Ah, yesterday, how far back does it go? Is yesterday that time when teachers were called mister or miss or missus by every student in the class, and were called the same by other teachers? Could it be the time when children called their parents ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ and ever adult was known as ‘sir’ or ‘maam?’ Or perhaps you may think of it more the time when young men burned their draft cards or fled to Canada to avoid some stupid ‘war’ in a little known place called Vietnam? Maybe your ‘yesterday’ is just that…the day of your first job; graduation from high school or college; the day you killed your first enemy soldier, or climbed down cargo nets.
For most of us, truly, it was a time when we teased at life. We were immortal and we could do anything we did without fear while the adults looked on with quiet smiles or worried frowns. We careened along dirt roads in jalopies never meant to be treated as we treated them. We went to the drive-in and as guys we fumbled our way for a quick feel of an emerging breast. As girls, you struggled to maintain your modesty and virginity; and “Can’t we just be friends?” was a mantra heard by many a young stud while the big screen blazed away. Our braggadocio was the stuff of dime-store fiction novels. Cigarettes were cool and high school and college athletes always got the prettiest girls.
Oh, what great plans we had. We would rule the world. It was our oyster just waiting for us to come along. However, just like so many before us, reality began to set in. First, it was a junior high classmate whose undiagnosed illness caused him/her to drop dead on the soccer field. Wait, that’s not supposed to happen. He/She was going to be a star…no, it’s not supposed to happen…but it did. In high school, a purloined case of beer, a car with a speedometer that said it could go 120, and a 150 year old oak tree met in a troika that took the lives of two more classmates. And now, it became more acceptable…but that was them, that wasn’t you.
If your choice was college, you hoped just to get away…go to college and be somebody; who you were going to be was somewhat unclear, particularly as a freshman with all those grownup upperclassmen who paid you no heed. All of a sudden, you’re a senior and graduation day rolls around. You’re ready to take on the world. Then you get an entry-level job and find out that a degree isn’t all you thought it would be or do what you thought it would do. You’re just another slob in the workforce. You’re no different than the person who went to work right after high school…except you might be making a little more money. it was Monday through Friday – thank god it’s Friday. What happened to Saturday and Sunday, and it’s back to Monday again, just waiting for Friday.
You don’t like your job. It’s not what you thought it would be. You look for something else and give it a try, only to learn that it’s the same old grind…or maybe not. Maybe, just maybe, you find something that fills you with a passion and devotion you never, not in your wildest dreams, thought you’d possess. And the years rush by. You don’t live by light nor do you shun the naked light of day because you are so enthralled with what you are doing, you have no time for high school or college classmates. You marry and divorce, but the job is everything. It fills you up and you are left with no time for anything else. This, too, could be your dream.
You grow older; you reached your goals or not; you retire or perhaps you drop dead, past the usual age for retirement, but “I enjoy work and they need me,” never realizing that ‘they’ can hardly wait for you to leave. Let us assume the best…that you do in fact retire from a job that brought you some fulfillment. You look back and see, if you’re lucky, that while it has all been about you, somewhere, you married again or even stayed married, had a family; even coached a neighborhood team of some kind or other. But in hindsight, it’s all been about you and the world that revolves around you.
You find that you have been so busy being you that everyone and everything else has been on the periphery, that you are no different from the rest of the world. Yes, you have loved; well, you have loved as you believe love should have been. Your love, however, if you are true to yourself, has been subservient to you and everything you wanted…a selfish love…a love of you, what you are, what you have always been.
Now you are old. The things you always wanted to do are no longer possible. Your dream of growing old with your partner and doing the things you both talked of doing can no longer be done. The children have grown and moved away…nor do they remember yesterday. Your partner becomes ill and dies, but those are not the only time you feel the bitter taste of tears upon your tongue. You also cry for yourself because the time has come for you to pay for yesterday…when you were young.
[I have had something of a love affair with this song since I first heard Roy Clark sing it. While it is not one hundred percent applicable to my own life, there are certainly parts of it with which I can associate, particularly the last stanza. All of the plans that we had made, cut short and cut down by cancer; all of my stupidity of continuing to smoke despite the warnings, quitting only when there was no choice. Perhaps I would change the first line to read, “There are so many things that won’t be done.” I can do that now that I’m no longer…young]
They go back to the seventeenth of April 2010. I was 75 years old. Joan had been dead nearly two years. Perhaps it was, I thought, a cathartic that would help me through what was a rough period. I no longer smoked nor drank. Juli wasn’t here yet, although we were e-mailing back and forth about what it’s like to care for someone who was dying or died…she was a helluva support person to have at that time and, for that matter, she remains a great source of support to this day. So, in effect, I cannot tell you why I began to write a blog or what I intended to write.
