So much has been happening recently both domestically (US) and abroad (especially abroad) that while I have had opinions, mostly I have simply watched confused and aghast at the Battle Royal that is unfolding with increasing violence in North Africa and the Middle East. I must admit that I am not on firm ground when it comes to my knowledge of, or my opinion about our present course of action in this region of the world. Therefore I am going to turn my attention to an email I received in the last several days from my good friend and erstwhile provocateur, John Bank.
The gist of John's email was this: The person or persons who sent the original email which John was forwarding were outraged over the following incident which happened in an open court room in the USA. The daughter of murdered parents who, in testifying at the accused's trial was sworn in with the words--"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"
The daughter, apparently confused and a bit shocked, then turned to the bailiff and said, "Don't you mean to say that I should end this oath with the words, 'so help me God'?" The bailiff or judge then said that if she wanted to say those last few words that she could.
The daughter goes on to say that she instructed all others in her family to say the 'complete' oath, including God. She went on the say that she was outraged and upset that it has come to this in America. The America, where in a recent NBC poll, 86% said that they believed in God. How could this state of affairs exist, she protested, in a country which overwhelmingly acknowledges GOD? Why do we have to cater to the 14% who say they don't believe in God? Why do we have to abridge the pledge of allegiance, eliminate 'In God We Trust' from our money or take the Ten Commandments out of public buildings? Who do these damn atheists think they are, these 14%'ers, was the implication. May I take a shot at answering her questions?
Why should we be concerned with the 14% (who say they don't believe in God according to that NBC poll)? Oh, how short are our collective memories! Those 14% represent a minority, of course. How dare they sway the majority? Well, this is how and this is why their opinions have to not only be taken seriously, but be PROTECTED. The history of our most immediate ancestors, you know, the ones who got on those leaky, disease-ridden and rat-infested wooden ships to brace a trans-Atlantic crossing into the unknown is inextricably linked to those 14%. No, most of them weren't atheists; that's not the linkage. Actually, the linkage between those seemingly disparate groups lies in the following 175 years of early American history. Ultimately, the final forging of that link finds its mettle in one of the world's most unique documents--Our Constitution. For those of you who blindly still believe in American exceptionalism in all things, THIS is still a reason to believe that our country IS exceptional.
In this social contract are expressed our Enlightenment forefathers' clear understanding of what it means to be an individual, 'a minority held in compact within a majority'. And the document is very clear in its leaning toward a protection of that minority even if that minority is a single individual. You see, individuals, according to this document have rights--rights that are unalienable. No person, agency, governmental authority or ruler may take them away. How appalling this statement must have been to the English Monarch in 1789. The state may not ever do anything to dissever those rights. (There is a strange irony here as relates to the paradox of our ambivalence to Arab theocracies.) So to cut, as they say, to the chase...our forefathers demanded that we separate the church (read here: one's religious beliefs) from the state. The state, federal government, whatever, may make no law respecting a person's religious beliefs.
So it's not just those pesky errant 14% of unbelievers who are screwing it up for the rest of us God-fearing Christians when they insist that the government STAY OUT OF RELIGION IN ANY AND ALL FORMS. It's the countless millions who over the millenia have been tortured, killed, forced to live in sub-human ghettos because they didn't happen to believe the way the majority did. The majority, of course, in most cases led by and controlled by ignorant, power and money-hungry clergy or secular rulers.
I would argue that the daughter who was so outraged by the exclusion of 'God' from the courtroom oath should get down on her knees and thank both the 14% and all those hundreds of thousands of her ancestors who protested, fought, braved the hostile oceans and died in the service of the creation of this magnificent document. A document that does not allow any governmental power to tell us who we must pray to or what we must do. A document that guarantees that any person will not have to conform to what any majority believes is an appropriate outward display of inner conscience. A document, by the way, which she probably hasn't ever read.
Love your neighbor, honor his or her beliefs (if they have shared them with you), keep your word, but keep your mouth shut about God. Too many people suffered and died so that you could worship, or not, as you please. In the end your neighbor will love and respect you all the more , and I'll bet God, whoever or whatever he/she/it is, will welcome you home when it comes time to return to where ever it was you were before you were born.
ps: Aren't they teaching American history anymore in our public schools?
