FOLLOWING THE NORTH STAR

Today we begin seriously packing up for the northbound journey home. It will be a couple of weeks yet before we cross the Piscataqua river but it's a good sign, nevertheless.

We have been gone too long. That being said, I must add that it has been a wonderfully pleasant visit and we have done everything we planned to do and more. I will miss knowing I can get in the car and drive to a beautiful beach and absorb it's tropical luxury. I will miss roads that are so smooth that I think sometimes they were built by a furniture maker. I will miss the Florida weather which, no matter what you've heard, is made for human habitation. I know this because it seems every human on the planet is here.

I will miss the gentle breezes into the late evening on the lanai (aka. back porch) by the pool. I will miss the excited hugs and kisses of two little children who call me Grampa Jerry. I will miss seeing the developing stages in the lives of the three older children: a freshman at Sickles High School, a sophomore at the University of Florida, and a senior at Florida State University. And I will miss the truly amazing hospitality of Michelle and Michael who make me feel special - like family. There is no set value on such a gift. And at the same time I truly miss my Maine home.

In Florida I am required to relax and have little in the way of responsibilities. In Maine I have grass to cut, a garden to try and rescue, wood to stack and an endless list of things to do. Even so, I want to go there and do that. I'm homesick.

I also know that after an hour or two of stacking wood and a session walking behind a lawnmower and driving down a road better navigated in a tractor, I'll be completely caught up and ready for another holiday. I know that. It makes no difference. I still want to be there.

Be the weather so unpredictable; be the list of chores an endless demand; be the roads a challenge for the best destruction derby driver; there is no place like home.

THE PLACES YOU FIND TO EAT

One of the nicest things about travel are the places you find to eat.  But first a word about hotel breakfasts.

If all it takes for you to get on with your day is some dry cereal and milk, then you're covered.  It's when the hotel thinks it can do up an egg or a piece of sausage that it gets to the gag level.  We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in a couple of places and they served the same little omelette-like creation with a slice of faux cheese in it that was so uniformly made that it had to be machine made.  If dropped, I'm pretty sure they will bounce.  With enough Tabasco and black pepper it almost resembles the taste of egg. 

The sausage scene is not much better.  First of all, sausage is, ideally, ground up meat that is seasoned.  This was turkey sausage.  Perhaps it was.  I have to say it tasted not only bland but it required great leaps of imagination to come up with the idea that you were actually eating meat.  OK, it got the job done but only minimally.  And I tasted the whatever it was for several hours after.  I'm quite sure my system is still trying to figure out just what it was I ate.

Twice there was cream sausage gravy and hot biscuits.  Whoa there, I shouted.  I love the stuff as it fosters wonderful memories of that same menu at my great aunt Ora's kitchen table as a child.  I would go out and run it off quickly, but driving all day to the day's destination is not going to run anything off.  Biscuits (very likely made with lard) slathered ladles of hot cream gravy becomes a brick in one's digestive tract if sitting on it is the plan.  It was the plan.

Dinner was another story.  We were in Ft. Myers and were in a Pier 1 Imports looking for real glasses for our evening libation.  Why hotels provide those awful Dixie cups is beyond me.  No it's not: it's cheap and that's that.  After finding this pair of excellent and cheap $3 glasses that I was sure were more money, we chatted up the person waiting on us and asked her where we could go for a good meal with some atmosphere.  Without batting an eye, she said Bonita Bill's.  She said it would not be fancy, the food is great and inexpensive and there is no better atmosphere.

Hmm, a local recommendation like that is hard to ignore.  She was right on every count.  Here are a couple of shots from our table.

As the sun faded the evening turned gold.

Check out the napkin holder.

A sampling of the crowd.

To get here you went like you were going over the bridge/causeway to Sanibel Island but you turn off at the last minute and meander through this back street neighborhood and then drive under the bridge and find a huge parking lot with not a parking place to be had.   As I made the loop - as luck would have it - and I don't know what I'd do with out luck - a guy pulled out of an ideal spot just as I approached.  I parked and CA was saying things like, "This is it"!

The place was packed.  We strolled in and I saw this table right down on the water and it was empty.  I said, "What's wrong with that one?" and a guy standing nearby said, "Not a thing.  Go get it."

That was about it.  We hung out there for the better part of two hours.  Everybody there seemed to know ten other people.  I truly think we were the only patrons from "away" so to speak.  These people locals.  There was music and dancing too.  Well, a good time only goes so far.  I couldn't hear the music and I passed on the dancing but the beer was cold and the food was great. . . . .  Go there.

