Poolside Wisdom

We’ve been coming to Palm Springs on and off for the last twenty years. Over that period of time, I’ve met some pretty interesting folks. A place like Palm Springs seems to attract a wide variety of folks from all over the quirky spectrum. By quirky I mean, interesting, unique and not someone you’d find in most suburban neighborhoods.

One of the first persons we met was a retired medical director of a large hospital system in town. He’d been a Green Beret medic in Vietnam and had read my book ‘Love in the A Shau.’ His questions and comments on the book indicated he had read it thoroughly and approved of my descriptions of life for the average soldier in Vietnam. I couldn’t have asked for higher praise than that.

Then there was St. Joseph of Starbucks. St. Joseph was a semi-retired single guy who haunted Starbucks from roughly 4:00am when they opened until about 7:00am when he went to work. I’ve written about him in a couple of blogs. He seemed to be the local councilor for homeless folks, grand inquisitor for local events, and group coordinator for all the strays that seemed to gravitate to the coffee shop in those early morning hours. He was a colorful character worthy of a novel treatment or stage presence.

There were several folks in the Palm Springs Writers Guild who deserved mention for their excellent self-promotion and marketing skills.

Then there is Ron, the pool man.

I’ve talked before about my ‘coffee and chat’ sessions from last summer in Apple Valley. Sharon liked to whimsically call them my ‘playdates’; a moniker I grabbed with pride. Those were impromptu get-togethers with friends in lieu of larger gatherings or social events. These informal, ad-hoc cerebral salons began casually enough but pretty quickly evolved into meeting these friends at least twice a week in a variety of safe locations.

It was always at a safe distance and covered a wide variety of different meeting spots like a coffee shop outdoor patio, a regional park, my back patio or a nearby lake.

I fully intended to continue this new tradition when I returned to Palm Springs. Unfortunately, the Palm Springs Writers Guild was only hosting ‘zoom’ meetings and because that audience tends to be older, they were reticent to meet in person.

It fell to our pool man for me to rediscover the joy of the salon. In this case, it was an impromptu talk about chemicals one afternoon that led to his conservative leanings. After a couple of these discussions, Ron and I fell into a pattern of noontime discussions around the pool twice a week. I think he timed his visits to coincide with our having lunch outside each day. It became a familiar pattern.

I was happy to find someone to continue my coffee and chat sessions even without the coffee and pastry, mandatory for my regular C & C sessions last summer. What differentiated these Southern California cerebral celebrations was the vast political difference between Ron and me.

Ron listens to conservative talk radio each morning as he peruses the internet for his daily stock purchases or sales. He is a lifelong Republican and thought Rush Limbaugh was a saint. Sufficient it to say, we don’t’ agree on a lot of political topics…..except we’ve found that we both have found room for a lot of middle ground. He calls me a centralist and he means it in the nicest way.

What I’ve discovered here under the palm trees and warm winter sun is the same hunger for an exchange of knowledge, ideas, theories, thoughts and opinions all exchanged in a respectful manner. Despite the deep political divide between us, Ron and I are no different from any of my wonderful C & C friends back in Minnesota.

It’s great to have found someone like Ron to help feed my need for intellectual stimulation and exploring new thoughts and ideas. It’s a wonderful use of my time in an era of political stagnation, lemming attention to social media and distractions all around us. This is one of the simpler things in life. Different surroundings but still a great salon.

Invisible Walls

Being on Facebook can leave one open to out of the blue comments sometimes. Posting pictures, attitudes, blogs or other statements sometimes encourages inquiries whether they are invited or not. It’s happened to me on several occasions. A name, often times unrecognizable at first, will mysteriously appear on my page with no hint as to our past connection. It often clouds my re-collection of past friendships, relationships and encounters with old acquaintances.

When this occasionally happens, I have to wonder how they found me in cyber space. Trail blazing, walking point or just plain stalking might be the answer. Nevertheless, I’ve been found. Then the mystery begins.

Back in 1999, noted intellectual Paul Krugman said that by 2005 the internet would be no more influential than the fax machine. Guess he got that a little wrong. The internet has given me a world-wide audience. Though still small in numbers, it means exposure in foreign lands I never knew I would ever reach.

I now have a worldwide audience whether I intended for that to happen or not. It’s minuscule but it’s real. My writing platform circles the globe from the United States to the United Kingdom. It covers India, skips through Asia and into Russia then back to Minnesota again. It also makes side trips to about a dozen other foreign countries and at least three-fourths of all the states.

Who are these folks that have been visiting my Facebook page and reading my blogs? Their names, gender and age are still a mystery. Yet their presence is very real according to the cyber bots that monitor such things.

