There is No Spring in My Future

Received an e-mail from a friend on reaching old age. The writer referred to old age as being the “winter” of her life and explained how surprised she was to find she was old.

I replied as follows:

Next week I’ll celebrate my 78th birthday with a family dinner at our youngest daughter’s house on Venice Beach. I retired in 2004 when I was 76 years old after a 48 year career. The greater part of these working years, my job basically consisted of a close interaction of technology with people. To be an effective engineering consultant, I to had understand both the technical aspects of the client’s problem I was hired to solve, and how to coach the people toward a solution. That is, there are an infinite variety of technical problems which are relatively easy to understand, but only human solutions which are very difficult to affect. Which is why I took an MA in rhetoric rather than a MS in some engineering discipline. People were my biggest problem, and I felt I had to understand better how to move them along the path I knew they had to take to correct the technical problem they had encountered.

The point I’m making is because while I was practicing my career, I was intellectually totally immersed in my work and, thus, took no notice of the passing years. Because the intellect knows no age – thoughts, even memories of the past, are always framed in the present tense -- my “winter” started at age 76 when I retired and laid down my engineering and rhetorical tools. I’m not surprised to find I’m old. I worked damn hard to get old. Not just at my career but also as a person. Now, a couple of times a week, I sit in our hot tub in our back deck amidst the trees of the forest we live in, with a ice-cold bottle of beer, and think of my life today as “my just reward.” By that I mean, that I believe I have succeeded in living up to the model my parents provided to me of what an ethical adult is.

Finally, I don’t see myself in the “winter” of my life. Winters are cold and barren, pretty, certainly, but most living plants and creatures are merely surviving until spring. There is no spring in my future, and I’m not merely surviving. Rather I see myself approaching the sunset of my life. My days in the sun are almost over and night is coming when I will sleep. For me, death is merely eternal, dreamless sleep. I don’t believe in heaven because, like many engineers, I only believe that for which I have evidence. Thus, I’ll settle for dreamless sleep from which I never awake.

If I’m wrong and there is an after life, and God awaits me, then I am ready to be judged.

The World War Two Generation

Received an e-mail yesterday from a long-time friend comparing the nation’s attitude toward the so-called war on terrorism and that held during World War Two.

I replied as follows:

Thanks for reminding me. Yes World War II occurred in a far different world from today. The technology was different certainly. But much more important, people were different. The Depression years of the 1930s made, I believe, all of us much more aware of each other and of our government’s efforts to simply provide a roof over our head and food to eat. No one born after 1943 or so has experienced the national hardship and gut-worrying uncertainties that shaped the national conscious of those who were adults during WWII.

This belief of mine is not merely and intellectual expression. During the first few years of my life I was called “Fred” by the family since Frederick is, after my father, my first name. I came to be called “Bob” in 1933 when I was five years old and my father was the only family member who had not lost his job. My parents owned a house in Bayside. Long Island. In 1933, the following relatives moved in with us: my mother’s parents, my mother’s brother, and my father’s father, Now myself, my father, and my father’s father are all named Frederick. To reduce confusion, it was agreed that, in the family, my Father would be called “Fred;” my Father’s father would be called “Fritz;” and I would be called “Bob” after Robert, my middle name.

My point is, my very name reminds me of those terrible days when we were overflowing our house in Bayside and my father’s modest teacher-salary was supporting six adults and two young children. Although they all did their best to shield me, I sensed the despair that gnawed on the edges of our closely knit family. I grew up with parents who faced reality and accepted without the slightest hesitation, and with humor, the duties that fate imposed. My parents were living examples of how adults should behave. Is it any wonder that my view of the world, and that of my parents’ generation, is different than that of most younger people who, thank God, never had to face alone raw, dream-stealing, hard-scrambling adversity?

Impressions Upon Watching the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric

Watched the initial broadcast of CBS Evening News with Katie Couric as the anchor last evening. She did well. I think CBS has a winner.

Here are my impressions:

The interview with Thomas Friedman got me thinking. President Bush and the Republican Party are attempting to spin their handling of the war in Iraq by moving the argument to the higher level of combating terrorism. In their public announcements they are associating the war on terrorism with the defeat of Nazi Germany during WW II.

Friedman pointed out that the association does not speak well for the Republicans, since they failed to provide sufficient forces to ensure a victorious D-Day. That got me thinking. The Democratic Party should counter by agreeing that the nation is now locked in a fight every bit as desperate as that of WWII. But, as before, we need a Democrat in the White House and more Democrats in the Congress in order to win the war, since the Republican-controlled government has so grossly mismanaged the war on terrorism thus far.

They had a new segment called Free Speech in which some man ranted on about the media. He was so emotional he could hardly be understood. He came across as a professional actor. The piece was too slick. Katie explained that CBS intended to have various people, including celebrities, present their views on life. She mentioned Russ Limbaugh.

The Limbaugh and all other professional media people are paid to express their thoughts. So what’s new? More damming is that generally, I have no interest in what most media pros have to say. Additionally, I have no interest in learning what celebrities such as Hollywood film actors think on any subject. For me, being a famous film actor is not a credential for being having an intellect, as shown by Tom Cruise and, more recently, by Mel Gibson.

I think CBS should search the web for blogs written by ordinary, unknown, bloggers who have posted interesting and insightful pieces. Having found them, they should video tape them reading the posting that caught CBS eye. The point of the segment is to bring to national attention interesting thoughts from unknown citizens. I offer this as an example of just such a type of blog.

The show ended with a wonderful piece on using art to provide emotional support to under privileged orphans.