Two Reasons I'm Glad I'm Getting Old

Image by annayozman from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleated.

                  
This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and approximately 39.9% of all grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering. 

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"To me, growing old is great. It's the very best thing—considering the alternatives." -Michael Caine


Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

All of my life I've been hearing the cliche, you're only as young as you feel. This is utter nonsense. Nobody feels old.

You may feel older than a chronologically younger person than yourself.

Or, you may even feel older than a person that's older than you are (who, of course, should be old enough to know better).

As I've written elsewhere, but I'm too old to remember exactly where, that feeling of superiority, perhaps even contempt, that third graders feel for first graders, never goes away. The age gaps just widen, 8 is to 6 as 30 is to 20.

While you may be feeling your body's age—particularly once the inevitable long, slow decline sets in, or you're the victim of a string of serious medical problems and it feels like your body has turned on you—in your heart of hearts, you never get old.

You're still, fundamentally, you. You're still pretending to be the grownup they told you would be someday. They didn't tell you that you will always feel more grown-up than some, less than others, and that the game never ends... well, till ya meet your end.

[Um... while I agree that the above is probably true, your garrulousness, I fail to see what it has to do with why you're glad you're old.]

Well Dana, while it's one of those many life lessons that you might grasp intellectually as you begin racking up the decades, but odds are you're not going to really know the truth of it in your very bones if, and until, you become a sexy seasoned citizen.
 
[Uh huh... but I still don't see why...]

It makes me happy? It's very liberating. You're not seeing the big picture, the concept applies to everything. You're never going to be done. You're never going to be secure. You're never going to wake up one day and finally know what, it, is. No matter what you've got, even if it's more than you need, you're never going to stop wondering what's missing.

And you're never going to be old.

Once you truly know and accept this, it might change everything or it might change nothing (externally speaking), but it will change you.

[Okaaay... what's the other reason?]

                                                   
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America's having an existential crisis, a cold civil war has broken out, cold enough to freeze The Gummit in place till at least November the third, 2020.

[This makes you glad?]

Look, While I'm concerned with what the future holds for my grandstickies, because who knows how the war will end, there's not that much I can do about it beyond cranking out these columns. 

The Millennials are slowly coming into their own, as far as who runs things, and the Boomers have slowly begun to fade away. There's about as many of them as there are Boomers and coming up behind them are the 91,000,000 members of Generation Z, the largest generation in American history.

Having recently turned 39 for the 27th time my use-by date is only about 13 years away. I may have a fixed income but I'm reasonably confident that the two subsequent generations I share a home with will make sure I'm not rendered homeless unless we're all rendered homeless.

So, here I sit in a comfortable office chair in front of a computer monitor, that in effect, is a magic window that looks out on to, well, everfugginthing there is or ever was.

But, not having been raised surrounded by screens, even if the entire nation experiences a version of the electrical insanity going on in the People's Republic of California, I will not be traumatized.

To my right is a bookshelf stocked with several key texts in the dead trees format to keep me amused. There's a library within walking distance stocked with same. There are 6.5 people outside my bedroom door who like me (most of the time) to talk to.

I wish I had a money bin, or more generous readers, or that someone would syndicate me but you can file that under woulda, coulda, shoulda. I'm a lucky sumbitch.

                                                  *     *     *

[Okay, but...]

Okay but nothin', let me finish, please. I'm slightly smarter than the a-ver-age bear, I was born only eight years after the last world war ended. I received twelve years of what used to be foundational American education just before Western Civilization started taking random potshots at its feet.

Nine of my 39 certified college credits were also accumulated before the Boomers took over and set the culture on fire.

I mention this because if you combine the above with the fact that I've been a voracious reader and a current events junkie since I was about ten years old you get an old dude with a halfway decent reality-based historical perspective, a currently unfashionable notion. 

Also, I've had, and understand the importance of, a grounding in the traditional liberal arts which are currently under attack by the armies of the woke.

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So here I sit, a well-informed spectator, watching the game. I'm hoping my team (The Fighting Enlighteneers) beats the other guys (The Squabbling Postmodernists), but as I've mentioned above there's not much I can do. I write, try to influence my dear grandstickies, hope to live long enough to meet my great-grandstickies, and enjoy the game.

And hope and pray Social Security and Medicare don't crash and burn.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me a coffee.  

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to. Cranky don't tweet. 





















                                             

Do You Love Your Work?

Don't confuse your work with your job

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm dead.

                  
This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and approximately 39.9% of all grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering. 

