The Soundtrack To Your Life, El Condor Pasa.

 

 

 

 

 

I can be proud, too proud at times. There are skills I know I have and do well with but life can take me down a few notches when it kicks my ass and then I realize I had deficits in that skill set all along. My problem is losing the sight of the forest through the trees. If you’re in a situation long enough, a rut or whatever, you don’t noticed the insidious creep it does, like ivy slowly growing up your legs to fully engulf you in leaves eventually, even blinding you.

I do notice it too late though at times. Usually when I have been freed of it and months go by and I look back, with a now clear eyes and see just how thoroughly saturated I was by it and how it ruled my thoughts, decisions and happiness.

**

I’ve spoken about it before, the life long mental illness my Mom had to endure before they managed, rather late, to control with better meds.

I used to think that her illness never effected me as a kid but it did because even then, say at 7 or 8, I refused to invite friends into my house lest they witness...her! It wasn’t that she thought she was Napoleon but depression has it’s outer effects, like never cleaning the house for weeks on end. I wasn’t about to let anyone figure out our family dynamics with a personal tour of the place.

Everyone, families, maintain a public face and it better bespeak of normality

So I hid her.

I did admit to myself that she effected me after my father’s death. He was her support and it vanished when he died. She now had to run this household and she was in no condition to do it.

My brother, who couldn’t stand her fled as much as he could from the house (physically and psychologically) and that left me, at 14, to be Dad.

This included gathering the mail, sorting the bills, forging her name on checks to pay for these bills and doing a shit job of cleaning the house because I was at 14 boy. I kept an eye out for growing piles of laundry and became more aware of the other household duties she could not care less for.

Due to her depression, which makes you push the world away and any friends, she leaned on me for support as she had no one else. I also did free therapy sessions that lasted to 2AM as we sat in the kitchen as she spelled out her gloom and related worry about everything. So, I countered that with my 14 years of wisdom that amounted to nothing than a pep talk.

This went on for years in one form or another and I propped her up when she fell into deeper despairing episodes. I did know being “nurse” could cramp my life sometimes but I had no clue as to the extent at the time. I was deep within the forest with no perspective. Also, I had grown up under these conditions so it was always like this. If she were stable and calm for a few months, these were the “good” time.

In 1994 to 1996 I was working and going to school full time, both. I worked or was in school seven days a week for two years straight. If anyone ever accuses me of being lazy, I ought to take a hockey stick upside their head! Pile upon that caring for her as the breast cancer and emphysema grew worse. She had been diagnosed with both in ‘94.

I know the following to be true as I lived it. Those with chronic or terminal illness have a tendency to ramp up the worst of their personality traits. Life becomes harder with no hope of resolution and that stress can make them lash out to the ones nearest to them. So, I ate any reaction to that knowing why it happened.

Her diseases progressed fairly rapidly and I did what I could and then one day it was over, the illness took her.

**

I took a week off from work and school to manage the funeral, line up a lawyer, dig up documents and that week raced by. Those seven days later, on a Saturday, I returned to school, getting back to my regular life.

It was 5AM, Saturday, and I had the stereo on, listening to it as that would probably be my only twenty minutes I would have to myself that day. I had on Paul Simon’s “Live Rhymin’ when the CD player cued up El Condor Pasa, which I have heard a thousand times before without much reacting to it in any way.

There is a line in it in which, for the first time, I realized how plaintively Simon sung it.

Away, I'd rather sail away

Like a swan, that's here and gone.

A man gets tied up to the ground

He gives the world, its saddest sound

Its saddest sound.

Not to rip off Marlon Brando from Apocalypse Now but I swear I “was shot with a diamond bullet straight in the forehead” when I heard those lines. The thought that hit me, with full realization, was that I was free of her, her illnesses and everything that had gone before. That the whole situation was undoubtedly over and the song, which instantly became shockingly relevant to me, was like Moses’s coming off the mountain with a message from God. Hyperbole? Over-stated? I don’t think by much, because I was struck at how the song suddenly made sense now. And it was right.

Another thought came: “God..that’s a mercenary thing to think, you’re supposed to put others before yourself.” No, I did have a desire for myself the whole time I played Dad to her.

“Away, I’d rather sail away…” I had to admit I had that awfully quiet wish to be done with it all but it had been buried in the forest of my continual “nursing others” career. Looking back, with hindsight, I didn’t recognize then how another life could so permeate my own and control how I could live it. It’s amazing what you will do for other people, even if you have just a shred of empathy.

I didn’t get my entire life back that Saturday though, having been freed of it all.

There is an interesting thing that happens to land when it’s had a mile thick glacial ice sheet sit on it for 20,000 years or so, the weight of it pushes the land down hundreds of feet. When it melts, the land rebounds, slowly, but it rises again. Norway, Sweden, to this day, are still rising up inch by inch as measured by satellites.

When summer arrived several months after her death, I had been rising too the whole time w/o really trying. Slowly at first and then with greater speed as time went on. I had lost weight without putting too much effort into it. I bought slimmer white pants to wear! I was cruising around the state in my convertible and one night, had met Roberta at the Last Call Saloon. With me in tow, she returned me to the beaches and Block Island and spent some syrupy humid summer nights on the Scituate dam, her and me trying to see aurora in the sky. She literally lived around the corner of that dam in fact. That area is very dense with stands of pine trees which suffuse the air with that piquant earthy scent. I swear that fragrance can get into your clothes with time. I being raised in a city, smelling that Scituate air by the dam and her home was remarkable to me.

If my nose picks up that scent today somewhere, I flashback back to those nights.

