May 31, 2021--Bucket. List

We're relocating to Maine in a few days and a number of friends who know this have asked me to repost some of my "Midcoast" blogs.

Here is one from a few years ago--

"I'm 51 years old and afraid I don't have enough saved to retire before I'm at least 90."
A crew of arborists were at our place to remove eight dead and dying pine trees. They arrived with what seemed like an army of heavy equipment, including a huge tractor, a cherry picker, and a chipper.

"Really, it scares me. I thought for awhile that I'd be OK, but what with the cost of things going up by the day, I don't know."

This was Walt whose responsibility was to drive the tractor, especially to scoop up the chain-sawed tree parts that he then would then stack in towering piles.

"First of all," I said, "We're both much older than you, I really mean  I'm much older, not Rona, and we worked hard for many years and were careful savers. And we more or less followed my father's advice. He used to say that there's no freedom without economic freedom and so, he advised, earn as much as you can for as long as you can, save as much as possible, and live below your means. That is, until you retire."

"That sounds pretty smart," Walt said, "You did that? I mean, follow his advice?"

"Pretty much," I said, "And so now we're fortunate to be comfortable. We still watch our spending and Rona has been a smart money manager."

"I don't know," he said, "I pay into Social Security, my wife works three jobs, and driving heavy equipment pays pretty decent. But I worry."

"You're still young," I said, "There's a lot of time left for you to increase your savings. Even a few hundred dollars more a month, over time if you don't touch it, can make a big difference. But I get your point. We know a lot of people in their mid-sixties who had good careers but didn't save enough and now feel vulnerable. So it isn't easy, considering the rising cost of things, to feel secure. But, again, whatever you're doing now, like everyone else, you can do better."

"Enough about this depressing subject," Walt said, "Let's talk about how you guys live. I see you have a nice house here and a great garden, that I'm sure takes a lot of work to maintain, but it feels like you have a good lifestyle."

"We do," I said, "We're very fortunate."

"May I ask if you have a bucket list? Things you want to do before you can't do them any more? I hate to sound morbid." He shrugged.

"That's OK," I said, "I don't have that kind of list. I prefer to let things happen and to keep everything on the simple, spontaneous side."

"I have a thought," Walt said, smiling broadly, "See that cherry picker over there? With Mike in the bucket--that's what we call it, the bucket. It can raise him to 70 feet, high enough to get to the top of most trees, though you have here a few as high as, I'd estimate, maybe 90, 100 feet. Those suckers are pretty tall. I think one even has an eagle nest in it." He pointed to the top of a towering spruce.

"It's quite a contraption," I said.

"So how'd you like to take a ride in it? It could be on your bucket list, pardon the pun, even though you don't have one." He winked.

"I think I'd like that," I said, "I love heights and from the bucket I could probably have a view of the entire Point, including the Pemaquid lighthouse."

"Let's make it happen! Don't forget to take your camera."

With that he shouted to Mike to lower the bucket. Mike waved to signal he would bring it down to ground level. Its long extension arms telescoped into one another and then the two bulging arms folded one atop the other.

"Hop right in." Mike said, a little breathlessly, "Walt'll help you. It's a little tricky even for someone half your age." 

I thought he too was thinking bucket list. "Grab hold of him, Walt," which he proceeded to do, almost lifting me off the ground by holding onto my belt and easing me into the bucket. 

I'm not as balanced or steady on my feet as I used to be and having this sure-handed help made me feel secure and provided just the assistance I needed to finally tumble into the bucket.

"Good job," Mike said while at the same time getting the arm of the hoist mechanism to unfold and extend itself as we rapidly ascended. 

I looked down to where Rona stood, sensing she thought the three of us were crazy. Maybe a little, I thought, just a little.

Up in the air to the full 70 feet of the extended arm I could indeed see all the nearby houses, including ours, and off in the distance, about half a mile south, there in fact was the lighthouse. I'm not much for taking photos but this time I did to share what I was seeing with Rona and as evidence that I really did this.

After about 15 minutes of rotating the bucket as much as possible so I could get good views in all directions, Mike, with visible reluctance (he too was having fun) began to lower the contraption. 

On the ground, Walt moved quickly to help me get my quivering legs out of the bucket and then back on my own two feet.

"That was amazing," I said, "So much fun."

"Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to have a bucket list after all," Walt said. "Like maybe including skydiving?"

