Ethos with the Elderly

Don’t call an old man “Young Man.” 

He’d even prefer “Pops.”

If you call a young man “Young Man,”

He’ll bust you in the chops. 

An old woman isn’t “Sweetie”

And please don’t call her “Dear.”

If you call a young girl “Sweetie,”

She’ll smack you on the ear.

Don’t treat the old like children;

It makes them think you’re dense.

You’re lucky when you try it

That they’re bad at self-defense.

Doing Easter

I see by the weather report a white Easter is predicted for some areas of New England. The equinox is past, days are longer, and the church boiler eats into the endowment fund to keep the parishioners’ teeth from chattering as they hallelujah. Ministers will have a hard time associating the risen Christ with the emergence of new life from the frozen earth.  The Easter Parade will sort of slog. 

It’s often like that.  We have a day when we are expected to feel joy, but it doesn’t flow from our hearts on cue.  Thinking of people who are worse off than ourselves may produce a stiff upper lip, but we rarely rejoice.  We may need bright eggs, bunny rabbits, and a nibble of chocolate to divert us from gloomy thoughts.  Easter promises that elation can burst forth even in a time of despair.  Be open, but don’t push it. 

A Dream ReKindled

I used to have a recurring dream that I was wandering through my house and came upon a door I’d never noticed before.  Opening it, I found myself in a room crammed with a clutter of books.  Hard covers and paperbacks were packed on shelves, piled in corners, and spilling from surfaces.  Disorder was part of the charm.  Bindings were worn. Many books had faded or tattered dust jackets. My dream self walked between the bookcases in quiet awe. 

Now these dreamt-of riches can be mine on Kindle.  I read on the  Amazon website that for an affordable sum I can purchase a device that will have available to it over 1.8 million free, out-of copywright, pre-1923 books, which ought to be enough to keep me amused for any life expectancy I can imagine. Wow!

The secret room was my treasure hoard, my Aladdin’s cave. I sometimes dream in color but rarely with a sense of smell, so the dusty old-book aroma must have been added by my imagination as I cherished the vision in waking reverie.

Possibly the visual, tactile, and olfactory aspects of my trove of books are valued because they’re connected psychologically with the words of authors bringing me pleasure as they touched my mind.  Some future reader may wax lyrical about a small device where electronic sentences appear on a screen.  

Whatever the psychology, the dream is mine, and I’ve enhanced it with a comfortable chair and a good lamp.  In fantasy I place my hand on The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Canon Doyle and carry it to the chair.  Without any flashy special effects the scene changes to the rooms of 221 B Baker Street where Holmes and Watson are examining a walking stick left behind by an unknown visitor.  Outside the windows is late 19^th Century London, and far away the wilds of Dartmoor are haunted by a spectral hound. 

This sort of magic happens all the time.  I’m now reading Where the Truth Lies by Rupert Holmes. It’s not great literature, but is more entertaining than anything I’m likely to find on my 100+ channels of TV.  The volume is in good condition with a slick dust jacket, firm covers, smooth paper, and clear print, but it fades from my notice as it transports me to New York, Los Angeles, and Miami of the 1960s.  I see the antiquated plumbing of a bathroom of the Plaza Hotel, the Monsanto “Adventures thru Inner Space” ride at Disneyland, and the sleazy cocktail lounge of a Florida dog track.  The Kindle edition is $9.34, but I bought my copy for a dollar at the Plymouth Library book sale.  When I’ve finished the book, it will go into a box to be sold for a dollar at the Plymouth Antiquarian Society Fair. 

The dream of the enchanted library is part of what makes me who I am. I may someday own a Kindle, but I cannot fall out of love with the real physical books that come and go in my life. To be without something to read would be a nightmare, but so far the old system works. I touch paper each time I turn a page.

Martini Manners

It’s great fun to be a martini snob.  I, myself, have sometimes been snooty about my favorite snoot-full. Having achieved fogiedom, I now aspire to martini maturity, although I don’t claim to have arrived at this pinnacle of self-effacement. 

The steps go something like this.  First you graduate from the Tom Collins or whiskey sour to the most classic of cocktails.  Sometime later you surrender the pleasure of posturing as you put in the order.  “I’ll have a Beefeater martini, very dry, straight up with a twist.”  You come to realize the only way to impress a bartender or cocktail waitress is with a generous tip. 

