Geezer Shame

'Tis the season for corporate bribes.

No, not real hard cash, which might be somewhat useful. In the publishing world where I exist, what gets exchanged this time of year is enormous boxes of candy, fruit baskets, monstrous collections of holiday cookies, cheeses, nuts, sausage, etc. etc., all deluging us from Asian printers, prepress color houses, paper manufacturers, copy machine vendors, design studios, the more prosperous freelancers....all the folks who trying to create just a little bit of good will that might sway us into given them our business in the upcoming year. As the publishing business has become unbelievably competitive in recent years, the quality of the bribery has also increased.

Sounds great, but alas, my willpower suffers when faced with mountains of fine chocolates and exotic cheeses heaped in the lunchroom from dawn to dusk. Each time I refill my coffee cup (which is often), there the temptation lies....

....there's only so much restraint a middle-aged guy should be expected to exercise. I'm not a lecherous old coot in the normal sense—pretty girls are entirely safe from me— but fine Swiss chocolate does have the power to create a certain kind of lust that leaves me occasionally powerless.

I'm hiding this lust from my wife.  I eat dinner dutifully each night, unable to confess that I've cheated on the evening meal just a few hours earlier, with an entire harem of beautiful candies perfumed with raspberry sea salt and wearing naughty lingerie of caramel under tight black dresses of rich chocolate.

I'm so ashamed.

Citizens of 4F, December 17, 2013

Sylvia is one of those people who is either blessed or cursed (depending on your view) by being born without the gene for social restraint.

Her work schedule often puts her both on the same inbound morning bus and the same outbound evening bus as me, and so I see a lot of Sylvia. She is a slightly round woman with longish hair, somewhere in her late 30s, wearing large round eyeglasses that would seem more appropriate on an older woman.  When I first started observing her, I thought that perhaps Sylvia had been riding for many, many years, since many people on the bus seemed to be close friends of hers. I quickly saw, though Sylvia is just one of those people who will tell anything and everything, to almost anyone, any time, any where. The people she talked to so openly weren't close friends at all. She just doesn't have any sense of social restraint at all when it comes to talking with strangers.

If you find yourself sitting next to Sylvia, usually it's only a matter of a moment or two until she turns in her seat, leans forward, and enters into a spirited, if somewhat one-sided, conversation with you.

It would be rather easy to simple label Sylvia as a sadly lonely woman who talks to bus people because she has no one else in the world to converse with. She seems more complicated than that, though, because judging from her conversation, it appears that her management job at the bank entails a fair amount of responsibility and routine interaction with others seems to be something she's good at.

Sylvia will describe every aspect of her life to the people around her on the bus, and she does so in a voice that carries pretty much throughout the vehicle. For several consecutive mornings recently, she described the office intrigue that went along with her yearly performance review at work. (She was not viewed positively by her supervisor, who dislikes single women, we're told.) Her principle audience for this conversation was the monkish Thomas, an elderly gentleman who very politely listened, nodded, even offered an occasional word of encouragement.

On another morning, a woman (and everybody else) was treated to a pretty detailed description of Sylvia's extended family, some of whom live in the area, others as far way as Seattle. She is particularly close to her half-brother; doesn't much care for her sister, even though she is a full sibling.

Not everybody listens politely. Some newcomers to the bus shift uncomfortably when Sylvia begins to talk directly to them, and a few even get up to change seats. For those who have been around a while, though, Sylvia no longer draws any attention. She is just one of the gang, although a little eccentric. We know lots and lots about her, even though we've never heard her actually give her name.

Much of the time, Sylvia just describes the minutia of her life in pretty exhaustive detail. Occasionally, however, a bit of philosophy falls out of the sky, apropos of nothing else that's been going on at all. This morning, Sylvia was unusually silent for most of the ride into downtown. It wasn't until the final passengers boarded the bus when only standing room remained, that Sylvia finally spoke, boldly:

"If you've decided to change yourself because of somebody else, it never works," she said to everyone on the bus. "The only reason to change if for yourself, and yourself alone."