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Madison Used To Be A Rich Girl's Name
I started to write a reaction to the events this past week that are taking place in Wisconsin's capital city.
For one thing, watching all those police, firefighters, teachers, nurses, and other workers (family/friends) gather in front of a seat of power on a bone cold wintery Wisconsin evening--whatever the rightness of the cause--arouses no small smattering of compassion in me. For another, I am the son of a man who preached the gospel of the plight of the underdog/workingman to my single person choir my entire rational life. Oh yeah, and then, there's this: I and my wife are retired teachers--so we have two dogs in this particular fight.
Couple the above with how I ended my last blog--trying to explain and justify my remark about being somewhat 'ashamed' at watching the democracy newly birthed in Egypt's streets and not being able to fathom our own American complacency. I knew as I wrote those words at the end of the last post that I would need to lay out a more comprehensive social philosophy. I also knew that if I am to write a novel, the story would be secondary to the theme; it would be a story of people grown fat, lazy and ignorant. It would be a story, chapters of which are even now unfolding with increasing speed, of a sociological, ecological, spiritual epiphany. Madison, Tea Parties, Egypt-the Middle East. What yet to come? Indeed, Madison used to be a rich girl's name. Now the name may belong to a movement as well.
First, and this is really unavoidable: We are all hypocrites and liars--all of us. No exceptions. I will testify in the church of public opinion that I am the chief sinner. The invention of language, the grasping of the concept of 'more', the whole glorification of our earliest sense of separation; yes, maybe if you accept the metaphorical truth to the eating of the fruit of consciousness (wait, that was ' the tree of the knowledge of good and evil', right?) means that we humans, of necessity, must lie. We have, in fact, separated ourselves from others, from God(s), from nature itself. And nature is one of 'the others' even if you don't accept the God(s) comparison. So verily I say unto you (all three of you), trust not in anything I have to say for I too am a human and I too will lie. But please, I beg of you, trust the intention. It's just, and this is the hard part,
I won't think that I am lying to you in these pages. I'll swear up and down that it is the truth. It may be your truth at the time; it may not. How to resolve this obvious impasse (one of my own creation I might add)?
Let me try to dig my way out of this. If what I say resonates with you in any way, please respond to what I am writing. That way we will both know that we are not alone. We will also affirm whatever is consonant, and consentual between us. And even though we time-binding, symbol users may never totally join in to a complete spiritual harmonic bliss this side of eternity, we will at least see our potential for brief flashes of instants. Back to our own ignorance, complacency and sloth.
I had just the other day, as I have on many other occasions, tried to figure out what the exact legacy of my parents had been. What had they passed on to me, aside from certain genetic predispositions, good and bad? My dad worked with his hands, but was highly intelligent; my mother had also worked with her hands, as a hairdresser, homemaker and interior decorator. Dad left me with a sense of how to work along with his populist anger. Mom left me with her ineluctable compassion--the need and, dare I say, compulsion 'for' and 'to' love. From that human amalgam I guess I can say that my social philosophy, after many a flirt with various 'societies at the top of the hill' (Thomas Mann reference?), is that we are all in this together. There is no, there can be no separation. Anything else is a lie, and a damned dirty one at that!
Ok, you say. I read all this and "we're all in this together" is how you are ending this post? Yup. Let me defer to a short quote from a Tennesse William's play, The Glass Menagerie. In Tom's soliloquy at the beginning of the play (Tom is Tennessee's alter ego) he speaks of the times in which he finds himself and his family. Permit a paraphrase: 'we found our fingers pressed down upon the fiery braille alphabet'. Change is definitely in the air, and it is not necessarily the 'Yes, we can!' kind.
I truly believe that it is the 'Yes, you must; yes, you are going to' variety. You can smell it in the air on an Egyptian street and you can definitely feel it here in America from tea parties to the capital massings in Wisconsin. But this proto-revolution when it fully arrives will be more than a social cleansing. Mother nature has a bigger plan for us. And our collective 'mother' may be the one doing the final 'pressing'. Our fingers will certainly be burnt and blistered, but they will heal. They will if we have gotten the message. Madison may just have lost her sense of privilege. 'Madison' may never be a rich girl's name again. We'll see.