By the end of that autumn, I had picked my degree from J&W and started a new career. I had emptied this house of the past and made it my own. To top it all off, in a weird (perhaps lucky?) astronomical portent, the Hale-Bopp comet had returned and was visible for months. I knew things were changing for the better.

El Condor Pasa didn’t change me. I did that. But the song just woke me up and quite surprisingly too. In a short time after, I bolted to freedom like a slave running north.

There are a few other songs that have struck me acutely when their relevance, or rather, my awareness of a connection became apparent.

 

         Scituate Dam

 

Younger Than I'll Ever Be

 

 

So I’ll tell you all something that may make some bitterly envious and others wanting to congratulate me.

I am now retired as of this New Year’s Day.

I’ll tell you why I am doing it now. Considering all the males in my family dropped dead before the age of 46 and a mother who limped it to 65, I figure I better grab Social Security earlier than later so that I may have a few years to enjoy it. Add to that, all the life span tests based off insurance actuarial tables I’ve taken have me going to the Happy Hunting grounds between 69 to 75. And, since I witnessed it with my own family, the last one and half years of their lives were no fun and the ending three months were even worse. So at best...early 70s when I may nip it? The average age for all US white males who buy the farm is at 75.

I had a neighbor my age say this, “We’re in the 4^th quarter now but not at the two minute warning yet!” That kinda was a wake up call too.

This all sound dark and gloomy? Nope. Just me being as realistic as possible. I can’t help it. I can be ruthlessly pragmatic. I enjoy wishful thinking a lot of times but I know it’s fantasy and comes to nothing, so I prefer to make decisions with both feet on the ground. In truth, I have no idea when I’ll join the Choir Invisible. Out of weird luck I may hit 90, or a gas tanker truck may plow into me in two days. Who knows?

The final point being, after all the data I punch in on various life expectancy platforms, the median probabilities still say early 70s.

Other factors effected my decision too. My legs are beat from years of standing on concrete at work. I feel daily pain and them getting weaker and lo and behold, when I have a few days off, they get better! So guess where the damage is coming from? I don’t think an added few years of pounding on them will make them any better. Another reason? My patience for C- people is getting shorter. Not too long ago, I sort of loudly said, “You can’t FUCK this up!” to a employee not in my department at work. It was loud enough that got the attention of others in the hall as well. (How I just lovvve fixing other people’s fuck ups!). Either I intimidated those in the hallway or going to HR would’ve exposed their major screw up so I never caught any hell for it.  How C- people manage to live life w/o any deliberation or planning still amazes me. Either I am older and crotchety or there are more C- idiots in the world. I suspect it’s both. I want more distance between them and I now. (Perhaps moving to back woods Maine is a hope?)

Time. I feel it moving faster and faster as I get older. Funny thing too about that. It goes just as fast if you’re working or on vacation. But I do feel the pace picking up and prefer that if if must speed along, I’ll do it while I am lounging or doing what I enjoy.

Then there is the fragility of health and plain stupid chance. Since I work in health care I see people younger than me all wrecked and ruined from all sorts of causes. I also hear of other’s lives that are hobbled by drugs, alcohol, mental illness and seeing one co worker whose heart deteriorated in a few months time to where he can’t walk five feet w/o being exhausted and he’s a decade younger than me! Seeing all this just cemented my decision to retire now as my health is holding out. You get older and you see more and more around you being wounded, and more often, by chance or sickness. It made me tally what I still possess that’s good and want to use it before I lose it, and lose it one day I will.

So, grab the time while the grabbin’s good!

**

“But you’ll take a 30% hit to the money you’ll get! Wait till 67 for the full check!” I was told by many who tried to educate me on Social Security

“Yeah, I know.” I say to them. I’ve done plenty of run throughs on that. My taking Social Security now and comparing it taking it at 67? The break even point occurs in my early 70s...gee...that’s when I’m slated to nip it. I’ll have the same amount of cash (cumulatively) by taking it now vs. taking it at 67 (if I kick it in my early 70s. If I live longer, I get more).

Math works ya know…

Affordability...

My particular position in life now was due to some ugly luck as well. I was the last one standing in my family and that came with a house. “The Death Lottery” as an old friend put it. He too won that when his family died off leaving him (as well as me) as the last one standing. It left him acres of land abutting the sea in Plymouth. His Dad also left him a helicopter company which Barn liquidated. His dad was a

WW2 navy carrier pilot and trainer and also was one of the first guys to fly helos when they started to become more common in the late 40s. After the war, he bought them one by one to fly whatever you wanted...for a fat fee of course. He needed an airport and was also one of the three guys to get Plymouth airport properly built as it was just a long dirt road in a field back then. Aircraft is a pricey business. I had no idea the FAA required a total engine rebuild every 2,500 hours you flew a helicopter. 2,500 hours is a little over 3 months of flying time.

Anyways I digress too much here…

I once told Barn that it felt like a shit way to get a house when I saw everyone else struggling. I also told him, that from some, I could feel their envy about that fact.

He remarks, rather loudly to me as well:

“What? Ya gonna give it back if you could? You can’t! They’re dead and gone! Bullshit! This sounds mercenary but you gotta grab things in life while the chance presents it! Don’t dare apologize for any of it...you think others say they’re “sorry” when they hit PowerBall? I wasn’t sorry when I sold off those helicopters! This is the way things are. Luck is luck in whatever form it comes in...grab it! And about those who envy you? If they desire your luck they would have had to live YOUR life, every minute of it to end up where you are today...some wouldn’t want that if they saw some of the shit you put up with!”

**

I had no kids and aren’t they super expensive over the years?

