Staying Relevant in Old Age

Sailboats and airlines move in exactly the same manner, never in a straight line, self-correcting all the time. Our lives should be pretty much the same. That sounds about right during most of our lifetime until things gets harder with age.

Staying relevant for anyone at any age can be quite a challenge today. These are trying times for even the most blasé among us. Normal political practices are tripping over themselves with standards and norms are being adjusted, maligned, and dismembered on a daily basis.

Now, artificial intelligence makes anything digital questionable; what is real and what isn’t. It’s bots for breakfast and cloud-based data swirling in cyberspace all around us. No wonder we can no longer trust news sources to give us the truth; straight and honest. It seems as if everyone has an agenda; for themselves, their clients, and their objectives in life.

For older folks it gets even harder to filter the shaft (BS) from the real and authentic. I think that’s why many of us in this older generations just want to ‘gave it a rest’ once they reached retirement age. It’s happened before; just as Tom.

News correspondent Tom Brokaw celebrated his generation by calling them ‘the greatest generation.’ He hero-worshipped their struggles during the Great Depression, their heroic actions in World War Two and their resiliency during the post-war recovery.

This was my parent’s generation. The one I was supposed to look up to for guidance, inspiration and an idea of what one does when one has lived a full life and was now retired. I am of the boomer generation but each succeeding generation supposedly possessed unique qualifications that made them something special too. Yet, it was the ‘greatest generation’ that had supposedly started it all. I beg to differ.

While most of us morphed into adulthood and were facing daily challenges and struggles with our jobs, career advancements, relationships, and world events, many of the ‘greatest generation’ had divorced themselves from current events in their lives. It was if they’d been through all of that before and now, they just wanted to enjoy their retirement and shed themselves of the challenges most of us were facing on a daily basis.

On the surface it seemed a well-deserved retirement schedule forged out of long hours at work and raising a family. The downside of that entrenched isolationism on their part is that they were not staying relevant to the world around them. The world continued on and they stayed in their old place, stuck in the past even as it became more and more irrelevant.

One of the frequent laments that Sharon hears from women her age is the fear that their spouse is ‘getting old’ on them. It’s a real concern that the man in their life is closing down to the real world. They fear their partner’s opinions, attitudes and reactions reflect a continuing disconnect from everyday reality. Many of these men see a world that is changing all around them and they don’t like it.

Monday morning quarterbacking became a favorite game to play because they had the time. Old men gathered at the coffee shop to talk at one another and seldom if ever listened to what was being said. If and when they did happen to listen, the conversation usually centered around bitching about taxes, local and national government, believing the propaganda all the political parties were spewing forth on the air waves and in print. It was seldom if ever positive and more likely a sad lament of times past and the failures of future generations rather than their own.

Now I and millions more like me are of that senior generation. The boomers are getting older and some, unfortunately, have morphed into that same isolationist routine of living. The corner coffee shop is full of old men bitching about taxes, politics and politicians and the futility of trying to talk sense into that younger generation. Here we go all over again.

Staying relevant to the world around us seems to be the only answer for my generation. To stay informed, involved and committed to something is far better than to remain entrenched in yesterday and the glory of one’s past. The world cares little for our opinion. They do respect our action. And in the end, our actions may be the only thing that counts.

High Lonesome

Far from the crystal-clear pools of Palm Springs and its emerald green golf courses lies another world. A world of vast nothingness peppered with the sad remnants of past lives and etchings scratched in the rocks. It’s a place where stillness thunders louder than the wind and God did some of his finest work. High and lonesome.

Sharon and I have been traveling to this wilderness mecca ever since the kids were still in school and offspring weren’t even a part of the equation. We’ve taken friends there as part of the Palm Springs experience when they’ve come to visit. It’s part and parcel of the Southern California magic. Joshua Tree is a world unto its own.

This world-renowned national park and its surrounding communities embrace another form of existence; all of which is surrounded by endless horizons. The area is a mecca for aging rock stars, artists and modern-day bohemians along with ordinary people all in search of a new beginning. It’s the place where people go to get lost and then forgotten.

