TENTH DECADE

No matter what I do, or say, or think - no matter what external forces bear down on me there is one overriding element in my life that defines life as I know it: I'm living in my tenth decade. It's impossible to escape. It's the Who and What I am.

Of course, I am quite happy to be alive even in light of a regular shopping list of ailments, some of which requiring heroic effort to hold at bey. There's hardly a system in my body that isn't under the watch-care of the medical community.

There isn't a day that passes without a reminder of my diminishing abilities. This is a cautionary tale. Your chance of growing old is better than ever, but growing old is not a free ride. It's a toll road. The toll is collected in terms of those afore mentioned diminishing abilities. At first you won't notice the changes but they persist.

The community at large are often aware of your limitations before you completely accept that not so subtle reality. They say things like, "Are you still driving?" Well yes I am driving. Why wouldn't I still be driving? Think about it.

Within the past four years I have had the unfortunate experience of falling unexpectedly several times. The fiirst time I broke my arm while turning around in my kitchen. More recently I fell while walking in the neighborhood. I ordered a walking cane from Amazon. It helped. My doctor told me to get a walker with wheels and a seat. I said, you're kidding? He wrote out a prescription for it. I laughed. He said (without smiling) Do it.

My son David turned sixty five this week. For his birthday he took me to Minute Maid Park to watch the Astros play the Red Sox. He suggested that I use the walker. It was a life saver. People were deferential. It made life easier - and safe. The Sox won. I had a beer - hotdog - fantastic seats off the mezzanine. Rest room within a few yards. David did the driving. I'm adjusting.

THE BEST LAID PLANS

Holiday plans vaporized amid
a cloud of unpredictable circumstances
and that ever present elephant in the room
Millions of automobiles all wanting to be
where - exactly where you are.

Now comes the birthday of our nation
for which we fear the worst
and hope for the best
that has always come even
in our darkest hour.

I'm feeling patriotic -
I feel like a Yankee-Doodle breakfast.
The recipe is whatever makes your heart sing.
For me it's cheesy yellow grits, jalapeño peppers
a dash or so of Tabasco to taste.
Not quite reunion but it'll do for now.
The heart is fed and the soul is at peace.
Love and virtual hugs abound.

Jerry H

HAPPY 93rd BILLIE HITCHCOCK

HAPPY 93rd BILLIE HITCHCOCK THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

THE CHRISTMAS CLOCK

I don't know exactly  when it happened - when Christmas stopped being fun - but it was a very long time ago.  It was about that time - that time when custom and hormones blended together to completely addle my brain into thinking that even at such a tender age I was ready to make life choices that were thought to last a lifetime.  It was that time when young boys and young girls had come into their "season" and suddenly they were certain that no one else had ever felt this way.  That's the time I'm talking about.

Fast forward several years and Christmas rolls around again and I said, "What do you want for Christmas?"  "Oh, I don't know…Surprise me."  This from a woman who had already purchased gifts months ago, wrapped them and stored them in top of the hall closet with the warning: STAY OUT!  While I, on the other hand, had just become aware of this urgency that was presently turning my guts into jelly.

So without any help and very little money, I headed down to 3rd Street ( this was before malls when all the good stores were down town where the banks and "picture shows" were ).  

I stopped to look at a clock in a jewelry store window.  Now, I think that would be the ticket - I thought.  My guts were in a turmoil.  The clock was busy with delicate romantic figures and designs with two angels on top - it was all molded glass or ceramic material.  The man who was helping me said it was made in Austria.  Austria?  I asked. He also added that since it was so late - Christmas Eve to be exact - he marked it down from #49.95 to $29.95.  I had $35 and change.  These were 1949 dollars.  I said, "Wrap it up".  He assured me that I had done well.  That actually helped, as I recall.

She loved it.  I should have learned something from all this but I did not.  The angels broke off within the first year and I glued them back on.  She loved that clock for decades.  She loved filigree and romance.  That clock had it all.

