Retrirement -- Be Prepared

For two or three years in my pre- and early-teens I was a Boy Scout. I attended Monday evening meetings regularly in the basement of Central Christian Church, I went on weekend campouts mostly in the summer but occasionally in the winter as well (snipe hunts were best in winter), I attended a National Jamboree in the Colorado Rockies (the altitude and water and stress gave me an ugly case of cold sores covering my mouth that took weeks to heal), I learned to tie knots and carve wood and paddle canoes and build campfires and a little bit of first aid. I actually achieved the rank of Life, the penultimate level in scoutdom, though more out of endurance than effort (just showing up was 90% of the accomplishment). And I had joined and endured only because of the camping and games and it’s what my friends were doing. But I realize that through that experience those many years ago I must have absorbed and retained what is at the heart of the scouting experience, as expressed in the motto – Be Prepared.

Occasionally someone who knows I’m retired will ask me how I’m doing and, especially if they’re in their 50s or early 60s, how they might look forward to their own retirement years. I guess I’ve become something of an expert on being retired if only because I am. Experience is wisdom. And whenever I’m asked, my advice always reverts back 50 years to my Boy Scout days – Be Prepared:

Laziness – Hopefully this is something that you’ve developed over years. It’s the umbrella of skills necessary for the life of retirement. If you aren’t lazy – and comfortable in your laziness – you aren’t properly ready for retirement. All else follows from it.

TV – TV is your friend, day and night. We live in an age of hundreds of stations with nothing on worth watching. Our generation has cultivated and preserved this “vast wasteland.” Embrace it, support it, even if only lying on the couch, passed out, drool seeping from the corner of your mouth, the 40” HD set illuminating the walls and droning into the night.

Beer – Or wine or gin or Scotch, whatever, though beer is less aggressive and dulls the senses more easily. You don’t want to spend the day drunk, and certainly not passed out, only morose. And because you’re retired you don’t have to drive.

Sports – This sort of unites the above three. There is some sort of sports programming on 24-hours a day (and night), even whole channels devoted to nothing but sports. You might every once in a while attend a live sporting event, though you don’t need to. And if you do there are TV monitors scattered around most sporting venues these days as well as plenty of beer stands, making the experience just like you were at home.

Reading – OK, this may sound a bit too cerebral. But I’m not talking Shakespeare, Proust, or Joyce. It’s often good to break up the routine of nothing during the day, and reading can be a good break. Especially if you’re lying on the couch, a baseball game on TV, a beer in hand, and a book about the 1961 Yankees across your lap.

Internet – It’s little known, but the Internet was originally developed for the gratification of retirees. All else is ancillary. You’ve got email, newspapers and magazines, blogs, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and all kinds of other ways to waste your remaining days. Enjoy.

Sweet Swine, Internet, and Politics

Politics in the age of the Internet is becoming much more fun. Case in point: A couple of days ago, a woman in Maryland, Mirlande Wilson, came forward to say that she had won part of the $656 million Mega Millions jackpot from last weekend. But she had lost the ticket. At a McDonald’s where she worked. At the press conference – where she didn’t say anything except that she’d lost the ticket – she wore a cap (a not very sartorially appropriate accessory when claiming several hundred million dollars in prize money) that bore the strange “Sweet Swine Pork Rinds.”

How is this political or involve the Internet? Soon after the woman’s story was published, someone noticed that when you Google “Sweet Swine Pork Rinds” (I won’t venture into why you Google that in the first place) the top link is to an anti-Romney website. The suspicion was that the whole lost ticket claim was a ruse to lure unsuspecting citizens who would see the cap and innocently Google “Sweet Swine Pork Rinds” and be taken to the anti-Romney site (where, I suppose, they would be indoctrinated against the former Governor).

But Scott Crider, the owner of the anti-Romney site, “Dogs Against Romney,” claims he just grabbed the SweetSwinePorkRinds.com domain name (for $9.99) when he saw the compelling cap in order to draw more viewers to his blog. “Dogs Against Romney” is narrated by Rusty the dog, and in the past day Crider has created another anti-Romney website, “Hogs Against Romney,” narrated by Wilbur the pig. Rusty and Wilbur are both concerned about Romney’s lack of compassion for animals, as demonstrated by his driving from Massachusetts to Toronto with his dog Seamus strapped to the top of his car. Crider, I suspect, has more political motives. Or at least more entrepreneurial: Both sites are selling an array of t-shirts and caps and bumper stickers.

