The Problem with Old People

The problem with old people is….me! It’s really as simple as that. It’s taken me a long time to figure that one out. As I was growing up, without the benefit of a nuclear family or loving grandparents, old people to me were always furrowed eyebrows, ‘don’t touch that’ comments and ‘you wouldn’t understand’ statements. The absence of a concerned teacher, aunt, uncle or relative didn’t help dissuade me from that conclusion.

The ‘older generation made it very clear to us that ‘children should be seen and not heard.’ The good nuns in grade school and Christian Brothers in high school didn’t do much to dispel that notion of youthful inadequacies. It wasn’t until my ‘Lost Years’ (ten years between high school and marriage) that I was able to finally break free of that older generation’s antiquated, moldy take on life.

Reflecting back, I can see now that those closeted champions of the church, my teachers in school, the boss at work, and even my relatives had pigeon-holed me as naturally as they always had anyone my age. Without the support of adults who cared about me, I was exposed to that generational slant on the younger set. As I got older and surer of myself, their snarling comments gradually wore thin and were ignored.

So, when that old warehouse manager on my Saturday morning side hustle would always greet us college men with: ‘God-damn College kids,’ it just brought a warm glow to my heart and a smile on my face. He hated his life and what our youthful exuberance said to him. His loss, not mine.

I’ve often spoken disparagingly about the ‘old men in the coffee shop.’ These are the retirees, the unemployed and the bored who spend their days rehashing their make-believe youth and bitching about everything around them. Farmers are the absolute worst at this sour take on the world. While we’ve always had ‘salons’ for the intellectual elite, these coffee shop clichés are usually for gossip and complaining alone. From my travels in Europe, I know it’s not just an American thing.

Perhaps my distain for the attitudes of old people is hereditary. My mother used to complain about old folks when she was in her seventies and eighties. Sharon and I never quite got it; thinking instead that once you’ve reached that station in life, you’re supposed to defend your own kind instead of criticizing them. I was wrong. Now I get it.

My mother and my step-father were still dancing and playing cards in their mid-to-late eighties. While other seniors around them were slowing down, they were accelerating their pace of living. Nothing wrong with that. Her distain for others her own age was by no means admirable but it was (in her simple, crude way) understandable.

Reflecting back now on some of my conversations with her, I’m guessing that she simply couldn’t express her feelings that well. She saw no benefit to bitching about one’s aches and pains, or diminishing driving skills or slowness in their gait. She and Erwin (my step-father) were still active and so should other folks their age. I might have been a bit more diplomatic but her point was understood.

I’m at the stage now in life where the passing of my high school classmates is accelerating. But that crucible of old age doesn’t have to pervert our reality with a lot of negativities. I won’t apologize for my mother’s insensitive approach to criticizing her age group nor will I emulate it. Other folks are going to do what they’re going to do. If slowing down and grousing about life is a part of their lives that doesn’t mean it has to be a part of mine.

There’s still much to celebrate with life. Bitching and complaining only gets in the way of that appreciation.

Arrested Development

Perhaps it was Tinkerbell who stole that moniker from me not that long ago. Reminiscing on almost 80 years stumbling around this great planet of ours, I’ve come to the conclusion that there were a lot of things I never accomplished in my youth and growing up was one of them. Finding a stable home life like that of ‘Ozzie and Harriett’ or ‘The Beaver’ (don’t laugh, I was very impressionable at that age) gave me a false impression of what ‘real home life’ was supposed to be like back then. It wasn’t to be part of my backstory.

Our 50th and 60th high school class reunions reminded me of two different high school experiences for two different groups of students. One group was college-bound and the other more focused on ‘getting a good job’ after high school. Both could probably be best described as your typical late fifties high school drama, trauma, and angst. Add to the mix that ours was an all-boys high school and the interaction between boys and girls was stilted at best and handicapped to some degree.

The first two years in college followed pretty much a similar pattern although the girl part got a little better. Then the US Army, finishing college, escaping to Europe and finally a single searching life back in the states put me back on track like my friends.

Most of my youthful aspirations were never meet. I never traveled around the world on a tramp steamer or shipped out of New Orleans to cruise the Southern Hemisphere as a rambling vagabond.

