A Heartwarming Xmas Tale

Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a small town who made his living repairing shoes.  The town was not wealthy and people still had their shoes repaired rather than buying new ones and the man was able to make a modest living from his business.

The man rented a small cubby hole, not much larger than a walk in closet, in the town’s downtown, and there he sat all day surrounded by pairs of broken down shoes.

The man was not particularly good looking or bright but was a good soul whose one unfulfilled wish was to meet a woman, marry and have a large family.  The man truly loved children and wanted to surround himself with happy kids.  His problem in fulfilling his dream was his innate shyness and social ineptitude made it difficult for him to meet and woo a mate.

At around this time there was a woman who made her living walking all over town, with a small grinding wheel, sharpening knives, scissors and just about anything that needed sharpening.  As she walked through the various sections of the town she would whistle a sweet tune that would signal the housewives and business owners that she was in their vicinity in case they needed something sharpened.

The first time the shoe repairman saw the woman he was immediately smitten.  Every time he heard her whistle, he would frantically search for something for her to sharpen.  There interactions were very polite and formal and appeared on the surface to be nothing more than business transactions.

One day, when the man had everything he owned with an edge already sharpened, he, out of desperation, presented the woman with a spoon.  The woman smiled and realized the man admired her for more than her sharpening prowess. Gently, she led their conversation around to Saturday night and the man managed to mumble an invitation to the woman to go with him to a movie.  Thus began their yearlong courtship that ended with a small ceremony before the town Justice of the Peace.

The woman was soon pregnant, as the man, while not being overly bright or good looking, was blessed with highly potent swimmers.  Nine months later, a baby boy was born.  They named the baby Juan.  The man and woman lived in a small one-bedroom apartment over a hardware store and Juan slept in a dresser drawer.   As soon as it was humanly possible the woman became pregnant again and nine months later another child was born.  Neither the man nor the woman could agree on a name for the new baby so eventually they decided to name the child Two.

The man and woman were running out of available dresser drawers so alternative housing became a necessity.  Around this time the man’s only living relative, a bachelor farmer, named Eddie died and left the man a large, if somewhat rundown, farmhouse about three miles outside of town.  Uncle Eddie had lived in the farmhouse the last 25 years with his best friend Larry, who rented one of the many bedrooms in the old house.  Larry had died three months before Uncle Eddie and their misfortune solved the man and woman’s housing problem.  They moved to the farmhouse and before long the woman was pregnant again.   When the baby was born the same naming inertia happened and they decided to name the baby Three.

Life proceeded in kind, and over the next ten to fifteen years Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven and Twelve were born.  They were a poor family but generally happy as the man and the woman were kind and loving parents.  As time went on the man and woman noticed that their twelve offspring were taking different life paths.  Two, Four, Six, Eight, Ten, and Twelve were studious highly focused achievers while Juan, Three, Five, Seven, Nine, and Eleven lacked direction and, frankly, were a little odd.

Time rolled on and one by one the children left home to pursue their fortunes.  Two, Four, Six, Eight, Ten and Twelve embarked on successful careers as doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers and college professors.  They married like-minded professionals and moved to all four corners of the country.

The other children, I will call them “the odd children” not in judgment but in order to facilitate the story, had tougher, if not more colorful, paths to adulthood.

Juan had several scrapes with the law over petty thievery and had spent a few months in the county lockup on various theft misdemeanors.  His passion was taxidermy.  He specialized in recreating famous scenes from history by posing various vermin and critters he found in the woods behind his house or along the side of the road.  His best-known piece was a recreation of Lee’s surrender to Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse marking the end of the civil war. He considered a recreation of Bart Starr’s quarterback sneak at the end of the Ice Bowl to be his masterpiece.  He agonized over how to recreate Chuck Mercein, a Packer running back, who had tumbled into the end zone behind Starr, with his arms raised giving the signal for a touchdown because the critters he had used to represent the 22 players on the field all had short forelegs and were incapable of raising them over their heads convincingly.  Juan lost sleep trying to figure out how to solve this problem and complete the piece he felt would rocket him to preeminence in the world of taxidermy.

Three was an extremely shy and socially inept child who only really felt comfortable in the presence of chickens.  Every birthday and holiday he asked for chickens and before long he was selling eggs out of the shoe repair shop.  When he turned eighteen he left home and used his egg money to buy a small piece of land in the country away from humans and started a poultry farm.

Five’s only distinguishing characteristic was his uncanny resemblance to Popeye the Sailor Man.  He briefly cashed in on his appearance when a local movie theatre ran a Robert Altman film retrospective that included his Popeye movie.  Five would stand in the lobby dressed as the famous sailor and spin a corncob pipe in the corner of his mouth.  This employment was short lived and he worked several menial jobs before settling in as a short order cook in a 24-hour greasy spoon.

Seven had problems with drugs and alcohol during her late teens and twenties.  She rocketed from one shaky relationship to another, always ending badly.  At one point in her late twenties she married Homer Swans, who she believed was the heir to the Swan’s ice cream fortune. When she sobered up, after a week or two, she discovered Homer was the heir to a dilapidated house trailer and nothing else.  The marriage lasted 39 days ending in a no fault divorce.  Seven’s marriage experience represented rock bottom for her and she resolved to change her life.  She took up endurance sports beginning with mountain bike racing and expanding to marathon running, triathlons, speed walking, mountain climbing, bungee jumping, steeplechase, and giant wave surfing.  Her latest sport was long distance swimming and she hoped to swim from Florida to Cuba by the end of the year.

