March 18, 2019

On Wednesday we walked the Burke Lake trail. A 4.5-mile loop that circumvents the lake just off Rte. 123 in Fairfax, it’s a flat, well-manicured trail popular with runners, bikers, and walkers with or without dogs. I’ve run it many times with the THuGs.

I thought it would be a good way to get some fresh air and exercise, since I haven’t had much of either lately. Sandy was up for it, and she’s more of a walker than a runner. Doing something rather than nothing always is positive. And we’re trying, these days, to stay positive.

The trail started out dry, but after the first mile we found muddy water, and much of the last three miles meant skipping around it or through it. Not a dealbreaker, but the mud did remind that we’re still slogging, literally, out of a raw, nasty winter that has taught that life is fragile. More than that, a few hiccups in your formerly robust health can give you a case of what I call the “poor-mees.” You find yourself wondering what you’ve accomplished of value as the years flew by, and if you’re honest, maybe you’re not so happy with your score. And you wonder why.

The outdoors does that for me. The Burke Lake trail wouldn’t appear on anyone’s list of the most thought-provoking, creativity-inspiring places. It’s just a mitten-shaped lake and a trail for people who live mostly in subdivisions. For serious hikers, the degree of difficulty is about one in ten. We finished, gasping a little, but happy for doing it.

That was Wednesday. Thursday the mass shooting at the mosques in New Zealand occurred, with all the features of these slaughters that still horrify but no longer surprise: automatic weapons. Tactical clothing. Video, live-streamed on social media platforms. Eloquent condemnations by most world leaders. And this time a “manifesto” that credited President Trump as a “symbol of white identity and common purpose.”

Because the killer’s words were so unhinged and paranoid, and yet carefully prepared, the predominant response to his announcement of his hatred for Muslims and non-European peoples was not only outraged horror, but also warnings about the growth of right-wing terror. Such warnings have been making the rounds even before Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” comment about the Charlottesville riot of August 2017.

His moral equivalence following that event set the tone for the popular response to it, and now to Christchurch: shock, outrage, but also resignation that it will happen again. Elizabeth Bruenig, in The Washington Post, went further, fixing on the nature of evil, neutering it, somehow, with abstraction: “evil is unreflective, shallow, empty … it never really perceives itself, though it always considers itself an exacting and scrupulous judge of others,” she wrote.

In an early February piece she suggested that “the nature and essence of being an individual—what we’re really like, whether we’re really good or evil or suspended somewhere in between—goes largely unexamined.” She resurrects the case of serial killer Theodore Bundy, a rapacious murderer who also impressed as charming and shrewd.

But this turns evil into what? A character trait, maybe, that individuals may choose to indulge. In the February column she cites actor Liam Neeson, who revealed that at one time he looked for a black man to murder to avenge the rape of a friend, then suddenly came to his senses.

The problem of evil leads us back, once again, to the problem of the existence of God, with the perennial question: if there is a God, why does he permit evil? It’s the question asked, to name just one case, by the widows and widowers of 9/11 who stopped believing after they lost their spouses.

The Christian understanding may be the simplest: if we conceive of perfection, then evil also must exist. We know the “good” if we recognize its absence. In the Christian coda, God alone is perfect. It then follows that all else is imperfect, in an infinite series of degrees, e.g., from St. Francis of Assisi to Hitler. All men are flawed, corruptible: some people pilfer office supplies at work, others commit mass murder.

Sure, we all recognize that “nobody’s perfect.” And to credit “goodness” as a counterweight to the existence of evil seems neutral, banal. We need to feel anger, outrage, fury, at the existence of Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the Christchurch killer. To isolate evil as a kind of quirk, an indulgence, a bad habit, is to represent it as distinct from human nature, which is impossible—for example, to wonder whether if he had had a better education or better parents he wouldn’t have killed those people. And we know it will happen again, because we acknowledge that good in man’s nature foreshadows and coexists with evil. Where we ourselves reside on that infinite chain from sainthood to someone like Tarrant is forever a mystery.

