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A beautiful new soul entered our life two weeks ago. Six pounds and eight ounces of absolute wonder. A new grandchild is always special but now we have a granddaughter. I don’t know how we’ll manage this new creature. We have two sons and one grandson but now there is a new arrival. My wife has always wanted a granddaughter. She loves the clothes available for granddaughters as opposed to grandsons. She has always believed that there are more clothes and toys for girls than for boys.

I am just prepared to be always confused and amazed. Some members of my family might say that is my normal state, but this will be a very special time. I remember one of my friends saying many years ago that one of the last roles a man plays in life is that of a grandfather. I don’t think my wife and I were even married at the time. He was married and had at least one child. I kind of blew it off then but I am thinking more about it now. There are so many family roles in life- child, son, brother, husband, father. As soon as you begin thinking about it, life expands to your extended family and to your work and social life. I have always tried to keep fairly firm boundaries between my professional life and my family. Some of the things I heard in my work were so disturbing I just couldn’t bring them home. My sons and wife might not agree with this. During my oldest son’s adolescence I was very strict because of the difficult and problematic adolescents I saw. He once told one of his friends that growing up in our house was like living in a Nazi concentration camp. Hopefully he doesn’t believe that today. My wife said that she thought that work made me very moody and it seemed to get worse as I got older. I just didn’t know how to keep them at a distance from some of the things I heard.

Now this new role of grandfather is upon me. I really enjoy being silly and playful with my grandson. I don’t think I was ever that way with my sons. Maybe it’s because I don’t see him as much as I did them and don’t have the same responsibility. I imagine it will be the same with our grand daughter, but maybe just a little different. I always used to joke that God was good in giving me sons because he knew I couldn’t handle a daughter. I would say that if I had a daughter she would never leave the house until it was time for her to enter the convent. Once we were doing a role-play presentation at a high school about drug use. After the role-play we asked one of the participants what her parents would do if they caught her smoking marijuana. She told us that they would send her to relatives in Italy to enter a convent. I always thought that was a good idea but couldn’t figure out how to do it with sons. If I sent them to Ireland they would probably have ended up as bartenders in a pub somewhere. Teen-agers always test and try to differentiate themselves. This always creates conflict within a family and our family was no exception. It will be interesting to see how my sons handle their own children’s adolescence.

So what does a grandfather do? . What kinds of role models are there for this? There is always Grandpa Walton, but I don’t think I could pull off the overall and suspender look. Grandfathers are supposed to be old and wise. I have got the old part, the wise not so much. I only had a grand father until I was five. My father’s dad died before I was one and my mother’s dad died when I was five. I barely remember him. My sons never really had one either. My dad was dead before they were born. My wife’s dad never really seemed to want that role. He rarely came to any of my sons’ activities and was really not involved in their lives. It may have been different if my wife’s mother had lived, but after her death he was more interested in his new life. I don’t want that. I want to be as much a part of my grandchildren’s life as I can. I can tell stories and play and laugh and go to games and recitals and graduations. I can tear up at special times and tell stories of the past. I want them to be able to remember their grandparents. I want them to have wonderful memories to share with their own children and always be able to say, “My Grandpa loved me very much and always thought I was very special”.

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Why am I so tired of this political drama? Every day there is something new and some new political spin depending on which side you support. I make a real effort not to discuss politics with friends and relatives. I just don’t think it’s important enough to risk the relationship.

I wonder if this is what happened in Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Russia. People just got so tired of the ongoing crisis that they just said the hell with it. Something I read recently wondered how a supposed Christian nation like Germany could allow the persecution and atrocities it did. This was especially true since the Nazi party was a minority party. Only 5-10% of the population was ever card-carrying members. Yet no one really organized enough followers to stop them. I know that during that time Germany was going thru financial crises related to the depression and the aftermath of the war. The Nazis provided wonderful political theater, but somewhere people must have questioned where it was all going. Maybe there really were many and maybe they just stopped caring and let the dice roll. It’s fairly easy to criticize them now and say, “Why did you let this happen?”

