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.

You Can't Get Candy from a Hardware Store

I have a dear friend who said trying to get love from her alcoholic mother as like trying to get candy from a hardware store. It just wasn’t there. Because of her disease, the woman’s mother was emotionally unavailable. And nothing was going to change that.

There is a man I know who is still trying to convince his father that he can make some-thing of himself despite his father’s misgivings. That fellow is still trying to prove him-self even though his father has been dead for over thirty years.

Another man, who was always the obedient son doing everything his father demanded of him, is struggling with the fact that he never talked to his father about what he missed out on growing up. As a boy, he never had a life beyond doing work around the house and other chores. When he asked permission to play sports, he was told he wasn’t working hard enough. Now the boy/man hates himself for never standing up to his father. He can’t force himself to face those long simmering issues that still prick at his subconscious. And he carries those issues with him like an anvil around his neck. Still trying to resolve why he cowered under the shadow of his domineering father.

There are a surprising number of adults who are still waiting for something from their parents. Whether it be love, approval, acceptance or recognition. But unfortunately, their parents never gave them what they needed or deserved growing up. And now it’s too late.

The generation before ours had a far different take on raising children than we did.  By my own crude calculations, their inability to communicate and show support for their kids is a hallmark for far too many parents of that generation.

Certainly the depression and the war and a multitude of other factors may have played into their inability to see their own children as something other than objects to “be seen and not heard.” But, unfortunately, their adult children are still waiting for something, anything, to show them that their parents cared. Something that will never come.

I was raised in a household totally devoid of love and affection. I realize now that if it wasn’t there, it wasn’t there. And no amount of wishful thinking or praying can ever bring it back. I am amazed at the number of folks my age who have experienced the same thing.

I guess the only way to heal that wound which can never be fully healed is through your own children and grandchildren. To make sure the missteps of your parents don’t affect your own bond with your adult children and grandchildren.

But it doesn’t end there.

The inexplicable demise of some past friendship or relationship can also leave a gash on your sensitivity that is difficult to heal. Of course everyone agrees that it’s all part of that wonderful yet confusing apparition called life. Whatever it was that we once shared was either lost or worse yet, just faded away. Of course, many of us expected our involvement with others to last forever or at least to be reciprocal. But life isn’t fair and friendships and relationships don’t always turn out the way we want them to. Or hoped they would.

It might have been like the avatar, who turned out to be just a bookend to the faint hopes of renewed acquaintances. Like a shooting star, she was in reality, just an illusion. Flash, bang, fade away.

It might have been some artificial environment, which almost by accident, threw a group of us together for some brief collection of memories and then dissipated as time and events pushed us apart and onto other milestones in our lives.

Reconnecting with old friends and acquaintances after an extended period of time can be very difficult. Out of my high school graduating class of 250, I’ve reconnected with just three old friends. I’ve tried several others but it just wasn’t there.

Of course, there are always exceptions.

On a recent trip to Maryland, I reconnected with an old friend after thirty-five years apart. We both worked at Maryland Public Television back in the 70s. I meet his wife for the first time and we shared a wonderful evening watching the sunset slide over the Naval Academy on the Severn River. We regaled one another with war stories from our PTV years and we did the obligatory “How I met my wife.” We shared our respective plans for retirement and agreed to continue writing to one another. I’m confident we will.

But that kind of renewal of an old acquaintance is rare.

So I guess if you can’t reconnect with those folks, then be grateful for the brief time spent together, perhaps the love embraced or friendship shared once upon a time. And realize that life does go on. Remember the good and the bad, the pleasure and the pain, forgive the sadness and move on with the memories. I embrace the sadness because that is a part of the equation. I hope I am a better man for it. I can only hope they feel the same way too.

What once was or wasn’t between our parents and ourselves is over. What was wrong can’t be made right. But it can be set aside. We all carry baggage from our past even when it contains some lighter moments along with the heavy ones too.

With my own kids and my grandchildren, I know it will be different. I can’t change my past but I can affect their future.

The circle is already broken.

It happened on my watch.