For one thing, watching all those police, firefighters, teachers, nurses, and other workers (family/friends) gather in front of a seat of power on a bone cold wintery Wisconsin evening--whatever the rightness of the cause--arouses no small smattering of compassion in me. For another, I am the son of a man who preached the gospel of the plight of the underdog/workingman to my single person choir my entire rational life. Oh yeah, and then, there's this: I and my wife are retired teachers--so we have two dogs in this particular fight.
Couple the above with how I ended my last blog--trying to explain and justify my remark about being somewhat 'ashamed' at watching the democracy newly birthed in Egypt's streets and not being able to fathom our own American complacency. I knew as I wrote those words at the end of the last post that I would need to lay out a more comprehensive social philosophy. I also knew that if I am to write a novel, the story would be secondary to the theme; it would be a story of people grown fat, lazy and ignorant. It would be a story, chapters of which are even now unfolding with increasing speed, of a sociological, ecological, spiritual epiphany. Madison, Tea Parties, Egypt-the Middle East. What yet to come? Indeed, Madison used to be a rich girl's name. Now the name may belong to a movement as well.
First, and this is really unavoidable: We are all hypocrites and liars--all of us. No exceptions. I will testify in the church of public opinion that I am the chief sinner. The invention of language, the grasping of the concept of 'more', the whole glorification of our earliest sense of separation; yes, maybe if you accept the metaphorical truth to the eating of the fruit of consciousness (wait, that was ' the tree of the knowledge of good and evil', right?) means that we humans, of necessity, must lie. We have, in fact, separated ourselves from others, from God(s), from nature itself. And nature is one of 'the others' even if you don't accept the God(s) comparison. So verily I say unto you (all three of you), trust not in anything I have to say for I too am a human and I too will lie. But please, I beg of you, trust the intention. It's just, and this is the hard part,
I won't think that I am lying to you in these pages. I'll swear up and down that it is the truth. It may be your truth at the time; it may not. How to resolve this obvious impasse (one of my own creation I might add)?
Let me try to dig my way out of this. If what I say resonates with you in any way, please respond to what I am writing. That way we will both know that we are not alone. We will also affirm whatever is consonant, and consentual between us. And even though we time-binding, symbol users may never totally join in to a complete spiritual harmonic bliss this side of eternity, we will at least see our potential for brief flashes of instants. Back to our own ignorance, complacency and sloth.
I had just the other day, as I have on many other occasions, tried to figure out what the exact legacy of my parents had been. What had they passed on to me, aside from certain genetic predispositions, good and bad? My dad worked with his hands, but was highly intelligent; my mother had also worked with her hands, as a hairdresser, homemaker and interior decorator. Dad left me with a sense of how to work along with his populist anger. Mom left me with her ineluctable compassion--the need and, dare I say, compulsion 'for' and 'to' love. From that human amalgam I guess I can say that my social philosophy, after many a flirt with various 'societies at the top of the hill' (Thomas Mann reference?), is that we are all in this together. There is no, there can be no separation. Anything else is a lie, and a damned dirty one at that!
Ok, you say. I read all this and "we're all in this together" is how you are ending this post? Yup. Let me defer to a short quote from a Tennesse William's play, The Glass Menagerie. In Tom's soliloquy at the beginning of the play (Tom is Tennessee's alter ego) he speaks of the times in which he finds himself and his family. Permit a paraphrase: 'we found our fingers pressed down upon the fiery braille alphabet'. Change is definitely in the air, and it is not necessarily the 'Yes, we can!' kind.
I truly believe that it is the 'Yes, you must; yes, you are going to' variety. You can smell it in the air on an Egyptian street and you can definitely feel it here in America from tea parties to the capital massings in Wisconsin. But this proto-revolution when it fully arrives will be more than a social cleansing. Mother nature has a bigger plan for us. And our collective 'mother' may be the one doing the final 'pressing'. Our fingers will certainly be burnt and blistered, but they will heal. They will if we have gotten the message. Madison may just have lost her sense of privilege. 'Madison' may never be a rich girl's name again. We'll see.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Face of Freedom
A slight departure from the stated goal of the blog today: that of writing a novel. I say 'slight departure' and as I cogitate on those words, I think, "Maybe not so slight". At any rate, here, by way of some intended heuristic perambulation, is one American's reaction to the overwhelming events taking place in Tahrir Square in Cairo today.