There’s an interesting convergence here of media and internet and politics that’s odd but promising. I doubt that Crider (who lives in Alabama) is complicit with any conspiracy with Wilson (who lives in Maryland) to hype his anti-Romney websites. But he did use her odd cap, prominent in the photos of her, to draw people interested (for whatever possible reason) in finding out what “Sweet Swine Pork Rinds” are to his websites. Why do I feel this could just be the beginning of a very interesting future in the web of the web?

The Future of Reading

In schools and colleges, in these audio-visual days, doubt has been raised as to the future of reading – whether the printed word is on its last legs. One college president has remarked that in fifty years "only five per cent of the people will be reading.”

E.B. White, “The Future of Reading” (1951)

It’s now been more than sixty years since this was written, and it might be argued that not only are there more than five percent of the people reading, but that with the Internet there are more by percentage reading today than there were sixty years ago. Technology is funny that way. In those “audio-visual days” of 1951 – radio, phonograph, film, and television – there must have been a perceived threat to the printed word. Why read when you can just listen or watch? But then why go to the theater or ballet or concert or symphony, all of which are accessible by audio-visual technology? And the Internet expands those audio-visual possibilities. But it also expands the reading possibilities. It may well be that electronic communication increases rather than restricts communication. White goes on to write, “Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy. . . . This gives the experience of reading a sublimity and power unequalled by any other form of communication.” Maybe. And I’m hesitant to go against the thought of E.B. White, for me, the grand American writer and thinker of the 20^th century. But it might just be that technological advances can broaden our means of communication (including reading), its “sublimity and power,” rather than constrict it, as long as we keep it all connected, particularly connected to our thought, our experience, and our imagination.

Writing Desk (2)

A few days after I posted a blog entry about the writing desk built by my great-great-great-grandfather 160 years ago that I inherited recently, I received the following email from my uncle (my mother’s brother):

Hi JL:

Your mother sent me the story about the old desk. I am glad it is in the hands of someone that appreciates it. I also noticed the story was about your memories, not necessarily historical fact. But memories make better stories. Here are some of my memories.

About the Philco radio, I remember when we moved to Harper for three months in 1933. The radio rode in the rumble seat of Abe's Ford roadster with Gwen and I and Rogena rode in front where it was warm. So the radio came a year or more before 1933.

About the desk. I am quiet sure the desk never made it to the basement. On Edwards street it was always in the corner of the dining room. In the desk was an old cigar box full of pencils and misc. I suggested to my mother that she replace that old box and get something better. She informed me that the cigar box had been there as log as she could remember and it was going to stay. I know the desk has traveled from Illinois to Lincoln Nebraska in the 1890's, to Wellston Oklahoma, to Wichita, to Greensburg Kansas And several stops I do not know about.

About steam radiators, your McClure grand parents may have had steam radiators, but the Kaucher's did not.You probably didn't meet steam radiators in homes till you moved to Minnesota.

You should remember grandpa Frank Dixon. He was blind by the time of your memory. The maternal grand parent was Overman.

I recommend everyone write their memoirs. It is fun to reminisce in the stories even if you are not a writer. I will look forward to more stories. Maybe one about the riots in Berkeley.

Karl

How wonderful this digital world of the web can make these connections, pass along this kind of information, preserve this family history. It might be that no one ever accesses it again, or that no one cares. But it’s there if anyone should care to search for it, like a pirate’s treasure buried in the sands of some Caribbean island. And that in itself is pretty cool. In a digital sort of way.

(I do have the cigar box (El Roi-Tan) referred to in the message and have returned it to its rightful place in the desk. The “riots in Berkeley” he references is the 1969 People’s Park demonstrations that I participated in the summer I spent in Berkeley. I had no idea he even knew about that.)

Hearing Loss or Just Earwax?

One of the advantages – or depending on your point of view, downsides – of the Internet and all its prodigies – email, Facebook, Twitter, et al. – is the diminution of old-fashioned mail, the kind that’s delivered by mail carriers, folded and sealed in envelopes, stamped and addressed, physical personal contact over miles between two human beings. Except for birthday and holiday cards, the US Postal Service is now primarily in the service of junk mail, mostly unwanted advertising and promotion and solicitation. But occasionally – and more frequently it seems lately – there are marketing mailings that are creatively, and often humorously, engaging.