Nine was a joiner.  Unfortunately, she most often joined cults.  Her extreme devotion to principle and rigid adherence to every rule soon alienated everyone in the cult and she would soon be asked to leave.  Her latest obsession was linked to a rogue priest in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who advocated dancing as the cure all for the world’s problems.  Utilizing Nine as his chief disciple, the priest instituted the Mash Potato Mass during which the flock would get up and dance for an hour straight.  Any dance was acceptable and it was not uncommon to see the mash potato, boogalou, fox trot, polka, and all manner of free style twitching going on at the same time.  The local bishop was threatening to have the priest defrocked if he didn’t stop his dance ministry but Nine assured him that if he was defrocked she would continue ministering to the religiously funky.

Eleven became the world’s worst daredevil.  He never failed to clear five of the six cars he was attempting to jump on his motorcycle. He always managed to blow himself up or set himself on fire when he performed standard daredevil stunts.  He worked a regional circuit of stock car races, small county fairs and church picnics and became a local legend.  He never failed to entertain and had broken nearly every bone in his body at one time or another.  He also held the record for walking away from small aircraft crashes and had attracted a small following at the local airport where he hung out.  His latest endeavor was to form a Piper Cub (a small prop airplane) precision flying team.  They perfected one trick, which consisted of two columns of five planes in parallel lines nose to tail.  Eleven lead the other fliers in this formation, which he called “the pipe.”   They were in great demand satisfying America’s curious desire to see planes fly over sporting events and had flown over high school football games in three different states.

Time passed and the shoe repairman passed away peacefully at home.  The woman continued to live in the old farmhouse, now alone, and grew to be old and fat.  The even keeled children slowly stopped visiting home citing busy schedules, deadlines, travel distance and various other career pressures for their absences.  Unspoken, but none-the-less real, were their feelings of embarrassment at their humble beginnings, the run down farmhouse and their overweight mother.  So it was left to the odd children to make sure that their mother was not alone on holidays and birthdays.

So it was on a December 25^th morning, Juan was busy strapping a fruit tree he had dug out of his neighbor’s yard the night before to the roof of his van.  Just as he was tightening the last strap, Juan looked up and saw Three coming up the street.  Three was carrying a small cage containing two Crevecoeur chickens.  Under his other arm he carried a large Tupperware tub.  Three had contacted Juan a couple of nights before to see if he could get a ride to their mother’s house.

Although they hadn’t seen each other in over two years, Juan and Three greeted each other as if they had been hanging around together the night before.  Juan knew that Three wasn’t much of a conversationalist and the four hour drive would be done mostly in silence.

Juan took the cage from Three and put Three’s French chickens in the back of his van.  Juan asked Three what was in the Tupperware tub.  Three told him he had been contacted by Five who told him he had to work at the diner on the 25^th and wouldn’t be able to go with his brothers to visit their mother.  Five, knowing his mother’s love of onion rings, had made up a batch to send to her as a present.  Three popped off the Tupperware lid and showed Juan Five’s golden rings.

Juan and Three got in the van and were backing out of the driveway when Juan suddenly hit the breaks, put the van in park and ran back in the house.  A minute later Juan came back out carrying a stuffed bird.  He told Three he was going to attach the bird to the branches of the tree when he transplanted it in his mother’s side yard.  He thought she would get a kick out of seeing the bird in the fruit tree.

They rode in silence until they cleared the outskirts of the town.  Once out in the country, Three turned to Juan and asked him if Seven was going to be there this year.  Juan told him she wouldn’t be there because Seven Swans a’swimming to Cuba as they spoke. Three then told Juan that Nine’s laity was dancing and she couldn’t get away this year, either.  Juan told Three he had heard from Eleven and was told he would meet them at the farmhouse and he was planning something special for their mother.  Thus the conversation ended until they were about a quarter mile from the farmhouse.

As they approached their mother’s house, Juan heard a faint droning sound and spotted a series of small specs in the sky.  He pulled the van over and he and Three got out and looked up in time to see Eleven’s pipers piping over their mother’s house.

Three and Juan stood transfixed, as they were not immune to America’s strange love of flyovers, until the pipers had disappeared from view.  Juan then looked at the farmhouse itself and saw what looked like flames shooting out the upstairs windows and smoke billowing from a section of the roof. The boys jumped back in the van and raced the last quarter mile skidding to a stop some 25 feet from the front door.  Juan and Three burst from the van and charged up the front steps and into the house.  The first floor was beginning to fill with smoke and Three went from room to room calling his mother’s name.  Juan dashed upstairs and ran down a very smoky hallway where he found his dazed and disoriented mother sitting in a heap.  Juan called to Three and the two of them struggled to get their rather large mother to her feet.  Once she was standing each of the boys took one of her arms and guided her down the hallway, down the stairs, through the living room and out into the front yard where the three of them gulped in the most delicious air they had ever breathed.

The moral of the story:  Appreciate your odd children because they may someday pull your fat out of the fire.

HO HO HO!    Merry Xmas, Everyone.

P.S. Coming next, the Teacher returns.

The Grouch's Election Report

Shiftless Blacks, Lazy Hispanics, and Slutty Women Put Obama Over The Top           

Now there’s a sub-title that probably caught your eye.  I wasn’t aware that these sorts of people had propelled Obama to an Electoral College landslide in the recent election, but apparently that is the case.  I know that because Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity pointed it out in the first days after the election.