"That actually does interest me," I said, "Maybe for my upcoming birthday. It's a big one. I remember President Bush doing that up here in Maine, a few years ago. Maybe when he turned 90. I have a ways to go before that. But maybe you're right--I should make a list. In truth, it would be a list of things I probably won't get around to doing."

"Now you're sounding morbid," he said, But back to what we were talking about earlier," bringing me back to reality, "About retiring."

"I remember that," I said, truthfully not wanting to bring myself down from feeling so exhilarated and full of life.

"If all else fails my plan is to die on the job."

"What?"

"One day, a beautiful day just like today, I plan to keel over into a pile of brush. Simple as that."

 

May 25, 2021--Booby Head

I was at a meeting that included a colleague and friend. Half way into it there was a message for her. I saw her face drop as she read the note. It was time for a break and I asked her if she was all right.

"The guidance counselor at my six-year-old son's school wants me to call urgently." 

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Thanks," Becky said, "but it can wait until the end of the meeting."

"Really?" I said. She is inclined to be stoical and I was reluctant to press her to call. But in this case I thought it wise to do so. So I said, "Did the counselor say it was urgent?"

"Yes, but, they tend to overreact at his school. It's in western Connecticut, one of those suburban schools that cater to wealthy families. I get these kinds of messages from them all the time. Whenever there's a scratch."

"Really?" I said, "Why am I skeptical?"

"I'll call," she said, now sounding exasperated with me. 

 I went looking for her in the outer office after 10 minutes. "Well?" I said. She looked unusually upset. She wouldn't make eye contact. 

"What's going on?" 

"They want me to come pick Jack up. I think the counselor said he's being suspended from school."

"What? Suspended? How old is he again?"

"Just six."

"Has he been in trouble before?"

"He can be a little over exuberant. Nothing unusual. He's a typical six-year-old boy. But I need to leave. It takes an hour on the train to get there so I'd better get going."

Though I knew what she'd say--I could see the return of her familiar stoical look--"Do you want me to come with you?"

"I'll be fine and so will Jack. But thanks. I'll call you from the school when I know more."  

"Be sure you do." I gave her a quick hug as she raced toward Grand Central Station.

To tell the truth I didn't expect to hear from her.

I was wrong. She did call after two hours. She sounded exhausted.

"This you won't believe," she said, "They are suspending him. For four days and during those days they're requiring him to participate in a sexual harrasment workshop designed for kids his age and . . ."

"Hold on. Hold on. He's six?

"Yes."

"And what does he know from sexual harassment? Or anything sexual?"

Becky said, "Nothing. I mean I hope so."

"What 'crime' did he commit? What did they say he did?" 

"That he's been harassing a girl in his class"

"By doing what?"

She whispered, "By calling her booby-head."

I was incredulous. "I still don't know what he did to get himself suspended and put in a sexual harassment workshop."

"As I said, running around the classroom and calling that girl booby-head."

It finally dawned on me. "He used the word booby, with booby slang for breast. He's so young he could still be breast feeding." I tried to lighten the situation.

"That he isn't doing, "Becky said. I would know."

Jack did participate in the workshop. He came to think of it as hilarious. "They're all booby-heads," he told me after the first two sessions.

This is a true story from about 30 years ago. I'm not sure we've come such a long way.

May 19, 2021--I Heard the News Today, Oh Boy

I was half asleep when Rona sat bolt upright in the bed and said--

"Why are you doing this to yourself? Every morning before the sun comes up you lie there listening to the same bad news over and over again." 

Rona said, "It reminds me of 9/11, how your mother sat glued to the TV, watching over and over again images of the planes that crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center.

"We called her in Florida to see how she was dealing with this horrific news."

I picked up the thread, "Sobbing softly, my mother said to us--"It's the end of the world."

"It's too soon to know," I said, "though more than half agreeing with her.

I recalled my mother saying, "The only thing I'm thankful for is that your father is no longer here. If he was still alive, this would kill him."

I said, "It's true. He had such a bleak view of human nature. Everything and everyone were evil. This attack on America would only confirm that he had good reasons to be so pessimistic."

On that day, my mother said. "I'm watching Wolf on the TV. I can see how much he is suffering."

"That wouldn't surprise me," I said.

"Are you watching?"

"We are," I said. I had switched to CNN to see what my mother was experiencing.

The three of us lapsed into silence.

"Are you listening to Wolf?" My mother asked. After another moment of silence, sounding even more distraught, she said, "I just saw them crash into the building."

In fact, the first explosions occurred more than a half hour earlier. "It's not about to crash." I said, "It already did. You're watching it on video tape."