A Geezer at a Clean, Well-lighted Diner

I've recently become a little unnerved by the recognition that I favor favor restaurants, bars, movie theaters and other service establishments that are popular with the grey-haired demographic segment. In other words, I like to go to the same places that senior citizens like to go.

I resist the obvious implications of this.  I like to think of myself preferring quiet, sparsely populated establishments because deep down I'm have an Ernest Hemingway/Edward Hopper aesthetic—that I'm a kind of Nighthawks at a Clean, Well-Lighted Diner sort of person.

Yeah, that's it.

My kind of place. Except for me it would be "Pre-dawn Hawks at the Diner."
When it comes to the dark hours of the night, it means those just before dawn. 

Take restaurants and bars, for example. Over recent years, I've completely lost interest in the trendy places that come alive after 11:00 pm at night. They're now largely populated with silly children, and are so noisy that I can't even hear myself think.  And they are so dimly lit that you can't identify the food on your plate, or what kind of bug is floating in your Scotch. We went to one recently that was highly recommended (it had one of those ridiculous name like "The Sardine Tin" or "Becky's Dilemma")  and were surprised to find it virtually deserted at 9:00. Then at 10:30 as we we finishing dessert, the place exploded with music from a punk band and entry of a herd of manic young adults making so much noise I literally could not hear myself think. (This is why, I think, you see the kids all texting on their phones in these bars—they can't hear one another talk, anyway.)  As we left, the place had a waiting line 40 yards long waiting in subzero temps.  Two weeks later I drove by this restaurant to find it closed and out of business. Such is the nature of trendiness.

Yep. This is indeed the "Happy Perkins." 

One of my favorite casual eateries is s simple Perkins chain restaurant which a close friend has labeled "Happy Perkins". It's been at the corner of France Avenue and highway 494 for thirty years. We call it "happy" out of deference to the rather goofy Scandinavian theme of its furnishings and decorations, and the bobble-headed cheerfulness of its staff. The place is clean, well-lit, with carpeting and window drapes that absorb sound and make it possible to converse quietly. And it's not so busy that you feel the pressure of waiting customers eying you with hostility for your table. Who cares that the average client at Happy Perkins has personal memories of D-day. My family is appalled by the fact that this is where I often choose to go on celebratory days like birthdays and Father's Day, but hey, I like salmon with double sides of broccoli. And I like being able to hear everybody at the table.

For pure drinking, give me a quiet neighborhood pub with a few single-malts for sale, a bar-tender who knows how to shut up, and one television (not two dozen big-screens) playing the local sports team. My ideal bar always has an empty table or two and is filled with small groups quietly enjoying themselves. I was at a recommended downtown bar the other day where there was  not one but two bachelorette parties going on, and where a simple 12-year-old McCallan went for $16 a shot. Spare me.

What brought all this home was stopping by a simple Micky D's this morning for a cup of really hot coffee. When running errands on a Sunday morning, I sometimes stop there on the way home to read the sports page and read about the Minnesota Vikings latest coaching mistake. McDonalds is so brightly lit that it's easy for me to see the fine print in the Star Tribune. And it's clean. And I like paying a $.99  for essentially the same coffee that Starbuck calls "Blonde Roast" and charges $4.50.

 It didn't register at first, but then I realized that three customers before me in line all ordered "senior coffee." "Is this what I've come to?" I wondered to myself. "Hanging at at McDonalds with old coots on Sunday mornings?" I reassured myself, though, that I was considerably younger that these old-timers. They looked like they might have personally known Mark Twain.

"Senior discount?" said the snide McDonald's minion to me when I reached the front of line. "You get the senior citizen discount if you're over 55 years old, you know."

Someday, perhaps, the kid will learn about Edward Hopper and Ernest Hemingway.

Bionic Americans

Some friends were over for dinner and a movie the other night, and during the after dinner conversation, we found ourselves in agreement on one observation about our modern lives:

Growing older in America these days is largely a matter of exchanging our organic components for bionic equipment.