It appears the country has reached the tipping point with more than 50% of the population being  “takers” and something less than 50% are “doers.”  Apparently, these more than 50% of “takers” voted for Obama because they want free stuff from the government.  In other words they are looking for handouts.  So who are these “takers?”  I guess you would have to include the 90% plus of African-Americans, 75% of Hispanic, and the 55% of woman voters who supported Obama.

Up until Rush, Ann and Sean, along with a host of other right wing politicians and commentators, explained what was motivating these demographics to support Obama, the Grouch thought he had a pretty good handle on why they might have voted the way they did.

It seemed logical that African-Americans would have a hard time supporting the people who used a deceptively edited video to destroy Acorn, an organization that provided services to poor African-American communities.  I thought there was a chance that when they tried to destroy the career of Labor Department employee Shirley Sherrod with another video hack job, black people might have taken notice.  It seemed logical that they might not have liked Paul Ryan’s budget that would have entailed deep cuts to social programs in favor of more tax cuts for the rich and powerful.  The thinly disguised voter suppression laws, pushed by Republicans across the country, might have upset people whose grandparents could tell them about their first hand experience with Jim Crow.

But most of all, I suspected they didn’t like the barely veiled racist campaign the right pursued from the first day of the first black president’s administration.  Fox News and its allies tried to paint the President as an angry black man, who hates white people.  They questioned his legitimacy through birther nonsense and made up a fantasy Obama, who was a communist, socialist, Muslim, atheist coming for your guns.   Some Republican clown even heckled the President during his State of the Union Address and Arizona’s demented governor wagged her withered claw in the President’s face because he had refused to waste his time providing her with a publicity opportunity.  Mitt smiled and stayed silent while his surrogates lectured the President on how to be an American.  He even tried his hand at a birther joke at a campaign stop in Michigan.  Mitt made a special trip to accept the endorsement of Donald Trump, who had made a complete fool of himself concerning the President’s birth place and then decided to double down on the lunacy by ginning up some demented theory concerning the President’s college transcripts.

I have to admit, the Grouch was wrong about all of the above, and the reason African-Americans voted for Obama was because they wanted free stuff from the government.

I apparently was wrong about the Hispanic vote too.  After years of close observation, I have concluded that most Hispanic people are various shades of brown.  After a little reading about their history, I concluded, they too, have been the victims of racism.  So I thought they might have noticed the same things black people were witnessing.

Additionally, Republican opposition to the Dream Act, talk about building that big electric fence on the border, and laws designed to make them prove their citizenship to any cop or authority who wanted to harass them might not have left them with kind thoughts for the Republican party.  The last Republican President’s immigration reform legislation was scuttled by the Republican House. Mitt suggested “self deportation” (make life so miserable here they go home) as a solution.  The right’s way of always talking about “illegals” without ever acknowledging the contributions made by Hispanics to our country’s well being might have rankled a few Hispanic.

Of course, I have come to learn that none of this mattered because Hispanics voted for Obama to get free stuff.

And that brings us to our last free stuff voters.  Once again, I mistakenly thought that Republican attacks and Mitt’s pledge to close Planned Parenthood on his first day in office might have upset woman voters.  The millions of woman who depend on Planned Parenthood for essential medical care might have found the Republican dedication to getting rid of Planned Parenthood troubling.

When the Republican controlled House, which had campaigned in 2010 on jobs, jobs, jobs, introduced more than 1100 new bills affecting woman’s reproductive rights in their first year of control, woman took notice.  These small government advocates wanted the government to impose medical procedures on women exercising their constitutional right to make medical decisions about their own bodies, that include forcing doctors to shove instruments into them for no medical reason.

I had thought woman may have been offended when Rush called a student, who had the audacity, to testify before congress in favor of insurance coverage for birth control, a slut and suggested she film her sexual encounters so that tax payers could watch.  Other leading lights, like Republican presidential wannabe, Rick Santorum, suggested states should be able to outlaw birth control all together.  The right appeared to want to reopen the debate on many issues woman had fought for over the last 40 years.

And then there was rape.  Republicans running for both statewide and federal elective office took to the airwaves to express their views that a child conceived by rape was God’s will and suggested that women’s bodies had a secret anti-sperm shield that prevented pregnancy in the case of “legitimate” rape.  Another idiot expressed his view that pregnancy as a result of rape almost never happens.  And finally, we had a whole host of Republican candidates who were against any exceptions in an abortion ban including cases of rape, incest, and even to save the life of the mother.

Then of course, Mitt refused to say whether he would seek to repeal the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Law, which makes it easier for women who experience wage discrimination to seek redress in the courts.

So please forgive the Grouch for again misreading this group’s motivation for voting the way they did.

While the “takers” have been ruining the country, the “doers” have not been twiddling their thumbs these past 30 years or so.  After all, they have been spending millions (to make hundreds of millions) lobbying congress to pass the carried interest tax exemption and reduce the capital gains tax to a top bracket of 15%, both of which have contributed to the largest income disparity since the Guilded Age. They have manipulated the tax system so that they could stash millions in places like the Cayman Islands, Switzerland and The Isle of Man. They also worked very hard to retain the oil depletion allowance, even in the face of record profits.  They lead a years long assault on the Glass Steagall Act, which helped lead directly to the 2008 melt down.  They grew to be too big to fail and crashed the economy through their mismanagement and criminal activity and then looked to the government for hundreds of billions of dollars to bail them out.  They worked tirelessly to do away with the Inheritance Tax so they could pass their obscene wealth on to their offspring. And finally, they have fought furiously to either repeal or prevent meaningful regulation to curb their excesses.  The one thing they haven’t been doing is creating jobs, unless you count the jobs they have sent overseas to countries that pay low wages and have weak environmental protection laws.  So it seems there has been a wee bit of taking going on from our patriotic “doers.”