My rambling around the countryside like Woody Guthrie was provided by Uncle Sam who limited my ventures to California, Louisiana, and Virginia.

I never did the expat thing very well. The first time around in Europe, my job in a Danish laundry didn’t leave a lot of time for exploring the countryside or other countries. On my second venture East, I applied for work at the BBC but a Yank in London had a real uphill climb to be accepted there.

Domestic life ensued and fifty-one years late I’m retired and busy with other things. My youthful naïve dream of becoming a writer started in the early 70s with two typed up westerns then took a hiatus for another fifty years until it finally became a real and new vocation and career for me starting around age 65.

Now I write full-time, drawing on my imagination and anywhere else I can steal an idea. I guess it doesn’t hurt to still have a little youthful exuberance attached to the task of churning out storylines for my blogs, plays, novels, etc.

Now with ‘Sweetpea and the Gang,’ I get to rekindle the joy, excitement and wonder at the antics of my grandchildren. I don’t need maturity to go back in time and rekindle the joy of youth once again.

Outsider

Last summer, my classmates and I celebrated our 60th high school class reunion. Not surprisingly, it was notable for the absence of several familiar faces, a couple of classmates wheelchair-bound and the presence of portable oxygen units scattered about the room. That’s probably not too strange since we’re all in our late seventies, pushing up against the eighty-year mark and slowing down considerably. They say it’s called the circle of life.

Now a year later, a 61st class reunion has been organized. It will be held at a bar/restaurant in the vicinity of our old high school. I’m guessing some of the wiser ones among our class leadership decided that with our attrition rate as it is, it was probably best not to wait another ten years before we all met up again. But there was another reason for gathering and reminiscing about ‘the good old days.’

Concurrently with our 61st reunion, a new book about Cretin has just come out on Amazon. Com. Its genesis was simple enough. After last year’s class reunion, a couple of my classmates got together and decided it would be nice to capture some of the memories of our time from 1957 to 1961 at a unique educational institution that no longer exists. Thus was born ‘Cretin ’61 A Class Memoir.’

When I went on Amazon to buy a copy of ‘A Class Memoir’ I discovered another book about Cretin entitled: ‘Cretin Boy.’ This book was written by a graduate of the class of 1979. The second, ‘A Class Memoir,’ is by one of my classmates, Joe Delmont. It turns out that neither one was a romp down memory lane; at least not for me. Instead both books were a grab bag of other people’s memories; none of them patterned after my own.

For what it’s worth, both books, but especially ‘A Class Memoir,’ brought to mind just how isolated I felt a lot of the time relative to the experiences of my classmates. Reading ‘Memoir’ made me feel as if I was looking in on four years of high school that I only heard about in the homeroom, cafeteria, and after school.

To their credit, Amazon did a good job describing ‘Cretin Boy:’

‘Cretin High School, located in Saint Paul, Minnesota was a Catholic, all-male, military academy that brought unique twists to the already difficult high school experience. Cretin Boys, as they were called, were subject to the oppression of both church and state as they navigated the diverse teaching styles of Christian Brothers, military instructors, and lay teachers. Cretin Boy looks at those menial first jobs, takes you dancing with a girl at that first high school formal, and peels down the street in a Corvette-on-loan with a teen at the wheel. It is a coming-of-age story with a military dress code, a coming-to-faith story while smoking in the boy’s room.’

My classmate, Joe Delmont along with a group of friends, collected all the content for this second book of memories of our class and did a great job with: ‘Cretin ’61 A Class Memoir.’

Amazon described his book this way:

‘What Was It Like To Be Part of This Group?

Cretin ’61 was founded in 1871 as an all-male, blue-collar, Catholic, military high school, for day students, one that emphasized physical discipline and man-to-man directness to teach personal responsibility and excellence in athletics, academics, and career development as we grew from boys to men. This school ceased to exist when Cretin dropped mandatory JROTC and merged with Derham Hall High School. This book is a snapshot of our school days in 1957-1961.’

On a very personal level, the two books paint a fascinating picture of a time and place long since relegated to mostly old black and white photographs and the occasional color print of my high school years. But a time and period of my life better remembered by other people.