We're all relatively early in the phase of middle age, but it has started nonetheless. Everyone in the room wears corrective lenses of some kind. In my head are now four synthetic teeth--two gold crowns, two ceramic ones. I also now wear a hearing aid in one ear sometimes--I'm the first among our immediate group to succumb to this symptom of decrepitude.

Don't knock it. It's why I can still walk. 

A work colleague is a breast cancer survivor and speaks fondly of her bionic boob. We're at that age where cancer seems less like a tragedy and more like an inevitable rite of passage, albeit a grueling one. Once a rarity among our peers, we now know dozens of folks living with cancer.

Even our food has become more bionic. I quietly supplement my diet with a few vitamins and minerals that make a distinct difference in how I feel. Such things would have seemed silly 20 years ago, when my body was a paragon of efficient metabolism. For less efficient older bodies, though, dumping pure vitamin supplements into the system is only rational. I have one friend who takes this to extremes, devouring 20 or 30 different supplements and vitamins each day. It will only accelerate as we grow older. We'll add second hearing aids; somebody will eventually need a mechanical heart valve, or an internal insulin pump. Knee joints, hips, shoulder joints may eventually need to be replaced by bionic alternatives. I already have a rebuilt knee with tendons reinforced with metallic wire that will never corrode. Another Geezer just had an entire foot rebuilt to return him to the land of the ambulatory. This is no longer an aging process, but a swap meet.

I'm not complaining. The way I figure it, before long I'll be able to buy ultra-high spectrum eye glasses, and hearing aids that will let me eavesdrop on other people's thoughts.

Citizens of 4F, Dec. 10, 2013

On some mornings, every citizen who boards the 4F bus seems to wear the basic pain of living on his or her face.

Tom, the bus driver, nervously taps the steering wheel constantly; he's obsessed with hitting the scheduled time to each bus stop,  because passengers depend on him to deliver them on time each morning to their bus connections or to their work place. He takes this very seriously and his pain comes from the expectation he places on himself. When passengers thank him for the ride (in Minnesota, virtually everybody does this), Tom will genuinely appreciate the courtesy.

Frank has serious physical disabilities. He can board the bus only when the power lift door is dropped to the sidewalk so he can roll his hi-tech wheelchair aboard. The only muscle Frank seems able to use is the one hand that operates the joystick on his wheelchair. His huge pain lies in his complete lack of independent autonomy; he depends on the bus driver to walk back and cinch his wheelchair in place, and to free him once he reaches his stop.  Frank's pain is of the type we'd like to avoid thinking about, except on days like this when it's not possible to ignore.

Bonnie's pain is much less obvious, but it's there. She is a stunningly pretty girl, and the burden of being pretty shows on her face. When people glance at her, she shifts uneasily, unsure about how exactly she is being perceived. Sometimes she reacts to glances by smoothing her hair, dabbing at her lipstick; she seems convinced that others are staring at flaws. She faces great pressure to be pretty all the time, and at unguarded moments this pressure shows in her face. It's rather mild pain compared to that of others, but it's there nonetheless. 

Tom is a young, budding middle-manager aiming for an executive role some day, some place. The work badge he clips to his briefcase is for an investment firm now in serious financial trouble like so many others. Tom rides with eyes closed, and sometimes his lips move silently. He is practicing for some upcoming morning meeting, where the success of his performance perhaps will affect the security of his job.

Margaret is an older citizen, perhaps 70 years of age, and like many of the older folks, her pain is of a physical variety. She winces noticeably upon boarding the bus, and the wince is echoed whenever the bus lurches. Perhaps it is arthritis, or perhaps some other nerve problem, but either way her pain is evident. Like so many elderly folks, Margaret handles her pain with quite a lot of dignity.

All the 4F citizens show pain in some form on this cold, cold morning—every last one of them. And while there will be other mornings where I will be more attuned to their happiness, today it is their sorrows that touch me.  Strangely, this makes me feel a closeness and bond with my fellow citizens that is impossible otherwise. Their pain seems to scrape against my own nerve endings today, yet for this moment I would have it no other way.