Young Heart by the Bay

 I’ve been criticized sometimes for dwelling in the past, focusing my writing energies on that long forgotten period of lost youth, unrequited love, wandering ambitions and unfocused goals. That theme has crept into two of my novels and a number of my blogs. Sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant but always present.

I plead guilty. And after observing some of the lives around me, I am more than content to continue fighting that long slow slide toward mediocrity. Without dwelling there, I think I can revisit my past, reflect on the good and the bad planted there and still relish my present situation.

I thought about that when I read Scott McKenzie’s obituary in the San Francisco Examiner a couple of weeks ago. It’s a heck of a thing when one song can perfectly encapsulate the soul of a city. San Francisco has two such songs.

The first was “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” by Tony Bennett. Tony’s song, although great make-out music, was really for the old guard. The more mature, three-piece suit and formal dress folks who sipped martinis and talked race horses. That was their world. Mad Men, anyone?

On the other hand, Scott McKenzie’s song helped define my generation. Or at least a large part of my generation. It gave San Francisco its moniker as the epicenter of the 1960’s counterculture. The city has always been a kind of border town, attracting both freaks and fearless alike. It still harbors that open, accepting attitude for folks of all kinds. Boulder, Colorado, boasts a bumper sticker which reads, “Keep Boulder Weird.” San Francisco has been weird since its gold rush days.

Scott’s song was able to capture that very brief period in 1967 when flowers were in bloom and flower children captured our imagination. The sixties was a magical time at the Presidio of San Francisco and San Francisco in general. I was very lucky to experience both of them briefly when I was in the service and stationed at the Presidio.

Without really knowing it, I was experiencing the whole pre-hippie era, mixing and mingling with hippies and diggers, black panthers and anti-war activists, Berkeley intellectuals and disciples of the Age of Aquarius. All from the security of an army bunk at the Presidio.

The Presidio of San Francisco (originally called El Presidio Real de San Francisco) is a former military base located on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula.

Originally built as a Spanish Imperial Outpost from 1776 to 1821, the Presidio was the Spanish empire’s northernmost military outpost. In 1821, the Presidio changed from Spanish to Mexican sovereignty. Then during the Mexican-American War in 1846, the army took over the post and occupied it until 1972 when it was included within the boundaries of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area. In 1996, it was formally closed and transferred to the National Park Service.

I only spent a very brief period of my lost years at the Presidio. It was between the summer of 1964 and spring of 1965. I had just left basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri (affectionately known as the armpit of the army) and was being transferred to the Presidio of San Francisco (romanticized as the country club of the army, which it was!). I would later be transferred to Fort Polk, Louisiana (correctly known as the a…… of the army).

As an Information Specialist in the Command Information Office, I had a nine to five job and plenty of spare time to explore my newly adopted cityscape. The view from my office was spectacular. For the relatively brief time I was there, I managed to pack in a lot of experiences. Unfortunately I only captured a few of them on film.

Before the service, I had never been out of Minnesota, flown in an airplane or done a cross country road trip. San Francisco opened my eyes to a wondrous new world all around me. It defined the beginnings of my wanderlust and a quest to answer those long dormant hunger pangs.

In a very short time, I became one of the wealthiest men in my barracks – in service lingo. I had a library of over 100 paperback books available for lending out, a record collection of: 45 rpm hits, a Vespa motor scooter and most importantly, a second job at an art theater.

That job earned me almost one hundred dollars a month after taxes. I was saving my army pay of eighty dollars a month and only spending part of my secondary income. I was the classic big fish in a small khaki pond.

The Larkin Theater was an art house theater that specialized in foreign films. Most of the time, two girls and I ran the place. At least the owner let us believe we did. My job was ticket taker, usher, janitor, Saturday morning phone secretary and overall gopher. The two ticket takers (whose names I’ve long since forgotten) were high schoolers working part-time until they could squeak through 12^th grade and move on to cosmetology school. Our backgrounds were similar and we became comrades in the arts.

I absolutely loved my job. It was my first introduction to foreign films, which I love to this day. Ninety percent of my films from Netflix are foreign films.

