Aging

There are many things that are much more fun than getting older. I could list them here, but I’m not sure this blog will allow that much text. But a few of those that top the list would be the length of time it takes for sore muscles to recover, the fear of planning (or not planning) for retirement and generally the notion that you are just not as smart as you thought you were at 20. I know now that if you knew everything at a young age you wouldn’t try. The “that only applies to other people” syndrome is what makes you try to put a different spin on things that have been around forever. It’s a good thing.

But one of the main things that haunts me as I get older is the fact that as I age, so does everything around me. I know this is basic math, but it’s not something I spent much time thinking about as a young man. In my 50 (almost) years I’ve lost many people that I cared a great deal about, but I’ve also lost cars, dogs and other things that I assumed would last forever. The first time I handed my father the broken plastic gun that he could not fix, the lesson began. Things just wear out and there is nothing you can do about it.

Some of the greatest battles I’ve ever witnessed have come from the battle against aging. Flashy new cars, “hip” wardrobes and spouse replacement top the list, but some of the struggles are way more subtle. I know there is a fine line between keeping up with what is new and trying to recreate something long gone, so when you see an old guy like me trying to program his smart phone, don’t assume I want to be a teenager, I’m just having fun.

Well before I make aging sound like the worst thing imaginable let me just say that if happiness continues to increase at the same rate as it has since I was 20, by the time I’m 60 I will explode! Life certainly gets easier with a little more experience under your belt, and while the peaks are sometimes not as great, the valleys are surely not as deep; I’ll take it!

But this morning the down side of aging caught me off guard. I was sitting at a red light, while headed home from the grocery store, when a bright red car pulled alongside me. The driver was a young blonde lady with a dark tan and flashy sunglasses. On a scale of one to bacon, she was…bacon! But when she stopped at the light she never looked my way. She reached for the radio knob and cranked the music loud enough for every car sitting at the light to hear. I couldn’t say exactly what the song was, but I bet the 8 year old in the front seat beside her could. He was smiling and dancing almost as happily as the little one in the car seat behind him. Maybe I would like to back up just a few years?

Extended Family?

When I was a very little boy, my parents decided to load up the car with all of our worldly possessions and move to a small town 100 miles south of Atlanta. This doesn’t sound like a big deal today; people regularly move around the globe and some even commute this distance to work every day. But when you understand that they had three little boys under 8 years old, hardly any money and it was the late 1960s, well it sounds a lot different to me.

I have to add that I don’t mean to paint a picture of dusty trails and indian attacks, but the deep south (away from Atlanta) was, to shine it up somewhat, a budding society; a diamond in the rough. I think the initial move was made somewhat smoother for us since my father was the minister of a small church, but when you inherit grown “family” members you never really know what you are getting. It’s kind of like adopting a grown dog from the pound and you often have to guess at what baggage they lug around. Oh, and hope they don’t bite you. It can take a lifetime to understand and accept each other’s habits.

But we were a long way from our real family and our contact with them was limited. This distance was compounded by the old Volkswagen bus we drove; a lesson of living in a rural area is that you are only as good as the car you drive. As young as I was, I still recognized the pained look on my grandparent’s faces when they came to visit. The look of “when are you going to stop this madness and come back home where you belong” is impossible to disguise even from a very young child, and as a parent now, I feel sure I could dish out a pretty good dose of it myself! But we dug in even harder after these visits.

Well all of this was put in motion a long time ago, and though we moved around some, we never left this little town; it had become my home and it is now my daughter’s home. We had no real family here other than those living under the same roof, and the three little boys never really knew any other way. I was sometimes envious of those who were related to half of the school; they had automatic bodyguards and confidants, but it wasn’t something I thought much about. We saw extended family at Christmas holiday parties and though I was always glad to see them, I was just as happy to get back home.

I think of this today as I think about the reunion I had with my extended family this past weekend. I think of the way that I thought of my brother when I saw my cousin scratch his head; the way I thought of my father when my uncle told a joke. I saw female versions of that man that smiles at me every morning in the mirror and I saw the things I love most about my daughter in other faces. I saw a connection that can never be broken by time and distance.  I saw myself.