While the two books did a great job of rehashing old memories of high school; it was much more personal for me. The books really filled in a vacuum inside my head that had been there for over 61 years. It further reinforced the notion that my high school experiences were remarkably different than those of most of my classmates.

Reading the ‘Class Memoir,’ one can’t help but feel that many of my classmates who contributed to the book were truly reliving their ‘glory years.’ That’s not meant as a criticism but rather an acknowledgement that their experiences during those four years followed a different trajectory than mine did.

Raised in a single parent household (my mother left school after the sixth grade) where education was never talked about, I only had one distant cousin who seemed to ‘have it together.’ He was attending Cretin High School at the time, following in the footsteps of his two brothers. After that, he was going to college, as had his two brothers. Though never discussed, I had the distinct impression that ‘Buzz’ (Ronald Pizinger - later Doctor Pizinger) was the one to follow. So I naively thought I would too.

After being passed by with the first group of applicants, I only got into Cretin after someone dropped out, and I was next on their wait list. Lucky me! Both books brought back a plethora of memories; both good and sad but real and honest, nevertheless.

It truly was the best of times and the most trying - at times. It was what it was and both books pointed out the unique educational experience both my class of 1961 and the class of 1979 can hold dear to their heart.

I can’t change the fact that I felt like an outsider a lot of the time while I was attending Cretin. I still feel like an outsider some of the times but a much older one now and able to treasure the gifts I received there.

The Vanishing Classroom

In one of my past blogs, I shared my best effort to put together an All Class Reunion for my grade school. The Little French Church, May 31st. Unfortunately, that effort has fallen flat and only a half dozen folks have responded.  At about the same time that I decided to put that effort to rest, my old high school sent me a notice of a quasi-reunion of sorts.

It’s for an unofficial (but much welcomed) 61st class reunion for the Cretin High School Class of 1961. It’ll be held at a bar/restaurant in the nearby neighborhood. It’s more of a group effort by several classmates of mine than an officially sanctioned school affair. The reality is that many of our classmates have already passed and waiting another ten years for another class reunion probably isn’t too realistic unless it’s held in someone’s living room.

At about the same time I got the notice for this 61st class reunion, two books came to my attention about my old high school. Both were written by graduates of our all-boys military institution in Saint Paul.

The first is called ‘Cretin Boy’ by Jim Landwehr, a graduate of the class of 1979.

The second book was written by a classmate of mine who collected all the content for a book of memories of our class of 1961. Both books paint a vivid and honest portrait of that time period in my life as much as ‘they’ can remember it. Unfortunately, my own memory bank of my educational years is low on credit and almost in default.

The classrooms have vanished in all of my past halls of learning. From St. Louis Grade School to Cretin High School to the College of Saint Thomas, nothing has remained the same. Time, social changes and the inevitable march of progress has altered, erased or radically changed the face of education as I once knew it.

My earliest recollection of my formal education came from foggy brown-tinted photo plates nestled in the back of my head. There were fleeting images of creaking old wooden steps, the smell of old classrooms, wary nuns watching our every movement and poverty; even though we couldn’t recognize it at the time. It didn’t help that down the block were rows and rows of run-down tenements housing indigent and homeless people.

I don’t remember much about first or second grade when my sister and I walked to St. Louis Catholic Grade School each day. By third grade our mother had built a home in Highland Park, a half hour streetcar ride away. Each morning we would take the trolley to downtown St. Paul with our mother. Each night, my sister and I would take the rickety transit back home again alone.

Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

Unlike a lot of the schools around our home in Highland Park, St. Louis Grade School was anything but vanilla and main stream. Students came from the surrounding neighborhoods like Irving Park, East Saint Paul, West Saint Paul, and the projects behind the capitol. It was an eclectic, mostly poor, somewhat mix-race group of students; clearly reflective of their communities of origin.

The teachers were all nuns. They were tough-minded, serious, no bullshit kind of instructors who had the full backing of our parents. We understood that punishment at school was always favored in lieu of a call to our parents. Catholic doctrine had a firm grip on our young lives and followed us home as well. The grade school closed in 1962 and the building razed in 1966.

photo credit: Jerry Hoffman

For many of us, high school proved to be a pivotal point in our lives. Even more than college, it was where the stumbles of youth were corrected by the realities of our teenage years and finally solidified into the more mature footsteps that carried us through our collegiate and/or skill building future.