Now the Grouch is the last person to offer advice to conservatives, but for God’s sake, Wake Up!  The population of the U.S. is changing.  A political party that insults women, blacks, Hispanics, young people, gays and thinking people everywhere can not succeed in a national election anymore.  Your party’s craziness has handed the Democrats a ready-made coalition that could propel them to victory for the foreseeable future.  Unless you change, your only hope is that the Democrats well-known propensity for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory will save you.  There are a lot of good people who believe in conservatism and there is a place for you in the national dialogue.  In fact, the country needs your ideas.  But those ideas need to be based in reality and not be in the service of a racist, anti-science, fantasy that will only succeed in further degrading our democracy and handing our destiny to plutocrats beholding only to themselves.  Conservatives need a new William F Buckley, who helped drive the crazies in the John Birch Society out of the Republican Party back in the 50’s and 60’s.

A first step might be to stop listening to the likes of Rush, Ann, Sean, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck.  Don’t expect them to change their acts because they have made millions off of your support and will need to double down on the dog whistle racism, deception, conspiracy theories and fear mongering to continue on that gravy train.  Stop listening, stop buying their books, let their sponsors know you have jumped ship, and most important, let your elected officials know they no longer need to fear these prophets of doom.  On election night Republicans were stunned by the results because they had been told for weeks before the election, by Fox News, that Romney was going to win and not just win a close race but would most likely win by a landslide.  Even if you give no credence to the studies that show Fox News viewers are less informed about current affairs than people who watch nothing at all, you have to wonder how they could have gotten this so wrong. Roger Ailes, who runs Fox News, is reportedly a pragmatist.  Let him know you want more news, albeit from a conservative viewpoint, and less propaganda and distortion.  He will listen to you, so make a call, sign a petition and make your leaders more responsible to your needs.

The country is changing.  Look out Texas – another Hispanic baby was born just a minute ago.  Look at the bright side.  Your growing Hispanic population may yet, some day, save you from your bat shit, crazy selves.

The Grouch wants to help.  So here is an exercise you can do to help you regain credibility with the various segments of our society that have abandoned your politicians.  It can work with any group but let’s use Hispanic people for this first exercise.

Ok, the first part of the exercise is the purge.  Close your eyes and think of Hispanics as hordes of brown people coming to take our jobs and bankrupt us by using our schools, hospitals and social services.  Think of the gun toting cartel members trying to hook our kids on narcotics.  Now let those images fade, let them slip away, they’re almost gone, they’re gone!

Now think of people who come to your community with a wonderful entrepreneurial spirit and open grocery stores, restaurants, auto repair shops, barbershops, bakeries, legal offices, and roofing and remodeling businesses.  Think of the revitalization of the part of your town that just a few years ago was boarded up and was producing little or no tax revenue for your city.  Think of these people as loving parents who are raising well-behaved and happy children.  Think of them as extremely hard working people who send a little money to their parents in the old country and strive to ensure their kids will have a better life than theirs.  Finally, think of them as your friends and neighbors who are adding to the mosaic that is America.  Once you have internalized this vision, you will be able to craft policies that will encourage Hispanic Americans to consider conservative ideas.

No need to thank the Grouch.  He is happy to help.

Standing at the Threshold

When you reach the age of 60 it becomes harder and harder to kid yourself into thinking you are still young.  By any reasonable calculation, you have more than likely burned through over two thirds of your life and no amount of telling your self that 60 is the new 40 is going to change that.

The signs of aging are just too great to ignore anymore.  The physical signs become more apparent.  Hair grows in spots that best be left hairless.  The hair on your head becomes thinner.  A bladder that has become a night owl interrupts sleep and “sleeping in” means you made it to 7:00am.  Your balance becomes a little wobblier and you discover aches and pains you have never had before.  Your skin sags and your face and hands wrinkle.  Eleven o’clock becomes a late night and you need three days to recover from a moderate night of drinking.

Along with these physical changes come a whole variety of other signs that become increasingly hard to ignore or discount.  When you go to the next family reunion you notice that you are now a member of the oldest generation present.  Everyone you know has a preexisting condition and you find yourself talking more about various ailments.  You get in the mail, unsolicited, an offer for 50% off your first spider vein treatment from the Vein Clinic PA.  When you go to the class reunion the “In Memoriam” page lists more and more names.  When they list the birthdays of celebrities and notable people you find yourself wondering, “who the hell are these people.”  You also find that when you are talking to younger people and make, what you believe to be a common knowledge type cultural or historical reference, you get a blank unknowing stare and have to explain what you are talking about.  And finally, when you are watching a TV commercial where an attractive young woman takes notice of a young man in a certain brand of jeans, resulting in their sharing a glass of wine later in the day, you can’t help but think that if she noticed you, she would be thinking, “I wonder how that guy with the beer gut and the slack ass keeps those jeans from falling down around his ankles.”

So this aging thing is no small matter.  In the mid 70’s, I was lucky to work for a non-profit that provided transportation services to Madison, Wisconsin’s elderly.  Working with the elderly is a valuable experience for anyone, but especially so for the young.  If you keep your eyes and ears open you will learn quite a bit about life.  Not all of it will be pleasant and rosy, but that should come as no surprise if you have been living on this planet for any period of time.  All of it can be helpful, during your lifetime and especially as you get ready to experience the last decades of your time here.