Today, a little over four years later, there are 835 essays on this blog. Why that many? Hell, how do I know? Some have contained language that would make a stevedore blush; I know they’ve made one former college president say, “I never heard you talk like that,” and that’s okay. Perhaps I still possessed a certain amount of professionalism when I was working for/with him. I’m quite certain that Indra Nooyi doesn’t walk into a Monday morning staff meeting at Persico and ask everyone how their ‘fucking” weekend was; you know, there are just certain circumspect things that one does not do in polite company. Most of us know “the words” but most of us also know when they are inappropriate and respect that.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, the 835 posts. They’ve ranged from criticism to instructional and everything in between. I’ve talked about bullying and domestic violence to Congress and my personal feelings about death. Speaking of domestic violence, I had a comment just recently from a woman who had read one of the articles. Although she didn’t say so directly, I had the feeling that she might be a victim looking for more help about how to get out of a bad relationship. There’s the problem…I write about these things; I have worked with people in the past who were active in helping folks like her; I offer advice but will never know if they take it or are even in a position to take it. It can be frustrating as all get out because I rarely have any way of knowing. After my friend and I finished the series on alcoholism, we felt we’d have done a service if we helped one person. When the last piece was published, three people came to me at the gym on that same morning and said, “Thanks.” Wow, how do you think that made us both feel?
Do I write this stuff to be noticed? Yeah, probably, but I really don’t think about it that way. Sometimes I just get so riled up at the stupidity of others that I take my vengeance out on the keyboard. When I’m writing about government, it’s often because I don’t believe that we, the American people, are getting a fair shake and that the government seems more about pleasing the people who have money and power and don’t really give a damn about the farmer in Iowa or Nebraska, or the poor in Detroit or East Bumfuch, West Virginia. Maybe the Republicans have a point; maybe the federal government is too big for its britches. Maybe we do give the states more of a say in how they govern themselves. Then, of course, we have to worry about who runs the states and how many of those votes get bought by the rich to the detriment of the poor.
Then there are the times when I start to write and I just can’t get the whole thing going. Here’s an example of that: Carol Flynn of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was just standing in a checkout line at Walmart when she noticed a young mom put three packages of diapers back because the store discount only covered one package. Flynn stepped up and, although she had no idea who the mom might be, she grabbed the other three packages and paid for them herself. “Maybe you can pay it forward some day,” she told Katie Kanefke, the mom. According to the report I saw, Kanefke reacted with “I couldn’t believe it. I was just so surprised. I was like, ‘I don’t even know you.’ If you ever needed a sign that God’s there for you in the hardships and struggles, this is it. It’s pretty awesome.” Perhaps Carol Flynn should run for Congress but then again, she’d probably take one drink from the Congressional water fountain and want to sue Kanefke for the diapers plus interest.
A Minnesota Air National Guardsman was driving when he noticed flames coming from under the car in front of him. At about the same time, the driver smelled a strange odor. Both cars pulled over. The driver’s SUV doors locked when he put the car in park, trapping him inside. As the fire intensified, Michael Joahannes, the driver tried to kick out the passenger side window without much success. Robert Renning, the guardsman, rushed to the car and literally bent the passenger’s side door in half, shattering the glass and enabling him to pull Joahannes to safety. He didn’t believe that he was a hero, but that this was something anyone would have done. My question? Was it something anyone could have done? The Minnesota State Police plan on nominating Renning for a Good Samaritan Award. He’d sure get my vote!
Where do you take a piece like that? There are good news stories all over the place. They have to be strange to make headlines. You may have heard the expression, “If it bleeds, it leads.” It seems that still holds true in some media outlets…and that’s too bad. It’s my personal belief that the evening news, in particular, with all of its blood and gore, is just so depressing that people carry it into their dreams. There was one study done a while ago that suggested people not watch the 11 o’clock news if they wanted a decent night’s sleep. When some gangbangers get shot, I can just see the one who did it watching the TV and saying, “Yeah, that’s me. I did that. I’m famous. They don’t know who I am, but I did that; that’s me.” Screw that; don’t give the son-of-a-bitch the satisfaction.
I’m going to continue to write for as long as I can. You don’t like it…change the channel, as they say or give me a shout and tell me you don’t; same’s true if you enjoyed it. If you have topics you’d like to hear about, start your own blog. As the late Robert B. Parker told me many moons ago, “The only way to write is to write.”