The Myth of Key West

Key West is one of the more hyped destinations in the country. The hype is all in the history and geography. It used to be a great port. It used to be home to Earnest Hemingway, and Tennessee Williams had a home there. Though they were there at the same time they only met once. I wonder what that was all about. It used to be the Summer White House for Harry Truman. My guess it was used mostly in the winters. Jimmy Buffett began there years ago, and is likely wandering around looking for that lost shaker of salt. The tour guide kind of went over the top to point out the original Margaritaville location. I thought he was going to dislocate his elbow as he pointed to the exact spot. Sloppy Joe's welcomed Hemingway frequently. Well, Sloppy Joe's is not where it was then and of course Earnest is long gone. Only the stories remain and I am sure they benefit from a few embellishments.

Geographically, Key West couldn't help being located at the tip of a chain of little islands - "keys", which sounds more Caribbean - and ending up being the most southern point in the continental US. The rest of can't say that. So it's unique. If you're into that, go there. I once saw the sunrise at the most eastern point in the North American Continent. There was not a bar or coffee shop, for that matter, in sight, but I was there. I guess that's the point.

It is said that there are 360 liquor licenses on Key West. About 135 of them are on Duval Street. Also on Duval Street are straw hats, tee shirts, sandals, "art" that you would never even think of purchasing at home but in Key West.... and on Duval Street? There probably isn't a better or easier place to drink yourself blind while wearing a tee shirt with the logo of your bar of choice on the back. I don't know what I expected of Duval Street, but it didn't come close to any thing I had in my mind. I am quiet sure that if I were 22 and foot loose I'd find something to be excited about about Duval Street. Actually, if I were 22 and footloose it wouldn't matter where I was. I'd be hysterical! As it is, I wasn't too impressed. The phrase, "Tourist Trap" comes to mind. You can consider the source.

We were not able to be there in the evening. We looked for lodging for the night but couldn't bring ourselves to pay such obscene prices for it so decided to stay on Marathon and drive in for the day. I'm happy to have gone there. I wouldn't do it again or recommend it to someone I liked.

Confession time. On the way down we stopped off at a visitor information center on Key Largo. The guy there convinced us to purchase at a discount, of course, a trolly tour ticket. Parking for that was free and parking in the heart of where we wanted was either non-existant or expensive, he said. Sounded like a deal to us. We could get off and on the trolly all day. As with many such "deals" it sounded much better than it turned out to be. Take my advise: if you go there drive down town and pay the outrageous fee for all day parking and you will have more fun, see more, and not worry about catching the trolly at the designated stop. I mean how often are you going there anyway?

Here's the thing: I had all these expectations. I've never been so disappointed in anything. I should have known better. What others say bout a place is nice but it is not superior to your own experience. By that same measure, don't take my word for it - go see for yourself and pay for the parking. And NO, that was not necessarily a recommendation.

A MARATHON EVENING

Last evening we were sitting at an outside table at a lovely restaurant by our hotel enjoying a wonderful evening of seafood and the warm ocean air of the Florida Keys. It would be hard to top this specially as the latest report from our Maine home is 38˚ and threatening. You could say that's why we are here. You could actually say that, but that's not the real reason we're here, but it fits. OK - - it's the real reason we're here.

Toward the end of our dinner, a guy at the next table said something to CA about having seen her earlier as they came into the hotel on their bicycles, and that began an hour long conversation between him and his companion and us. He said they were from Birmingham and I said I had breakfast there once. We all laughed and then we began an enjoyable evening of story telling and sharing of experiences. The two of them - old friends - were biking the keys. They were doing it right. Riding one way and shuttling back. Even I could do that perhaps. Very perhaps.

We were all "mature" people and as is the case when mature people meet up, the conversation turns to past experiences and other stuff older people talk about. They were very likable, even though confessed Republicans. I'm sorry, something just came over me and I couldn't resist that.

The two of them and CA were about the same age and I was their senior by about ten years, which meant we could all remember many of the same things. We had a marvelous evening of talking about careers, retirement, writing and places to get a good meal in the Keys.

It was one of those experiences that demonstrate the connection we all have to each other. One of them was a writer who loved the process as much as the content and that resonated with my own ideas about writing. The other person was a graduate of LSU in my home town and we shared memories of that experience as well as some from our New Orleans days. I mean six degrees is not a lot of separation after all.

I am always amazed when I find some kind of connection to total strangers. It has happened many times. Could it be that it's a sign of hope for an implied kinship between all humans? That's pretty grandiose, I agree, but humanity is worth the effort. Wouldn't you agree?

Today, CA goes swimming with the dolphins at the Dolphin Research Center. She would include dolphins in that group of kinfolk with whom we share some important characteristics and gifts. That's probably not grandiose at all.

