Old So What

  It was not lost on me that I chose to start to write in earnest after my relatives, who were writers, were either in mental decline or dead. I obviously didn’t want any comparisons to turn up. There was one person about whom the following story revolved. About whom my entire world revolved at the time. It was my mother, of course. This particular story began on the morning of The Interview, an ordinary enough occasion for young girls in the 1950s who wished to enter Polite Society. As defined by people who considered themselves to be socially superior, thus allowing them to set standards of behavior for everyone else. I was 14 at the time, just slightly pretty, and exhibiting a beginning glimpse of attractiveness to come. We were late as usual. (I’m certain that when she was dying, my mother told God, “WAIT, I’m not ready yet!”) I never actually called her Mother, but rather, “Mommie” until like a slap across the face, she told me that I was too old to be calling her

  When you use a cane or a walker that you know what you’re doing.  I can tell you that you don’t from personal experience.  BUT there are videos out there (try YouTube) that can help. They can give you tips that will keep you from tripping all over yourself, as I almost did until I watched the demonstration.  Still, it is easy to trip.  So, take your time in this and everything you do.  After all, what's the rush?  You have all the time in your world.

  Have you heard of dead or dying malls? By the time you read this you’ll probably have to look up the word “mall” on-line, on-phone, on something. Malls, those places you used to go to buy things.  Some things you didn’t even know that you wanted. There was a feeling of anticipation, something good was about to happen.  Some discovery was about to be made. I never-ever get that feeling when I order on-line.   I get a feeling of dread knowing that I’ll get something messed up, some code number inverted.   (That’s why I wait for my youngest cousin to come over and ask her to do it for me.   She’s not full of dread.   She likes it! She’s a child of today. But I digress.) There’s no feeling of community when buying on-line. At least none that I can find. No bumping into people. No crowding, pushing, occasional sale-shoving, come to think of it… But now, at the time of writing this, there are tours on-line of dead, or dying malls.   If you ever want to be depressed, take one of t

  There’s something about a monarchy that… America just doesn’t like. Oh, we ooh and aah about the beauty, precision, and discipline that the British military, for example, displays ceremonially. They are beyond compare, extraordinary, devoted. We’re impressed, maybe even fascinated but that’s as far it goes. What the British don’t see is the America spirit that can’t just go along because that’s the way it’s always been done.  Except for during war, Americans don’t like to just go along. We’re a feisty group. We still don’t want taxation without representation:  although now it comes from our own government. And all those other things that we didn’t want in 1776 at the founding of our nation, but now we have. For us we will always be a free and independent nation, that’s just the way we see it. 

  before we bought everything on-line (as we do now). On one of the most sweltering days of the year… My mom-in-law, my husband and I set out to buy a new car. It was not one of our better ideas. We went to a lot of new car dealers, and wore ourselves out. We were dripping with sweat and generally just frazzled. My husband sat in the front seat of what we hoped was our last stop. And, my mother-in-law and I climbed into the back seat. Suddenly the salesman blurted out, “I know just what you need.” And he reached from outside, down into the car… and turned on the radio.

  In our neighborhood there are a few houses that stand waiting for the owners to return.  Just waiting.  They’re not waiting to be taken over by squatters, ransacked, destroyed or hurt in any way.  They’re just waiting for the warmth of a human touch, their human; a light turned on, in the house, their light; and ownership that takes up where it left off. In our neighborhood, there are a few humans that stand waiting for the owners to return.   Just waiting.   A watchful eye is kept for our neighbors’ homes.

  Until you’re alone with no distractions, thinking your own thoughts…you will never know just who you are.  And if you don’t like that person…improve him(her).

  Stumbling Around The most terrifying thing is waking up and realizing that you forgot that you have someplace to go, or worse, realizing that you forgot you have no place to go. It was the first morning since it happened that I went out by myself. The first of November, and the temperature had turned an unnatural 77 degrees, with the sun glaring so that it seemed to have sucked up all the oxygen until the world fell breathlessly around me. Noises sped past my ears like ammunition and I started and jumped at the most innocent of sounds: an unseen neighbor yelling to someone else, a horn sounding at the intersection. Rather like an alcoholic with a hangover except that my disorientation was not due to liquor but more like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   I started up the treeless hill toward the Suburban Trolley and waited on the right side of the tracks on a surprisingly clean brown-metal bench. The other side of the tracks had a sign on its bench: "Use the tracks on t

  At this season of the year between Christmas and New Year’s Day…I wasn’t feeling too hopeful being old, mostly alone, and fast going through the little retirement money I had left. I was making my (and my cat’s bed—we share, or really, she allows me to sleep in my own bed on whichever side of it she is not occupying at the moment). I was right in the middle of thinking that things were on a sure track to get worse…. When I heard a sound seldom heard in the house, uttered by a creature who didn’t like humanity very much or so I thought. (Somewhere before we met, she must have had an unpleasant experience with someone.) Then I put a name to the little creature, and a name to the sound. My cat was purring. A very hopeful sign, don’t you think?

  The dumbest cat is still smarter than anyone else in the room. A cat may not always know what you’re saying, but she’s willing to listen.

Unlike some people my age (in my 70’s), I do not like  going to the doctor.  I can think of better ways to socialize.

  When you live in a house with lots of people and pets, and you walk into a room that’s a total mess, you might ask the question: “What happened here?”   I was strolling through a cable channel video with no particular place to go. The subject was ghost or near-ghost towns, based on stories without happy endings. The town I zeroed in on was literally being swallowed up by its own vegetation. Sometimes a porch or a roof would stick out in protest. (You could look at a clump and think: Is there a “there” there under all that ugly, non-specific greenery?) Sometimes someone had seemed to sneak back into town to plant a few flowers or mow a lawn (showing that relatives of the original residents, or more than likely, other residents were still around), but you could see that this was a very sad place in a very sad situation, in the aftermath of some unhappy happenings.   Some place you don’t want to think about. Some place you don’t want to be.   A place you don’t even want to write a

  Candidate Number One Yulie and I were friends. You could even say, best friends. She would cook hamburgers for us on Saturdays when her mother wasn’t home. They were really tasty and I think it may have been the only thing that Yulie knew how to cook. There used to be an expression:   Tall, Dark (meaning dark hair), and Handsome. Well, on Saturdays when her mother wasn’t home, this man would come by with his little boy, who I always found annoying. But that’s neither here nor there (another old expression). How he knew Yulie I’ve long forgotten.   I think he had started out as a friend of the family or of her mother’s. Anyway, he was short, dark of hair and, I thought, ugly. He looked as if he ought to go for a good scrub down and bathe in an astringent. He was married, but always kidded around, touching and flirting with Yulie, and to my dismay, she flirted right back. Yulie was, what we called in the 1950’s, well developed for her age. He treated her as if she was an