Supposedly after the discovery of one of the concentration camps by American forces, the US commanding general rounded up citizens from a nearby town and forced them to come and see what had been going on. Their universal answer was “We didn’t know”. I wonder if they were just simply overwhelmed with the constant drama and just got to the point of not caring.

I think part of this for me is that I cant understand how anyone can believe some of the “fake info” coming out of the party in power. There are constant lies and exaggerations. Supposedly only 30% of the population believes every word that is said and refuses to accept any differing views no matter how much scientific or factual data is presented. Almost no effort is ever made to correct. When they are confronted they make every effort to discount the questioner or change the subject. When my sons were young every time I tried to discipline or correct my youngest son, his defense was always to try and get me to turn on his older brother. This really seems to be what’s going on now.

Maybe the real answer is to try and focus on the positives. This has the potential to be a really spectacular fall. Our family is awaiting the birth of a new grandchild. Our grandson is pretty focused on what happens when he loses a tooth and suddenly finds money under his pillow the next morning. The ongoing wonder in a child’s life doesn’t depend on daily political drama. Every day is a new day with the possibility of wonderful new adventures. This sounds so nice and some days I really can appreciate all of it. However then the reality of this time seeps thru again.

I remember when the president was elected. I didn’t vote for him and was upset that he won, but I was willing to give him a chance. I remember talking about this with my friends and saying “I’m willing to give him a chance if he will only just shut up”.

Of course that hasn’t happened.

I don’t know if it ever will. Somehow in the midst of this I have to keep trying to find some joy and wonder, but I don’t want to just let everything slide. I think the only thing I can do is to try and stay politically aware enough so I can never say, “I just didn’t  knew what was going on”. I am not ready to storm the walls or burn down the winter palace. I am ready to keep reading and trying to understand what is going on.

I’m willing to hold my family and love them and laugh with my friends. I am not ready to close my eyes just yet. Maybe if we all try to at least keep our eyes open, we can be ready when the time for real change comes.

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So what are you afraid of? I don’t like stinging insects and try to avoid them as much as possible. Probably my most terrifying encounter with a large bumblebee occurred over 30 years ago. I was driving one of my sons to some event. It was a warm spring day. I had the car window open and was going about 50 miles an hour. Due to the weather I was wearing shorts and a tee shirt. Suddenly a large bee came in the window and landed in my shorts. I screamed and stood up while the car was still moving. Thankfully the impact had killed the bee, but I didn’t know that. I was able to pull the car safely off to the side, get out and shake the bee out of my shorts. All of this while my son was laughing hysterically. He still laughs today whenever this is brought up.

I also don’t like to fly. Up until a few years ago I would avoid this as much as possible. Since I’ve retired we have gone on quite a few vacations and it doesn’t bother me as much. I think increased exposure has helped greatly. I remember going to a lecture about phobias many years ago. The presenter talked about exposing people to their greatest fears and helping them through it. One of his famous cases involved a woman who was afraid of live lobsters in grocery stores. She was terrified that somehow they would escape their tanks and attack her. Now this sounds foolish, but it certainly wasn’t to her.

I still have a fear of heights. I am not sure where this came from. I used to go on our roof, install TV antennas, fix shingles, hang wire, etc. I remember standing outside on a ladder, balancing on one foot, painting the second floor of our home. However something happened and now heights make me extremely uncomfortable. I did fall once while painting inside, but it wasn’t that big a fall. Maybe that is where it started.

My wife loves heights. She always wants to go up to the highest point in every building. She loves Ferris Wheels and I don’t. She will go on them by herself while I take pictures of her. My sister has some of the same fears. There may be something to this genetic thing after all.