I never planned on them, and had they appeared, well, so be it. Add to that the kind of women I met in life didn’t want them either.

“Don’t you think you missed out on a family?” I used to get asked a lot.

“No, because you can’t miss what you never had” was my response. Also, a few friends who became parents, I witnessed their kids growing up to be total assholes as adults. Where’s the fun in that? Visiting your kid in jail or shelling out $$$ because they can’t hold down a job must suck. And I’ve seen this often enough, “normal” kids using the parents as ATM machines w/o so much as a ‘Thank you.’

At best I’d see parents hoping, molding, training a “good” kid with hopes of creating the person they want them to be. What does happen is that the kid develops their own personality and it solidifies and they go off on their own path regardless of what the parent wanted. They become their own person. I have seen some small disappointment in a few parents when their child veers off into a direction never predicted. They’re good kids who became young independent adults who can make it in life, but on their terms, not the parents. And then the precious few parents whose kids were gem quality. Those ones who did create joy in the household and would validate your life as a parent.

And since I never paid for clothing, food, insurance, toys or cosigned loans for $160,000 educations at a college for a kid, or three of them one after the other, I avoided that expense.

Thirdly, I can thank Dear Ol’ Dad for having a career as a CPA, working in banks and being the “Go To Guy” when it came to tax law. He knew how to count money and taught me that as well.

I remember, on some Saturday morning when I was five years old when he sat me down with a pencil, paper, some 5’s 10’s and 20’s and taught me how compounding interest works. I thought it was magic that money could just grow w/o you doing a damned thing to rightfully earn it. He never taught me how to throw and catch a ball but instead he taught me about finance. At five I was finger painting in school and also slowly learning about how mortgage amortization works and why banks grab the interest off of you first.

Dads and sons have great conversations while driving around. It’s just you two in the front seat and you just jabber away.

When I was 12 he explained Caribbean island banking to me.

“You can make money and never pay taxes on it?” I asked, surprised.
“Sure, it’s totally illegal but doable...as long as you just commit tax avoidance vs. tax fraud. Tax avoidance is a nuisance crime but tax fraud is like murder...the IRS spends most of their time chasing that instead.”

He goes on…

“You just set up an account in say, the Cayman Islands and you can generate interest on those accounts and you just never tell the IRS you have cash there. IF the IRS finds out, and sometimes they do, they have to petition the Cayman courts for a warrant to open your account to get evidence to prosecute you with, but the way the Cayman banking laws are designed, they can lawfully blow off the IRS petition as the Caymans are their own banking jurisdiction with their own very particular laws. So, no warrant..no evidence of avoidance..no court case...you keep your money!”

He gets excited by the next lesson he talks about.

“Even better! Create a corporation in one of those islands..you can then trade stocks on Wall St and you just never tell the IRS about your capital gains...same thing again, if they find out by some way, they are unable to force the local courts to issue any warrants to reveal the account’s owner or what transactions occurred!”

“It’s so far away” I ask. “How do you get at your money?”

“Oh easy, the bank issues you one of their personal credit cards that’s tied to your account. Believe me, the cards are good the world over. Hardly anyone will deny them. Using a card also avoids utilizing in-bound banking wire transfers which can tip off the IRS.”

As I hear about all this, I begin to wonder and then ask..

“How do YOU know about this?”

“I have to know banking law at my work.” he says.

“Yeah but you know American banking law...why the foreign ones too?”

“I just do.” he says. That “I just do” was a hint to stop that line of questioning.

I still wonder about Dad sometimes and what clients he may have dealt with at First Federal Savings and Loan on Westminster St. Any occupation has it’s positive and dark sides. Kids whose Dads were firemen, fire marshals, who were trained in fire science, know about fire safety...and also how to burn down a major industrial building w/o getting caught.

These are some of the talks I had with my Dad on long rides. There was no chatting about the Boston Bruins, but talk of how you handle money.

I admit this. About a decade ago, I once tried to set up an account in Turks and Caicos islands in the Caribbean.

Every major bank, and I mean EVERY one, has branches in the Caribbean. Capitol One, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan and Chase and every other major American bank as well as the ones in Canada and Europe.

In order to do island banking, I first had to open an account with a foreign bank, so I chose the Canadian ScotiaBank in Montreal. This is legal and on the up and up.

You create the account, pay the fees and then stuff that account with money.

Wait a bit, three months or so, and ask them to create an account for you in their Caribbean branch. They have NO problem doing that (for a small fee of course that keeps them happy). You then tell them to transfer that money (in medium amounts over time) to that account you created in their branch in the Turks and Caicos.

Hey Presto! Once your money is deposited in the Turks/Caicos it’s in a different banking jurisdiction which blows their nose at the IRS.

There is a small problem though. These island banks don’t want chump change. ScotiaBank required at least $100,000 to set up an account there. Want a sham corporation set up by said bank? One million dollars needs to be deposited. So, you see how the rich stay rich because the entry fee to some great workarounds to taxes is a bar set high enough to ward off working stiffs.

It’s done to this day. Just don’t be a drug lord or terrorist group and stick to plain ol’ tax avoidance as Homeland Security can bust open an al-Qaeda kind of account in minutes. They still tend to leave the tax avoidance accounts alone still. There are many rich AMERICANS who want it this way and have pull with various politicians and such to exert some quiet pressure for it to remain so.

I shoulda became a CPA...but thanks Dad for the education on how to manage money!

And no..I don’t have an account in the Caribbean. I just learned some very basic and very practical ways to manage money. As Dad kept telling me, “Don’t piss it away! Don’t be stupid!”

He also taught me this. Money will not bring happiness...but it sure as hell can alleviate some of life’s problems..as long as you have it.