My first assignment for Independent Living was to pick up various old folks, who were still living with a spouse or family member and take them to an adult day care center and then return them home at the end of the day.  These were the people who were incapacitated, mentally or physically, or both.  The idea for the adult center was relatively new at the time and its purpose was as much to give the families a break from the full time care these individuals required as it was to provide an opportunity for the old folks to break the monotony of their routines.

Say what you want about picking up and delivering these people, it was never boring.  On my only day of training, I was shown the ropes by my predecessor.  When we went to pick up one client, I was told I needed to always be alert so as not to get punched in the face.   I’ve had a lot of jobs through the years but that was the first and only one where I received that warning.

I remember one guy named Jimmy who always had a smile on his face and was extremely cooperative.  He was about 5 feet 5, and had a big round jug-eared, bald head.  He always seemed to be in a good mood and reminded me of a happy elf.

One night, I was driving Jimmy home when he began to shriek at the top of his lungs that I needed to watch out for the herd of pigs that were crossing the Beltway in Madison.  When my heart stopped pounding and I felt assured the pigs were in Jimmy’s head, I tried to calm him down and he went back to his smiling self.

When I got Jimmy home, I walked him up to the front door of his daughter’s home, climbed the steps of the porch and rang the bell.  As we waited for someone to come to the door, I looked through the glass window in the door and saw Jimmy’s daughter walking down a hallway, coming to answer the door.  In the time it took for me to look in and watch the daughter approach, Jimmy unzipped and began to water the front of the house just to the right of the door jam.  His daughter opened the door and we both looked at Jimmy happily whizzing away.  I recoiled but the daughter, with a smile on her face said, “Oh, dad”, and gently assisted him into the house. The look she gave me said, “don’t worry, I’ve seen much worse.”

I always wondered what went on in Jimmy’s head.  From all outward appearances he seemed happy.  I wondered if he had created a wonderful world in his head where everything was worry free and good.  Maybe everything he experienced was new to him and immediately erased the moment after it happened.   Little was known about dementia at that time and I don’t think anyone other than researchers knew what Alzheimer’s was.  We were entering into a generation that was living longer and these diseases were becoming more common.

While Jimmy appeared to be happy, another of my clients was definitely living on the other side of the spectrum.  Doc was a rail thin, six foot two, retired dentist in his early eighties.  He lived with his son’s family in an affluent section of Madison.  It was my first day picking up Doc, when I was told to stay alert to avoid being punched.  His daughter in law led him out to the car when we arrived.  He was completely rigid and took tiny shuffling steps like one might take when walking around the rim of a volcano.  You had to be careful not to let Doc get a hold of your hand because he would squeeze it to the point of breaking bones.  My first day I tried to coax him into the back seat of the car by gently asking him to bend his knees and duck his head.  My trainer watched for about a minute, and then showed me his technique for getting Doc in the car, which consisted of applying force to certain joints, and pushing at the same time.  It seemed a little cruel at the time but I came to learn there was no other way to do it.

The most striking thing about Doc was his eyes.  They were the most intense mirrors of fear and rage I have ever seen.  His disease had definitely taken him to a different place than Jimmy’s.  It made me think about what life was like for him and despite the many rotten things he did (including punching the day care lady in the nose) you couldn’t help but wonder what horrors were running through his head every day.  The wear and tear was evident on the faces of his family and he was the single saddest case I encountered while working for Independent Living.

As a young man I learned that life could be cruel and isn’t necessarily fair.  The folks who spent their days at the day care had been dealt a bad hand and each of them tried to cope with it as best they could.  I also learned that nothing is guaranteed in this life and but for the grace of god, or if you prefer, dumb luck, there go I.

After a few months my job changed and I was put in charge of coordinating a network of volunteers to provide transportation for medical and other business related trips for Madison’s elderly.  Every day I would call volunteers and try to arrange rides to fill in the schedule.  I was also given the use of a car so when I couldn’t find enough volunteers I would drive clients to their appointments.

The people I was dealing with were in much better shape than my previous clients.  They were living on their own and needed transportation to make sure they could continue to live in their homes and apartments.

I remember a woman, named Mary, who was a role model for how to age gracefully.  She was around 85 when I met her.  She was never ready when I pulled up to her house.  I would knock on the door and eventually go around back and find her, in a pair of bib overalls, weeding her garden or caning a chair.  She was a tall woman with very good posture.  She would see me and remember why I was there and would spring up the steps of her back porch and in five minutes would come out her front door all put together and ready to go to whatever appointment she had.

When you talked to Mary, it became apparent you were talking to a highly educated and intelligent woman.  It always struck me that my best move with Mary was to shut up and listen.  Once when I was giving her a ride she asked me what I planned to do with my life.  I told her I didn’t know, but I was saving money to go to South America.  She looked at me and then began to tell me about the time she had accompanied her father, who was a mining engineer, to South America for a year.  It was sometime between 1905 and 1910 and her memory was sharp and her stories vivid and fascinating.   I could tell that she enjoyed the opportunity to remember and tell her stories to someone who was interested and might benefit from hearing them. She highly endorsed my plan to travel south and said that her year in Colombia and Peru had been one of the most interesting of her life.

Mary was one of the first people I met through Independent Living that gave me the idea there might be some connection between an active, lively mind and an active, healthy body.  At 85, she was so very much alive.  She was curious and one got the sense that she never had quit learning throughout her long and interesting life.

And that brings us to Antoine Pliska.  I met Antoine when he was in his nineties living in a five-story walk up room near downtown Madison.  He was about 5 foot 8 and possessed a slight but sturdy body.  He sported a long gray ponytail and a gleam in his eye.

