The Next Plateau

As she got older, my mother used to speak despairingly about ‘old people.’ At the time, she was in her mid-eighties and my step-father in his mid-nineties. They were still dancing occasionally and playing cards at the church at least three or four times a week. They did at least one or two cross country road trips a year and made special trips to Vegas too. They had an active and busy lifestyle.

I was always a bit embarrassed when my mother would begin one of her lectures about those crabby, complaining, always negative old folks. Whether at church, the senior center or dance halls, some of the old people would complain about their aches and pains. They didn’t want to pay taxes. They didn’t like how government governed. Their sporting teams weren’t being well coached and kids nowadays (oh, don’t get me started.) My mother wanted none of it.

At first, I thought that old people shouldn’t complain about other old people. I get it now. If your mind is in a different place and your attitude is better, then objecting to all that group’s negativity is perfectly normal. As the advertisement goes: Age is just a number and mine’s unlisted. Except it should read: Age is a mind-set and mine is still in search of more…of anything.

While my body can’t deny it’s age or the toll that decades of running has done to my joints; my mind is still clear and functioning everyday (I hope). My social skills have only improved marginally and my wife has all but given up on improving me in that area. Yet, overall, reaching seventy or eighty or ninety for that matter counts less than where your mind, attitude, aptitude and focus is at.

This is the next (or next to last) plateau for almost all of us. Class reunions, family gatherings, group photo shoots all remind us that there is no time to be wasting. A closer examination and we find that someone is usually missing from the photograph. As the cliché’s go; ‘Appreciate what you have now and not into the future.’ ‘Count each day as a gift’ and ‘enjoy the moment while it lasts.’

My mother wasn’t the most subtle when it came to criticizing other’s behavior but I think her heart was in a good place. Looking back on her life, working career and later on, the life she built with my step-father, I think she was just grabbing every opportunity she could to continue growing and learning and living. She got it right.

Treasure your friends and family. They’re the only ones you got for the journey ahead. Accept the aches and pains of growing old, keep your body and head moving every day, and be grateful each morning that you’ve got another day to do it all over again.

Living in the Past

 For a lot of folks my age, the final tabulation is near completion. Most of our past accomplishments count for little in today’s marketplace. There are few laurels left to adorn and accolades too often reference times past instead of the future. For those of us still moving forward there are new standards to focus on to keep life interesting and fulfilling.

“So what’s with this nostalgic rearview mirror look back at life?” my wife asks me frequently. I respond defensively that it’s an important part of my current writing stage. Sharon finds it a lot of hooey. Go figure!

The reason Sharon and I have been happily married for over forty-six years is simply because eighty percent of the time we go in her direction. Not only is it easier that way; quite honestly I don’t care. Now Sharon would argue that figure is about twenty-five percent short of what it should be. But that’s another blog entirely.

To continue with that mathematical analysis, fifteen percent of the time Sharon and I are in total agreement on the most important issues in our lives; raising our children, finances, etc. Five percent of the time there is no agreement and no compromise between us. We have simply learned to live with our rock-solid five-percent differences. One such discussion point is my ‘living in the past.’

Sharon is adamant that one should not dwell on the past.” Let the memories fall where they may and move on with your life,” She will argue. I feel quite the opposite. I believe that if your feet are firmly planted in ‘today’ you can go back and realistically evaluate your past for what it really was.

   

 At times, I’ve been made to feel that too much of my writing is about my past. It’s certainly true that some of my writing references back to the sixties. But I refuse to do is live my life by default. An examination of my many past lives lends clarity to my present life and fuels story ideas for the future.

I would argue that I’m not stuck on the past as much as I’m exploring new territories by examin-ing old experiences, relationships, events and other phenomena that impacted my life for a lifetime. One argument I hear occasionally is to just focus on the future because ‘isn’t that where it’s at?’ Maybe but I think I can do both or all three.

In my world, I am moving forward by recapturing my past in books and plays and movies and songs. I am also claiming a place in the present and peering forward for a taste of the future.

      

Mywestern novels were born in the back pew of the St. Louis Church chapel during daily mass in grade school. They were enhanced by black and white images on the big screen of the Gem Theater on West Seventh Street in Saint Paul. They are a salute to an old grainy black and white John Wayne and John Ford images of Americana. They are the embodiment of a youthful imagination held captive by the excitement and thrills of riding horseback on a Saturday after-noon.