In 1964, Haight-Ashbury was just a nondescript street corner in a rundown part of town. I went there many times to hang out with a couple of ex-servicemen. They had girlfriends upstairs and weed in the fridge. And a lot of very strange visitors. A quiet night was lounging in their hammocks, drinking cheap wine and listening to jazz or pre-psychedelic rock and roll.

When we were buzzed enough, I’d climb aboard my Vespa and weave my way back to the Presidio, hoping that neither cop nor curb would curtail my long ride home. I’m embarrassed by my actions now but back then it was all part of the lifestyle of any service man on the loose in the big city.

With my Vespa under foot, I began exploring the city. Flying up and down the hills, I rode through the Marina, the Palace of Fine Arts (before restoration), Nob Hill, Market Street, Golden Gate Park and the beach. Just to name a few. Back then, I was probably riding too fast, drinking and driving and never wearing a helmet. Fortunately, I survived the stupidity of my youth.

I traveled up and down the coast on weekends, south down to Half Moon Bay and north up to Sausalito, Stinson Beach, Mount Tamalpais and the numerous World War Two fortifications across the bay from the Presidio.

Back then, Sausalito was just a small town across the bay. It began as a ship repair yard during World War Two and grew exponentially after that. By the early sixties a lot of the Beats had migrated from San Francisco to Sausalito. They hung out in the dank dreary bars and coffee shops that dotted the waterfront.

Everyplace I’ve lived, visited or hung around has had its fair share of characters. The Presidio was no different.

My entrepreneurial skills were nothing compared to the young dark-skinned fellow who always had several girlfriends in his posse. He lent them out to friends and associates-for a price. We thought he was quite a businessman back then. Today you’d just call him a pimp.

There was the natural born hustler who worked evenings attending to the mainframe (pre) computer in company headquarters and then did other people’s KP duty (kitchen patrol) five days a week. His going rate was $25.00 dollar cash per day, non-negotiable. He always had willing takers lined up outside his barracks door. That’s $500.00 cash per month – back in 1964. And he didn’t pay taxes on it either!

I befriended an angry black man who hated whites. Go figure. He liked me because I wanted to be a writer. He was a writer and felt a kinship to my vernacular struggles despite my pale skin.

I envied the two GIs whose sole job was to travel each day to Sausalito to maintain the general’s yacht docked there. They were even allowed to take it out for a cruise just to test the engines. I begged to go along but they always refused my request. Something about their Golden Egg.

There was a German immigrant who got drafted and meant to better his English while serving his new found country. While he practiced his diction on me, he introduced me to the arts in San Francisco. Together we attended numerous plays, art gallery openings and museums. We saw “Fantasticks” and the song “Try to Remember” broke my heart thinking about someone back home. My friend was a lot smarter than I was but I think he found in me a willing student to learn about the arts.

We had an illustrator in our barracks. He and I would get into heated arguments all the time because he hated Joan Baez. Who doesn’t like Joan Baez? Other than that, he was an incredibly talented artist and great guy in his own right.

I befriended the intellectual of our group of malcontents. Evenings and weekends, he was flipping Victorian houses, ‘Old Ladies,’ before it became trendy. He invited me to join him in his real estate ventures. Like an idiot, I said no because I had a real job. Besides, who makes money by fixing up old houses in San Francisco and then selling them for three to four times their purchase price?

We always laughed at the fellow who got blind drunk every weekend. We thought it a bit obsessive but not particularly out of character for the characters around us. Strange how attitudes change over time. Now I feel nothing but compassion for him and wonder what must have become of him.

But most memorable, was the young female recruit in my office, who was working her way up through the ranks (literally). She preferred officers, especially the married ones whose wives were in other states. She had no shame. She was a working girl. And very good at what she did. Mind you, her typing skills were atrocious. Not that it mattered very much.

My stay in San Francisco ended all too quickly with marching papers to Louisiana and an end to the wonderful fantasy world that had been all mine for that brief period of time.

I’m grateful I was able to capture on film some of those moments if for no other reason than to use them as screen savers and as an excuse to reflect back on a time when peace and love ruled the world and a kid, full of wild ideas, lived briefly in that city on the bay.