Antoine was an associate of Madison icon and political gadfly Eddie Ben Elson, who once kicked off his campaign for a Dane County judgeship by dancing nude at the appropriately named Dangle Lounge in downtown Madison.  One of Eddie Ben’s greatest hits was his 1973 scheme to sell tickets, at $10 a pop, to individuals who wanted to ride the Comet Kohoutek, which Eddie contended was really a spaceship he would captain.  The tail of the comet/spaceship was going to brush the earth leaving it covered in oil and sludge.  Those who wanted to survive could buy a ticket and an invention of the eminent Dr. Antoine Pliska would miniaturize the ticket holders so they could ride the comet to safety.  Eddie was once asked by a reporter to be shown the miniaturized people he had stashed in his basement.  Eddie told the reporter he would call him back later that day and he did call him back and told the reporter that his greedy wife sold the little people to a Belleville Cadillac dealer to be used as hood ornaments.  So Antoine wasn’t your ordinary, run of the mill, old coot.

One night Pat and I were watching TV on our 9-inch black and white set.  There was nothing of interest on so we, out of desperation, tried the public access channel, which was showing a City Council meeting relating to a proposed ordinance put forward by the Madison Tenant’s Union and opposed by the Madison Landlords Association.

While we watched, one after another proponent of the ordinance came to the podium and testified to the various crimes and misdemeanors committed by the slumlords of Madison.  Every now and then, a landlord would point out that renting to five 19-year-old boys was equivalent to renting to a herd of wildebeests.  The testimony went on like this for a while, until the mayor announced there was time for one more citizen to speak.   As the last speaker approached the podium, I sat up, and said to Pat, “That’s Antoine!”

Antoine took the podium and began by holding up his hand, with the back of his hand facing the audience, and his index and middle fingers raised in a V and said, “During World War ll this signal meant victory.”  He then held up the same two fingers, with the palm facing out, and said, “During the sixties this symbol meant peace.”  He then looked directly into the camera and with a wicked smile on his face said, “And now I have a symbol for the landlords of Madison.”  Waiting a beat for dramatic effect, he raised his middle finger and gave the landlords the bird.  The audience exploded with laughter and the Mayor gaveled the meeting to a close.  It was theatre of the highest order.

There was no question that Antoine was bright, alert, involved and immensely enjoying his “Golden Years.”

So what did I learn about aging from these experiences?  First, there are no guarantees.  There are things that can happen that no amount of preventative action can avoid.  When you think about it, that rule applies to your entire life.  The proverbial bus can hit us all at any time in our lives.  I do think we can take a lesson from aging athletes, who have to prepare harder in the off-season, to continue to perform at high levels.  But, no matter how much you exercise, watch your diet and drink quality beer, bad things can and do happen.  Who knows what caused Jimmy and Doc to lose their grip on reality?  Life isn’t fair and we really shouldn’t carry around that expectation.

I like to think of my life in thirds.  The first third was childhood through the end of my formal education.  The second phase was building a career, raising a family, eventually culminating with retirement.  The last third is the one I am standing on the threshold of right now.  Each of these phases has their anxiety and terrors, whether it is fear of dodging a bully looking to rearrange your face, getting laid off from your job in the middle of a recession, or becoming physically or mentally dependent on others.  So, it looks like the “Golden Years” won’t wipe away those types of concerns. 

The big difference between the thirds is how they end.  Two end with graduation and retirement and the last with the big dirt nap.   That is something everyone has to come to grips with on their own terms.

I’m hoping my last third is closer to Mary and Antoine’s experience.  They were blessed with relatively good health and I plan to take care of myself and hope to be lucky.  I think one of the keys is to stay interested.  Never stop learning.  Never let our youth obsessed society convince you that you are irrelevant.  Enjoy and exercise the freedom this phase affords you. Find what turns you on and keep doing those things that you find valuable or interesting.  Continue to think about the big picture and remember those 60, 70, 80 years of life you have experienced are valuable and the lessons learned are best shared with those smart enough to understand you have something to teach them.  

While I was in the process of writing this post, I’ve decided that it would be great if I make it to my 90’s, and have the opportunity to give the finger to some individual or entity that richly deserves it. Then I will know that I was still kicking to the end.

PS.  One night, Pat and I were sitting in the bar at the Black Forest in south Minneapolis, when I told her a little bit about what this post was going to cover.  Hearing I was going to talk about my days with Independent Living, she suggested and I whole-heartedly agreed  (I‘m not stupid), to include the story of her heroism (my term, not hers) while she worked for the same agency.  Below is the article that appeared in a Madison newspaper proving her fifteen minutes of fame.  I must admit I never did anything remotely heroic during my time working with the elderly.

Part 1 - Click on image to enlarge

Part 2 - Click on image to enlarge

PPS.  I believe that we need to remember that our heroes are very much human.  I think it holds out the possibility that anyone of us may some day, if the circumstances are right, become a hero.  In keeping with this philosophy, I need to point out that Pat slammed Antoine Pliska’s arm in a car door.  No permanent damage resulted, although I imagine Antoine had better afternoons. Pat has felt bad about this for 35 years and counting.  I never slammed anyone’s body parts in car doors during my employment with Independent Living, which in and of itself, is sort of heroic, isn’t it?                  

 

 

Gunsmoke: Then and Now

          

I have to confess, I’ve always had a weakness for a good horse opera.  There was something about the wide-open range, good versus evil, horses as transportation and a cowboy’s best friend that appealed to me as a small boy.

