'S GODLY - NOT NEATNESS

I've always been a sucker for a compulsive life style.  I know, I know - if you only know me a little you know that the most liberal description of my life style would not even come close to the word, "compulsive" or any of its synonyms like neat, orderly, organized and alas, even dust free!

When I was in graduate school this guy came to the campus selling a filing system that was guaranteed to produce success in anything one would try to do.  Rule No. 1:  Young aspirants to professional success should never buy anything that guarantees success.  I bought it.  It was nothing but a cascading labeling system that someone else thought up and wanted me to adopt.  Of course it didn't work for me or for most of the other people who purchased it.  The guy who sold us on this system probably went directly to the airport and flew to Bermuda for a month.

I admire neat people.  Now and then I clean my large old oak teacher's desk, stupidly thinking this will make me a neat person.  I end up with acres of clean polished surface with nothing but a computer, keyboard and a note pad.  When I look at all that clear space all I can think of is all the "neat" stuff I can stack there.   Then the dust arrives and the spiderwebs descend.  Oh well, I think, c'est la vie.  Well . . . c'est la my vie, for sure.

BEING PRESENT WITH HEARING LOSS

Isolation is the dark angel of hearing loss. Yet there are times when I welcome her as the lesser of two evils. Silence versus noise. Pease versus the struggle for understanding. But it goes deeper than that. I've only been treating my hearing loss since 1997. I have, for as long as I can remember, always felt on the fringes of group conversations. There is, of course, no way to check this out but I might have always had a hearing disconnect of some kind. And this could have been more behavioral or developmental than organic. The part that I remember is the feeling that I was being "talked over" as though I were between two people who knew what the subject was and I didn't. My contributions often seemed to be irrelevant or at best, slightly off point. It may not mean a thing but my favorite place as a child was in the crown of an oak tree or in my secret loft. Liking to be alone may be the innocent truth of it, but there it is for consideration. Perhaps I am looking for things that are not there.

When real time profound deafness was added to this history there were the makings of some serious, perhaps unconscious ground-in expectations when experiencing group discussions. I have found that confirming a statement is often the solution as in - "Are you saying the price was wrong or the purchase itself?". What I heard was not definitive, but asking such a question could get to the point easily. It can make conversation kind of clunky but it also can clear up a lot of misunderstanding and keep one in the center of things. It's more to the point that just asking, "What?".

I often wonder what it was like when I could hear it all. I think I remember when I could understand conversations in the "other" room or across the room. I think I can remember the sweet passages of Beethoven's sixth. But can I be sure? It's been so long. Those are childhood memories. Memories of other times.

The thing is, hearing loss is a constant struggle. It's a major feature of one's life and there is something to learn from it every day and it's not often about the past, but about now.