Old Age

My mother celebrated her 87th birthday on April 24th, and she remains mostly independent..That is, she still lives alone with daily visits by the rest of us, and continues to work at the office for a couple of hours most days. But it is clear to her and the rest of us that her capacity has severely deteriorated in the past year, so she walks very slowly and carefully with painful legs and hips and needs assistance putting her socks on. She told me last week that she hears continuous songs ( "America the Beautiful" and an old ballad from her youth in particular, with a male voice) in her head if there is silence, and her brain is such that normal speech is often too fast for her to fully comprehend-even if spoken loudly. In some ways she has regressed to childhood in her forgetfulness and sense of wonder at the most simple of things, yet her basic nature remains as sweet and empathetic as always. There is still emotional wisdom in her along with her lifelong concern for others. It seems as though her body and reasoning ability have diminished with age but not her core personality. She tells me that she is not afraid of dying although her reliance on medicines to sustain her life-the usual heart and water and pain pills-indicates that she still has hope of living for years. I guess she, like most people, has not really confronted death sufficiently to comprehend faith, and the expectant certainty of better things, so she holds on to dear life regardless of its quality. Things simply are not bad enough for her that she wants to go just yet, and in fact are comfortable enough that she accepts them. She has her TV and her family visits and her dark chocolate, and that fulfills her.
Me being me, I cannot help thinking that resources could be better spent on needy children than on people who have lived a good life to a ripe old age, and that there is an element of selfishness in the elderly who do not yield gracefully while consuming other peoples money-and make no mistake-health care in America is mostly other peoples money. Fortunately most of my mother's problems are minimal and she buys her own drugs, but if she were a comatose person in a wheel chair drooling in a nursing home, to keep her alive would be inhumane. I do not advocate heartlessness, only wish that people would not fear their own mortality so much, and that requires faith in something beyond medicine.

Intelligence and Reason

...do Not matter to nature and Creation...It is not reason and common sense that decide what happens in the world. Rather, something wholly separate and more powerful-emotion perhaps, or ego, or fate, or physics, or all of the above-have humanity and the planet on an unstoppable path that is and will consume us regardless of what we do. That is not pessimism, rather a recognition that the tide of human and natural history is swept along by forces both in and out of our control, and we are part of the latter rather than the other way around. We see small decisions on Wall street escalate around the world, and small protests grow to topple countries, then earthquakes and storms decimate cities, and through them all the rest of the population reacts and re-reacts as it faces problems of scale that have never challenged us before. I do not witness sufficient political or economic wisdom to avert crisis in either governments, businesses, or individuals, nor the will, and am not convinced that foresight would prevent unknowns from overwhelming us anyway. Rather, I expect that circumstances such as population growth and resource depletion and the inability to control nature and human nature will reach a tipping point, after which whoever survives will, as Jackson Browne so eloquently stated, "...believe that they were meant to live, after the deluge". It is perhaps human nature to procrastinate and disagree, but some problems are too huge to ignore or prevent, and I suspect that humanity does not have more than a century left to decide-if indeed there is anything we can do. Either way, Creation will survive whether we do or not.

Joshua Tree

Like Buzz Aldrin said of the moon..a desert landscape presents "magnificent desolation " yet life manages to survive even there...The temperature this day was only about 70 degrees, but the sun was still relentless.... I walked through the area south of here when it was 110 F, and had to rest in the limited shade for a couple hours in mid afternoon, along with carrying two gallons of water. Yet even then I saw a damselfly and doves pass by in the middle of nowhere!

California Dreaming

... Beth and I are both waiting for the day when freedom permits us to travel more, but for now we enjoyed the desert and LA area immensely...The traffic in LA is as horrendous as the rumors ( ... an hour to travel ten miles...) but the climate and surrounding area are exceptional! Here are some random shots of the LA area...too much to post really... but pictures will Never do the scenery justice anyway!

Marriage, or, as Beth prefers, Wedding Day! :)

No doubt
pictures are worth two thousand words but my two cents worth is that our marriage and honeymoon in Los Angeles were perfect...We had a fun, personal ceremony accompanied by my niece Kris and her boyfriend Brian, and exploring LA and the desert afterward was a blast...Warm and sunny and never mind the traffic.. Beth is the exceptional woman of my dreams whose beauty is not merely skin deep!

Past, Present and Future

This picture was taken five minutes ago ( 10: 35 AM ) looking out the backdoor of the office...Another 2 inches of snow overnight after a couple of weeks of melting and 35-50 degree temperatures. The forecast is for rain/sleet/snow all day then clearing and high temperatures near or below freezing for the next five days. The rivers are flooding and the skies are still mostly cloudy...March in Warren- ya gotta love it... just like December and January and February.....However the distant future promises to be exceptional and is the main theme of this entry:
Beth and I have plane tickets to Los Angeles for April 5th, where we will be married on the 6th near the beach, then spend ten days touring and honeymooning in the city and surrounding desert. Three years have solidified the connection we both felt from the beginning, and the rare hard times have only reassured us that we are equally committed, perfect companions for one another. I can honestly say that the good times and laughter continue to outshine all my past experience and that I have never known another woman so sincerely goodhearted and generous with her love. At the end of our first road trip in 2008-to meet Paul Rodgers- we both spontaneously commented that we were not being "giddy" about our relationship, which I think meant that we were both simply being ourselves without pretension. That original honesty and sincerity has withstood the test of time so that even after learning, or rather, experiencing one anothers flaws we have emerged as not merely lovers but best friends, and isn't that what marriage is about?- to trust ones partner with ones most intimate secrets and desires and know in your soul that they love you anyway, as you are? So wish us well as we wish our blessings on all those who seek happiness... .
POSTSCRIPT: 3/30/11 - Still several inches of hard packed snow in the mountains, and potentially another inch will fall tonight after several sunny days with high temperatures in the low to upper thirties. In the mountains of California they have beat records for snowfall dating back to the early 1950's, so it's been a winter for the books I'd say...
POSTSCRIPT:5/9/11 - After perpetual rain all of April, it's been decent the past four days, meaning more clear sky than not with only a passing shower, and the forecast for another four days is No chance of precipitation..According to the Erie news this is the first four day forecast without rain or snow since October 7th, 2010...So because of that terrible weather I cannot recommend western PA or NY as a permanent residence to anyone..Several cities in the region ( Buffalo, Erie, Syracuse ) are among the top ten worst weather in the nation, #1 being Mt. Washington, N.H...with some of the others being in Washington and Oregon...I shall be living here full time another few years for the sake of my mother and Kenny -God willing- and likely will continue to complain occasionally as I have before in this blog..It simply is hard to ignore for an active outdoor person, and becomes depressing...my apologies to those who have to bear with both me and with the dismal skies...Long live the Summer Sun!

Wisconsin

I would Not support the cushy deals the teachers unions have IF Wall street and corporations and politicians had not robbed the middle class blind over the last three decades...( ..an example? GE pays 7.4% or Less in tax on it's billions of U.S. profits due to "tax shelters" and lobbying and "innovative' accounting"...) 85% of the net wealth in this country is owned by 20% of the people..the bottom 80% own just 15%. End of story. The former have the gall to say that they earned it. I suspect this is only the beginning of class warfare that has been festering a long time, and I for one will defend the poor. Our system as it stands IS morally bankrupt. An excellent book that details our present situation is "CORNERED" by Barry C. Lynn ...read just a chapter or two and you will understand the intuitive suspicions you have about what has gone wrong with this country.