The Burke Lake trail was unusually empty Wednesday, as we navigated the mud, our minds led to distant places, resigned to more challenges and choices in months ahead. Thursday came and summoned agonizing questions that all of us, once again, struggle to answer.

March 11, 2019

In this first week of March we observed Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. The evening of that solemn day we leaped to the CBS Evening News lead story on R. Kelly, a singer charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse. For three consecutive nights, at least, the newscast showed the guy, while being interviewed, angrily denying it all while stomping around the room.

Am I the only one in America who had never heard of him?

In the same way I admit now to never having heard of another fellow whose face filled the evening news for more than a week, Jussie Smollett, the actor who has been charged in Chicago with filing a false police report about being assaulted by racists in the middle of the night.

The news show producers only have so many minutes in which they can cram stories, and the rules for organizing them to hold the viewer (or in the case of print news, the reader) haven’t changed: go with the gripping, attention-grabbing headline.

It wasn’t just CBS, these stories were everywhere. Is everyone else in the audience hipper, more tuned in than me? Is my cultural aptitude that stunted? Having just exited my 60s last week after the standard 10-year term, I know I’m in the advertising demographic trash heap. But the evening news is what “we” watch, based on the commercials for chemotherapy aids, bladder control, COPD support and similar stuff. I don’t enjoy them any more than the thirty-somethings. They may not watch the evening news, but they know about Kelly and Smollett.

Not to perseverate, but I didn’t lose sleep over my ignorance of these fellows and the trouble they found themselves in. Nor did anyone else I know. But watching the reports (until I changed channels) reminded me of the wide gap, at this moment, between my priorities, and the priorities of those whose cultural beacons are tuned to the Kelly/Smollett frequency.

By week two of radiation/chemo, we settled into the 8:15 schedule. The Monday through Friday visits to the radiology oncologist’s office became a ritual, like work used to be. The three young techs who run the operation run it as a friendly assembly line. The 8:00 AM patient leaves the lead-lined treatment room, we say hello, I go in. The techs ask me, every day, my name, birthdate, and the area being treated—a certification requirement.

They line me up with the laser markers crisscrossing my chest. The linear accelerometer starts spinning. I feel nothing. Six weeks after the first session I have a circle of sunburn on my chest and another on my back—the radiation passes through the body—and an internal burn on my esophagus, which is directly in front of the tumor and has been dried to the texture of a prune. Morphine helps.

Before I found myself in this fix, I knew nothing and understood nothing of the lives of others who face it every day, every moment. The silent faces of those sitting in the oncology waiting rooms reveal a mix of fear, resignation, and acceptance. They typically resemble me: late sixties and older, but not exclusively. My partners in the chemo pen range from early thirties to way up there, of a diverse mix of ethnic, racial, and national backgrounds: old white guys with Irish surnames to young black, Hispanic, and Muslim women, and everything in between.

The staff people are great, as they usually are in those professions. The nearby hospitals offer dozens of support groups, which I haven’t explored (Yoga for Cancer looks interesting). We met with a bright, caring social worker who loaded us down with brochures, way different from those we picked up at the Sunny Retirement trade show at Tyson’s last week.

What I’ve learned, too, is that my group here in Woodbridge, Va., cared for by one field office of an oncology practice with a dozen facilities in northern Virginia, is only a tiny cell in a population of millions of cancer patients across the country.

I’m betting that not many of my fellow patients are paying much attention to the problems of R. Kelly and Jussie Smollett. They may not even watch the evening news. They most likely do know, or appreciate, that roughly a half-million people die of cancer of all types each year in the U.S., mostly because their disease wasn’t detected in time for treatment to be effective.

