TECHNOLOGICAL WONDERS

 I ordered two sets of snow-ice cleats from Amazon for safety's sake.  CA has already fallen twice on the ice this season, and the season is young!

When they came I realized they were sort of overkill.  Just right for scaling the Matterhorn but a tad much for these gentle trails around our cottage.  

So I went to Amazon's web site and clicked on "Returns" and immediately got this email that said, "Hey Jerry - no problemo!  Take the stuff you want to return to any Whole Foods (and I am less than ten minutes from one) and show this "QR code" to any associate and they will bag it and send it for free.  I mean, you gotta love that - right?  

So I take my return to our local Whole Foods and belly up to the Customer Service desk and tell this young guy that I have a return.  He scans the QR code on my phone - his machine spits out a label - he puts my stuff and the label in a plastic bag and tosses it in a bin.  I say, "That's it?"  He says, "That's it."  He couldn't care less what the item is or why I am returning it.  I mean come on - you really gotta love that.

But wait!  I'm not done yet.  Before I get out of the store I get this email telling me that my return has been processed and my account has been credited!  I want to run back and give that kid a big hug.  God I love technology!  Suddenly I am aware that I need to pee.

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Earlier this past year we had a freak one car accident and totaled our car - an eight year old Ford CMax.  Sad, sad, sad.  Now we needed a car but didn't want to spend new car dollars.  Our dealer came up with a very nice 2020 model for a price we could deal with and before the dust settled we were driving what seemed to us a new (used) Ford Escape.  For several reasons we never got the full orientation to the car and what we did get was brief like: push this button and turn this knob and that was about it.

You've heard of OJT - On The Job Training?  That's us.  I'm driving down I-95 and drifted over to the right side margin and, "Woah there Cowboy!  Some unseen hand shoved me back into the driving lane.  Further on this guy passes me and pulls in a little too soon and my car - without any effort from me - slows down and beeps at me before resuming my preset speed.  It's called Adaptive Speed Control.  Now, that's as close to self driving I ever want to get, Elon Musk notwithstanding.  But - and here's the thing - I love it.

I have said many times how I love being an old guy.  But the other side of that nickel is that actuarially speaking I'm not going to get a chance to experience technological wonders that are coming by the droves.  That's life, of course.  Just imagine.  

I was a child without a telephone or television.  I have lived to see wonderful things and promises of things unimaginable.  I would love to have been able "to go where no man has gone before".  But for the time being, I'll keep Adaptive Speed Control up and running.

SOME THOUGHTS ON TURNING 90

First - for all you wise crackers out there - it's not just a number.  All the sugar coating you can apply can't hide the raw facts of all that's left behind - the family that is long gone - the friends - the activities: the sweat, the muscle soreness after a day climbing or skiing or cutting grass - yes I even miss that.  I miss the gathering of friends who are all moved away, doing their own end of life thing or simply moving on following their own life map.

Everything I say reeks of grief.  There are ninety years behind me and, well, my future is right in my face.  I just hope my collision avoidance program is working.  I don't want to go slamming into my headstone in the dark. Then, truthfully, we don't have much control over that - do we?

Here at The Woods at Canco, the facility where we now live, we are issued a little button on a lanyard that goes around your neck.  You get in any kind of trouble, fall or get lost of whatever, all you need to do is to press the button and you are in voice contact with someone who can find you and summon help.  Pretty slick.  Many residents don't wear them but many do.  If either I or Carol Ann go walking alone we take one,  The best advise is to wear one all the time.  When we were issued the little buttons I just looked at it and thought, "OK Buster - you are now a certified member ot the 'I've fallen and can't get up' generation".  

I miss my life.  Three great children.  All of them in their sixties and all in Texas.  I was married to two great women and am into my 24th year partnership with a simply amazing woman and together we try to make sense of the issues, pressures and realities of aging.  Some days are better than others.

The missing confidant.  Over the years I have been blessed with priceless best friends.  I have now outlived some or time has separated us.  Longevity is a bitter sweet pill.  You wash it down with a draught of gratitude for long life and then you spend a little time grieving over the loss that comes naturally to those who live long.  

Communicating with best friends is essential and becomes more important with age.  I have found that writing letters in longhand is an effective way to have an intimate relationship with a best friend.  Electronic communication has been a gift to those of us who have taken to the medium.  Then there is the telephone.  Long conversations with best friends who can manage an extended conversation, and that is becoming a rarity, can be a true balm - a real gift to those who are managing a long distance relationship.  I have several friends from one end of the country to the other with whom I enjoy long phone chats.  It's incredible how these conversations lift my spirit.  Yes, I know about Zoom.  

I don'r intend to say everything there is to say about being 90.   I will say this: it's not easy.

WHAT DAY IS IT AND DOES IT MATTER?

Yesterday I was sitting in my favorite chair contemplating my next move when, for some unknown reason, I looked at my watch which said it was Wednesday. I looked over at CA and said, is it really Wednesday? She said, I’m reading, I don’t know what day it is, but I think it’s Wednesday. I said, I though it was Tuesday. I’ve been working on the plan for the rest of my life which begins on Tuesday. Now I’ve got to recalculate the whole damned thing.

This is so frustrating. At my age, there are not that many Tuesdays left to loose. Try as hard as I can, I can’t remember a thing about Tuesday. CA looks up and says, well all I know is that we went to see the doctor yesterday and that was supposed to be on the 15th and the 15th was Tuesday and today is the 16th, which would be Wednesday. So there you go.

I was so sure.

So maybe it was Monday that I misplaced. I can recall few Mondays that I really could have done without. There was nothing on our calendar for Monday, It was probably Monday. Tuesday - Monday: it doesn't matter. I still have to recalculate my life plan. Should take about 20 minutes.

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.

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.