Eqypt's modern day 30 year love affair (wink!) with their military strong man, Hosnie Mubarek (sp?) is formally over. He has resigned and the celebrations in Egypt's equivalent of their capital city's 'town square' are a reminder to all of us-- regardless of our own religious or political persuasion, societal rank or occupation--that freedom looks fundamentally the same at the individual human level. It's not just an American privilege or even one that necessarily must descend from the Greeks acropolis or the Roman agora.
Some might argue, if sensing the subversive direction of my little essay, that the Egyptians had to learn it from someone. Certainly the greatness of their own Pharonic civilization was geographically and chronologically closer to the Greek's Golden Age and their later Macedonian rule than to our own swift descent from the English Magna Carta etc. And today as I look at the thousands upon thousands of people shouting, singing and waving flags, having their own 'freedom bash' on the streets of their largest city, I am supremely humbled, and a little ashamed. Perhaps I am projecting too much for what a group of essentially young (15-40 yrs old) people have done to bring down one of America's favorite dictators. Really, what have they actually accomplished? Realistically this is only the beginning for Egypt. What the masses are able to persuade their leaders to do now and going forward is something quite different. We will have to wait for that. We will be watching; we should. But permit me my exhuberance...and my shame.
It is said of Mubarek that he was the West's friend, our friend. Peace with Israel continued under his reign. He maintained strong relations with other of our friends in the Middle East and in Europe, and he was an unswerving enemy to Al Qaeda and Islamic extrmeists. As a postscript, we might add that he did that little favor for us when we had folks we just couldn't torture openly: he was at the end of the line, waiting with open arms for all our renditions. Apparently the Egyptian secret police are really, really good at exacting confessions.
Peace with Israel, calm on Arab streets, and washing our dirty laundry. Priceless? Hardly.
Even though the Swiss have frozen most of his assets in their banks, America's favorite dictator certainly has other sources of revenue stashed away. He has, as have untold other American/British backed 'strong men', been the recipient of billions of dollars and pounds and lord knows what other currencies. With shrewd investment advice and compound interest that amount could add up to a bit more than cigarette money and the occasional night out for dinner a movie for the wife and himself.
So whence cometh the shame? A bad, corrupt and self-serving demagogue is gone....people in the streets are cheering. What could be the problem here? The problem really is not so much with the Egyptians, as I see it; it's with us. For if Egyptian society was broken in obvious and outrageously overt ways, at least the people did not lie to themselves about their state. And, finally, they had, had enough and their youth did something about it. Now that is remarkable! What is also remarkable, in a not so joyous way, is the extent to which our own society remains sonambulistic, pacified as they have been by government handouts or the promise of free market capitalism, which to my way of thinking has failed. Provocative ideas? That maybe we don't deserve our freedoms? Or that quite possibly the American dream is just that for most of us--a dream.
I can't finish this here; maybe I can't finish it, period. I will, however, try to expound on my reasons for the way that I feel on a later entry. But let me end this blog with a little story by way of illustration. Not so long ago at a family gathering, during the run-up to the election of our current administration in Washington, I opined at the dinner table that I thought that no matter who won the election, Americans had either lost the understanding of or the appetite for freedom. Further, that we had been hypnotized by the illusion of freedom; "we really only could understand our freedom as the freedom to choose between brands of toothpaste" offered as a metaphor for the comic book version of freedom we had been willing to accept for the real thing. My brother-in-law, a smart and reasonable man, by any accounts said, "Oh, I think you are exaggerating; I can't agree with that statement."
I'll tell you why I think he is wrong in the next few blogs. (Oh, by the way, this DOES, in fact, have everyting to do with the novel I wish to write.)
Eqypt's modern day 30 year love affair (wink!) with their military strong man, Hosnie Mubarek (sp?) is formally over. He has resigned and the celebrations in Egypt's equivalent of their capital city's 'town square' are a reminder to all of us-- regardless of our own religious or political persuasion, societal rank or occupation--that freedom looks fundamentally the same at the individual human level. It's not just an American privilege or even one that necessarily must descend from the Greeks acropolis or the Roman agora.