Traveling Music

I've done a few difficult things in my life and I think it’s safe to assume we all have. As a kid going to school, making passing grades and just fitting in seemed monumental. Turns out this was both easy and…practice.

I never fully realized the luxury of trying as hard as I could (or at least giving it a good fake) and then asking an adult for help. Deep down somewhere I knew there was an “out”. We are big on rewarding effort, and often the means realize more credit than the end. The older you get the harder it becomes to pull this off.

Burying my brother was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Saying this out loud suggests that it is something that I have conquered, and while I know I have to a great extent, there is a part of it that refuses to leave. When it leaves it’s over.

Burying is not simply digging a hole and interring remains; it is answering questions; it is dealing with an estate; it’s removing possessions from a home; it’s the absence at holiday gatherings. It lasts a long time and each of these acts creates new memories; good and bad.

The item that hurt the most to remove from my brother’s home was a small tool bag. It was hanging over the back of the door ready to go for a ride. A few screwdrivers, wire cutters, black tape and a "check" meter; it was the bag that held the minimum amount of tools inside to make an electrical repair. I hated to touch it because I knew he would be back for it in a few minutes; he would be mad if it was disturbed or a tool removed. I took this bag home with me before anything else.

This was over nine years ago and I have since moved the bag with me to another home. I have robbed a tool from it at times, but I always put it back. The bag has not been moved from its spot on my basement floor for the five years that I have lived in this house, but I feel a wave of emotion each time I see it. I travel back in time.

This past weekend I built some shelves in the basement to “get some things off the floor”. Flat surface disease runs unchecked at my house as does the responsibility for it. Shelves (another flat surface) are the cure.

I moved boxes and tools, first out of the way of the incoming shelf, then to their new home on the shelf. I kind of saved the tool bag for last; I think I was waiting for the right place. When it was finally his turn to be moved, the radio did an amazing thing. As I placed the bag on the new shelf it played the America song Ventura Highway that we both loved so much.  This was our traveling song and I chose it for his funeral. The bag only traveled a few feet…but I agree; traveling is traveling!

The Protected

We hear it at the same time and turn to look at each other. For a second no words are spoken, then a smile comes to her face as she says, "I love that sound." The methodical thumping of a group of military helicopters as they come into view just over the tree tops. "Makes me feel patriotic" she says as she shields her eyes from the sun and takes a few steps forward for a better view. "Wonder what they're doing?" I too wonder the same thing, but almost instinctively I feel my stomach tighten as well.

My country is well known around the world for saving countries from themselves and others. We have a powerful military and have a history of not being afraid to use it. I don’t mean to suggest that I think we use our power flippantly, though I admit it seems that way at times. The answer to that question is way above my grasp of politics and I’m reduced to which opinion I find the most convincing. I feel sure we have done good all over the globe, but just how different would it feel if those helicopter blades thumping above my house belonged to someone else?

How would it feel to be the protected instead of the protector? How would it feel to hear this noise and wonder if it was “us” or “them”? How would it feel to be required to prove my reasons for taking the 30 mile trip to Macon to a group of armed men who barely spoke my language? The closest I have ever come to this is showing my passport to a customs official in a Mexican airport! And trust me, when a uniformed Jamaican security officer singles you out of a group, motions for you to turn around and asks “Is it okay if I touch you” your life is shortened! I’d love to stay, but not this way.

So why does this group of military helicopters give me a sense of dread? I’ve never been to war; I’m not on the run. I admit this feeling only lasts a split second and it is quickly followed by a rush of patriotism…but where does it originate? Maybe it’s just the instinct that all animals have; when the twig snaps and the deer looks up, it doesn’t take a biologist to determine that the look on his face is one of fear. He is not expecting to share his breakfast with a group of his deer buddies, he is anticipating flight. The deer is born with these memories and they preserve his species.

Maybe deep down we all store of images of war. These memories may not keep our finger off of the trigger, but hopefully they will make it harder to pull. They will ensure the survival of our species.

Forgetting

Monday mornings have a way of sneaking up on all of us. The last couple of months have made them a little more tolerable for me because I’ve been either off or working from home, but somehow they are still Mondays.  Admittedly I have had a small dose of cabin fever at times, but I’d say it beats the alternative. I could get used to this!