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend, than be one.                                                                                        -Clarence Darrow


Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

When I began this particular missive I had no idea what I wanted to write about but this is not particularly unusual. Just because I've made a personal commitment to writing a weekly letter doesn't mean I'm necessarily brimming with ideas and can't wait to start writing on any given day.

Regardless, I write nearly every day, even if it's only a few sentences. I do this for myriad reasons but I'll refrain from pouring out my psyche all over the page. Bottom line? It provides all sorts of mental/emotional/spiritual/etceteral health benefits at no charge.

Also, it somehow enables me to tap into something that I can't possibly explain with mere words. Ain't that ironical. 

I've recently made the mistake of re-researching how to make money from wordsmithing, looking into the subject more deeply than I ever have before.

Suffice it to say I've once again abandoned my novel. All the life lessons I would have you learn, carefully disguised in a (hopefully) entertaining bit of fiction, have been put back on a virtual shelf.

Sorry, it looks like you'll have to mine my weekly missives if you're interested in unearthing a nugget or two of useful information.

This is not as mercenary as it sounds. I've made, literally, less than a hundred bucks for my work since I began writing this weekly whatever it is four years ago but it's never occurred to me that I should give it up.

Trust me, I'd absolutely love to make a pile of dough for my efforts. I've tried various methods to turn my words into cash. The campaign continues apace.

But I'm sure you (possibly from me), and my gentlereaders, have heard the cliche that if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life.

It's true.

The bad news is there's a very good chance you won't get paid for your work. But even knowing what your work is, and having the opportunity to do it, is a blessing.

[Could you be a little more vague? What does any of this blather have to do with the title Your Garrulousness?]  

Dana emerges! In fact, I wrote a column (a hobby that turned into my work, these letters) on this very subject quite some time ago.

What would I have you learn, Dorothie's?

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Strive to become skilled at something the world is willing to pay you for and is likely to keep paying you for down the road, that you don't hate, and your life will be a lot more pleasant than otherwise. But there's a good chance it won't be your work.

Your work is something you'll keep doing anyway because you almost have to and it will keep your soul from slowly evaporating as you age. Your work can be almost anything—you'll know it if you're lucky enough to find it.

[Wait-wait-wait, what's this got to do with you dropping the ball, or should I say the keyboard, as far as your novel is concerned?]

The novel's not my work, I thought I had found a job that might possibly lead to me and mine making some cold hard cash. Every time I start working on it again it quickly becomes a job that I don't much care for.

And that would be fine—I've had more than one of those, but I knew what the payoff was and I did what I had to do to take care of business. At this point, the reader might go back to the part about learning a skill the world's willing to pay for.

BIG BUT... even getting signed by a well-known publisher doesn't ensure that two, three, or more years of intellectual bloodletting will result in more than chump change.

I've read articles by compulsive novel writers that have a published novel out there, and two or three more in a drawer, that haven't made enough money to fund a vacation from their day job.

But they continue writing novels, or _______, for the same reason I continue writing my column. There are other forms of compensation besides money.

                                                   *     *     *

I'm doubly blessed.

We share, my Dear Stickies, and have for quite some time, a home. I know that's unlikely to last as you're all headed towards gruphood at the speed of life. But hopefully, one or two of my less annoying attributes are/will be of some assistance to you now and in the future.

And while I've yet to make more than a few bucks for my efforts, I, like serial novel writers who have also have been denied both fame and fortune, love my work.

And just like them, and lottery players everywhere, in my heart of hearts I know that I'm going to wake up one day and discover I have the golden ticket.

You gotta play to win, right?

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me a coffee.  

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to. Cranky don't tweet.






   

Mr. Cranky's Neighborhood

Image by Prawny from Pixabay

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't, yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

                  
                        This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens 
        Perusal by callowyutes may result in psychological, etceteralogical triggering. 

                                                 Glossary  

                                                   About

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Star: Dana — A gentlereader

"I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses." -Stephen King


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

I've recently begun walking around my neighborhood. I've lived in this neighborhood for better than a decade but have never done this before. I'm a card-carrying suburban boomer with rural certifications. Suburban boomers drive. S'boomers live in developments/subdivisions/townships — not hoods.

They don't normally go for walks either, not in the traditional sense. When they do they're usually equipped with water bottles to remain hydrated as they navigate through tricky subdivisions that often contain lengthy, unmarked dead ends.

Carrying ballast to keep from tipping over, they walk briskly while pumping or swinging their arms purposefully. After a sensible dinner.

In the 'burbs, full speed jogging is usually done in the middle of the night by one-percenters, or wannabe one-percenters, so that our hero can get a jump on normal people before beginning their 16-hour workday. Exploiting the 99% takes a lot of time and energy.