Reflecting back on that time period in Minnesota history and my own historical tracks, I realize now that attending Cretin High School back in the late 50’s and early 60’s was a unique learning experience. The idea of an all-boys military school seems strange today with the sensibilities bubbling up from younger generations. Back then, it was our reality and not far out of line with the general mood of the country and our parents.

photo credit: Jerry Hoffman

In retrospect, it was a turning point in the history of our country. The beginning of the end of that idyllic plain vanilla existence our parents loved so much and wanted us to emulate. The old neighborhood was morphing through all kinds of changes just as we were. It was end of Doris Day and her’ Doggie in the Window.’ It was Frank Sinatra and his version of cool slowly being drowned out by the heavy drumbeat and bass guitar of Rock and Roll. It was hot rods and tail fins and poodle skirts that only hinted of secrets underneath. The Cold War was inescapable but it hardly permeated our existence the same way Rock and Roll and the first warm feelings of affection for the opposite sex did.

Cretin High School was a different kind of school but those of us attending it really weren’t any different from our friends at other schools. We came from all walks of life but for the most part were solidly middle class. Back in the late fifties, Cretin’s tentacles spread out across the Twin Cities in one last grasp at prospects before newer Catholic High Schools in the suburbs started to pick from the litter.

Cretin was a molder of men, a change-maker, and a foundation upon which to build one’s own values, aspirations, judgements, and creative hunger. Like ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream,’ my rag-tag group of Cretin friends have scattered with the winds of time. There are only a couple of guys left that I’ve managed to string together with a loose fitting web of memories that we can cling to. It was the best of times…most of the time. Now in retrospect, it seems even better than that.

Following in my cousin’s footsteps, the College of Saint Thomas was the next step in educating myself. It started out normal enough with two years of learning then hit the preverbal bump in the road. Two losing quarters at the University of Minnesota prompted an invitation from the administration to take a break. Ever watchful, Uncle Sam welcomed me into the United States Army, sent me around the country and left me with the GI Bill to finish my college education back at St Thomas.

Then living abroad, starting a career in writing and television, and I was finally taking my first tentative steps toward a lifelong career in what I loved to do.

All my old classrooms have now disappeared into that dark, murky pool called fast-fading memories. Along with a few scattered classmates, all I have are some old photos and mind-pictures that keep morphing from vapid to vague. Thankfully, the lingering effects of hard work, focus and determination, long since hammered into my soft core brain, hasn’t gone away. Even if the classrooms have.

The World I Used to Know

A recent effort to organize a grade school class reunion reminded me just how much my world has changed over time. I attended a small Catholic grade school in downtown Saint Paul in the late Fifties. The school closed in the early Sixties. It had become a footnote in the history books and as my classmates passed on, I realized that all the vestiges of that era were disappearing.

My wife is from Wabasha, Minnesota. Born and raised on a farm, she remembers when going into town with her siblings and parents was a ‘big deal.’ Nothing much seemed to change on Main Street until around the mid-Sixties. Then gradually the old regime of town folk began to pass away and newcomers came in with new ideas for growing Wabasha out of its rigid agrarian past. Old Wabasha was also becoming a footnote in the history books.

Arianna Huffington, creator of the Huffington Post and numerous books, has an interesting take on the current social, economic changes taking place in America today. One of her more recent books is entitled ‘Third World America.’

Ms. Huffington sees the share of our economy devoted to making things of value shrinking while the share devoted to valuing made-up things (credit-swap derivatives, anyone?) is expanding. She calls it the financialization of our economy.  Another more caustic description would be the Enronization of our economy. Thomas Friedman captured a lot of this thinking in his book entitled: ‘Thank You for Being Late.’

Friedman sees this country and the world-at-large in a new age of acceleration. Triggered by three factors; the market, Mother Nature and Moore’s Law, he believes the world is rapidly changing and things are being done differently now. The market and Moore’s Law (rapid change of technology) along with climate change, population growth and biodiversity loss are all coupled together for this exponential growth in many things.

Software used to be the bottleneck. Now that is overtaking everything. It has become a com-pound multiplier of Moore’s Law. Welcome to our ever-changing world where nothing ever remains the same. The only constant is change and in our capitalistic society the illusion that newer is better.  