The Paperless Age?

I remember during my early years of using a computer - the early '80's - how I printed out copies of my emails and other documents gleaned off the internet to file away in the same way I did before computers. One day It occurred to me that due to the volume of all this paper, I would soon need to install a new file cabinet to hold all this paper, which is the very thing a computer was supposed to eliminate. Well, as anyone will tell you, the digital age has not even come close to eliminating paper but it has changed the way we think of storage, file retrieval and simply looking something up.

At one time I had a library. Four walls full of books, and more. The answer is no. I did not read them all but I knew them all and could look up anything I desired - in a book. I have lightened my book load somewhat since then but there are still several thick and tall volumes down on a dusty bottom shelf waiting for my inquiry. I haven't touched one of those things in years. I do what you do: I Google it.

Here's the thing: the computer age came along because it was time and it could be done. It's almost a fairytale kind of story. It was supposed to eliminate the use of paper in all our transactions, communications and even storage. The people saying all this were engineers. That's important. Engineers are good at engineering. If they find that they can do something they do it. It's what engineers do. In their minds that is progress. Sometimes they are right. When it came to paper, they were wrong. Nobody asked me if I wanted to give up paper. I didn't.

I write something every day. After I started using a computer, everything I wrote started out with a pencil and a notebook. I have stacks of those old journals and notebooks. I would "finish" up on the computer, of course, specially if someone else had to read what I wrote or I wanted to email it or just mail it. It was a two tiered system.

As time moved along I found I could think as well while typing as I could with a pencil and pad. (What "thinking well" actually means is a whole other story). This was a revelation to me. I felt guilty about abandoning a life long passion for scribbling with a pencil on paper. I mean, history was on my side. I nurtured this romantic idea that the "Muse" would be more available in the wee hours by candle light on a bare table with a clean sheet of paper and a pencil or a pen dipped in real ink. What a croc...

I also read all the time. I am a member of the Freeport Community Library and have a couple of their books on my night stand constantly. It's all about paper, clean typefaces and the tactile communication with a familiar medium. Yeah, I also like the smell.

I have recently acquired a Nook device on which I read "E" books. This is a recent addition to my digital life, and one that I really didn't plan on. I said things like, "I'll never do that", and, "Give me a real book any day".

I now read about a third of what I read digitally. I even have a Nook App and a Kindle App on my iPhone. And yes, I have read a couple dozen books on my phone. It works. Now as phones are getting bigger screens, the difference between the phone experience and the actual book size reader will become clouded. I have several books in my shirt pocket all the time for that moment when I have time to read but don't have an actual paper book in my bag.

I have witnessed amazing developments in personal computing in the past 30 years. If that is any indication of what's to be expected in the next 30 years, I am simply unable to imagine it. One thing seems certain: words on paper will diminish while words on a digital device will increase. But, of course, that's been said before.

While you are reading this piece, some young engineers in a college dorm will decide to make the next new thing that they are sure will further transform our lives. They could be right. They could be wrong. Either way, they're going to do it. We'll read about it in the paper. The digital version, of course.

THE SEARCH FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

I have, on occasion, sought to touch the truth stone, to find that condition, that place, that formula that opened a special portal into the realm of peace, insight, enlightenment.

I have used various means to do this, from expensive weekend experiences at some mountain top retreat, to the many books of the blessed.  For a little while I would feel something, but I was always feeling something.  I think that was an unaddressed issue for me.  But workshops, retreats and the books of the blessed are signs that the desire is present, not evidence of the condition unfortunately, or we would have enlightenment for a price.

I grew up in a tradition that put great store in burning bushes, parting waters, blinding lights and the transmogrification of water.  There was always something good going to happen to me tonight. Hope was a palpable element in my life.  My maternal grandfather, we called him Shug, had a way of demystifying things.  He used to say, "Hope in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first."  He wasn't much for religion and would not claim enlightenment, but he had a clue.

Sometimes I think enlightenment is opening one's eyes and seeing what's there.  Of course, that means not seeing what's not there.  That's the hard part.  Western religions took a faith born in the desert east and organized and corporatized it until the simplicity of it became obscured in dogma, professionalism and flashy robes.

I am moved by the stark simplicity of Buddhism.  But one thing seems to stand out for me and it is this: enlightenment in that part of the world seems to be a minimalist idea. As in the flame of a single candle, the monotony of a simple mantra, being without things or "being" with an empty mind, or at least a mind focused on one thing at a time.  It would seem that it's difficulty lies in it's simplicity.  Its product is supposed to be simple kindness, compassion and peace.  You would think that would be the aim of all religions. You would think.  