Google Analytics and Facebook data have been helpful in deciphering where my readers are coming from. It’s not an exact science and I certainly haven’t gotten a total grasp on my readership but it’s been most helpful in appreciating the scope and breath of my coverage.

When a name appears out of the blue, hinting of old familiarity, the mystery only deepens. Often times I respond to their comment or inquiry immediately but then they just disappear once again. The reconnection is swift and vapid then becomes ever elusive once more. Like touching a hot stretch of beach, that foot-to-sand encounter isn’t coming back anytime soon.

This digital tap dance in cyber space can be very confusing. I don’t know why they made the initial contact in the first place if they didn’t want to continue the conversation? Perhaps it was curiosity in connecting or pondering my response. In either case, they decided not to pursue the connection any further.

Who knows? They may have been there for important milestones in your life but are no longer even a smudge on the relationship radar. What happened to those folks? Perhaps they didn’t follow through or fell short of what I expected from them. Perhaps I failed them and the ending was mutual.

Of course, no one can make someone else their friend if they don’t want to be. It’s terribly subjective and handicapped by a less than thorough knowledge of their motives. Were there extraneous factors, whether recognized or not, that contributed to the demise of that friendship? Was it something I did or didn’t do? Was it something I said even in honesty that was taken the wrong way?

Some folks can be brutally honest in terms of their relationships. They separate family (with all those obligatory ties) from friends and acquaintances (where they get to decide whom they want to be associated with.) They pick and choose their friends based on connections, associations and tie-ins all for their own self-benefit and satisfaction. ‘It’s nothing personal,’ as my boss used to say, ‘it’s just business.’

Friendships and relationships can be by their very nature a vapid and elusive bond to attain and maintain. Fleeting friendships based on circumstance are easy to recognize. An MOS partnership in the Armed Forces evaporates as soon as discharge papers are served. That’s understood, accepted and welcomed for a return to civilian life. A close relationship in the classroom can wither away and die when outstate jobs or opportunities beckon. Neighbors and neighborhoods fade from memory after the moving van has arrived. It’s all part and parcel of the ebb and flow of normal life.

Some time ago, an old acquaintance of mine resurfaced after 58 years of ‘what ever happened to…?’ She said she was surprised to see that I had become a writer in my retirement. Another friend appeared after 52 years, also intrigued by my novel writing and local speaking engagements. They both made their first overture just as others had randomly left a message on my Facebook page. My first reaction was a refrain from that old 60’s Rascals song ‘I’d like to get to know you.’ But their response seemed to be ‘I don’t think so. Just curious here.’

It’s not like I was seeking a return to the intimacy that we once shared decades earlier. I alluded to that fact in my return correspondence but their resolve was firm. Their curiosity didn’t extend beyond that first timid comment in reconnecting. Perhaps it was more curiosity than anything else. Fair enough but too bad.

Photo Credit: Jerry Hoffman

It’s been several lifetimes since I’ve seen any of those folks. I assume I never will again. So I wish for all of them health and happiness and good memories. It’s the Great Go-Around in this our Circle of Life.

Like most mysteries of life, there are no easy answers. I just wanted to revisit an old friendship but they seemed intent on letting it remain a mystery. Another way of saying, you have your memories, I have my history. And the ‘old we’ probably won’t cross paths anytime soon in our respective futures. In other words, let it go and move on.

So that’s what I’ll do with one last melody humming in my head. As Woody Guthrie once sang ‘So long, it’s been good to know ya.’ And I’ll add “thanks for the memories.”

People Who Disappoint

It sounds terribly harsh, haughty and perhaps even cruel. People in your past life who disappointed you. Past friends or acquaintances whose actions didn’t live up to your expectations; real or otherwise. People who didn’t follow through or fell short of what you expected from them.

Of course, it’s terribly subjective and handicapped by a less than thorough knowledge of their motives. Were there extraneous factors, whether recognized or not, that contributed to the demise of that friendship? Was it something you did or didn’t do? Was it something you said, even in honesty, that was taken the wrong way?

No matter what the contributing factors might have been you’ve come to the conclusion that whatever you once had with these folks has now’ left the station.’ On one hand it’s sad. On the other it’s just life giving you a poke on the backside and reminding us all that nothing and no one is perfect.

Some folks can be brutally honest in terms of their relationships. They separate family (with all those obligatory ties) from friends and acquaintances (where they get to decide whom they want to be associated with.) They pick and choose their friends based on connections, associations and tie-ins all for their own self-benefit and satisfaction. ‘It’s nothing personal,’ as my boss used to say, ‘it’s just business.’