HOLIDAY MEDITATION

A common theme among my friends, most of whom are well into their AARP years, is what seems like an epidemic of dementia and Alzheimers.  My own partner in life, Carol Ann, is deep into what seems a  hopeless decline into oblivion.  I don't know a better way to express it.  Everyone I speak to brings up their own experience, someone of their own family or close circle of friends who has succumbed to the ravages of dementia.  The disease is so powerful in its ability to defy reason and articulate hopelessness.  

This will be the first Christmas in our twenty seven years together that we won't be able to honor the myth with a tree that for many years was cut down and dragged into the house by our own hands.  Boxes of ornaments and holiday memorabilia would be dragged down from the attic and as each ornament was placed on the tree one of us would recite its epochal provenance.

I thought it would never end.  But of course I knew it would.   It's just that these latter years go by so quickly.  Thank you for being there.

Be well.  Stay safe and stay tuned.

                                All my love - - -   Jerry

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU ALL

YES, THE CUP MATTERS

My friend, Margret Bell posted somewhere, "I can't explain this with science but the cup you drink your coffee out of matters." So simple and direct but so obviously true.

Margret - you nailed it. It does matter.

For as long as I can remember I have preferred my coffee in a tall rather than wide cup. It's my experience that coffee stays hotter longer in the taller, cylindrical cup. The wider cup exposes more surface area from which heat can escape. Makes sense to me and I expect Einstein as well.

My cup measures 4 and 3/16ths tall and 3 and 1/8th wide with a slight flare on the rim. The handle has a little bump in the top curve that is just right for the thumb to rest on. The sides of the cup are straight. No bulges.

I like a China cup. The one I am using now is made in England. It's bone China. I'm not clear as to where the bones come into the plan but there it is written on the bottom of the cup. Many of the cups that I use are actually made in China. I can't tell the difference. This style of cup seams to be a standard mold pattern in the China cup industry.

I'm not particularly picky about any art work on the cup but I do seem to lean toward flowers. I do not favor cute aphorisms on my cups. I do a fair amount of thinking as I sip from my cups, but I like freestyle thinking not pre-programmed one-liners by some back office poet in waiting, And just to be clear, I don't care for those thick road house mugs that seem endemic to the roadside café. Their only virtue is indestructibility.

I'm always on the lookout for another cup. Mostly, I have found them at TJ-Max. Carol Ann and I would look at each other some cold gray November morning and think, "What are we thinking? Why sit here waiting for a blizzard when we could go see if the stock has rolled over at TJ-Max.

WE ALL FALL DOWN

There isn't much you need to do to be old - just show up.  I understand that there are many impediments to aging, such as disease, accident or being the star in the ultimate reality show: the hideously popular Mass Shooting.  Many people think that in spite of eating your greens and regular exercise the smart money is on pure luck.  At least that's what my doctor tells me and she's not smiling.

Previously, I have mentioned my several falls, all of which, as I think about it, were completely unexpected - even shocking.  In other words, likely to happen again with potentially dire outcomes.  About a year and a half ago I smashed the radius on my right arm while doing nothing more dangerous than turning around in the kitchen.  More recently I knocked the hide off my head and a few other places in a majorly bloody episode while on a neighborhood walk.  For no apparent reason I am careening toward the pavement and I'm like: WTF!   Something is going on and that something needs to be addressed.

Children learn and sing . . . 

Walk around the circle

Walk around the circle

Walking walking

We all fall down

Remember those years when falling was fun - you just tucked your head and rolled up and kept running and falling all over again.

At what point - can you remember - at what point did it begin to frighten you?  Don't worry if you don't yet worry about falling.  I'm in my tenth decade and I only just began to be concerned.  You have time.  (Wink Wink)

Of course, I'm cultivating a working relationship with the neighborhood neurologist.  Here's what he said: Get a walker,  He gave me a prescription for one.  I'm thinking, Won't that make me look old and feeble?  For the time being I put that thought aside.  Which leads me to the next topic -

NOVEMBER IS BIRTHDAY MONTH 

I know this because I have a birthday this month.  Many of my favorite friends are November babies.  My father, John Murdock Henderson was 125 on the first.  Happy birthday, Dad.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYONE - AND WALK CAREFULLY