I don’t mean to pile on CBS or the other popular media. They do report health-care news, mostly if it’s fast-breaking, like a flu epidemic or other wide-appeal stories which, again, is the bottom line in news. But never, ever will you see three straight days of lead-story coverage of the lives of cancer patients. Fact is, the patients don’t care. They’re more likely to be preparing for Lent.

March 4, 2019

We did it again. Getting those tickets in the mail to the “Ideal Living” expo, this year at the Ritz-Carlton near the Tyson’s Corner business ghetto in McLean, Va., was all it took. We battled Beltway traffic to tramp through the hotel conference center snapping up brochures, flyers, booklets, and catalogues about “55+” planned communities all over the Southeast.

At first we couldn’t find the place, Tyson’s is that disorienting to folks who never go near it. We ended up parking in front of the going-out-of-business Macy’s and trudging a half-mile through that giant mall, asking directions three or four times, before we found it.

We got in line with the other sixties-something couples to recite our contact info to a guy at a laptop, that to make it easier for them to nail us with emails and phone calls for the coming year. Then we grabbed a canvas sack to stuff our winnings in. Entering the hall we saw a big sign for Currahee, which is in Toccoa, Georgia, accompanied by a giant photo of a golf course and hawking homes “from the mid-$300s to $1M.” We skulked on, passing The Landings, Savannah, flogging “coastal living, Savanah’s charm.”

We pushed on. The show highlighted the Southeastern states, but Delaware slipped in early with Bayside, in Selbyville, again “homes mid-$300s to $1M” and a booth-length shot of people kayaking a huge body of water (the ocean?). The aisles jammed with booths and other middle-aged couples were only loosely organized by state. We saw “Palmetto Creek of the Carolinas,” in North Carolina, next to or almost next to “Citrus Hills,” which is in Florida (hint: “Citrus.”). RetireTennessee.Org offers a video that shows the median home prices and property taxes in a bunch of counties where it owns properties. Solivita, in Kissimmee, Florida, says “we’ve thought of everything—our name means ‘soul,’ and ‘life.’” Dozens of home designs to choose from.

We know about Tennessee, since Sandy grew up in mid-state, and used to visit her uncle’s farm in Pikeville near the majestic Cumberland Plateau. To get to Pikeville you pass through Jasper, once a tiny hamlet on the way to Chattanooga. Now there’s Jasper Highlands, “Tennessee’s most scenic mountain community,” a massive retirement complex that sells only lots, for up to a half-million. Then you go through the “seven-step build process.”

Reading the booth marquees, squinting at the brochures, or thumbing through the 170-page “Ideal Living” magazine that serves as a program, you notice that, with a few exceptions, you’re seeing promotions for “communities,” not actual towns or cities. We did pick up paperwork identified with Aiken, S.C., Wilmington, Chattanooga, and Sarasota. But otherwise it’s “The Cliffs,” “Fawn Lake,” “Brunswick Forest,” “Birchwood at Brambleton,” and so on.

I mentioned our retirement/move away conundrum in my piece (Moving Home) of a couple of weeks ago. Hold on, we’re not there yet. But judging from the crowd, lots of folks our age are eager to escape. That is, to warm places that offer golf, walking trails, sunning or playing volleyball on beaches, sipping wine by candlelight, and more. In nearly every case, these places are selling homes far too large for retiring couples, who frankly don’t need four or five bedrooms and a massive deck, even one overlooking a lake, bay, or golf course. Of course, financing is available.

In every case, the fabulous real estate and surroundings are shown off by a smiling fiftyish or sixtyish couple with full heads of white hair, athletic, slim, and tanned. They’re strolling hand-in-hand, jumping through the surf, swinging golf clubs, or clinking glasses by candlelight.

The marketing and the clientele clash with an unsettling, dissonant clunk. The booths are staffed by enthusiastic go-getter young men and women, hardly any looking as old as forty. They’ll sign you up for a tour in a heartbeat. They’re in sales. They know how to get to “yes.”