You poor and car breaks down? What are you going to do? Instead you save up your money and you can get that car repaired and you’re back on the road in days. This jist of Dad’s view was this. Don’t blow the cash, instead make it work for you and realize money’s main function is as a TOOL, nothing else.

So over the years, I never blew cash in a silly manner. I figure the best thing I learned from Dad was impulse control.

What Will I Do in Retirement?

I have little idea to tell the truth since we’re in the dead of winter. Crossing over into my 60’s was a bit of a shock as I saw how the rest of the world treats me even though in my head I feel like I’m young and relevant most times.

To the world though, I ain’t.

The world sees my shock of white hair, my limp and my complete ignorance of the Top Ten on Spotify or the newest computer games. I hate to feel like I tell the same stories over and over again because my short term memory is getting worse. Truthfully, I am grudgingly accepting this new station in life. What choice do I have but to accept it? However I admit I am still not used to that idea.

I’ve seen a few who were older than me who retired and all three did something I thought interesting. They all reverted to doing things they loved doing in their childhoods or teen years. One watched TV a lot, those retro shows. Another started back on a hobby of deep woods camping they did when they were kids and another chases the Minor League baseball teams around New England. He had been a Little League kid who at times traveled to out of state games.

If I hold to my childhood passions, I see more interest in music and electronics (like that EVER faded!), riding my bike all over (this is beneficial for the body, as long as I realize I’m over 60 and cannot fall off a bike into a curb w/o really fucking myself up) and reading at my leisure and a host of other things. I doubt I’ll be hanging in the parking lots in Slater Park at 2am with other 60 year olds like we did as teens but it would be fun to see the faces on the cops if they pulled in to see what these geezers were up to.

I used to be one hell of a gardener once. If I try that again, I have to spade over that patch now grown over with grass. It may take me much longer to do vs. when I did it at 14 and it was a bitch job then. There’s satisfaction in gardening. Once, long ago, I was out there on a late July dawn and I could smell the ripening cantaloupes perfuming the whole yard. They do do that and it surprised me. Carrots growing in the dirt give off a strong carrot scent as you stand near them as well. I hadn’t ever known that. Also eating corn that’s been ripped from the stalk less than ten minutes ago can’t be duplicated by any store or roadside farm stand. And Oxheart tomatoes will be turned into puree for all my sauce ideas.

Since marijuana growing is sort of legal now, I can add that to the corn, tomatoes and melons I can grow. Growing it would be just a goof for me, to see if I can pull it off. Though I doubt I’ll ever smoke it as it turns me to rubber for half a day and I’m wholly useless. Hell, I can find a teen around here I can donate it too.

I want to reconnect with some in my past who have long since gone, at least for one meeting at least. I know that people drift apart, our lives become so busy it’s hard to start up again but I’ll give it a try with a few certain ones. (Diane...hint hint!)

And perhaps newer people I may meet (who will have to pass my ‘are you a dick and will you fuck up my life test!’). However, there are people worth knowing once you find them.

Travel, the old favorite of retirees. I could, by next week, book a flight to Paris and eat in a bistro and check out the East bank of the Seine and come home in a few days. I could, but won’t. I ain’t that silly with my cash and Paris does not hold all that much attraction for me and my french has long since rusted away.

But Cape Kennedy holds attraction. I’d love to see that complex where they shot off all those moon missions. I’d also like to see JPL in Pasadna, where all those planetary probes are controlled from. They only open it one day a year for visitors and they nearly butt rape you on security clearances before you go in too. Even with that, seeing that mass of technology would wow me. JPL may be a harder wish to fulfill though, we’ll see.

A long time work friend, who has gone on so many cruises that they email him 8 to 10 day packages that are silly cheap, has been bugging me to try one one day. I may

I figure this new phase of life will take some getting used too. It all still feels anticlimactic as there is no huge emotional shift in me...yet. I saw this coming years ago as either I would make the decision or my legs would.

I figure all of the changes will fuse in time.  

 

Add this to tomato sauce?

 

Spats

 

Not the original but close enuff

 

 

You’d think I’d be used to winter, being born in New England and all. I ain’t. When I was much younger, when I didn’t sport this old man’s gut and flab, I was as skinny as a rat with no attendant layers of blubber to insulate and keep me warm.

With the worst of winter, I’d shiver, my feet could go numb and a couple of times the skin on the inside of my wrists would turn white then a worrisome grayish color, the second step to frostbite I was told.

With those physical burdens, you have to psychologically steel yourself against them. I ended fighting it off in my mind as there were few other answers to bitingly cold weather. I didn’t ask to learn tenacity, in order to resist it till I could warm up again, but learn it I did.

Inside my home, we had forced air heat with registers that blew out hot air like a hair dryer. As long as I could remember, if I’d hear the furnace click on, I’d rush to one, crouch by it and bathe myself in the 120 degree air that came out of it. I wasn’t the only one to do this, my brother did and I caught my Mom standing in front of them once in a while too.

Today, I can push my office chair with a good shove of my feet and roll over to a register if the furnace comes on to luxuriate in that hot air stream.

Here’s some further evidence my family may have had lousy peripheral circulation. At the wedding of my brother’s friend way back in 1980, my brother and I (and others) had to go shake hands with the groom’s and bride’s family, who were all lined up. I shook the hand of some aunt of the bride when she commented, “My! Your hand is ice cold!!” I just smiled and moved on but was within earshot when my brother, who was next in line, shook her hand. She exclaims...”YOU too!?”

“We’re related...brothers.” He tells her.

She then almost shouts out...”Wow!...the Cold Hand Brothers!”