Some might argue, if sensing the subversive direction of my little essay, that the Egyptians had to learn it from someone. Certainly the greatness of their own Pharonic civilization was geographically and chronologically closer to the Greek's Golden Age and their later Macedonian rule than to our own swift descent from the English Magna Carta etc. And today as I look at the thousands upon thousands of people shouting, singing and waving flags, having their own 'freedom bash' on the streets of their largest city, I am supremely humbled, and a little ashamed. Perhaps I am projecting too much for what a group of essentially young (15-40 yrs old) people have done to bring down one of America's favorite dictators. Really, what have they actually accomplished? Realistically this is only the beginning for Egypt. What the masses are able to persuade their leaders to do now and going forward is something quite different. We will have to wait for that. We will be watching; we should. But permit me my exhuberance...and my shame.
It is said of Mubarek that he was the West's friend, our friend. Peace with Israel continued under his reign. He maintained strong relations with other of our friends in the Middle East and in Europe, and he was an unswerving enemy to Al Qaeda and Islamic extrmeists. As a postscript, we might add that he did that little favor for us when we had folks we just couldn't torture openly: he was at the end of the line, waiting with open arms for all our renditions. Apparently the Egyptian secret police are really, really good at exacting confessions.
Peace with Israel, calm on Arab streets, and washing our dirty laundry. Priceless? Hardly.
Even though the Swiss have frozen most of his assets in their banks, America's favorite dictator certainly has other sources of revenue stashed away. He has, as have untold other American/British backed 'strong men', been the recipient of billions of dollars and pounds and lord knows what other currencies. With shrewd investment advice and compound interest that amount could add up to a bit more than cigarette money and the occasional night out for dinner a movie for the wife and himself.
So whence cometh the shame? A bad, corrupt and self-serving demagogue is gone....people in the streets are cheering. What could be the problem here? The problem really is not so much with the Egyptians, as I see it; it's with us. For if Egyptian society was broken in obvious and outrageously overt ways, at least the people did not lie to themselves about their state. And, finally, they had, had enough and their youth did something about it. Now that is remarkable! What is also remarkable, in a not so joyous way, is the extent to which our own society remains sonambulistic, pacified as they have been by government handouts or the promise of free market capitalism, which to my way of thinking has failed. Provocative ideas? That maybe we don't deserve our freedoms? Or that quite possibly the American dream is just that for most of us--a dream.
I can't finish this here; maybe I can't finish it, period. I will, however, try to expound on my reasons for the way that I feel on a later entry. But let me end this blog with a little story by way of illustration. Not so long ago at a family gathering, during the run-up to the election of our current administration in Washington, I opined at the dinner table that I thought that no matter who won the election, Americans had either lost the understanding of or the appetite for freedom. Further, that we had been hypnotized by the illusion of freedom; "we really only could understand our freedom as the freedom to choose between brands of toothpaste" offered as a metaphor for the comic book version of freedom we had been willing to accept for the real thing. My brother-in-law, a smart and reasonable man, by any accounts said, "Oh, I think you are exaggerating; I can't agree with that statement."
I'll tell you why I think he is wrong in the next few blogs. (Oh, by the way, this DOES, in fact, have everyting to do with the novel I wish to write.)
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Perhaps a Word Of Explanation
I want to go on record as I begin this blog that everything that is being written here is, more or less, going to be used to provide the basis for a novel (currently #1 on the ole bucket list) tenetatively titled, Waking Up Among the Eaters or just Among the Eaters. So, if you are inclined to 'borrow', don't. And if you respond to anything I write, let me know if I may use it or you would like to restrict its use for further publication also.
And thank you for reading.
First, how did we get here? I suppose I need to confess. All right, here goes: I'm not a geek. Actually, those who know me, know me as the guy that gets shoved aside, falls on the floor while the shover geek, sneers down at me, "Get up and let ME show you how to do it!"
Now that I've written that paragraph, it looks a bit lame what with all the ordinary folks blogging these days, but still, if my friend Lou in San Francisco had not shown me how to set this baby up, I would not now be eager to powder and diaper the little sucker, to use a particularly bad metaphor. So here goes, with many thanks to Louie.