‘Lovein the A Shau’ is about recapturing the confusion and excitement of growing up in the sixties and time spent in the military. It is a semi-autobiographical journey back in time of youthful exuberance and fond hopes for the future.

‘Debris;the trilogy’ is a reflection of life in Palm Springs on ‘the other side.’ It is about capturing the many facades of this palace of smoke and mirrors. It is the surrounding mountains and rough-hewn individuals who traverse its summits and canyons and plateaus.

           

‘Followthe Cobbler’ is a mind-game set to words. It’s an adventure around the world created in lieu of that tramp steamer I never got to sail around the world.

‘ApartmentManagement’ reflects my life as a landlord and the lessons learned therein.

So in the end I won’t apologize for a focus on the past when my feet are firmly planted in the present and my head is facing forward. I’ll keep moving in many directions even as I let my eyes drift to that rearview mirror etched in my brain. On that final sunset ride I want to be able to say that I lived my life the way I wanted to. No apologies needed or given.

A Future Eclipsed

Milton Pizinger Funeral Card

My cousin died a couple of weeks ago. We were never that close. I saw him once at a funeral and fulfilled a promise I’d made fifty years earlier.

An early morning phone call from my sister ended any chance I’d have to see him one last time. While it gave me pause it also allowed me to think about his life spent here on earth. When I was growing up, his was a future seemingly set in stone, predictable and admirable.

Mother and I

As a very impressionable young man, I remember always hearing about this icon at our extended family gatherings. Aunts and Uncles praised his perfect life, wonderful wife and soaring career. ‘Cousin M was what we should all strive to become’ my sister and I were told over and over again. He was the example of what our life could be like if we worked hard and got a good education. But life sometimes has a way of throwing us curve balls when we least expect it.

Cousin M was born and raised in Saint Paul but moved to Irving, California after his divorce in the early sixties. It was quite scandalous back then because of the grand façade my mother and aunts had painted for the younger set. Cousin M’s perfect world imploded when marital imperfections rose to the surface.

Me in my Cretin uniform

I always held this cousin in high regard not only because of his real world accomplishments but also because he got me into Cretin High School at a critical juncture in my life. 

For three seasons I promised myself I’d stop by to see him when we were near the coast. But, of course, family obligations, writing distractions, and daily living kept that elusive goal further and further away until it was too late.

That was the first time I’d heard about divorce and witnessed the cloak of secrecy that our extended Catholic family quickly draped over my favorite icon. Over subsequent years my cousin got remarried and crafted a new life course for himself. An old future altered was made into a new and satisfying one.

But others weren’t so lucky. For them the future as planned didn’t always turn out as expected.

Cousin M’s younger brother was a well-regarded and beloved physician in town. He had his future planned up to and including early retirement, world travel and a focus on genealogy studies, reading for pleasure and more time with his wife and family. He was truly a ‘nice guy’ and deserved a wonderful future. Unfortunately a fatal heart attack at fifty-eight forever ended those plans.

Old KTCA Building

When I began my television career there was a program director who seemed to have it made. He was young, smart and ambitious. Unfortunately he had gotten married too early (his words not mine) and by the time he got to our station his eyes had begun to peruse the yearlings on staff. He hooked up with one and kept it secret to no one for years until his wife finally cut the cord and set him adrift. I think he ended up at some small station out west and ended his career there. Makes you wonder what he might have accomplished if he had kept his anchor at bay.

Another man I know made a name for himself in local politics, had the perfect family, a professional career that soared above the rest and wise investments that made him rich.  Then, venturing into the ‘mile high club’ wrecked his marriage, stained his political image and forever altered his predictable future.

One of the richest men in Minnesota had the reputation as one of the toughest wheeler-dealers in town. He grew his wealth and disregarded true friendships at the whim of a dollar bill. But then the big C raised its ugly head and six months to live forever altered his predictable future.