**

So I told you all that to tell you my main story about Spats bar that was on Angel and Thayer Streets.

I have always loved, in winter, small, cozy and almost claustrophobic bars and restaurants that weren’t cheap on their heating. I loved them more if their décor was darker as well. The more like the hibernation tunnel of chipmunk, the better!

I honestly don’t remember when I first went to Spats or how I found out about it. I think it was through a college friend who introduced me to it as we did hang out there at times, and another time I remember after a Roger Waters concert.

I do remember one time we were there, when the Ollie North hearings were happening and on TV at the bar that day. Day drinking...you can do that in your early 20’s then as you have the time, also the DWI laws weren’t as draconian as today and you can go home and sleep your drunk off w/o it interfering with your career, which at that age, we had none.

So the both of us are good and drunk and I start to loudly proclaim my love and support for Col. North, knowing that the clientele of the bar is full of Brown U. commies, pinkos and Democrats. (I am still one by the way, just more conservative about money now).

For my own personal goofing around to fuck with the Brown people, I say "I lovvvve Ollie!,” like some teen girl ogling a poster of some heart throb teen boy band singer. It was loud enough to make it through the bar.

Next to me, M. sternly and with a bit of an angry shout, but quiet enough for only us to hear says, “Would you SHUT up! You know WHERE we are...don’t you??!!!”

But I’m am having fun and I yelp out some other love lorn thing about North and Reagan as well. Then I noticed I got some ugly stares from some guys at a table near us.

I stop. Those Brown U kids aren’t enjoying my joke.

So that’s probably how I started at Spats.

**

My first “real” job was with a social service agency and I made some fast friends there. One was Brian, who was three years older than my 24 yrs. Brian, was a terrible goof/dweeb/mechanic/electronic component soldering/ slightly clueless, Member of Densa guy with retard strength (I apologize for that but I need to give you an accurate idea!). On the other hand he was very chatty and I found out later, a fiercely loyal friend who did have a brain once he turned it on. He also loved to eat. I once mention Spats to him as they had the best and most disgustingly large nacho plate around with heaps of guacamole, sour cream and lava-like rivers of molten cheese...and Brian begged me to take him there.

We spent the winter of ‘88 there, usually after work, drinking beer and eating those piles of nachos. I enjoyed that time because it was winter. Spats was conducive to coziness as it had low ceilings that were covered in filthy, ancient copper plate. The building, if you walked around the bar and the restaurant next door was a rabbit warren of hallways, misshapen walls and creaky uneven floors. All bar stools and tables were slightly uncomfortably too close to one another but that didn’t bug me at all. The rest of the décor was sort of slap hazard but that was OK with me, it spoke of personality and not corporate sameness. The place had soul.

Plus, the nicest thing about Spats is that in the winter, they blasted the heat.

I can remember stepping out of it one time at 1AM, with Brian, into a screaming north-west biting wind and I didn’t care. I was toasty warm from spending a night there. His pick up and my car were probably the only two parked on Angel st and the ride home, with the heater blasting, wasn’t long at all. I was full with food, well warmed up and had a manageable beer buzz to avoid the Pawtucket cops that late at night.

While Brian and I spent time there that winter, I spied a waitress, Laura. She was a brunette gamine...(Gee, what a surprise...what I was always attracted to!) who usually wore a hippy like scarf through the loops of her pants as a belt. That pile of thick wavy hair of hers…god..do I have a hair fetish? I bet I do.

I also knew what Brian didn’t due to his naivete, that female bartenders and waitresses get hit on all the time and IF you expect to move on one, you had better go real slow.

I had told Brian I thought Laura was too cute for words and he picked up on that I liked her. One night, I see him go to the bathroom and when he returns he stops to lean into the kitchen and speaks to her. I can see this happening and I swore I knew what he was telling her, thinking he was helping me out.

“See that guy over there..in that booth...he ADORES you and wants to ask you out!”

Brian comes back and I ask him why he was talking to her. 

“Oh, nothing, just told her how we preferred her over other waitresses.”

Liar...

In a minute after that, Laura comes to our table and quickly asks me, “Are you a Townie? You look like one.”

“Yes, I live up the road.”

She pauses, thinks...and finally she says, “Oh…”

That pause and that “Oh” meant, End of the Road.

Later on Brian in his ignorance trustfully asks me...“What’s a townie?”

“It’s a local...someone who doesn’t attend the Ivy League college and isn’t rich…You and I are ‘townies’ compared to the Brown kids that go here. We don’t ‘belong.’” I tell him.

**

I miss Spats. I miss the bronzed shoe or “spat” that was affixed to the door as the door handle you pulled to open it. I miss Brian, who left us so many years ago.

But..there is another too small place nearby I like in winter that is warm enough too, Quinns. Though I can’t chase college aged Laura’s anymore nor eat a garbage can lid sized plate of nachos by myself, I can settle in it with a beer, talk to those in retirement who remember the good days when life and music were the best.

Yeilding to the Obvious

It’s gotten to the point in my life where all the professional people I have hired, lawyers, doctors and dentists, some I’ve been with for 40 years, are all retiring or selling their practices to the younger ones. 

 

Years ago, when my brother was on the lung transplant list, I was talking to his primary at RI Hospital when he said he wasn’t doing the operation but a colleague of his was, Dr. Veres. “She’ll be here in a minute to answer any questions.” And literally then she showed up right behind me. I turn around and I spot this, what seemed, teen aged girl in a Brown University/RI Hosp dr’s coat with stethoscope and ID badges all over her. I couldn’t stop looking at her face. “You’re fuckin’ 17 years old!” I said to myself. She did look very young for her actual age of 28, but she was a board certified thoracic surgeon. She was more than qualified. 