I think to start with I should explain the title. I have borrowed it from my father, who passed away at a nursing home in Springfield, Pa. last year at the ripe old age of 94. Dad was always colorful, a frustrated journalist who never actually answered the call of the fifth estate, and, as a result kept writing colorfully frustrating invective to the op-ed pages of the Philadelphia Enquirrer for 30-some odd years. He was a tile man, who wore out his knees in the service to thousands of businesses and homes in the greater Philly environs. But the quote, his quote.
Not to get into any serious family dirt, but Ed (dad) had been placed in a home by my one remaining sister. He had generally been disgustingly healthy most of his life, but in the final 3 or 4 years his health had rapidly deteriorated to the point that he couldn't really walk without help anymore. Heartbreaking for me because as a young boy I had seen him walk up a flight of stairs on his hands. In the end, after one troubling and exhausting visit watching him hobble back from his bathroom, dragging his walker for the umpteenth time, he turned to me and said, "Gee, Ed (me), remember when I used to be strong?"
My dad, garrulous talker that he was, had learned to be succinct. Strange. I knew that we, the remaining family needed to address the issue of his care, but it was complicated. For one thing, no one in the family, least of all my "I used to be strong' father wanted to address the 600 pound gorilla. Dad had made sister his one and only legal guardian and that one remaining sister had, had her daughter, the husband, two children and two dogs living in dad's house rent free for the better part of 8 years. What to do? What for me to do living almost 600 miles away in Michigan? This gets complicated so I'm going to 'cut to it' so to speak. I decided not to acquiesce and sign the house over to my neice (my sister's grand design), and dad winds up in a nursing home very soon thereafter. Now, this is not to imply that dad winding up in that home was the most objectionable thing that could have happened to him. He actually got better care there than he would have received at home--my neice can't boil water without burning it. But that is a whole nother kettle of fish.
After one aborted visit in which I was stopped in the hallway of the nursing home with a bag full of my dad's favorite cookies (my sister had asked the home to block any visits by me to my father), I finally was able to get into a rhythm of a visit every so often. On one of the later visits I asked dad about his illness--he had Parkinson's the doctors opined. He told me that when the spells came on it felt as if he were going cold inside and then he'd get very agitated, nervous for a time and then the feeling would pass. We talked openly after the initial surprize and dislocation of his new surroundings had worn off, but we never discussed anything about the family. He even took me off the proverbial hook for how he wound up in the home by telling me as candidly as he could manage that, "Yeah, Ed, I kept falling down so they had to put me here."
Thanks, dad, you knew instinctively what had happened, and I hope that you also knew and respected the fact that I never spoke of my anger about the chicanery that surrounded your final days.
But the quote. Almost forgot. Yes, the title of this blog and of a possible book. On my unplanned, final visit to my dad we had been talking about whether he needed anything more from me. A bigger tv in the room? Some more delli food from Zingerman's? Clothing, bathroom stuff? "Nope, he said, nothing like that. Everytyhing is ok here" and, after a significant pause, "but, you know, I don't know where they could have wound up. Do you remember those Belle Barth records (BBarth a Jewish nightclub performer who he had listened to for years)?" Indeed, I remembered, having listened to them myself, memorizing jokes to take to school. I told him that I would see what I could do after I got home to Michigan. (With the aforementioned Lou's kind help, I did send them along.)
And then he said it, jokester/philosopher that he was. If 'brevity is the soul of wit' then dad had finally assumed the role of Polonious: "You know, I never worry about nothing, as long as I wake up among the eaters." I mumbled something about how I hoped he never thought we'd let that happen, but everything past his line was superfluous. Remember the actor's rules, Edward: listen to your audience and exit on the tag line. And what a remarkable tag line it was. Bye pop. Hope they've got knishes wherever you are.
So there you go, mates. That's the long way around to the title and the quote from whence it came. Stay turned, if you made it through this one, for the next installment, wherein we shall attempt to peruse the social landscape in areas in which I am known to be dangerous.
And thank you for reading.
First, how did we get here? I suppose I need to confess. All right, here goes: I'm not a geek. Actually, those who know me, know me as the guy that gets shoved aside, falls on the floor while the shover geek, sneers down at me, "Get up and let ME show you how to do it!"