Later today, I might find myself adopting indifference, or even irritation, in order to insulate myself from empathetic pain.  In the early morning, though, there is a still a softness of heart that makes all of us hurt together, a human communion. 

In News of the Absurd....

In news of the absurd....

Four U.S. states have passed laws that forbid drivers from smiling while posing for drivers' license photos.

The apparent reasoning is that face recognition software has trouble identifying you in surveyance photos if your reference photo—typically your drivers' license photo—doesn't feature an utterly neutral expression.

The states of paranoia where you're not allowed to smile: Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia.

A transportation representative in Pennsylvania notes, however, that "in Pennsylvania, people are allowed to smile."

"Happiness?" said God, "......"

Last week, I asked God to tell me something about happiness.

Now, you have to understand that I define God a little differently than do most people.

He/She/It isn't a supernatural being of any kind, not an eye-in-the-sky intelligence that plans our lives and future. Such a conceptual deity has never resonated with me, so I don't have any reason to believe in it. If this kind of definition is important to you, then you'd have to call me an atheist, because I don't believe in that kind of God at all. No way, no how.

Intuitively, though, I'm completely aware that there is within me a better self, a calm consciousness that has the capacity for much broader awareness than I'm normally capable. This higher self is something that is of me, but it is not me.

And further, I frequently find myself in a genuine "I and thou" relationship with that consciousness This sense of a better self is sometimes vivid enough that I can converse with it, have genuine dialogues with it.  And converse with it I do, in a kind of inner, silent way. (I've never really grokked that praying-out-loud thing.)

So that's what I do: talk to that part of myself that represents genuine clear awareness, the thing that whispers to me "this is how things truly are."

So last week during a bit of a bad stretch, thinking about this quality we call happiness, I found myself utterly bewildered and befuddled by it; unable to understand what happiness is, or what causes it, or what hinders it. So during a quiet period in the evening, after duties and recreation were done, but before sleep arrived, I spent a few minutes talking with Jehovah. "What can you tell me about happiness?" I said.

That first night, I felt Elohim smile for a long while before answering. The first answer was a little cryptic, and frankly left me more than a little annoyed at first. "Happiness? Just remember it," the voice said to me, playfully slipping into its Ahura Mazda accent this time.

So that first night, after getting over my annoyance, I simply allowed some memories of happiness

to take shape. There were lots of them, and some were a little surprising, things I hadn't thought about it years. Wandering along the edge of a woods at 10 years of age and coming across a small herd of deer grazing quietly in an alfalfa field; they showed no fear of me, and allowed me to sit within hands-reach  for a full hour.  Holding my infant son the day we brought him home from the hospital, seeing the startled and amazed look on his face as a warm spring breeze touched his face for the very first time ever. Some memory were utterly mundane: remembering eating toast with peanut butter that morning, with a cup of hazelnut coffee. A quiet experience of the senses that could only be called happiness.

On, and on. There was no end of happy memories, a fact that in and of itself surprised me a little. My day hadn't been particularly happy up to that point, but all it took was the barest of decisions to recall happiness, and there it was: happiness in abundance.

But I'm an analytical soul, and it's not enough to simply know that happiness is there, that it exists. I want to know the why and how. So later in the week, I posed a variation of the question. "And what's the nature of happiness?  Why isn't it always with us?"


Vishnu was silent for a long while—several days in fact. But then one night, a new message came from the greater self, delivered with no small amount of good-hearted amusement that seems common when my voice has been traveling to southern Asia: "To stay happy....just stop collecting the wrong stuff. Happiness is everything else. "

Enigmatic perhaps, but as I've worked this one for a few days now, I can't find much to fault with

the message. I don't much like knowing this about myself, but I'm afraid the inner voice might be right about this one. Too often, it's the wrong stuff I've been trying to collect and hold.

Hazelnut coffee with peanut-butter toast isn't particularly hard to obtain, after all. And re-runs of The Big Bang Theory can be viewed at almost any time of day or night.