 

He told others he wanted to travel more after a trip to Europe had opened up a whole new world of experiences for him. But a legacy of disregard for others limited his scope of friends to just his immediate family and they didn’t much like to travel. The obits all painted wonderful portraits of his life but most of us in the know just smiled. It was a future unrealized and in the end, pretty sad.

It seems to me that there are three kinds of fair. The World’s Fair, the State Fair and the County Fair. The rest of life isn’t fair.

Time and again I’ve run into folks whose perfectly predictable future became unraveled through divorce, illness or unwise career decisions. Some were by choice and others by happenstance. But each and everyone found a future unrealized.

There’s an old quote by George Bernard Shaw: “The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.”

I never cease to be amazed at the seemingly blind wanderings of some of those around me. Whether or not it is age-appropriate seems to be their main mantra. Having found a new cache of time in their retirement, they fill their hours with meaningless jaunts to the grocery store or in front of television set because the time is theirs to waste.

Worst yet are those who wax philosophically about the ‘best times of their lives.’ Like Bruce Springsteen’s’ ‘Glory Days’ they want to relive the past and hold on to what once was…instead of embracing their present day situation.

My Family

Guess I’m naïve enough to believe that the best is yet to come. Then on my death bed I’ll realize it was ‘all good’ because what was bad is over and what didn’t work out is past.

For most of those folks just mentioned it was a future unrealized. For the rest of us it’s

another tomorrow just waiting to be painted with bright colors of discovery, imagination and wonder…and no regrets…at all.

Doing the Wabasha Shuffle

I’ve been doing the Wabasha shuffle for 40 plus years now. It started out when I was captivated by this brilliant blond from work with a worldly view of life and as well as a vivacious personality. She had been raised on a farm down south and I thought it would be interesting to visit that foreign environment.

Gradually the Wabasha shuffle matured into weekend visits to her parents farm, then their home in town and finally now to the nursing home where her father is residing with his Alzheimers disease. Her mother still lives in town and pretends she’s on her own. Yet it’s only because of weekly visits by her children and daily visits by town folk that she is able to live out her illusion of independence.

A farm in the family wasn’t what I thought it would be. When the kids were small, I had this idyllic vision of “Dick and Jane visit Grandpa’s Farm.”

Unfortunately reality painted quite a different picture. Grandpa was still a working farmer and had no time for little kids running behind his tractor. So Melanie spent her time trying to catch feral farm cats (good luck with that) and Brian wandered through the barn, finding hiding places up in the lofts.

Nothing much has changed in Wabasha as is often the case in small town America. But like so many others before me, I’ve shifted and changed and morphed into different personalities as the sands of time carried me from one career to the next and one lifestyle to another.

To the town folk of Wabasha, I’ve always been ‘one of them city boys.’ I stopped trying to make inroads into their conversations a long time ago. Farmers regarded me with even more suspicion because of my city ties. Imagine their collective consternation when one of their own married a big city fella.

On our last visit to Wabasha, even my uniform of the day was wrong. I was wearing my trail running shoes, jeans I hadn’t worn in six months, a black t-shirt that read’ I love SF,’ my Galway jacket and a baseball cap with ‘writer’ inscribed on it. Little did I know that the real uniform of the day was boots and jeans, sweatshirts (Twins led the Vikings with the U.S. Army coming up a solid third) cammie jackets and baseball caps (again the Twins were leading the Vikings)

So often going back home means going back in time. But as Bob Dylan famously said there is ‘no direction home.’ Sadly, it can’t be done. The time capsule that is Wabasha, Minnesota is replicated across the country. Returning there to capture what once was is like trying to catch the wind (apologies to Donovan). It hasn’t changed but we have and there in lies the dilemma.

I have a friend who is flying in from the East Coast to attend her 50^th high school reunion

in southwestern Minnesota. I think most people go to high school reunions to show off their lives in thinly veiled ways. It’s a game of “Look at who I married. Here is a picture of my handsome children and my beautiful grandchildren.” My friend became part of the East Coast academic/intellectia consortium of successful professionals. It’s probably a safe assumption that not all of her high school classmates have reached that same pinnacle of professional success. It can make for some awkward moments amid the social pleasantries and forced chatter of a reunion.