Now that I've written that paragraph, it looks a bit lame what with all the ordinary folks blogging these days, but still, if my friend Lou in San Francisco had not shown me how to set this baby up, I would not now be eager to powder and diaper the little sucker, to use a particularly bad metaphor. So here goes, with many thanks to Louie.
I think to start with I should explain the title. I have borrowed it from my father, who passed away at a nursing home in Springfield, Pa. last year at the ripe old age of 94. Dad was always colorful, a frustrated journalist who never actually answered the call of the fifth estate, and, as a result kept writing colorfully frustrating invective to the op-ed pages of the Philadelphia Enquirrer for 30-some odd years. He was a tile man, who wore out his knees in the service to thousands of businesses and homes in the greater Philly environs. But the quote, his quote.
Not to get into any serious family dirt, but Ed (dad) had been placed in a home by my one remaining sister. He had generally been disgustingly healthy most of his life, but in the final 3 or 4 years his health had rapidly deteriorated to the point that he couldn't really walk without help anymore. Heartbreaking for me because as a young boy I had seen him walk up a flight of stairs on his hands. In the end, after one troubling and exhausting visit watching him hobble back from his bathroom, dragging his walker for the umpteenth time, he turned to me and said, "Gee, Ed (me), remember when I used to be strong?"
My dad, garrulous talker that he was, had learned to be succinct. Strange. I knew that we, the remaining family needed to address the issue of his care, but it was complicated. For one thing, no one in the family, least of all my "I used to be strong' father wanted to address the 600 pound gorilla. Dad had made sister his one and only legal guardian and that one remaining sister had, had her daughter, the husband, two children and two dogs living in dad's house rent free for the better part of 8 years. What to do? What for me to do living almost 600 miles away in Michigan? This gets complicated so I'm going to 'cut to it' so to speak. I decided not to acquiesce and sign the house over to my neice (my sister's grand design), and dad winds up in a nursing home very soon thereafter. Now, this is not to imply that dad winding up in that home was the most objectionable thing that could have happened to him. He actually got better care there than he would have received at home--my neice can't boil water without burning it. But that is a whole nother kettle of fish.
After one aborted visit in which I was stopped in the hallway of the nursing home with a bag full of my dad's favorite cookies (my sister had asked the home to block any visits by me to my father), I finally was able to get into a rhythm of a visit every so often. On one of the later visits I asked dad about his illness--he had Parkinson's the doctors opined. He told me that when the spells came on it felt as if he were going cold inside and then he'd get very agitated, nervous for a time and then the feeling would pass. We talked openly after the initial surprize and dislocation of his new surroundings had worn off, but we never discussed anything about the family. He even took me off the proverbial hook for how he wound up in the home by telling me as candidly as he could manage that, "Yeah, Ed, I kept falling down so they had to put me here."
Thanks, dad, you knew instinctively what had happened, and I hope that you also knew and respected the fact that I never spoke of my anger about the chicanery that surrounded your final days.
But the quote. Almost forgot. Yes, the title of this blog and of a possible book. On my unplanned, final visit to my dad we had been talking about whether he needed anything more from me. A bigger tv in the room? Some more delli food from Zingerman's? Clothing, bathroom stuff? "Nope, he said, nothing like that. Everytyhing is ok here" and, after a significant pause, "but, you know, I don't know where they could have wound up. Do you remember those Belle Barth records (BBarth a Jewish nightclub performer who he had listened to for years)?" Indeed, I remembered, having listened to them myself, memorizing jokes to take to school. I told him that I would see what I could do after I got home to Michigan. (With the aforementioned Lou's kind help, I did send them along.)
And then he said it, jokester/philosopher that he was. If 'brevity is the soul of wit' then dad had finally assumed the role of Polonious: "You know, I never worry about nothing, as long as I wake up among the eaters." I mumbled something about how I hoped he never thought we'd let that happen, but everything past his line was superfluous. Remember the actor's rules, Edward: listen to your audience and exit on the tag line. And what a remarkable tag line it was. Bye pop. Hope they've got knishes wherever you are.
So there you go, mates. That's the long way around to the title and the quote from whence it came. Stay turned, if you made it through this one, for the next installment, wherein we shall attempt to peruse the social landscape in areas in which I am known to be dangerous.
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