The high desert of the Morongo Basin is like a modern-day outback of more than 9.5 million acres of public land in the California desert. Its home to old walking trails first used by Native Americans between seasonal encampments then followed by Spanish explorers and finally 19^th century gold seekers and pioneers.

1.7-billion-year-old rocks compete for attention with the ancient land mass of Rodinia and King Clone and 11.000-year-old creosote bush that began its life during the retreat of the last Ice Age. It was a desolate wilderness and home to cowboys, outlaws, roaming Indian people and Mexican traders.

Reminders of past human lives are everywhere. Abandoned mines litter the area with their relics of past hopes and dreams scattered about the ground. A restored railroad depot stands alone with its tracks still leading nowhere. Ramshackle old cabins planted amid miles of sage and scrub brush, sit isolated and lonely in the desert. The evidence is all here if you can look past the dust and dirt and castles made of boulders to imagine all the past lives that once past through this place on the way to a better life.

Before and during the 1950s, the high desert was home to simple shacks on homesteaded land. No water, electricity, or amenities. Initially L.A. outlaws, urban rebels and the adventurous few gravitated to this Spartan existence. Over time, the elements took their toll and many shacks were abandoned and forgotten. Most reverted back to the Bureau of Land Management.

Then in the 1960s and 70s, artists, musicians, urban castaways, and bohemian rebels found the high desert a perfect refuge from the craziness that had overtaken most of the coastal cities. These new explorers flocked to the area in their VW pop-up campers, tents, sleeping bags and simple woolen blankets. It was like an unorganized gathering of like-minded souls each of whom was lost inside their own head.

More recently, high architectural drama followed in the form of classic modern dwellings. Gradually, there grew a vibe, an undercurrent of interest and excitement about high desert living. VRBO and AirBnB locales began sprouting up everywhere.

A whole new generation of architectural aficionados, Gen Xers, boomers, urban pioneers, and retirees are reclaiming the desert and rebuilding those dilapidated shacks into something more attractive-only this time with all the amenities. A lot of the Airbnb listings are remodeled versions of these old shacks that used to be part of a homesteading craze decades ago.

Right from the start, we wanted to introduce our grandchildren to this playground for the imagination. Much like the high-altitude cerebral vacuum of the San Jacinto Mountains, Joshua Tree is the perfect setting for letting their minds wander and bump into thoughts and ideas and feelings they never knew were lurking there.

It means nestling into a large boulder, resting your head on its warm pillow of granite, looking up at the pure blue flawless sky and listening to your surroundings. The stillness will batter your eardrums with a quiet so loud that all you can do is retreat back inside your head for peace and serenity.

The high desert is a cornucopia of images, lifestyles, attitudes, ambitions, and dreams from a plethora of characters; real and imagined. It’s where you go to lose yourself and perhaps find the unexpected. It’s where the ghosts of past rock and roller stars still play their mournful ballads for no one to hear but the wind.

And it’s where writers go to ask ‘what if.’

What Were You Really Like?

If I had a time machine, there would be so many people I’d like to see again. I’d start with the man who gave me life then disappeared for four years before exiting the planet. My mother probably comes in a close second. Raised in a strict rural German Catholic culture, she proved unable to open herself up to maternal feelings that might have been lingering there. Maybe the next time it would be different?

Then there’s another group. Folks who entered into my life for a brief period of time before disappeared again. I was recently commiserating with one of my salon compatriots about old friends and past companions. With our collective miles under the belt, we’ve both had many casual, close and a few profound friendships and relationships.

While some of my friends won’t admit it, I know there’s been several who have acquiesced to ‘Facebook stalking’ and/or perusing ‘Classmates.com’ in hopes of finding old school chums, friends, associates, love interests and other assorted contacts made over the years.

My belief is that you leave something of yourself with everyone you come into contact with. Granted, you are a different person now than you were back then but if you have ‘history’ with someone even for a brief period of time, the connection is still there.

