Blog #247                                         December 2, 2021

 

In celebrating Thanksgiving last week, I came to realize how thankful I am that I’m not in my grandchildren’s’ generation and forced to grow up in these disturbing and confusing times.  I’m reluctant to write my thoughts down.  I’m fearful of insulting someone, which I don’t mean to do, or sounding stupid, which I often do.  I’ll give it a try and hope you forgive me.

 

I grew up in the 1950s.  A boy growing up then in my neighborhood knew what his future would be.  I would go to high school (check), graduate college (check), marry the prettiest girl in the world (check), go to work in my father’s business (check, for a little while), have cute little kids (triple check), get rich (for a few years), grow old (working on it), retire and tell stories to the grandchildren.  That’s what was expected, and that’s pretty much how it went.  It was like walking down a path in the woods.  The path had been made by thousands and millions of people who came before me and had trampled it down so all I had to do was follow it one step at a time, one foot after the other.

 

That path is not so simple any more.  You can’t just stride along one foot after the other.  The path has become a twisting and ever-changing quagmire with forks in the road that didn’t used to be there, and when you come to each fork, you stop, you shuffle back and forth and you become confused.  You have the choice of gender.  You have the choice of sexual orientation.  Which path should you take?  Should you get married?  Should you have kids now or later or never?  Would it be better to get rich or to save the world?  Some might say that just having those choices has been real progress for many, and I suppose that’s so.  But it has made the path a perplexing and dangerous journey full of therapists and Prozac.

 

I never went to a therapist when I was a kid; I went to an orthodontist.  But all eight of my grandchildren have been to a therapist at some time.  When I was young, we knew what to do and where we stood.  We knew to look both ways before crossing the street and to be home by dinner.  We knew that if you went out without your coat you would “catch your death” and that atomic bombs wouldn’t hurt you if you crawled under your desk.  Now, kids don’t even know where to put their trash – compost, landfill or recycle. 

 

We kids just don’t know what to think

Our world seems to be out of sync 

We haven’t a clue

Where to go, what to do                                                                                                          

We just need some pills and a shrink.

 

Can you blame them?  If kids today have trouble deciding where to toss their banana peels, how do you expect them to decide which bathroom to use? 

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and recovering from your Thanksgiving feasting.  Holy crap!  It’s December already and Hanukkah is here. Hanukkah has been celebrated for a long, long time and by a lot of people that you would not have suspected were Jewish:

 

·        We knew King Arthur was Jewish when he said, “I want a round table.”

·        We knew Venus de Milo was Jewish when she said, “Damn, I broke a nail.”

·        We knew Helen of Troy was Jewish when she said, “Menelaus, take me to Paris.”

·        We knew Little Red Riding Hood was Jewish when she said, “We’re going out with the Wolfs again tonight.”

 

Message from Shakespeare:  If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work (Henry IV, Part 1).  Am I Jewish too?  I celebrate all the holidays:  Hanu-cat and Yom Ki-purr, even Pussover.  So I guess I must be.  Shalomeow!

 

The flight home from North Carolina was fine and without incident.  The Transportation Safety Administration has hired extra officers and everything went quickly, although I got the feeling that they had all been trained by my wife, who is more sweet to me than sunlight.  One lady officer told me, “Put your laptop in the tray, make sure your buttons line up with your belt buckle and don’t ever wear linen again in November.”

 

At the airport and on the plane, I read.  Right now, I’m reading two books.  One is a mathematics book entitled Infinite Powers.  What a boring title.  The musical satirist, Tom Lehrer, had a great suggestion for a title, The Tropic of Calculus.  If I ever write one, I’ll call it The Grapes of Math.

 

The line I used above, describing my wife as more sweet to me than sunlight, was from The Odyssey.  That’s the other book I’m reading.  Did you know that Homer and I went to high school together? I liked his stories, but I warned him that the name The Iliad was misleading and totally forgettable.  I gave him some other choices:

 

·        To Helen and Back

·        Don’t Forget Your Trojans

·        Schitt’s Greek

 

He rejected my advice.  Too bad.  He might have been famous. 

 

Yesterday, I received a message on my health-care portal.  It was from Dr. Pacemaker and described the results of a scheduled remote monitoring of my heart activity.  This happens every three months or so, and I usually ignore it, but this time I decided to read the report.  Using complicated doctor-talk exclusively, the report described, in excruciating and undecipherable detail, everything that was wrong with my heart.  I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or update my will.  I sent them this response:

 

It would really be helpful if I could decipher the test results you sent me.  I have no idea whether I’m doing fine or should call the coroner.

 

I really did send it just that way, and I got a response: “Our report has been reviewed and shows normal device function and there are no concerns at this time.”  Much better!

 

The Weekly Word is quagmire, which is a soft and unsteady swamp or an awkward and hazardous situation.  Kind of like today’s blog.  But you made it through.  I’m proud of you.  Stay well, my people, and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com.