Friendships and relationships can be by their very nature a very vapid and elusive bond to attain and hold on to. Fleeting friendships based on circumstance are easy to recognize. A partnership in the Armed Forces evaporates as soon as discharge papers are served. That’s understood, accepted and welcomed for a return to civilian life. A close relationship in school can wither away and die when outstate jobs or opportunities beckon. Neighbors and neighborhoods fade from memory after the moving van has arrived. It’s all part and parcel of the ebb and flow of normal life.

Photo courtesy of Jerry Hoffman

But what about those friendships that you thought were meant for greater things. Something special you wanted to hold on to but couldn’t…her fault or yours, it doesn’t matter anymore. The clichés are rampant when describing what happened or might have happened. ‘There were promises not met or kept.’ ‘We were moving along in life.’ ‘People change.’ ‘They/she just wasn’t that into you.’ And the one that best describes them all because it tells us nothing: ‘Things happen.’ Whatever once was had become vaporous and vague. Then like the morning mist wrapping itself around a tree trunk it slowly slipped away.

It seems to me that some folks go through life on auto-pilot. They never stop to question anything that life throws at them. Instead of designing their life as they would want it or like it or wish for it to be they simply accept what is lying there on top of the morning covers. I think that’s what happens to a lot of friendships. They’re taken for granted until those innocuous bonds that held it together have slowly unraveled and broken apart, leaving nothing but memories where a welcoming smile used to be.

A mental-meandering trip back in time usually reveals little. So what happened to those folks?

Did they change or did you? Whose expectations weren’t met? Was it your baggage or theirs? Did they move on or did you move on with your life and in the process leave behind what once was or might have been. Did they disappoint you or did you screw up and lose what might have been a wonderful friendship or relationship?

Like most mysteries of life, there are no easy answers…if any at all. What once was is no longer relevant and if that bothers you then the onus is on you to make it better the next time around.

As the saying goes: “To have a friend you must first be a friend.” They’re still out there…those wonderful folks who could be your friend. You just have to be generous in kindness and spirit.

I guess we (or perhaps just I) have to make the effort and accept the fact that we might be disappointed. 

I Lost a Friend Today

I lost a friend today…in fact, quite a few over the years.

The list is extensive and began back in grade school, continued on into high school, college, the service, various jobs as well as an odd assortment of creative endeavors. Lumped all together they make up a wonderful cross section of men and women who touched my life in so many different ways.

Some were the result of forced marriages of education or religion or family structures. Others were self-elected and directed encounters of my own choosing. More often than not, it was some commonality of purpose or interest that held us together and bonded our mutual appreciation for each others' company. From the playground to after-school activities to sports to encounters with the opposite sex.

Then as a part of the ever-constant shifting of principles and paradigms and life-altering events in our lives, those friendships came to a close. That pattern has been played out and repeated most of my life. Men, women and couples included.

The first inkling I had that something was changing in my life was right after high school graduation and the immediate purging of our senior ranks for parts unknown. That was even more reinforced at my fiftieth high school reunion when I found myself in the company of old men.

The second inkling of change came during my time in the service. Not only were the friendships with bunkmates, squad members and office workers fleeting at best, even coming home on leave was so painful that I only did it a couple of times.

I hung that moniker on Daniel, my protagonist in “Love in the A Shau,” when he tells his girlfriend that he might not be home for the duration of his time in the service because it would be too painful to reenter civilian life for such a brief period of time only to leave again so quickly.

Returning home after the service brought back that reality in cold harsh terms. Old college buddies had already graduated and moved on to their first jobs. A relationship started before the service gradually lost its luster and lust as maturity and a desire for change found both of us heading off in two different directions.

Then after college, relationships began, endured and ended on a regular basis. It began with my time overseas. Then my first real job in television followed by an assortment of jobs; good and bad. Finally the gradual withdrawal from work so I could focus on a new career as a writer. It was a pattern that was to play out my entire life…and continues to do so even to this day.

Returning home to Minnesota during the Christmas holidays only highlights the gradual shifting of loyalties and friendships. Much like my 50th Cretin high school reunion, I find myself in a world with individuals who have changed their lives as much as I have mine.

Once-a-year Christmas cards with their obligatory yearly update are always fun to peruse and reminisce about past times spent well. But it also brings home the realization that we’ve all gotten older and moved on.

Not long ago, I got a notice from my old high school that yet another of our classmates had died. I never knew him very well. He was handsome, always had the girls, was great at baseball and went east to college after graduation. Now I was staring at his obituary and looking at some pictures of his past life…all neat and clean and final. It gave me reason to pause, reflect for a moment on the luck I’ve had in my life and then think about friends; old and new.