This is all leading up to our Alaskan Cruise. One of our sons went on this cruise last year and greatly enjoyed it. We decided to try it and went last week. I had some misgivings about going on a cruise ship, but that was fine. What I wasn’t ready for were the mountains and unbelievable scenery. I live in the beautiful but very flat Midwest. We do not have snow capped mountains in June or really any other month. Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest have more mountains than you can count. When we got off of the plane we saw Mt Rainier– beautiful but very unusual for us. My cousin and his family have lived there for forty years. They drove us all over before the cruise showing us their beautiful state. Washington is very green and very mountainous.

When we started the cruise we went to Juneau and then to Skagway. During our stop in Skagway we took a bus tour up to the top of one of the mountains. The purpose was to show us the scenery and then to experience this famous train ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railway. This is supposed to be one of the real highlights of the trip because of the beautiful scenery. My wife loved it. I found it terrifying. Exposure didn’t seem to help. We were on this fairly old rickety train going up and around mountain passes. We seemed to be on the very edge of falling for most of the trip. I tried to be a good sport and took a lot of pictures. However at one point I really stood out from the rest of the passengers. The train guide told us to get our cameras ready because we were coming up on an iconic sight to take pictures. We entered a tunnel and came out onto a beautiful sight with what seemed like a six-mile drop down the side of the mountain. I leaned over with my camera and when we came out of the tunnel I said, “Fuck” and sat down very quickly. No one said anything, but there were some odd looks. I have no idea how many pictures I took since my eyes were closed most of the time.

I suppose if I really wanted too, I could work on this fear. However if that would involve exposure to heights I’m not sure I want to do that right now. One of my old psychiatric supervisors used to say that people finally change when they really want to and they are ready, I am neither of those right now so I will just enjoy my beautiful flat land and avoid anything higher than about 3 feet.

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Life has been very busy. We decided we would put our home up for sale. The upkeep and tasks of keeping a home have been getting a little more difficult. We both realized that as we aged, this could only get worse. Our house sold in three days and we scrambled to find a new place to live. We decided to move closer to our sons and now live almost exactly between them in the wilds of McHenry County.

I must confess this has been a very strange and scrambled experience. My parents moved to Warrenville in 1959. This was a big move to what was at the time a very big house. We had been living in a small starter house that my Dad was able to get with his GI loan. Prior to that we lived in apartments and rented homes. I don’t think my parents ever thought they could afford a house of that size. After my father’s death my mother continued to live there and eventually one of my sisters moved in with her husband and children. When she moved out my mother decided she would continue to live alone in her house. During the illness prior to her death, my other sister moved in with her own husband and children to help and care for her. After my mother’s death she continued to live in the house. Eventually both my sisters ended up living in Warrenville. We moved there in 1980 and raised both of our sons there. So my sisters and I, and all our children, were all living fairly close to each other in the town my parents moved to in the 50s. It was a charming, quiet town and was a great place to raise children.

Now I find myself in strange environs. At times this reminds me of living in France. Beautiful country, but I don’t speak the language yet. I don’t know the roads and everything seems new. It also seems very quiet. I think everyone goes to bed at around 8:00PM. I keep looking out the window and see older women walking small dogs. I keep waiting for meals on wheels to begin knocking on our door.

I keep thinking about change. It is difficult learning new things and learning new places. My wife keeps thinking of this as an adventure. I am still struggling to find places to put things.

There were experiments we used to do with people to get them to recognize the difficulty in change. One would be to ask them to write their name with the non-dominant hand. The signature is unrecognizable because it is so difficult to do. The other seems very simple. First we would ask them to put on their coats. We would ask them to concentrate on which arm they used first. Then we would ask them to put on their coats using the opposite hand. They were usually very surprised at how difficult it was. The purpose at the time was to get them to realize the possibility of change and “getting in touch” with another part of themselves.

I know now that this was old thinking, but change does challenge. It forces us to adapt. I suppose the challenge of that is good, but change is harder as I get older. I like having the same things and places around me. Now I have to adapt and have to accept that this “old thinking” is because I am getting old.