"Here it comes," she said, ignoring me.

I let that pass, realizing that as she was approaching her hundredth birthday she wasn't noticing the distinction between live and recorded images. For her, every time they showed the crashes on tape, it was as if she was seeing them live for the first time.

"Why are you including my mother and 9/11 in this?" I asked Rona. She was by then fully awake.

"Because you're just like her. How many times during the past week have you seen that 14-story building in Gaza implode, killing dozens, including many children?"

"Dozens of times," I acknowledged.

"You wake up at 4 o'clock every morning and immediately turn on the TV, and then for hours proceed to watch the so-called news. You watch the same thing over and over as if you're seeing it for the first time. To you, like your mom, I'm certain it feels as if Israeli bombers attacked dozens of buildings, not just a few. A few is bad enough. But you make it much worse by watching  the same loop all morning, all day long."

Rona continued, "It's mesmorizing and you may not want to hear this but you're addicted to the news, especially bad news. You're making yourself crazy."

"It feels like I am,"I confessed."

"I love you and feel badly for you and think it might be time to increase your Zoloft."

"I agree," I said. "I'll ask my doctor."

Rona got out of bed and reached for the remote. With it she turned off the TV.

"I already feel a little better," I said.

"It's time to get over this," Rona said. Now smiling, "I don't want to wind up with you in the ER. You can make things better, much better for yourself. Especially if you could get unaddicted to the news. You might even be able to cut back on the Zoloft."

"In the meantime," I said, "I'll also cut back on Morning Joe and Rachel."

May 12, 2021--Liz Cheney

How can it be that Liz Cheney who has made a career by promulgating Big Lies has me this morning all teary?

Because, putting ideology and politics aside for a moment, she is talking powerfully as a patriot about the preservation of our democracy.

Her colleagues are about to vote her out of her position among Republican leaders. 

They don't deserve her.

May 10, 2021--Frisky Billionaires

I prefer my billionaires to be boring. They run the country and the world and should take that work seriously. No fooling around. Especially in public.

So I was upset Saturday when Tesla-SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is the second wealthiest man in the world, worth at least $191 billion, turned up on Saturday Night Live as guest host, cracking jokes and singing and dancing. He was decent but really?

You can thus understand how Bill and Melinda Gates's break up also upset me. Bill, the fourth richest, worth $130 billion, is needed to help us understand how the world works. Especially now when everything is out of kilter. But the Gateses are creating a mess. Divorcing. Now I fear that white-supremasists will see Gates's upending as evidence that he has in fact been running the world in cahoots with George Soros.  

I didn't experience even one moment of schadenfreude as the result of this--taking pleasure when the rich and powerful are brought down or held up to ridicule. We need to have the illusion that someone knows what's going on.

I'll restrain myself then from satirizing Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, Amazon's founder, who has more than $191 billion left, even after writing a check for $60 billion to his divorcing wife.

Why this hesitancy when it comes to Bezos? Didn't he run off with a glamorous TV personality, Lauren Sanchez, after abandoning his wife of nearly 30 years? The ultimate cliché? And post images of his privates on the Internet?

He did but, again, he runs the world's consumer economy and that amounts to more than 50 percent of American's discretionary spending. Though I prefer his keeping an eye on the business, not Ms Sanchez or the 400-foot yacht he is currently ogling and about to buy. 

And we are now learning that Bill Gates has had a funky deal with his wife, Melinda, for decades that allowed him to spend one weekend a year with an old girlfriend. His version of Same Time Next Year. Maybe he should watch it. It might bring him back to his senses. And calm me down.

Musk also has an open marriage and apparently doesn't sleep except on his office floor curled up under his desk. He married his first or second wife at least three times after frequent divorcing and remarrying. So he has first, second, third, and fourth wives but with a total of two people. Or something. 

I almost forgot the world's sixth wealthiest man--90-year-old Warren Buffett. He has $110 billion in assets and his own version of an open marriage. While his wife was alive, for decades they remained married but he lived openly with another woman.

I suspect like the rest of us he heard that Jennifer Lopez, in a good move, just dumped A-Rod.

If Buffet gets to her before her previous boyfriend, Ben Afflack, we'll be able to refer them as J-Buff.

May 6, 2021--Genuflecting

We assume the reason Kevin McCarthy and Ted Cruz trek to Mar-a-Lago as often as possible is because they are running for president and are seeking the Former Guy's endorsement. He likes people who suck up to him and they are trying to get a head start on 2024 genuflecting.

But this is just half the reason they head to West Palm Beach.