You study martini lore.  There are books on the subject with rival claims as to its invention and early recipes that make you wonder why the drink didn’t sink into oblivion before it had a chance to evolve.  I am a fan of martini poetry, some of which I know by heart.  If I start reciting it during the cocktail hour, it’s time to shut me off. 

There seems to be more than one version of this little gem by Dorothy Parker.

I like to have a Martini,

Two at the very most—

After three I’m tinder the table,

After four I’m under my host.

I’m also fond of the following by Ogden Nash.

A Drink With Something in It

There is something about a Martini,

A tingle remarkably pleasant;

A yellow, a mellow Martini;

I wish I had one at present.

There is something about a Martini,

Ere the dining and dancing begin,

And to tell you the truth,

It is not the vermouth—

I think that perhaps it’s the gin.

It bothered me that the sage referred to a yellow martini because in my experience the drink is silver, but the house version at the Ritz Bar was made with Old Raj gin which is distinctly yellow.  I don’t know what they imbibed at the Algonquin Round Table, but I’ll give Nash his pretty little internal rhyme.

One of the sweetest pleasures of snobbism is scorn, of which martini drinking provides generous opportunity. One of the great controversies is whether it should be shaken or stirred.  James Bond insisted that his be shaken.  Many, including President “Jed” Bartlett of “The West Wing,” scorned the shaken martini in the belief that shaking melts too much ice and weakens the drink, thus proving that Bond was a martini wuss while Bartlett was a manly imbiber.  

A respected scientist of my acquaintance convinced me that it makes no difference whether the drink is shaken or stirred. The same amount of melting produces the same amount of cooling.  Shaking the drink produces cloudiness because tiny ice chips break off and swirl around.  This disappears as the chips melt, keeping the martini cold on its way to the drinker’s hand. 

I personally shake my martinis as it’s easier to judge the coldness, and I like to follow the example of William Powell in “The Thin Man,” who was the classiest martini maker in filmdom. Powell in his character of Nick Charles was showing a bartender the proper way to make the drink, which brings me to the new humility of which I boast. 

Annette and I were sitting before a fire at a charming inn in Connecticut, and I ordered a martini, which turned out to be one of the two worst I’ve ever been served.  I felt a haughty smugness swelling in my bosom and was tempted to instruct the young desk clerk/bartender/waiter in the martini making craft. I managed to refrain, although I left the unfinished drink on the cocktail table and politely declined his offer to carry it for me into the dining room. 

True humility is a quality of the soul and a damned difficult virtue to attain, but at least hostilities were avoided.  I suspect the problem with the cocktail at the quaint old inn was wet ice.  If you take your ice out of the freezer and store it in a handy container under the bar until a film of water forms around each piece, you will dilute the drink so it becomes mere gin and water, which was what I seemed to have.

Had I chosen to offer an impromptu lesson in the Nick Charles tradition, it would have gone as follows.  I recognize in my semi-humility that this is the drink as made to my taste and not the only way it can be mixed.  If I’m at a well known bar such as the one they used to have at the Ritz Hotel, I never give instructions because I want to sample an expert’s version. 

Judge the size of your glass.  The large martini glasses that are fashionable today will hold four ounces.  If Dorothy Parker’s host consumed four such drinks she would not have to worry about her virtue; he’d have been out cold.  Pour into your shaker enough gin to fill the glass.  Tanqueray is my favorite kind. 

I will concede that a martini may be made of vodka, but the appletinis, chocolatinis, and other assorted ’tinis on your bar’s “Martini Menu” are novelty drinks not to be considered in any discussion of the classic. 

Add the shortest possible pour of white vermouth.  Today’s larger glasses allow this method.  In former times showoffs whispered the word vermouth over the glass.  Some used an eyedropper or a vermouth-infused olive for a hint of flavor.  Others rinsed the glass in vermouth and poured it out.  If you want a particularly strong martini, keep the makings in the refrigerator and the glass in the freezer. I don’t find this necessary. 