 

Sigh...it’s not that they’re getting younger, but some one is getting older...me. 

 

** 

 

I will admit I can be a cheap bastard. Every time you step into the marketplace, they’re out to dig as deep as they can into your pocket. If they could convince you to buy a No.2 pencil for $56, they’d sell it to you with no pangs of guilt. So my defenses are up in regards to that. 

 

However, I will spend bucks on things I love and some of those things are expensive. This computer I built is one, it being attached to my stereo system in the other room is another. There are a few thing in this life where the best or at least close to it aren’t negotiable. I will however NEVER buy a current year Mercedes convertible no matter how much I may like, but not love, them. I have to be in love to spend that kind of cash. 

 

Apparently, over the years, my health I can tend to blow off if it’s not an emergency. I seem not to love that so much. Typical male reasoning...huh?  Which brings up dentistry and how it can be so damned expensive. I have over the years, since I was a kid, tolerated tooth aches, knowing at times that they can subside, cure themselves if certain conditions are met...and how willing I can put up with the pain and threaten myself with the idea of $3,000 root canals and crowns. It’s a good motivator to do nothing about tooth aches at first. 

 

Months ago, an old root canal/crowned tooth had snapped off as it was over 30 yrs old and the base had eroded. There was no point in rebuilding it as there was little original tooth left. So my dentist, and I, blew it off but with a warning, it will fire up one day. It did last week and this time around, I folded like a lawn chair to get it fixed and didn’t once even try to fight it like some tough guy under torture in a Japanese WW2 POW camp. Fuck, it’s a known fact, even the Nazis didn’t pull that kind of shit Imperial Japan did to POWs. 

 

So why did I cave? An old acquaintance I knew years ago, Marc, had died at the age of 54 last week. I had known him from my party spots around Pawtucket in the ‘90s and early 2000s and it hit me in this way… “Damn, that’s too early. He had it going too, lifetime career at Verizon, probably a fat pension waiting for him when he retired, and god knows what else...all of that ZEROED out in in less than 12 hours.” 

 

Since I have and currently am taking steps to retire, I have learned a few things. One thing you gotta estimate is how long you will live (which is a bitch to do accurately) so you don’t drain all your finances if u manage it to 90. But I have a few facts on my side. All the males in my family bit it young. My mom lasted longer but only by about 20 years. I had also taken the “Live to 100” survey and a few others and with all the info I plugged in, they say I ain’t getting past 80...no way in hell am I...I may even kick it at 69. Or, by a weird outside chance, I live to 101...but I doubt it. This is the best guess they can do. So I work with that. 

 

So, I’m sitting there all day Thursday, eating enough ibuprofen to nearly fuck up my liver but it does shut down that screaming hot, bone pain and fighting it mentally as well as I can and then I start thinking of Marc, who left us at 54. And I also hear an old co worker who always said, “Hey, you can’t take it with you! I want to travel all over Portugal and the Azores...blow it on that!” 

 

I got perhaps 10 years or perhaps a few more to last (Hell? Next week?) and I think, Fuck this; I’m not going to be the tough guy if I can puss out and stop this pain. I got the damn money for Christ’s sakes even if I’ve blown my entire 2025 Delta Dental budget. I will pay cash for this! If I don’t have to suffer...why the f should I? What? To prove to myself I can tolerate shit storms thrown my way? I’ve prided myself on dealing with some annoying crap in my life, like we all have, but Jesus, what if I can avoid it? Hell, run screaming like a little girl the other way if I can! 

 

**

The Dragon Lady

 

 

Remember I said my old professionals are quitting? 

 

I’m lying there in the dentist chair and I hear… “Hello, I’m Dr Aiko Takahashi...Nick is selling me his practice and I’m taking on all of his old patients but it’s a slow transition so no worries! OK?” 

 

She, maybe 30, looks at the Xray and says, “Wow, that root tip is really infected...see the shadow in your jawbone? That’s where it’s spreading, bet that throbs like all get out! That tooth will have to come out!” 

 

I look at her, with her tiny Asian body frame with equally tiny, reed like arms and wonder how she can dislodge a tooth? Every other dentist that took teeth out of my skull had the arms of mechanics. She needs a silk kimono and not scrubs to complete the racist image I have in my head. 

 

So after she numbs me up like a board, she starts. I have had teeth out before and the routine is like this: Nothing but massive pressure on the tooth as they push and pull on it. You know there is success when you hear the tiny fibers which anchor the tooth to the jawbone start ripping, you can hear it….a good tearing sound. Then...this wonderful taste of blood and bone as they lift it out. 18 hours later, I feel nothing. No throbbing. No screaming hot pain...nothing. 

 

Good. One thing money is good for is to mitigate life’s shit that gets thrown your way. I hope not to keep repeating these health episodes though. I much prefer spending $$ on a giant Fisherman’s Fry plate which is loaded with fried every thing from the sea. That...is much more fun and I can do it as long as I am moderate about it…instead of ordering off the heart healthy side. 

 

“You can’t take it with you!” Finally I am getting the point of that message. And if you’re curious, Living to 100 calculator...Living To 100

Looking Forward and Looking Back

 

“If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.”

K Vonnegut

...and one day I’ll write the complete Tell All shapely story of me, but not yet. What will it contain? The whole caboodle and not the sometimes censored dribs and drabs I put here.