Although, technically speaking, I live in a small incorporated town, which in the Flatlands of Ohio are called cities, to me it's a 'burb. I spent the first 12.75 years of my life living in inner-city Pittsburgh (with an h) in neighborhoods where yards were generally small to nonexistent and trees, except for parks, were few and far between.

From my personal perspective, I don't live in a city, it's a crowded suburb.

The yards, for the most part, are small, but almost everyone has one, and there's enough grass to require regular cutting. There are hedges and edges to be trimmed and weeds to be wacked. Almost everyone has a driveway and garages are commonplace.

People don't usually park on the street (in some neighboring "cities" it's illegal to do so) and nobody has to mark their territory (parking spot) with milk crates, retired kitchen chairs or the like and be prepared to defend their territory to the death (or at least till someone calls the cops).


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I confess I'm not a big fan of the Buckeye state. I've been living here temporarily for 34 years. It's me, not them. It's never felt like home. I felt more at home during my brief sojourn in the sunbelt that I ever have here.

But the thing that I love about my neighborhood is the trees.

It's a very old neighborhood full of architecturally unremarkable, modest homes once mostly inhabited by barely middle-class employees of local steel mills and factories that are mostly gone.

Now it's inhabited by retired former employees of local steel mills and factories that are mostly gone, and younger H. sapiens that haven't fled to points south of the Mason-Dixon, at least not yet.

And hooge "perennial plants with elongated stems, or trunks, supporting branches and leaves"—which is how Wikipedia describes trees—of all sorts.

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True, and newer, suburbs may have larger yards, houses, and incomes but often the trees have been redlined, restricted to their own neighborhoods. The trees, if any, are usually saplings or not much more than saplings (teen trees?). My modest neighborhood has enormous trees and lots of 'em. Far more birds than people live here.

Although the bottom third of my county consists primarily of tiny cities and realburbs, the rest is mostly rural and chock full of farms (and trees). This is why occasionally eagles, hawks, and falcons can be spotted soaring overhead.

"Honey, have you seen the cat?"

There are at least two owls that live in or near my neighborhood. I've never seen them but I hear them almost every day. I assume they're warning each other to keep to their own turf or things will get ugly.

[Hey, nature boy, have you received a commission from Dodging Death Digest?] 

No, Dana, I'm painting a charming foundational, literary picture of my neighborhood, for what follows.

What started out as a way to get some much-needed exercise without going to da'mall and joining my fellow geezers and geezerettes walking in circles around the local consumer cathedral like a secular version of devout Muslim pilgrims circling the Kaaba, got me thinking. 

One day it occurred to me, it's 2019 in America, where are all the protesters?

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My neighborhood is top-heavy with old people that, like me, worked full time for 45 years or more. Some are still working, as I would be if not for the blessing of being part of an extended family of three generations living in our large, old drafty house.

We don't own our home—in fact, if we ever find a way to swing it we'll be headed for North Carolina—but most of my neighbors do.

Beginning in the late seventies, shortly before I was lured to Canada's Deep South by my late wife (it's complicated) the factories and the mills began shutting down or moving away.

The tiny city I currently inhabit was still thriving when this started happening and many of the old people (people my age) still living here who were relatively young at the time, had tough, physically and mentally (ever work the line?) demanding jobs.

But a lot of these jobs paid fairly well, traditionally were fairly secure, and a lot of these people had bought homes—unaware of how fast and how far things were going to fall.

Not exactly an easy life but with a little luck—if the job or some bug didn't kill you first you could do 30 and out and finally fix up that tiny yard, maybe get a camper—although you might need a part-time gig to make ends meet.

Everyone knows what happened next (or should). Bottom line: a whole lot of folks are now living in modest houses, that may or may not be paid for, in various states of repair or disrepair.

Some get full pensions, most a fraction of what they thought they would eventually get when they were busting their butts back in the day.

There's no shortage of empty homes that won't sell. There are a few abandoned houses that should be torn down, and it shouldn't be so hard and expensive to make this happen.

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The yards, for the most part, are small, but almost everyone has one, and there's enough grass to require regular cutting. There are hedges and edges to be trimmed and weeds to be wacked.

Just about every street has a retired guy with a riding lawn mower that cuts the grass of the houses that won't sell if the owner can't be bothered keeping up the yard work.

Bird feeders need to be maintained, hips and knees replaced, grandkids babysat. Everyone knows someone that was killed by and/or is being treated for Cancer. But no one is blocking Main Street and demanding The Gummit do something. Too busy. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me a coffee.  

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to. 

Cranky don't tweet.