The categories where old acquaintances can be found vary with time and place. It really comes down to meaningful events in your life even if for only short periods of time. There’re all life sketches, painted a different color for everyone, and yet poignant reminders of one’s past life.

Photo courtesy of Jerry Hoffman

One of my regrets is that almost all of those kids I hung around with in grade school have long since scattered to the winds of time. It would have been so fascinating to find out how their lives turned out after growing up in Highland Park.

The Army had a profound effect on me although I didn’t realize it at the time. My two-year enlistment was ripe with hundreds of storylines, personal antidotes, and character studies. Events happened and were forgotten only to resurface years later when nudged forward by a song, comment, or photograph. It was a colorful kaleidoscope of military images buried deep in my memory bank. There were Drill Sergeants straight out of hell, bunkmates who were anti-social, lost young men, gung-ho John Wayne types, rumblings of a far-off Asian war, and a youthful lusting for the opposite sex.

Straight out of Basic Training, I worked as a reporter at the Presidian, the post newspaper, at the Presidio of San Francisco. My boss, the Sergeant Major, took a fatherly role in pointing me in the right direction (the Army way of doing things.) There was Mara, the office sexpot. She was a sad lost young woman, raised in an abusive household, whose striking good looks proved to be her downfall. The Colonel in charge seemed to hate enlisted men and life in general. I was introduced to the theater (in San Francisco, mind you) by a young German immigrant who had been drafted only weeks after arriving in the states.

As far as my other batshit bunkmates went, I had them all. A hustler (seriously, a working pimp), several deadbeats, an actor (really good), an artist (who hated Joan Baez?) and a squirrel cage of other characters. All destined for success or failure in one form or another.

Living in Europe on two separate occasions also supplied me with lasting memories of colorful characters, sad creatures, and intimate cerebral partners for late night salons.

There was my old roommate I called ‘animal,’ who only lived with me briefly but even then, left a memorable impression. Tiny Bailey, another lost soul from Arizona, who escaped an alcoholic mother to seek solace in Denmark then ended up leaving for Israel instead. The Guy from Canada who lived with a local family and was treated like royalty and Maria, my pal at the Danish laundry.

After I returned back to the states, there was a plethora of friends, close and not so close, who passed in and out of my life. The guy from Kentucky who took me in when I moved out after a racist rant from my mother about my girlfriend at the time. Close contacts that never went very far. For some that was a good thing. For others, I wish I was still in touch.

Those memories ended bundled up as a play entitled ‘PTV’ for which I still have high hopes in the future. It’s a kaleidoscope of wonderful memories: meeting ‘the one’ for the first time, learning to love television production and direction, real estate stumbles and success and now, closer to home, writing nine original songs for the production.

Past Girlfriends are always a topic of curiosity for most men. This kind of inquiry could seem awkward but it doesn’t have to be. For me, each of those women were charming, interesting, and a delight to know in their own way. There were a few others less memorable and my time spent with them was more easily forgotten. Yet with each, there was some ‘history’ and it was good.

Where there was history, there are memories. The key here is to glance into the past but not linger there. I think it’s human nature to want to know about past acquaintances no matter how close or vapid they might have been. They were all, in a way, a reflection of who I was at that time in my life. A point in time that can’t be returned, replaced, or replicated.

There can still be some poignant memories nevertheless. A cryptic e-mail after 48 years stating simply: ‘you did become a writer.’ Occasional e-mail exchanges that never went anywhere. A phone call out of the blue at 58 years for a brief 10 minutes. Then silence again.

Another former friend with whom I crossed paths after sixty some years is still refusing to recognize anything beyond the fact that ‘there was some history there.’ Yeah, like for a year and a half worth but who’s counting? But that’s the way she wants to see our past and I have to respect it.

Memories are like good conversations. They’re ripe with warmth, delight, and carefully construed images dancing in your head. What really happened, who knows? What did the other person feel or remember, who knows?

Like a necklace of pearls, they shine and reflect and say something about who you are, who you were and how far you’ve come. Then it’s time to put the pearls away, look up at life and continue down that pathway of reality. And as Jackie Gleason famously said: “And thanks for the memories.”