The passing of friendships can be a time of sadness or a joy in the experiences shared. The one bright light is the occasional reconnection with old friends from our distant past. It hasn’t happened too often but when it does, a plethora of pleasant memories usually follow. Despite the fact that we’ve gone off in totally different directions since our last encounter, we somehow manage to reconnect on a personal level which isn’t dependent on our past lives together or apart.

So I’ll continue to mine that vein of past friendships all the while trying to grow new ones at the same time.

Saint Joseph of Starbucks

Every morning at 5:00 am, in the Starbucks located in the heart of Palm Springs, Saint Joseph awaits to council, advise and administer to the daily needs of his flock.

He appears at his corner table. Always the same table, always the same time, always the same place. Seven days a week since at least 2000 when I first started going to Palm Springs.

The only variable is his entourage for that particular day and the host of visiting dignitaries who shuffle by for their coffee fix and always find time to stop at his office for a

brief exchange of wisdom before melting into the night once again.

Joseph is an older gentleman, probably in his mid-seventies. He’s always cheerful, ready with a smile and a laugh. He has a pleasant demeanor that never varies with the seasons or time of day. I don’t know if Joseph is married or gay or straight. And it hardly matters, especially in a place like Palm Springs.  He is a councilor, advisor, cheerleader, friend, listener and seeker of the good in everyone he meets.

For many people, Joseph is their early morning elixir for what ails them on that particular day. Unlike the old men who gather at coffee shops around the world to blather on about nothing and expose their ignorance with Monday morning quarterbacking, second-guessing politicians and berating the government, Joseph is articulate, thoughtful and intelligent.

His entourage varies from day to day as do his visitors.

There is an older woman who is usually at his side. I can’t tell if they’re married, living together or just friends in need of companionship. She seems to be the yin for his yang.

And an old curmudgeon who is usually bitching about something and is always countered by Joseph’s calm response. The man is like a bad cliché but he doesn’t know it or seem to care. He just keeps embarrassing himself with his statements. Joseph is the man’s patient sounding board. I sometimes think Joseph’s nickname should be chuckles for his quick wit and logical response to the man’s anal chattering on about nothing.

Others come and go. A few linger but most just sit or stand for a little while in Joseph’s corner and then move on with their lives.

The conversations vary by the day. One time it might be the local news sprinkled with criticism of national politics. The next might be the weather; summer is hot, the rest of the year is wonderful. The conversations are open, honest and usually bent toward the left, which is not surprising considering the community that hosts them.

One time Joseph and his merry band of mischief-makers moved all the furniture around to suit their taste that day. They called themselves “Interior Desiccators.” Management wasn’t pleased and moved the furniture back in place. The next day, the game began again. Joseph won and management capitulated.

Another day, they dissected a local play. They decided it was Dr. Cold Fingers who was the proctologist. They ran lines of their own: “If you twitter my…I’ll google your”…and “two pickles short of a hamburger. ” None of it was really funny except that it was five in the morning and the caffeine hadn’t worked its magic yet. So they thought themselves hilarious.

Crossword puzzles are always a hit and usually completed in short order with a host of quick minds attacking the empty blocks. Often times, arguments arise and the dictionary (part of Joseph’s arsenal of support material) settles the answer.

The cadre of visitors varies each day but some stand out in my mind.

There is the younger woman who lives in her wheelchair. She moves around by using her crutches as walking sticks. She has the sad eyes of a fawn that has just lost her mother. But she has many friends at Starbucks and she relishes their company. They relish hers.

Then there is the muscle man, built solid as a rock, who walks a toy poodle. The dog is his trusted companion and he loves that animal. Dogs come and go. There’s even a dish of water for them outside every morning.

A day laborer stops by often. He always wears a knit hat even in 125-degree summer heat. And he always seems to be moving from one job to another.

There is always the man in one corner with his flashlight, scanning the pages of the LA Times and NY Times because the damn lighting is so bad inside.

Numerous gay men come by. Many of them argue like any old married couple. The arguments are always the same, only the gender is different.

A Black businessman with a ready smile is there every morning. He is always impeccably dressed in a white shirt and tie even in the stifling summer heat.

For a short while, there was even a guy who took a fancy to me. His gaydar must have been out of whack that week.

By 7:00 or 7:30, Joseph is gone. I have absolutely no idea where he goes off. But it doesn’t really matter. Joseph is sure to be back the next day, same place, same time. There will be the same flock of casual friends who look forward to his ready smile, quick wit and easy to swallow dose of friendship. For many folks, that’s all that’s needed to face another day and their reality, if only for a moment in time.

Starbucks reminds me of the Triangle Bar on the West Bank and the Amsterdam Coffee houses of my past. Only now I’m just a casual observer, taking a lot of notes.

And thinking what a wonderful play this story would make.