I’m guessing she will come to realize what I did at my own 50^th reunion. After fifties years apart, I had little if anything in common with my classmates. While I carried my accouterments of success in my head, it never came up. Men are that way. In theCompany of Old Men pretty much describes that scene. It was fascinating, enlightening, a little bit sad and a little bit funny. It brought back a few fond memories but mostly it brought out a sly smile and wonderment that I had actually survived the trauma and confusion of those teen years.

Now after a second season in Palm Springs, returning to Minnesota to do the Wabasha shuffle is once again part of my summer agenda. And yet it is still pretty much the same soundtrack in terms of ‘been there before, don’t want to go back there again.’ But, of course, we must for the in-laws. It’s all part of shared marital responsibilities.

So I smile and make pleasant faces and try very hard to care about the price of grocery store staples and bloated government programs and all those issues paramount to small town America. Those foreign environments on the coast are never discussed and focus is always given to matters that really count like spring crops and fall harvests.  It’s still a foreign environment I rarely inhabit and must strive hard to make it work for me. I left all that behind when I moved away from home.

I’ll leave my Zen back in the desert for the summer and try to forge an understanding of small town America back here in Minnesota. I’m willing to step back in time but never enough to get lost there.

Growing Old Without Underwear

Palm Springs can be hot a great deal of the time. That’s why I love it there. There’s also a freedom of thought and expression that extends far beyond Palm Springs proper. It can be found in Idyllwild, the artist community high in the San Jacinto mountains, among the hermits, musicians and malcontents of Joshua Tree and over on the coast to the seaside poets and bums of Laguna Beach.

This freedom of expression can be found in the visual renderings of imaginative minds, the music of dreamers, the mauling of vernacular vestiges in the name of art and the casual clothing found most everywhere. It’s a casualness I’ve embraced much to the chagrin of some others.

Each morning during the winter months, I put on my swimming suit or a pair of shorts with mesh inside, my flip-flops, a t-shirt and I’m set to go. On chilly mornings, I’ll wear a fleece until it warms up.

If I have to go out in public, a clean t-shirt will suffice. For more formal affairs like dinner or events, I will acquiesce and don more semi-casual attire. It works for me. It fits my lifestyle in the desert.

I don’t shave everyday. It takes about two to three days for some semblance of a shadow to appear on my face. Most of it is gray so it’s practically invisible at first anyway. Until the back of my head starts to resemble the great waves on the North Shore of Hawaii, I don’t think I need a haircut.

It’s been suggested, more than once, that perhaps early senility has set in or as someone close to me likes to say, “I’m losing it.”

Am I the only male that thinks shaving every day and wearing underwear are two grooming rituals that can be ignored every once in a while assuming the environment is as I’ve described it? My gay friends need not answer that question.

Or do I have to acquiesce to the proper rituals of male grooming that the other half thinks is so important? In a nutshell, if I’m working at home in my office and not in public, do I have to shave and wear underwear just because it’s the proper thing to do?

I have a middle-age friend who loves to bring his male friends up to his mountain cabin a couple of times a year for a ‘guy’s weekend.’

They have water balloon fights, fly kites off the mountainside, ride Mountain bikes recklessly through the woods, and in short, act like kids for the weekend. Is this stupid or just men being men?

Women would say one thing. Men could defensively say another.

Perhaps we’re talking about the idiosyncrasies of old men or just men in general. I mean,

what is a man cave other than a modern refuse for men to hide from women and just be themselves (or as women would say, just be stupid)

But not all of us see it that way.

Women have a plethora of concerns for their husbands, partners and significant others as the aging process becomes more apparent. The list can go on and on.

Women worry about their men getting old and acting it. They fret about them not shaving every day. Not getting a haircut when it’s needed (their determination, not his) Not dressing appropriately in public or semi-public for that matter. They worry about their man’s personal hygiene.

For those more insightful women, they worry about their man not having a lot of male friends. Not to mention a myriad of other complaints from a lack of interest in anything remotely akin to her interests to just plain old boredom. Women seem to think they handle aging better than men. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

A lot of my blogs deal with or at least edge alongside the concept of growing old. I like to ponder what it means to get old. And I often wonder if I’m kidding myself with my interest in popular music, new adventure travels, living abroad, athletic endeavors, getting more involved in my grandchildren’s lives and a myriad of other activities usually left for the younger set.