So why did we go? For me, something different on a cloudy, chilly Saturday. Sandy will chat up salespeople, tell them what we’re not interested in before they flash their business cards. But again the big question is, where’s your next home? Palmetto Creek? Fairfield Glade? Westlake? Lake Park? Cresswind? Lakewood Ranch?

We wrestle with this, like lots of others. In the back of your mind is—or should be—a singular truth: you may well pass from this earth there, notwithstanding the warm sunlight, soft breezes, scenic trails and fairways, and the waves lapping gently on the white sand.

But who, in that place, truly will know much about you? Will your kids and grandkids remember you sitting by the pool, your nose smeared with sunscreen, or in that distant place they knew with affection as home? And, as you sort through your sack of multi-color heavy-stock brochures, how do we figure these things out?

February 25, 2019

Seventy today. Whoa. Already a year since I turned 69?

You only turn 70 once—you only turn any age once. The number 70, though, opens you to all sorts of mental time-lapse games like: what did you do for your 35th birthday, half your life ago? How about your 50th? Then the really tough ones: what are you planning for your 80th? Or 75th?

For my 65th we rented a place and threw a party. But looking back earlier, and since then, they’re mostly a blur. I can’t remember much besides cards and phone calls.

It’s a big deal to turn 18, then 21. Then there’s a long stretch of not needing to think about birthdays that lasts until you turn 65, when the government says you can get Medicare.

Sandy’s 65th last summer was a big deal for us. So were our grandsons,’ Noah’s and Patrick’s, last fall, when they turned five and two. Their birthdays will continue to be important and fun. Kids should enjoy birthdays—soon enough, when they get past 30, they’ll stop caring very much, like most of us.

If you enter athletic competitions, like 5K and 10K runs, swim meets, etc., you’re registered by age, 21-29, 30-39, and so on. As you get older there’s less competition. I’ve finished first in my age group in a few races by being the only entrant. Just as much fun!

I remember my 68th birthday because it fell on the same day as an ultra trail run I entered, not realizing that day was my birthday. Sandy said something to the race director, who bought a cake that the runners presented to me at the start and sang “Happy Birthday.” A nice surprise, meant a lot to me. The cake then was delivered to a remote aid station, cut into slices and given to the runners as they arrived. It was gone when I got there.

Last year (69th) same event, no cake, but three days in the hospital after finishing—although I actually improved my finish time.

Birthdays, other than those with legal stipulations, eventually become just occasions for chit-chat and social events. What should matter is what we’re doing with the passing of time, because it sure passes quickly. What do we want to remember as the years fly by? Not the birthday. We want to remember the people in our lives, and as we get older there are more of them: friends, sons- and daughters-in law, grandkids, more friends. And we hope they’ll all stay around as long as we do.

One well-worn notion about getting older is that you’re supposed to be smarter, or “wiser.” But you’re only smarter if you recognize that you’re not as smart as others may guess you are. By that convoluted sentence I mean that if you’re able to decide how to spend your time—called retirement—it helps to realize that being an old-timer doesn’t mean you always know what you’re talking about.

Being wise means understanding that younger people have it tough these days, probably tougher than you did. The world of work, which they have to go back to after visiting, is more complicated today than it was for us. Despite what the economists say, good jobs for young people are hard to find, especially outside big cities. New college grads are weighed down with debt. Technology and its creation, “social media,” have become near-dictatorial arbiters of personal conduct that can erode relationships or prevent them from developing. Public institutions, like churches and political parties, which once offered standards of belief and behavior, have been disfigured by scandals, probably permanently.

We old guys, now pontificating churlishly on the problems of the world we see, had something to do with creating, or at least not objecting to them. Sure, things weren’t always so great in the good old days. But now, at minimum, getting long in the tooth should impose a responsibility to appreciate, and to love, those who feel obliged to listen to our bellyaching. They listen because they love us. Lord willing, they always will.