Have you ever been to the River Oaks suburb of Huston, Texas? Or Bakersfield, California?

Both places are on very few lists of must-see cities. Quite the opposite. 

Bakersfield is Kevin McCarthy's hometown and River Oaks is where Ted Cruz lives. Both would prefer the White House, though they probably would settle for any of Trump's glitzy places.

Mar-a-Lago comes with its own private golf course and is where Melania is ensconced. And everything is literally gilded. 

Pretty attractive to two guys who come from god-forsaken places. 

This desire to get out of one's hometown likely also explains why so many members of Congress spend as much time on the road or at golf courses. Anything to get away from Nebraska or North Dakota

One thing that has worked well for Trump is his willingness to invite these men (and they are all men) into his life. Though I assume he can't stand them as people, his ambition has no limits ands so he'll hold his nose and woof down a rack of cheeseburgers with the senator from River Oaks.

May 3, 2021--Come to Jesus

Melvin Shapiro, who had recently turned three, asked his mother for five dollars.

It was very early Sunday morning and Cynthia, who looked forward to sleeping in on Sundays, tried to ignore her son. And though this was an unusual request--he had never before mentioned or asked about money--precocious Melvin was always coming up with unusual requests.

For example, at the Bronx Zoo a few months earlier, he asked his parents if he could stand close to the bars in the lion house in the hope that a lion would pee on him, which would make him, he said, feel special.

And, he asked his father, Paul, when he would let him drive the family Oldsmobile. 

It was a serious request.

All this from a three-year-old.

Though Melvin didn't ask again that morning about the five dollars, it was still on his mind the following week when he again roused his mother with his unusual request.

This time she didn't turn away, thinking she needed to get to the bottom of what was going on, or Melvin would wake her every Sunday. He was not only unusual, but also persistent.

"Why, darling, do you need five dollars? You already get an allowance." 

"I don't need it," he said, "He does."

"He?"

"The man on TV." 

He climbed onto her side of the bed so she could put her arms around him. Which she did.

She yawned, "The man on TV?"

"He needs money. Five would be enough."  He raised his hand and began counting his fingers. Though just three he was already good with numbers.

Cynthia, now fully awake, remembered they allowed him to watch cartoons on TV Sunday mornings. Melvin distracted this way made it easier for them to get more sleep.

"Is it Farmer Gray?" 

Paul groaned, "He's not a farmer. He wears a suit."

His farther fell back into a deep sleep. Mumbling incoherently.

There was no more talk about money for at least a month.

But then, while rousing for Sunday breakfast, Melvin asked if they thought Jesus was still alive.

"Jesus? Who?" Half out of bed, his father snapped to attention. He asked Cynthia, "Who's filling his mind with these ideas?" She shrugged, knowing there would be no more rest that day. "I hope not one of the Italians."

The Shapiros were observant Jews and lived in a Jewish  neighborhood in Brooklyn, though at least a third of the residents were Italian-Americans. There were few incidents. They lived together peacefully, basically by ignoring each other. Though everyone, Italians and Jews, looked forward to the time they could afford to buy a small house on Long Island or New Jersey and move there in search of better schools and more people who were of "their kind." 

"Did he die for us?"

"Where are you learning these things" his mother asked. She tried to remain calm.

"From the man on TV. He said he did. Jesus did."

"Did?"

"Die for us. They put him on a cross. The Jews did. Just wearing his underpants. He died so we can live."

"I don't want to hear any more of this," his father uncharteristically shouted, "Do you hear me? What's his name? Tony something or other. You know who I mean" Paul turned to Cynthia. The one who's already six-feet and shaves."

"The man on TV said we have to love each other to save our souls."

"I told you no more of this," his father said.

 What's a soul?"

"Never mind, darling. We can talk about this another time." She was the family peacemaker.

Melvin began to whimper. 

Cynthia whispered to Paul, "The TV is converting him to Christianity."

"It must be Oral Roberts," Paul said, "He has a Sunday morning TV show. And he's always asking for his people to send him money. That's where the story about your five dollars comes from."

I thought about them the other day. They were graduate school friends. The story about Melvin is true. 

Rona was talking again about Trump and his followers. How they are being recruited and brainwashed through the Internet.

I reminded her about the Shapiros.

"I remember them," she said, "It's the same thing. Preachers like Oral Roberts used TV; Trump uses the Internet to turn people into white supremacists. If I were paranoid I'd think the Russian are the ones brainwashing Americans to help Trump and thereby bring down America."