Is it the Peter Pan syndrome raising its young head again? Or something more ominous such as denial of the inevitable aging process? Are sore muscles and stiffness the inevitable results of a life well lived or simply a lack of exercise and activities? Am I kidding myself when I say you’re never too old to grow young again? And don’t fade slowly into the dark. Instead leap boldly into the brightness until it burns you up.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that this whole writing thing of mine is a culmination of many goals and desires first initiated during my lost years. It’s spawned a desire to re- connect with old friends, revisit and examine my past and to do so while focusing on my future and adjusting for the reality of my life as it is.

From “Snow White and the Seven Seekers” to “Looking for Susan’s House” to “In the Company of Old Men,” this vision quest has become an important part of my life and I’m not about to let it go.

This attitude or delusional meanderings of mine seem to have struck a cord with a lot of folks who read my blogs. So either my readers find something of interest here or they’re just curious what my problems are? Or maybe they simply like to look at the old pictures I post?

The fact is I don’t want to grow up if it means looking and ending up like a lot of the old men around me.

The whole point is of my argument is this:

So what if I wear those shorts with no underwear? So what if I don’t shave everyday? So what if I continue to listen to classical music (meaning music of the 50s and 60s) while still opening myself up to newer forms of musical entertainment?

I would argue that as long as I’m staying involved and active and using my mind every-day for something other than mindless chatter at the coffee shop or listening to talk radio or feeling sorry for myself, it’s time well spent.

For a lot of folks my age, long range planning means “What’s for dinner?” I’d like to think that I can see a little further out than that.

So with my clothing or lack thereof, I’d like to believe that I’m not letting go. I’m not falling apart but simply focusing on other things of greater importance in this world in which I’ve chosen to live. Welcome to my world, it’s nice in here… it really is!

Despite the challenges of old age and calcified ambitions that sometimes have to be pried loose from the rigid assumptions of past generations, I intend to continue this quest of mine to discover, examine and write about whatever it is that interests me.

And wear my Southern California attitude whether in Minnesota or Colorado.

With or without underwear.

In the Company of Old Men

It was our 50^th high school reunion last fall and I was full of anticipation.

I had gotten an unexpected phone call the summer before from an old classmate who was

a photographer during high school. He had several pictures of he and I from back in grade school and a few in high school. He sent them to me and we started having break-fast every once in a while.

Then through a mutual acquaintance, I reconnected with another casual friend from high school. With both these guys, I was able to recapture some of our old camaraderie with-out reliving our (mostly imagined) glory days.

I was looking forward to reconnecting with several more old comrades from our tenure at our all boys, military, catholic high school. As the reunion grew closer, I started to imagine entering the gathering and immediately reconnecting with homeroom buddies, military misbehavers, chess foes, party planners, old friends and other asundry fellow raiders.

There were several days of activities. A golf tournament: sorry I don’t play. Mass; I don’t think so. Awards given for being alumni for fifty years: no thanks. Finally, the Annual Alumni Banquet where the class of 1961 would be honored (and hit up again.). That I would attend.

I entered the large auditorium full of anticipation and a little dread. Would I recognize any of them? Would they remember me? There was a large sign on one of the breakout rooms: Class of 1961. I moved confidently through the open doors. Would it be like Cheers and there would be a rousing welcome for the kid from down the block? Would I recognize those old familiar faces?

I strolled through the door, confident of my stance and personal appearance.

But instead of my classmates from 1961, I entered a room full of old men.

No one looked up. There was no rousing cheer. A glance or two was all that greeted me as I shyly moved toward the drink table for moral support and a stiff drink to steel my now crumbling self-confidence.

Two things became immediately clear. The gathering around me had been divided into two distinct groups.

The first was the ‘Oh, yeah, he looks about the same with a few miles etched on his face.’

Time and age had been kind to them. A lack of exercise might be apparent and he wasn’t about to replicate his linebacker stance, but he looked pretty much the same.

The second kind of reaction was a cold, clear ‘what the hell happened to him?’ The ravages of time and age had played hell with some of my old classmates. A cruel fact

was that some of them hadn’t aged too well.