Take for instance the mailing I received today from one Laura Popelka, Czech Square, 4330 Czech Lane NE, Ste A4, Cedar Rapids IA 52402. I’ve never heard of Laura; she’s neither a friend, acquaintance, coworker, or in any other way known to me. But the bright yellow envelope is addressed in what appears to be a quite talented, controlled hand, in blue ink, though on closer inspection it’s clearly a mass-printed envelope (the lack of an actual stamp, the scanning code, and Laura’s not knowing what my name is are all clues). But when I open Laura’s letter, the first thing I read at the top of the form letter is “Hearing Loss or Just Earwax?” How can I not read further? Laura (Hearing Instrument Specialist) invokes Helen Keller (it makes sense) in her appeal: “When you lose your vision, you lose contact with things. When you lose your hearing, you lose contact with people.” (I can imagine the possible advantages to losing contact with at least some people, though I’ll play along.) “Modern technology is fascinating isn’t it?,” Laura begins (too excited apparently to include a necessary comma). “I’m writing [sure you are, Laura] to offer you an opportunity to take a look inside your ear using a tiny video camera . . . Using the Video Otoscope, a Miracle-Ear® representative may be able to determine whether your hearing difficulties [why do you think I have any? has someone been talking with you about me? or is it just because I’m old?] are being caused by earwax buildup. This inspection may also reveal other conditions which may make it difficult for you to hear clearly.” Gee, Laura, what do you think the odds are that this Miracle-Ear® representative will find some other “condition” for my not hearing clearly (which at least for now is not a problem, thank you very much), and further, that they will have some sort of Miracle-Ear® cure or relief that they can sell me? Just as Anne Sullivan helped Helen Keller to . . . Oh wait, I guess she never did get that earwax buildup problem cleared up, did she?

Things I Don't Need To Know

'Brady Bunch' mom got crabs in affair with NY mayor

Politician sent Florence Henderson flowers to apologize

I once believed in freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I believed in complete accessibility to as much information as possible as long as it didn’t compromise national security or endanger the lives or reputations of innocent people. I believed that the Internet would make available an avalanche of information available to us, much of it, yes, of little consequence to any one person, but in total of potential consequence to all of us. But as I read the opening graphs of the article linked to its headline above, I began to have serious doubts about my position:

LOS ANGELES — This would have made an interesting episode of "The Brady Bunch."

Florence Henderson, the actress who played perky mom Carol Brady in the beloved family sitcom, says she once got crabs after a one-night-stand with career politician John Lindsay, who was the mayor of New York City at the time.

There may well be some things no one needs to know about. This is one of them. And I don’t want to know about any others.

Weiner's Wiener

I didn’t want to write about the Anthony Weiner sexting and texting scandal. Over the past couple of years I’ve respected Weiner’s positions on issues and especially his impassioned harangues against the ideological idiocy of the Republican right (is that redundant?). But his sending semi-nude photos of himself via the Internet to women he’d never met face-to-face was unseemly at best, tasteless, improper, inappropriate, all of that. And it certainly demonstrated a base ignorance of web technology; as I learned long ago, and instruct my students regularly: assume that any and everything you throw out into cyberspace stays there forever and is available to anyone anytime, no matter how “private” you may think your platform might be. But what he did wasn’t illegal. (At least as far as we know at this time.) He never even explicitly propositioned any of the women for sex, at least beyond the virtual kind (which I’ve read about for three decades and still can’t wrap my mind or any other part of me around). And none of the women came forward charging abuse, threat, or offense, and certainly no crime. Just slime. And just how many politicians do we still have in office who are slithering through their own slime?

I don’t want to defend Weiner (there is no defense for what he’s done), and I don’t want to argue with those who demanded his resignation, most agreeing with President Obama that his actions were “inappropriate” and “a distraction.” What I do what to point out is something I haven’t seen in all the coverage of the scandal: How much did Weiner’s name play in the inappropriateness and distraction? From the beginning, even Weiner himself acknowledged the humor-laden possibilities in his name (hell, he’s probably lived with it since he was in junior high). It could only be worse if his first name was Richard (though he goes informally by Rich). I don’t recall hearing any of the late-night comedy show jokes that didn’t play in some way on his name (though I only heard a few hundred from what I understand were several thousand).

I remember the first media political sex scandal, Gary Hart’s 1987 dalliance with Donna Rice on the boat Monkey Business. But what brought Hart down wasn’t the dalliance per se, but his challenge to the media in the wake of rumors about his extra-marital affair to “Follow me around. I don’t care.” So they did. And they found him with her on (of all places) the Monkey Business. It’s hard to sift through the mess to see how much the extra-marital affair had to do with Hart’s downfall and how much had to do with his challenge to the media (not to mention the sweet frosting of the boat’s name). And in much the same way, I can’t sift through the Weiner mess (at least the “distraction”) without wondering how much had to do with the confluence of his surname and his unfortunately homonymic organ (or “member,” if we want to move on to another pun that was front and center, so to speak, in this whole package, so to speak, etc.).