February 18, 2019

Kirk, a friend and fellow member of our THuGs running group, took me to my radiation session Wednesday. The routine: the techs block me onto the platform, I blink at the spinning lens for 20 minutes, get my weight recorded, then get out of there. We then stopped at Starbucks, a THuGs post-run tradition.

Sitting among the laptops, we talked about roots, experience, work. Kirk grew up in Chicago. After high school he got a union job with a company that dug deep sewage-line tunnels hundreds of feet underground, using giant boring machines. It was good for a while. He joined the Army and made it a career, then went with big federal contractors for a few years. He worked hard, did well, made good decisions, and bailed at the right time.

By coincidence, another friend just this past week celebrated his 15-year anniversary with the same company. How often do you hear of that any more, especially in the D.C. area? At the tail-end of my work life I put in 13 years as a contractor for a Navy agency. That was enough.

That’s work. We all take memories, lifelong priorities, and habits from it. The baseline for most of us who aren’t in the top job at the organization is ambition to move up. The longer we work, the more we feel we can do better—more money, better opportunity, more satisfying work, easier commute, maybe. We’re supporting families, most of us, but also are pushed by professional pride, confidence in our skills and experience, the sense of contributing value to the organization and, writ large, to the nation. Work brings relationships and friendships that may last lifetimes.

But eventually we want to get out—to sit in the sun, go fishing, start a business, run for office, volunteer at a charity, visit our grandkids.

Or play bingo, which is what Sandy and I did Friday night. Millions play, and not just seniors. Bingo raises billions, or probably could. We had nothing else to do, so we thought why not go to the church seniors’ group, have a potluck dinner, and play bingo. Sandy says she went with her mom many times. Many, many times. I never did.

So she made some chili, our contribution to the potluck, and we went and forked over our $10.00 each.  We got a short laugh when the woman taking the money asked Sandy if she is 55, the age minimum for the club.

We didn’t know anyone, so we shook hands and chatted. Then the bingo cards were distributed. We played and played, more than two hours, 12 games, two cards each game. People around the room kept yelling “Bingo!” We never did. Neither of us won anything but splitting headaches. Which is strange, for bingo truly is a mindless game. Maybe that’s why it’s so popular.

Yet knowing it’s a mindless game—as we cleared our cards to start each new game and the caller started yelling numbers and letters, we still had this vague notion that maybe this time we’ll get all five numbers across the card, vertically, horizontally, diagonally, or the winning wide or narrow numbers pattern or whatever. And win our $10 back. Playing bingo, we still felt the urge, however faint it became, to keep trying. It was the task at hand. It was, in a bizarre, surreal way, work.

I was surprised by the deadly seriousness of our fellow players, people who do this all the time. Ferocious would be a good word. Claims of winning cards were scrupulously checked, several were disqualified for errors. Jumping the call, I guess. Arguments broke out. Towards the end of the evening every holler of “Bingo!” was met with groans. After all, $10 was at stake at every round. Ties split the prize–$5 each.

In keeping with our promise to each other to keep our minds open to learning from new experiences, we thought hard about this one. You really can’t compare determination to win at bingo with your personal ambition to make a million bucks by thirty, to cure cancer, to get elected President.

Yet for the regulars, the bingo sessions have authentic meaning. They offer the opportunity for a comforting conversation among friends about health or other deeply personal problems, or happy things—a new grandchild, a planned vacation. Like work, bingo, and similar pastimes that don’t seriously stress brain cells, meets some mysterious human need. The sympathetic human contact is close to what that is.

We pursue excellence at a job or career for 30 or 40 years, or more, to validate our life’s purpose at the end of each day to ourselves and to others, to seek to fulfill our destiny. Bingo doesn’t exactly rise to that standard. But if we play, it can engage us, point us to a goal, force us to pay attention to others, and to our surroundings. Sure, lots of things do that. But with bingo, fill five spaces, you win.