Very quickly, I would either recognize an old classmate and tried to remember something we did or had in common. Or I felt I had entered a senior gathering at the home. Little left in between. Of course, there were no mirrors present to dispel my failure to imagine what they might have thought of my appearance.

My old high school girlfriend’s husband was there. After I was dumped, he picked up the slack and won her heart. At the reunion, I got the impression that he took pride in his besting me. In actuality, we both ending up winning. He got good. I got better.

It really wasn’t just my old classmates physical appearance that surprised me. We all grow old. We all change, some of us more so than others. What totally shocked me, as naïve as it may seem, was our total lack of connectedness after all those years.

We had all graduated in May of 1961 and were thrown out into the real world. More real for some of us than others. Now 50 years later, we were meeting once again with absolutely nothing in common except four years at a good school, shared teenage drama and angst, and all our grand plans after that.

After we had graduated, most of us had gone on to college and forged careers that span-ed more than 30 plus years. These were accomplished men. Businessmen, professionals, tradesmen, family men’ and most were respected pillars of their communities.

It was a group I should have been able to relate to. And yet I couldn’t. Instead of ‘Welcome to the Homecoming.’ it was’ Welcome to myself’. This is who I’ve become.

We had all left Cretin with grand aspirations. Most had succeeded in their goals. Yet that absence of fifty years had voided out most of our shared high school memories and left me in a room with one hundred and fifty strangers. Whether their faces were familiar or not, we had no shared experiences beyond high school. We had little to talk about beyond now grandchildren and great grandchildren.

I tried very hard to reconnect with a few several of my classmates that I recognized but it became immediately apparent that there was nothing to talk about. None of us were interested in reliving our past football victories, prom dances, weekend parties or loves found and then shattered when she wised up and found someone better.

We had all collectively moved on after high school and past memories weren’t enough to bond us back together under that nebulous moniker ‘Class of 1961.’

So I left that evening feeling a bit sad and yet glad that I had ventured back into my old stomping grounds if only for one last time. I have little interest in attending our 60^th or 70^th or 80^th reunion (I should be so lucky). It was an interesting experience. So thanks for that.

Part of the thinking of clear-headed people is to ask at some point in their lives, what have I done with my life thus far? And is this all there is? And what now?

At this stage in our collective existence few of us really have anything left to prove to anyone. We’ve either done it or we haven’t. We’ve had good fortune in our marriage or perhaps did better the second or third time around. We’ve connected with our kids or we can keep trying…maybe with a little more attention to our grandchildren in the process.

It’s too damn late to begin over again. I’ll never ride that tramp steamer around the world like I wanted to back in ’61. I’ll never become another Bob Dylan or one of the Beatles. I can’t even play a musical instrument or carry a tune.

There are some things I’m very proud of. Like adult children who are citizens of the world. And five grandchildren who will be at some point in their lives. That is their legacy.

We did some traveling, not so much now.

We made some money, not so much now.

We accumulated a lot of things, not so much now.

Yet I haven’t found a cure for cancer.

I haven’t grown an apple.

I haven’t run a country.

Maybe that’s why I like the idea of reconnecting with old friends. Not to rekindle the past but to honor and appreciate our collective lives and find some semblance of connective- ness for the future. If none is there, none is there. If a new friendship can be woven out of the shared experiences of our past that’s all for the better. If not, then we can recognize our past for what it was and move on with a simple: ‘It was good.’

I never want to ask: Where did it all go? All those hopes and dreams and grand aspirations. Some are now washed away like runoff down a rain gutter.  I have no problem with taking some of that residue I’ve had accumulated over a lifetime and pronouncing part of my past. I have to believe there is still a future in me.

I want to focus on the future, all the while accepting my sometimes-stiff joints, constant need to lose more weight and overall goal of staying healthy.

Maybe that’s why I’ve decided to start another career as a writer. The thought of being retired scares me to death. There’s no reason why it should but it does. Perhaps it’s a fear of beginning that long (hopefully) slow (probably) slide toward who knows where.

I need goals in my life. I need to keep proving to myself that I can or think I can. Therefore I must try. Lame perhaps but it defines who I am…. without apology or explanation.

Who knows, someday I may meet myself coming around the corner. Hope I can recognize what I’ve become.