Not to be undone, there recently was an article written in Financial Advisor Magazine that warned about ‘The Coming Shock That Will Transform the U.S. economy.’ The basic gist of the article was that there is a new wave of transformative change sweeping over the U.S. economy. Think of it as ‘Future Shock,’ ‘Third Wave,’ and ‘Death of the American Dream’ all on steroids. This tele shock, or the rise in telecommunications, is the major impetus for these changes.

In this case, the author states that ‘among the big losers will be the American upper middle class, especially those with jobs connected to information technology and those who can work from home.’ The article then adds on a less than hopeful note that ‘The tele shock is likely to continue for a considerable period of time, perhaps longer than the China Shock.’ To add a little icing on that cake of despair, the article ends with: ‘It is conventional wisdom that “software is eating the world.”’

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think much of what the author says is true. My only complaint is his implied conclusion that this means the end of the world as we know it. I think a calmer approach is what is called for. One of the reasons I love my coffee and chat sessions, is because of the rich mix of topics that we cover.

One of the more interesting topics we discussed recently was whether or not the ‘American Dream’ was still alive and coupled with that was the question of ‘what it takes to become successful in today’s world?’ American capitalism has painted one version of success but now younger generations have created their own ideas of the same icon. It’s a world inhabited by Bitcoins, NFTs, Metaverse and other newfound forms of electronic currency.

Union Depot (photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society)

Past generations believed that with hard work, sacrifice and some luck, one could attain the American Dream. For most folks, that was translated into a nice home, a new car in the driveway and other material possessions.   Later generations like those of my kids and grandchildren came to believe that balance in one’s life was more important than thirty years at ABC Manufacturing and a gold watch in retirement.

So the, question in a question, was whether or not one could attain the American Dream in today’s world of high prices, limited resources, constant change, and a need for balance in one’s life.

While it wouldn’t be an easy road to stroll, I believe one could attain success in life if the influences of American capitalism are viewed with a jaundice eye and one focuses on what it was that made a person truly happy. And that definition could or would be different for everyone involved.

This whole idea of who seems very satisfied with their life in addition to reaching a notable symbol of wealth came edging back into my consciousness when I ordered two books from my favorite library out in cyber space, ‘Better World Books.’

I’ve been around long enough to personally know a few people who have (by American cultural standards) attained the American Dream. But you’d seldom guess it by looking at or talking to them. For example, I have another friend who came from modest means and yet has been a millionaire plus for well over 30 years. Now you’d never know it by looking at his lifestyle, the kind of cars he and his wife drive or their other material accoutrements. He takes great pride in the fact that he’s had ‘serious money’ for a very long time but never flaunted it or made it known to anyone except a few select people. He believes there is great strength in understatement. I couldn’t agree more.

Younger generations want more balance in their lives. They don’t want to become slaves to their jobs. While that is admirable and commendable, it also makes it much harder to gain financial freedom and choice without some sacrifice. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Just as ‘success’ is a personal goal and achievement, so too is financial freedom. I’m old enough and, and perhaps, foolish enough to believe that one can have balance and yet attain some degree of financial achievement if other ‘truths’ of the marketplace are understood and accepted.

No job is secure. You’re on your own. At times it feels like the world is conspiring against you. Don’t get caught up in all the hype ‘of anything.’ Cover your costs. Cover your ass. Let the buyer beware. Be kind to others. Work more than expected. Do more than expected. Have goals and know where you want to go and where you want to end up.

These include working past a normal 9 to 5 work day, networking, making financial sacrifices when ‘needs’ takes precedent over ‘wants.’ Any review of ‘Success Magazine’ or other self-improvement web sites can give you a long list of steps to take to become successful in your personal life and financially independent. Homogenized though they may be, it all comes down to working hard, being sensibly thrifty and making smart decisions. My wife has said on several occasions: “It wasn’t our regular jobs that got us to where we are today!”

Old St. Paul River Bank (photo credit: Minnesota Historical Society)

At the turn of the century, a series of magazine articles about an orphan boy raised on the wrong side of the tracks who found success in hard work and determination. Maybe after all these years, Horatio Alger was really on to something after all?