Vermouth is an important component, but I’m not particular about the brand.  My present one is Stock.  Unless you make a lot of martinis, buy a small bottle and keep it in the refrigerator as the wine in an opened bottle will deteriorate in quality. 

With the gin and vermouth in the shaker I fill it with ice cubes directly from the freezer.  Like an Englishman dressing for dinner while alone in the jungle, I shake in the manner of William Powell regardless of whether or not anyone is watching. Civilization must be maintained.  I like the pimento stuffed olives available in bulk at Whole Foods.  Using a stuffed olive allows the drink to get inside. Naturally when I’ve finished the drink, I eat the olive.

Back Garden Sunday Morning

Old Lyme Connecticut, Mid April

Jesus on the Beach

The boy Jesus frolics on an Egyptian beach,

Running, kicking in the lace of a wave,

Surrounding himself by droplets filled with light

Resplendent as a creation of suns.

He wraps seaweed about his head

Like a glistening crown.

He owes a death, but ’till that time he has a life.

Wet and gleaming, he cartwheels on the sand,

Flinging high unwounded feet. 

Ego Integrity

Remember the Identity Crisis?  The idea came from Erick Erickson, who was a Danish-German-American psychoanalyst, who studied with Anna Freud and was a real sobersides. His books were dry as a desert-dweller’s belly button lint, but the Identity Crisis was a smash hit.

And why not – everybody wanted one.  There we were on a track from high school to college and headed for a career, marriage, and children.  Going out and finding ourselves sounded like fun, and it fit perfectly with our desire to be self-involved.  We loved to pour out angst, especially to the opposite sex. Some of us liked the identity crisis so much that later on we had to have a Midlife Crisis and cut loose again. 

What you may not remember is that Erickson described eight stages of psychological development, each with its own crisis, and no, Midlife wasn’t one of them. When you get to be a fogy, your crisis is Ego Integrity Verses Despair.  

Despair is a pretty dramatic term and sounds a lot worse than Role Confusion, which is what you get if you don’t find your Identity.  It’s pretty easy to figure out why fogies get gloomy.  Let’s face it, the Parcheesi table at the senior center isn’t crowded with the movers and shakers of the earth.  A lot of the important things you used to do you don’t anymore.

Pretty soon they put you in the nursing home, where they feed you powdered eggs and leave you to deal with the ancient nemesis of mankind, Death.  They try not to mention his name, but extreme fogiedom is like Picket’s Charge, and it’s hard not to notice your comrades are falling to the left and right.  You have to do philosophy when you can’t remember that the next meal is lunch.

When you get to that point this Ego Integrity business seems worth looking into.  What you’re after is wisdom.  There have been various theories as to what this is.  If you were a Stoic it might consist of falling on your sword, but you notice an absence of pointed objects within reach. 

Erickson defined wisdom as “informed and detached concern with life, itself in the face of death, itself.”  Annette and I were discussing this quote with our coffee this morning, which is good because the aid of a significant other is supposed to be helpful in resolving the crisis.  “Why is it concern with life, itself in the face of death, itself?” she asked, “and not simply concern with life in the face of death.”  We didn’t figure that out, but maybe it’s just that we’re both writers and hate unnecessary words. 

I guess, if you’re satisfied with your life as you’ve lived it, death doesn’t seem so bad.  I’m not sure how you attain detachment; I get riled over the cost of my favorite bourbon.  I guess acceptance will have to do.  Listen, if I had this all straight in my mind, I’d explain it to you.  Meantime I’m trying to stay concerned with life.  That seems to be the thing. 

Rebate

I have a habit of imagining boardroom discussions.  It’s my way of calculating what corporations are up to.  Take, for example, the mail-in rebate.  It’s designed to make a product seem cheaper than it actually is. I don’t know what percentage of consumers actually receive these rebates, but marketers do, and it isn’t large.

I usually avoid buying items with rebates, but the other night I stopped into Pioppi’s Liquors for a bottle of gin.  Around the neck was a card that offered me five dollars back.  Normally, in my fogieish indolence, I’d slip the rebate card into a drawer, where I’d discover it after it was out of date and invalid, but I wasn’t going to fall for that this time.