This morning as my wife was rushing to get everything done before she headed out the door; she stopped to tick off a few tasks for me if I had, in her words, “time to do some things for her”. Before I answered, I cut my eyes toward the sink because I had a gut feeling one of them was going to be loading the dishwasher, or minimally hand washing the over flow. But the sink was clean and the dishwasher was humming away and…I felt a little generous; maybe even a little guilty?

Turns out all she really wanted was for me to fill up the birdfeeders; Whew! We had both tried to kill ourselves this weekend by painting and rearranging furniture in TWO bedrooms for our daughter, and quite a few of our weekend tasks ended up not getting done. If she was as tired as I was her day was going to be long! It seemed like the least I could do as I really enjoy watching the birds from my big picture window while I work from home.

I walked outside and filled the scoops with seeds from the industrial size bags of sunflowers and “wild” bird mix we keep in the garage. Feeding the birds has become, in modern times, quite expensive and I often threaten to roast a few of those obese doves that feed like chickens protected behind the electric fence; the return on investment for bird feeding is horrible. When I walked outside the cloud of birds that rose from both the ground and the feeders was staggering! All shapes, sizes and colors with one thing in common; they were addicted to my ringing the dinner bell.

It only took a few seconds for them to return to the feeders and by the time I made it back to my computer they were feeding away as if nothing had happened. Cardinals were everywhere; on the feeders, the ground but the one that drew my attention was fluttering on the wood fence. He was very excited and I watched as another bird of similar size and color lit beside him and placed a seed in his open beak. He was obviously a baby that had yet learned the workings of the bird feeders, but honestly I wouldn’t have noticed this had I not witnessed his mother’s feeding him. He was full size; I would have assumed he was an adult.

This was a beautiful sight; watching as a parent teaches it's young the ways of the world, but I admit it made me feel a little guilty. Guilty for getting mad at my daughter yesterday when, in the middle of day two of our painting and rearranging, ran out of gas. Guilty for forgetting that just because she could lift the other end of the sofa like an adult, she was still not an adult. I don’t intend to treat her any differently than I have in the past; she is smart, quick-witted and on the way to becoming a great young woman. I only need to remind myself now and again just how long I’ve been coming to this feeder!

5000 views

Although it was over two years ago, I remember clearly the first blog I posted on this site. I had just dropped my daughter off at school and on the ride home I started feeling kind of “reflective”. That’s probably not the right word for this context, but for some reason I was just feeling kind of sentimental…AND I wanted to write it down.

Honestly it had been quite a while since I had written anything other than a check. Writing was fun in college, but let’s just say that many birthdays with a zero in the number have passed since then and I wondered if my writing would even make sense. I quickly realized that of course it would make sense even if it was only to me! I just felt compelled to do it.

Well that was hundreds of blogs ago. I now have three different ones that I use to write about different things. One is kind of technical (for me) and I have to sometimes make myself post on it. Luckily UGA pays me while I’m writing some of those so that kind of takes the sting out. Another has lots of recipes and pictures on it, and while I love to read those, writing them is really not my style…I have to make myself post there too. It’s not like I have a giant fan base on those, I just hate to see them go unused…and it’s kind of an addiction. When all else fails write about how to cook something!

This one, my first one, is the one I love! I didn’t realize I was naming it Looking Ahead; that was just the title of my first post. But I liked it; it seemed fitting so I kept it. Over the last 2+ years I have made a lot of friends here that like to read and write just like me. I have to admit that for a while I thought my wife might be right when she said “something is wrong with a person that reads 80 books year”, but trust me; there are many out there that read way more than that! Are they normal? Are you? Ha!

I decide to write this post after realizing last week that I had now had over 5000 views on this blog!  I can’t tell exactly who reads it, but I can say that I’ve had views from ten different countries. I’m sure some of those are after my credit card number, but it’s still fun to track nonetheless. Thanks to all of my friends for the nice comments, and a special thanks to those who choose to live by the golden rule of “if you ain’t got something nice to say, don’t say anything”!