**

“You know, you’re too much reality for most people, you strip away the bullshit...people’s fallacies about themselves.” said an old friend who opined about me one day in his Plymouth kitchen. “You don’t sugar coat much...Christ, the other night when you torpedoed and sunk Dianna with your experience with familial depression and mental illness...the things you saw up close when your Mom went nutters...it appalled her! By telling that story you called out her dysfunctional family via a not too curved curve ball!”

I sort of agree and say, “I guess I speak too frankly, openly...though I think there’s some lack of social skill involved somewhere in that. I missed the lesson on ‘too much information’”

“Yes...you’re open and pretty indifferent about it...and at times abrupt...and your social skills need work...I’ve watched you eat cold linguine at this table with your fingers and you didn’t care...pig!”

**

I usually have some thoughtfulness and tact. I’ve become better at it as I age but there were many times I blurted out the truth as I saw it. As a youth, I was sick of being deceived and plain out lied to by adults (as you can read in many entries here) so I just called them on it pubically and w/o much respect. This action spilled over to anyone who I figured was either lying or delusional. I can remember one girl I knew, early teens I guess, who was desperately trying to tell me how wonderful her life was and it sounded like happy horseshit to me. I had known her home life was shitty (an alcoholic Dad, a distant mother) and I popped that fantasy bubble she created only to satisfy my selfish view that no one should bullshit me. I should have left that one alone. If I could, I’d apologize to her a hundred times over for blowing a coping mechanism she had, that crutch she needed to get through her days. If all you have is denial with no other answer, no other escape, it’s what works for the time being.

Asshole I was at times…

Anyways, I say all that because I probably won’t change what I write here sometimes. So I’ll blurt out what I think again...regardless of judgment.

**

I’ve said countless times and will again (count on it!) of how surprised I am at this stage of life and what it demands. Mentally, I feel a hell of lot younger but psychically I sure as shit don’t. That realization is from how others treat me now. They see a pile of white hair, a limp, a slowness and immediately think Gran-Dad. I get offers of help when I didn't ask for it now. Younger women no longer see me as a sexual threat, as someone who may ask them out and they no longer erect a wall to keep me at arms length until they feel comfortable about any progression. Now, younger women are quite at ease with me because they know and so do I, I’m not about to use every tactical charm trick to get them to say “Yes.” (However, there is a caveat to this! Read on.) Now, people hold doors open for me and seeing I can’t just hurry up and sprint in, they smile and say, “Oh, no rush.” And this, those I bump into in public, who are much older than me, now consider me a friend. They start conversations with me about anything since the see me as a cohort.

Privately, I feel the aging physically. Like the chronic pain I keep at bay with ibuprofen so I can walk on my hip. Waking up in the morning involves pain because I spent too much time on one side of my body during the night, freezing muscles into place which howl when I move them to get up.

With all this, I don’t think I’ll be creating a fascinating 6^th chapter to my life’s story that’s as compelling as the one in my 20s, or as I call it, chapter “2.” My now shapely story involves slowness, introspection, free time, looking back (which I cannot cease doing) and getting used to what it means to be “old.”

OK, fine. Like I have a choice? Time goes in one direction and you age regardless of what you want.

**

I did something yesterday that I’ve been meaning to do for a few months. I attended a meeting with Sheldon Whitehouse’s aide who runs his office in Providence. The meeting was at Pawtucket’s Senior Center. The subject of the meeting was how the Senator’s office can help you with various information and programs aimed at the elderly or anyone over 60 who now qualify. That’s me now.

Christ…I stepped into a senior center and not as an employee but as a customer!

I felt I had to do this. Social Security, Medicare and other things I have no idea about now require that I become keenly aware of the details. I want ALL the right information before I start applying for anything and avoid the weeks long red tape you can get entangled in should you screw something up. Again, I am learning what it means to be this age.

Old habits die hard. Whithouse's aide was a late 20 Something woman who was quite fetching. I scanned her hand and the ring finger was empty...no ring!

“She’s unmarried...boyfriend involved...perhaps?” I thought.

As she spoke I occasionally shot wry smiles at her which broke the cadence of her talk, which made her stop for a second and then smiled back. She was unaware of her own halting and with her unconscious hesitation, I knew I struck a chord.

“She responded naturally!” I think to myself

A minute and a half later I had this thought.

“What the fuck would she want in an over 60, white headed, fat-gutted, lined face man for? And all you see is a play toy who could out run, out think, out compete and out everything you. Plus her friends would berate her for even thinking it was possible for any kind of relationship with GranPa. I’d need to be a multi-millionaire for a slight chance to begin with.

So I got my mind back to what I was there for...old people’s benefits and why I should call Whitehouse’s office to get things moving if I need too.

She finished up her talk, handed out cards and as she passed me, I couldn’t help but let a smile slowly form on my face, giving her that direct eye contact. To which she dropped her eyes to the floor and smiled herself.

“Beautiful...a shy, positive response.” I think.

I thought, “Ah hell, I’ll still play with them, it’s fun, even though it can’t go anywhere.”

I then feel someone tugging at my arm. I turn to look and it’s a 70ish year old women, who was all of about 4 foot 8, asking me “If I was a member of the Center?” As she has never seen me before.

I tell her “No” and then she starts asking others to bring me literature, an application to join and asks if I need the shuttle bus anytime soon to get to places.”

“Uh, not yet” I tell her.
“How old are you?” she asks.

“Over 60 but under 65” I say

“Oh...you’re a young one..but you QUALIFY!”

Sigh...Great...I qualify. Well, I had better get used to this new chapter in my life and learn all about it. Chapter 6 may be a duller epilogue compared to my hotter 20s chapter 2. Well, I’m still writing something of a story still.

I stood there and I shot a quick look to the young Miss Sheldon Aide walking out the door and felt that younger man’s urge to follow her out to the parking lot and charmingly “work” on her one last time.