I was lucky to have grown up during TV’s golden age of Westerns.  Every week, I could watch Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Rawhide, The Rifleman, Have Gun: Will Travel, The Rebel, Wagon Train, The Big Valley, The Wild, Wild West, and I’m sure a couple others I have forgotten.  My grandfather’s favorite was Gunsmoke and most weeks we would all watch it together and let our imaginations roam with Matt, Doc Adams, Kitty and Festus.

Matt, Festus, Doc and Kitty

Now, thanks to a retro television station, I am able to once again watch Gunsmoke every weekday at noon as I eat my lunch.  As I began to watch the show again, I realized that each episode is a small morality play and many issues of the day were addressed as life was depicted in Dodge City each week.  As I watched the show, I began to think how different the show might be if it was written today.  The following is a description of certain story lines I have seen over lunch lately and how I think they may have differed if they were written today.

THEN:  The son of a small rancher, whose go-it-alone attitude and suspicion of his neighbors has isolated him from the people of the greater Dodge City area, falls down a well and is injured.  The rancher resists his wife’s pleas for him to seek help and tries to rescue the boy alone.  His neighbor, who is unaware of the situation, is out dynamiting stumps, which results in the well partially caving in and further injuring the boy.

As things go from bad to worse, Matt and Festus stop at the ranch to water their horses.  When they discover what has happened, Matt sends Festus back to town to round up shovels, picks, wheelbarrows and volunteers willing to help rescue the boy before the rest of the well caves and buries him.  Festus races to town and gathers up the necessary tools and a large group of townspeople who race back to the ranch.

The rescuers all pitch in and are able to bring the boy up just before the well collapses entirely.  Doc Adams has the boy carried to the ranch house where he treats his injuries, thus setting up a winning situation for everyone involved.  The boy wins because he lives.  The Rancher wins because he learns a valuable lesson about community and cooperation that is reinforced every time he looks at his son’s smiling face.  The town’s people win because they have that special feeling that comes from knowing their combined efforts have saved the life of a small boy.  This wasn’t in the script, but I bet they went back to town and had a square dance with Festus doing the calling.

NOW:  The boy falls in the well and the small rancher tries to rescue him by himself.  The neighbor, unaware that anything has happened, continues to dynamite tree stumps and the well partially caves in.  Matt and Festus stop by to water their horses and Matt sends Festus back to town to get help.

As Festus gathers a crowd of townspeople around him, he finds a certain reluctance of the townspeople to rush off and help this rancher that no one really knows.  Doc Adams joins the crowd and asks what type of health insurance does the boy carry and when he is told the boy has no coverage, he is hesitant to join the rescue party.  When Festus asks if Doc is just going to let the boy die, a member of the crowd shouts, “let him die” while others cheer.

Doc decides to stay in Dodge and the response from the town is limited and weak.  The well caves in before the boy can be rescued.  The boy dies a free man.

THEN:  Dry conditions are putting pressure on small ranchers and federal lands are opened up so the cattlemen can find land to graze their herds. The Cattleman’s Association, which is made up of the three largest ranches in the area, hires gunmen to limit access to the federal land to the members of their Association.  The head of the Association justifies their action by saying they need to keep outsiders from Texas from over grazing the land.  Festus tells one of the big ranchers that what they are really doing is using their power to restrict use of the land for themselves when it should be open to everyone.

Tensions grow as the small rancher’s cattle begin to die and they clash with the Association’s hired guns.  Matt and Festus form a small posse and, together, they defeat the gunmen and open the land to all.

Government Employees

NOW:  The dry conditions pit the Cattleman’s Association against the small ranchers over the use of federal grazing land.  When Matt and Festus try to make sure all citizens have equal access to the range, the Cattleman’s Association organizes a wagon train of people carrying signs that say, “keep your government hands off federal land,” demand Matt and Festus stop impeding the job creators and stay out of this fight.  The Cattleman’s Association promises a new round of campaign contributions to Kansas’ senators and congressman and a new law is passed restricting use of the federal land while excepting large operations.

The small ranchers go bust and their land is bought up by members of the Cattleman’s Association for a pittance.  The small operators and their families drift off the land and into the slums of the big cites where many of them die from causes linked to poverty.  They die free men and women.

THEN:  Three desperados kidnap Kitty in a plot to lure Matt into a trap.  The leader of the bad guys is seeking revenge against Matt, for apprehending his brother, who was eventually hanged for murder.  Kitty is held in an old abandoned ranch house where she is beaten and abused.  The leader stops his two partners from raping Kitty, telling them there will be plenty of time for that after they kill Matt.

Waton Woman?

When Matt finds out Kitty is missing, he puts Festus in charge of Dodge, and rides out to find his main squeeze.  Festus argues with Matt about going with him but Matt needs Festus in Dodge because a bunch of drovers are coming to town and the usual fist fighting, drinking and shooting is expected.

Matt tracks the thugs to the abandoned ranch.  During the ensuing shootout, Matt is winged (marking the 400^th time Matt has been “winged” during the 20 year run of the show), but manages to kill two of the crooks and capture the third.  Kitty, beaten and terrorized, is rescued before she has to endure even worse treatment.  Doc treats Matt’s latest gunshot wound and the third kidnapper is tried and sentenced to a long prison term.

NOW:  Three desperados kidnap Kitty in a plot to lure Matt to her rescue so they can kill him.  Kitty is beaten and terrorized but the leader stops his two henchmen from raping her until after Matt is killed.