I have vague memories of my grandfather who died when I was five. He was seventy-two. This is the age I am rapidly approaching. This seems like an ancient age. I began thinking that this was the last stop before my sons put us in the nursing home. How long until I am there strapped to a wheel chair overcome with the smell of urine and disinfectant that seems to inundate those places? My youngest son once told me jokingly that he was going to put me in a nursing home and not tell anyone where I was. Now I am getting concerned about that. I think that my initial response to moving here and seeing the apparent age of the residents encouraged this. I know when you begin to think of only one thing everything seems to relate to that. Older women walking small dogs, old men in motorized wheel chairs, all seem to mean that this is where we are headed.

However maybe not. I just looked out the window and saw a young girl with green hair walking her baby. Perhaps the key to this adventure is to notice new things and not just old things. Perhaps the new can overcome the old and make everything fresh again. The boxes we moved in with are almost all empty now. This place is beginning to feel comfortable. I keep thinking we forgot something at our old home, but then we find it. So putting old things in new places may be good for them and just maybe it could be good for me.

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I haven’t written since the election because there has certainly been almost too much to think about . There was once a myth that when elephants got old they would wander off to a special place to die known as the “Elephants Burial Ground”. There is supposedly this place stacked with carcasses and bones of old, dead elephants. In the last few years we have visited Ashville, North Carolina and have just returned from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Both cities are beautiful and have much to see, but their population seems to include a large group of older counter culture folks. In Ashville there were a lot of balding older men who had decided to grow ponytails. They would hang out in the many coffee shops and bookstores and generally seemed fairly affluent. I had a fancy that they were all retired stockbrokers who were trying to rediscover their youth and the Woodstock they had left behind. Santa Fe was different. The ponytails were older and looked tired. There is apparently a fairly large group of homeless there, but I even saw people working who looked like they had never given up on the “hippie lifestyle “ and were now paying a price.

If I think back to that time, we thought we could change the world. Vietnam was going on and the argument was that we had to stop the Communists there to protect the free world. When young people started to disagree with this, a whole new culture began to emerge. Peace/Love was the message of the day. Drugs did play a part and really began to erode that message, but the message of peace, love and mutual responsibility for each other continued.

This now seems to be ending. As I look around and see my generation wandering down to the burial ground I really wonder what will last. The election seemed like a fairly clear choice, but the choice that was made was really a surprise. I don’t think any one knows what will happen over the next few years, but the ideal of mutual responsibility is certainly gone. Everyone seems so angry. I have tried to distance myself from the news, but it is almost impossible. Every charge is met with a counter charge. Every accusation appears to cast the culprit as the worst sort of human being. No one listens. They all talk over each other. Moderate is now a dirty word.

When the campaign was going on it was somewhat frightening to hear one camp shouting, “Lock her up!!” and the other camp shouting “Abuser, Pervert!!” After the election Garrison Keillor wrote a column where he seemed to say that enough was enough. It was now time to step back, smell the roses,etc., and let other people worry about the future. I really wanted to try that but it seems almost impossible. My wife, God Bless her, is still furious and wants to march in the Women’s March in Chicago. I keep trying to say I don’t care and, as long as our new president doesn’t mess with Medicare or Social Security, it’s time to let go.

Yeah, but then this old 60’s stuff starts going thru my head again. Not the Peace/Love stuff, but the mutual responsibility ideal. I have heard both sides and one side still seems to be against most of what I believe in. There is going to be a concerted effort to take us back 15-20 years. All the campaign promises that gave life to some of the most “deplorable” parts of our society still resonate. The Klan and the Traditional Workers Party are both enjoying renewed popularity. The “elite’s” are now looked down on because they have an education and don’t really know what is going on. I think the only real action is to continue to stay aware and alert because this is still not just my country, but our country.

The old movie “The Big Chill” opens with a funeral. I always thought it would be cool to have a wake like that and to have Rolling Stones music played as I was wheeled out. Now I have a different image. I am thinking of the New Orleans Funeral Marches. On the way down all the music is somber, but on the way back it is joyful. I want joyful music and I want all those old elephant bones to rise up. It’s not time to rest yet, it’s still time to work !!!