My pipe dream was yanked down to reality when Mrs 4 foot 8 came to me with an application….”Here, fill this out, it’s easy...Do you know we have free lunches here too? We can come and get you if you can’t drive!”

Retirement, elderliness and finding it harder to put my socks on because I can’t bend over so easy anymore is coming full bore at me.

New things to learn...and accept...and maybe perhaps toy with a pretty one once in a while for fun.

**

Ya know, after re-writing all this and reading between the sentences...I see I don’t want to give up chasing the cute ones just yet. I’m still clinging to my prime and youth. Yeah, I am aware of myself!  

 

Schadenfreude

 

 

I’ve talked about, briefly, my penchant for revenge. If I felt I was horribly wronged and could do nothing about it at the time, I’d file that away for a day when I could. Years could go by waiting for my moment. And there was one time I didn’t have to do anything at all. The payback for my little enemy was incredibly expensive. It came in the form of schadenfreude.

Frank Alves was a kid from the “other side” who hung with a different set of kids other than our little gang. Occasionally we’d run into each other and due to that crowd being Portuguese, we’d hurl insults at one another. This was when they, them...it started moving into our neighborhood and we knew they were filthy, corrupt, thieving and ate fish that they first turned into dry shoe leather then boiled to death later.

One day, we all accidentally met up and a fight broke out. While my back was turned, Alves picked up and brought down his kid sister’s tricycle down on my head, We were seven years old abouts.

I lived, but was furious at the back handedness of that move. That simmered in me for a long long time but it was near impossible to get him back with his clan always around.

1982

Tom and I were swapping out his rear brakes when we see Frank Alves and his new girlfriend Lee walking down our street. Frank had stopped to talk to a neighbor but Lee kept walking toward Mike and I. When she reached us, she stopped, turned around and shouted back to Frank and that neighbor about something. As she spoke, she turned her head to us quick and then started slowly walking backwards a few steps till her ass was all of 20 inches from either one of our faces, as we were crouched down working on the brake drum. Tom and I stopped working, turned to look, then at one another and back to her butt. Lee quickly looked back over her shoulder and smiled quickly and went back to shouting down the street to her boyfriend.

The look on Tom’s and my face was..”God damn!”

I stewed for a moment hating the thought that Alves had a hot chick.

Alves finally caught up with her and neither one of us acknowledged one another, though our eyes did meet. The feud still simmered.

After they pass, Tom says to me, “You see her ass? You see what she did?”

“Yeah,” I say, “She knew just what she was doing.”

****

Late 90s and Enter Bob…

Bob was part of our crowd for decades. He had lived a few blocks away and by chance, Alves and Lee had bought a house just around the corner from him. I had not seen nor heard much about Alves or Lee in years but apparently they had married and bought a home.

While at a local bar in I’d say, ‘97ish, I heard a story that was later confirmed an hour later by the culprit himself.

“How could you not know Bob was fucking Lee? Everyone knew!” Tom tells me.

“I just didn’t know...hey, I’ve been working full time, going to school full time and after that, I was taking care of the sick ones here...I’ve been out of the loop for some years now.” I tell him.

So I’m brought up to speed on Lee’s infidelities with Bob.

And in comes Bob about an hour later and I had to ask him.

“Oh shti? Lee? I’ve been doing her for a decade now! I never went after her, I never chased her...she came after me! Hell, I didn’t turn her away!” “You know she does whatever she wants, he’s completely pussy whipped by her!”

Bob goes on to tell me this story…

“Lee had come over to my house, from right around the corner and we did it, as Alves, her husband was at work. And about an hour later, I hear this loud bangning on my front door and I can see out a side window that it’s her husband. I hear him yelling to ‘Open UP! Open the door!’”

“So I grab Lee and her clothes and we quickly and quietly dash through my house, through the breezeway to the garage that’s connected. Once in there, I open the trunk to my ‘72 Ford Thunderbird and put her in it and press the trunk down till it latches softly. I then go back in, put on a pair of sweatpants and answer the door finally.”

“Cut that SHIT! I was SLEEPING! WHY are you banging on my door?” Bob yells.

“She’s HERE! I KNOW she is! Let me IN! I want her BACK!” shouts Alves.

Bob says. “I wasn’t going to let him and and we went back and forth for a good minute when, to get rid of him, I finally let Alves in.”

He went through my house shouting, “LEE? LEE! DAMMIT I KNOW you’re here!” I just followed him and when he got to my garage, he just looked in and just saw my two cars and nothing else.”

“So I shout at him, ‘You SATISFIED? She’s NOT here like I said!’

“So he leaves, but loiters out front for a bit, then finally crosses the street to go home.”

I ask him, “You let her out of the trunk then?”

“Nope..i go to the car and tell her through the trunk he’s lingering outside, and to just stay quiet till he leaves. I then go inside the house and watch TV for 45 minutes!”

I say, “You LEFT her in the trunk for 45 minutes? You bastard!” All he does is laugh when I brought attention to that. “Ah, so what. She’s only a fuck toy.”

“I finally do go get her though. She dresses up and then sneaks out the back garage door to hide over her friend’s Deb’s house. She still would come over for a few years more after that!”

Tom, who’s watching me listen to this for the first time, asks why I have mile wide smile on my face. I don’t answer really but think, “Hit me on the head with a tricycle huh you bastard? Guess I got my revenge in a different way...enjoy your joke of a marriage you prick!”

Is that immature? Yes. Is it pure schadenfreude? Yes, but I’m human and vulnerable to all what that is, including the bad. 

And some comedy for you too...