After all these years, a few drops seem to have distilled out of all the confusion that help me, on a personal level, to deal with the imponderables.

First and foremost, I believe that truth does not carry a brand.

Secondly, if you believe that you are right and everybody else is wrong, there's medicine for that.  Get help.

The competitiveness and exclusiveness seen in much of modern religion is itself evidence of having missed the point - in my opinion. 

Yet, I'm not doing much better.  Here I am wandering around in the darkness with my little MagLight running on petered out batteries.  I keep thinking that other than the natural world, there is just us folks out here who need each other more than we ever imagined.  Now there are those who threaten to dissolve the world order in an ocean of blood all in the name of religion in a kind of "My god can whip your god" version of the search for enlightenment and peace.  It blows my mind.

The truly tall souls of our day are saying that whatever the truth is, its vessel is compassion.  If there is no compassion, there is no truth.  I wish I could point to my life as an example of this.  I can not.  But I know it when I see it, and I know it when I feel it.  We all do.

Compassion is the Holy Grail.  Drink from that cup and there is hope.  It seems so easy.  Yet it eludes me too much of the time.  First, it seems to me that I have to lay down my sword and shield, and I love my sword and shield.  I'm pretty sure nothing much will happen until I am disarmed.  

I have heard the words, "Be ye kind one to another", all my life.  Could that be  the light that shines in the darkness?  Could that be the hope of the world?  Could that simple dictum be the answer?  Could that be all the theology anyone ever needs to know?

LIVING WITH MARGINALIZATION

I think a lot about aging.  Probably too much.  This really began to happen a few years ago, when I retired,  I began to see the attitude others had toward me take an interesting turn.  It was as though there was a collection of assumptions about my life that automatically became a part of my reality.  It almost seemed like  patronization.  Society was taking care of me whether I wanted it or not.  A new definition was attached to my life and I was given special names to make sure I was "marked".  Senior Citizen.  Retiree.  Or just a simple "Old Guy".  My input was not solicited.  I just got old.  At that point the system kicked in and I became - Mr. Senior Citizen.  This may all be in my mind.  So what - that's a real place.  It can't be ignored.  Just today I got a letter from my gastroenterologist.  I am, it seems, too old to have a regular colonoscopy, my favorite invasive examination.  I suppose if I have a budding colon cancer somewhere in there, I just don't have enough time left to make treatment cost effective.  The actuarialists are running the world.  

I don't mind being old.  As a matter of fact, I rather enjoy it.  However, it takes some rather intensive adjusting - not only to being old, but also to the subtile little shifts in attitude the world now has toward me and my contemporaries.  I didn't see it coming.  More accurately, I didn't want to see it coming.  One day I found that I had moved into this alternate universe: the world of being an old person, a retiree, a person with a major history.  I began to feel marginalized.  A different set of rules now apply to me and I don't like it one damned bit.

To be marginalized is to be socially excluded, treated as unnecessary, unneeded, past tense - was, rather than is.  Growing old is by definition a kind of marginalization in itself.  Age, at some point, for all of us, brings with it a collection of diminishing abilities.  We just ain't what we used to be.  In this sense, aging is itself a degenerative condition.   The situation is amplified by a seemingly growing list of famous-name degenerative conditions such as, arthritis, Alzheimer's, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( my current favorite ), diabetes,  Parkinson's, atherosclerosis, heart disease, inflammatory bowel, prostatitis, osteoporosis and, of course, everyone's favorite: cancer - just to name a few, several of which I am coming to terms with.  All of these common accompaniments to aging tend to become agents of marginalization.  Guess what?  It's unavoidable.

For most of us, should we be so lucky as to live long, we will be gifted with one or more of the above conditions and because of that will no longer be able to run fast, jump high, lift heavy or step lightly.  Just dealing with that reality is what aging is all about.  It's making do with marginalization.  It's adjusting and being happy about what is possible and not spending the late night hours pining away in despair over lost stamina, Superman/Wonder Woman strength, a movie star profile or the pleasure, often unrealized at the time, of planning a long life.  It's a learned skill. There isn't as much stamina or strength, and God knows the profile is history, but it is what it is and not what it's not.  

It seems to me that that's the lesson of aging.  I deal with it every day.  I'm sure we all to to varying degrees.  It's tempting to focus on the past.  There is so much of it.  For me the key is to make some plans.  Do something.  It's about making one's self necessary.   It really doesn't matter much what it is, just be with what you're doing.  Cut the grass.  Plant those peas.  Fix something.  Help someone.  And, for the good of us all, stay in touch.  Hanging out at the margins of life is someone else's idea.

Jerry Henderson