When Matt finds out Kitty is missing he is torn between staying in town to protect it from the drovers and going immediately to find Kitty.  Normally he would put Festus in charge but Festus was laid off the previous month because government workers, like federal deputies, are judged to be over paid, entitled symptoms of a bloated government.  Matt decides to stay in town for as long as necessary to protect the town he is sworn to serve.

When Matt doesn’t show up to rescue Kitty right away, the leader of the gang cannot stop his underlings from raping and further terrorizing her.

After a long weekend of busting up fist fights, disarming drunks and filling the town jail with drunken drovers, Matt rides out to rescue Kitty.  After a prolong gunfight, Matt wings two of the gang and captures the other slime ball.  Kitty is returned to Dodge, where she tries to put the pieces of her life back together.

Here I have three alternative endings for this episode.

Ending # 1:  Kitty becomes pregnant because of the rape so the men are released on the grounds that it was not a “legitimate rape.”  The fact that “god’s little shield” did not prevent the pregnancy is evidence enough that Kitty encouraged and enticed the gang and the sex was consensual.

Ending # 2:  Kitty does not become pregnant offering some evidence that she may have been legitimately raped.  At the ensuing trial the defense cast doubts on Kitty’s character, after all she does work in a saloon and wears those provocative off the shoulder dresses.  The charges are reduced to a misdemeanor because the prosecutor has doubts about the state’s ability to get a conviction for the more serious charge.  The gang is convicted of the lesser offense, pays a fine and leaves town.

Ending # 3:  Kitty becomes pregnant as a result of the rape.  Because of the trauma, both mentally and physically, her rather advanced age, and complications of the pregnancy, Kitty seeks to terminate the pregnancy.  She is prevented from doing so by a new law that requires her rapists to have been tried and found guilty of rape before the pregnancy can be terminated.  The gang’s trial begins 12 months after the rape.  Kitty dies, a free woman, during childbirth.

THEN:  A group of U.S. Army soldiers go rogue and begin stealing rifles from the army and selling them to gunrunners who are selling them illegally.  Festus, returning from a fishing trip, stumbles on to the gunrunners.  With Matt’s help the gunrunners are apprehended and Matt goes about trying to convince the officer in charge of the battalion that he has some rotten apples he needs to weed out.  Matt and Festus are finally able to convince the officer and the rogue soldiers are arrested and lead away in chains.

NOW:  This script cannot be rewrote for today because any criticism of the military is considered un-American and no TV studio is willing to risk the blowback.  It is the one area of the U.S. government that cannot be audited or questioned.

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I guess our attitudes have changed in the last thirty years.  The one belief, apparently held by nearly half the population, is that the government is worthless, incompetent and can provide nothing of value to the country besides a bloated military industrial complex.  It strikes me as a really strange belief for half the population of a democracy to hold.  After more than thirty years of being told “the government can’t solve the problem, the government is the problem,” and “government needs to be shrunk to the size where it can be drown in a bathtub,” many of our fellow citizens hold these “truths” to be self evident.

It only takes a few seconds to disprove this belief by simply taking a cursory glance at our history.  Government involvement and leadership has been crucial to the economic wellbeing of the country from practically the get-go.  That useless, do nothing government’s involvement in the building of the Erie and Panama Canals, the transcontinental railroad, winning World Wars I and II, the building of the electric power grid, the building of the interstate highway system, air travel, the space program, our education system, and drug and medical research, just to name a few, have contributed mightily to the economic well being of the country.  The one thing they all have in common is that each of these accomplishments was a very large undertaking that lacked immediate profitability.  Only the government is capable of financing these types of projects on behalf of the citizenry.  Without the government’s participation, which is to say, the people’s participation, because in a democracy, the government represents the people, this country would be a banana republic, clustered along the east coast, dancing to the tune of some foreign power.

Our hatred of “government” now extends to the state and local level.  Again, it is easy enough to point out the local roads, sewage systems, hospitals, school systems, etc. that would not have been built without public money and involvement.  Many of our fellow citizens look at teachers, cops, firefighters and all municipal and state workers as drags on the economy.  It has spawned an attitude that some how defines a job as a clerk in a private business as vastly more worthy and valuable than a job in the public sector.

The most damaging aspect of these beliefs is that it fosters hopelessness.  If the representation of the people in our democracy is useless, corrupt, and it deserves to be drowned, then where do people go from there?  It makes it much easier for the demagogues to convince people their problems are the fault of black people, gay people, women, Hispanic people, or the 47%.

I’m not saying a healthy skepticism about our government is necessarily a bad thing.  We need to be ever vigilant when it comes to protecting the Bill of Rights and holding the government accountable for the things it does in our name.  It is also truth that there have been very serious government screwups that have cost the taxpayers dearly.  Let me let you in on a little secret.  I worked in a highly sophisticated Fortune 300 company for 25 years and there were some mighty big screwups made in those 25 years.  That is because the world is a complex place and people are human.  Mistakes will happen and we need to hold people accountable in both the private and public sectors. But, that is entirely different from taking a position that government cannot benefit it’s people or that it needs to be stripped down to where it’s only function is to provide for the country’s military.  To take that position is to renounce democracy and turn the country over to the oligarchs, who will fill the vacuum and our country will move ever closer to a place that is run by the obscenely wealthy for the obscenely wealthy.

We have faced these challenges before.  Today our crumbling infrastructure, eroding education system and our need to develop clean energy sources once again call on us to respond.  Most importantly, the clock is ticking on climate change.  We will either address these issues or the American experiment will end. It won’t be members of the Walton family or the Koch brothers who step up to address our challenges.  It will, once again, be the people, through their government, who find our path for a better future.

Who?  Who let the grouch out?