“Where are the envelopes?” I asked Annette, who replied they were in her desk. I couldn’t find them so she got me one.  I seated myself at the kitchen table and got to work.  This was the address to be copied:

CMS Rebate Center,

Attn; Save $5 off Tanqueray:

DIAGEO 1382, PO Box 426014
Del Rio TX 78842-6014

It was four lines with a total of 19 digits to get right, not counting the 5 in $5.   When I’d finished the job, I found I’d skipped the four after DIAGEO.  I squeezed them in, but I could see that the envelope wasn’t going to find its proper destination, even if it arrived at the right PO Box. 

I felt it unwise to pester Annette for another envelope, so I rummaged through her desk until I found one and wrote the address again, triple checking to make sure it was correct. I carefully enclosed my sales slip from Pioppi’s. Then I found a stamp, noting that the net return for my labor would be $4.56 after the expenditure of 44¢. 

Will I be rewarded?  Probably not.  I spent over thirty years in the insurance business where it was part of my job to fill out applications and other forms, but I’m almost never able to score a rebate.  One application was returned to me because Best Buy’s register spit out both a proof of purchase and a sales slip and I’d sent in the wrong thing.  Before I got around to making the correction, the time to respond had expired.  Another time I thought I had everything perfect, but the money never came. 

If the $5 does arrive, I won’t be home free.  It will be in the form of a check, which must be cashed promptly and will be worthless if I don’t get it to the bank in time.  Meanwhile the CMS Rebate Center will have my name and address and know I drink gin.  I will be hearing from someone about that. 

The proper thing would have been to abandon my intended purchase on the counter and inform the clerk that I never buy anything that offers a rebate, hoping the message would scale the heights to the proper boardroom.  The trouble was I was alarmingly low on gin.  When I got home I was faced with the long chance of getting $5 in exchange for one of my wife’s envelopes and a stamp, and I was seized with a sucker’s hope. In six to eight weeks I’ll know if I succeeded or failed. 

Cape Cod Early April

Morning with Henry

This morning I was reading from The Selected Journals of Henry David Thoreau. I find I can purchase the complete fourteen volume edition of  the Journals in like-new “collectible” condition from Amazon.com for $220, and they’d look mighty fine in my living room bookcase proclaiming to all what a well-read fellow I am. 

On the other hand, I’ve found the 319 pages of my Signet Classic paperback are adequate to my needs. It rests on my bedside bookshelf, where it impresses nobody, but is handy for dipping into. Today I happened to open it to July 16, 1851 where the sage observes, “In youth, before I lost any of my senses, I can remember that I was all alive, and inhabited my body with inexpressible satisfaction; both its weariness and its refreshment were sweet to me.”   

I wondered if he was thinking of William Wordsworth who had died the previous year. 

“What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;”

Personally I don’t remember that my senses were sharper in my youth, although I wear glasses and must admit people seem to be speaking more softly than they used to.  I think it’s not vestigial memories of heaven that fires the awareness of children, but the newness of the world and their eagerness to take it in.  I was bathing my younger daughter when she put her mouth on the rim of the tub, and it suddenly came to me that I perfectly recalled the wet, smooth hardness of the curved porcelain and the slightly soapy taste.  She was an explorer of the world, and I had been one too.   

The other day my granddaughter, who is coming up to two years old, heard that there are dinosaur bones at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and demanded, “Put my sneakers on and let’s go.” Ruminating through books and websites, I find I have lost a little of that pure flame.  Learning is the business of us all, but it’s particularly urgent to the very young. 

I love Wordsworth’s image of plump babies descending from heaven trailing clouds of glory, but had the poet consulted midwives, he would have found that newborns are not washed to clean them of stardust. Their holiness is their humanity, and they dive into life headfirst.  I now take my learning at a leisurely pace and am apt to do it in my stocking feet. 

Reading The Selected Journals this morning I was struck how like a blog they are, and to my great pleasure I find that there is a blog giving a journal entry for the very day of the year you access it. I bookmarked the site and intend to look at it during my morning computer time. It’s Thoreau in exactly the dosage I’m inclined to take him. He makes an amiable companion for a short visit, but he does go on.  Should you hunger for the whole enchilada, Thoreau’s complete journals are available for free.