A happy man out for a drive

The Column: 04.21.25

I’m fond of progress. We used to drive around with a big road map spread out and yell, “I told you to turn west a half mile ago, ya dummy,” and now a robolady is our navigator directing us in gentle tones and road trips are more enjoyable. I make impulsive phone calls to distant friends as Alexa is guiding us through Connecticut and say, “Hi, Marcia, how’s it going?” and due to bandwidth or magnetic resonance or the Earth’s rotation, I know I won’t get a bill for $85 from AT&T. This is still a source of wonder to an old coot like me.

And instead of having a back seat full of encyclopedias and atlases and dictionaries, I just google “Hartford” and read about its history.

And most important: I am 23 years older than my uncles who died from the same congenital heart defect I had, a gift of time, and I am permanently grateful to my surgeons Dr. Orszulak and Dr. Dearani and the Mayo Clinic and the anonymous wonks who did the tedious labor in sterile laboratories similar to the research labs the World’s Richest Nazi is now slamming shut whenever the mood strikes him.

Medical researchers who marshal the data from extensive tests, share their findings with other wonks, scramble for funding to do the research that will lead to procedures and pharmaceuticals that will change lives, getting no credit for their work, and now they live in fear of a car dealer from South Africa. Weird. But I just go on having a good time.

I’m a happy man, rather sane,
Who’s avoiding gin and cocaine,
And agitation
Although on occasion
I like to take walks in the rain. 

But I worry about the kids. My generation is fading away, and the kids who type 50 wpm with their thumbs on a cellphone are becoming prominent but will they have the chance to be as wildly lucky as I’ve been? The sun comes up and the sun sets due to the Earth’s rotation, the Mississippi runs into the gulf and you can call it whatever you want to, it’s the same gulf, and as Solomon said, “What is is what has been and what shall be, there is nothing new under the sun,” except that we find ourselves with a president who seems to have no idea what he’s doing, and every morning my wife puts the newspaper down and says, “You won’t believe this,” but I do. The man feels obliged to astonish us with wild irregularities but it keeps getting harder. He could turn the Rose Garden into a Tesla lot and the East Room into a casino and paint the White House mauve and we’d say, “Well, that’s him doing his thing.” The only thing that would amaze us is if he wore a green tie.

The man is unable to tell a joke or to apologize or express sympathy and he demands absolute obedience. His executive order forbidding “divisive narratives” eliminated slavery and the confiscation of Native land from our national history, they never happened, just as Disney does not show ducks or mice using bad words.

His order to allow full water pressure in showerheads I can go along with: our shower volume is controlled by a faucet so I can choose to conserve water if I wish. I do not yet support our acquisition of Greenland by force and having to face the insidious Danes and nor do I see a need to Americanize Canada and teach 41 million people the Pledge of Allegiance and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

I’m willing to listen to reason. Like most Americans, I don’t like the idea of radical Marxist troublemakers in the federal judiciary but feel that through due process these things can be worked out.

Meanwhile my wife says, “Listen to this” and I listen. What is beyond the man’s capability? Declaring a national emergency and dismissing the Supreme Court? Deporting George Will? Evidently the American military will put on a triumphal parade on his birthday with parachutists landing on the Ellipse and the marching bands of all the services and tanks rumbling up Pennsylvania Avenue.

I would not want to be the person in charge of hiring the cheering crowds along the route and making sure they cheer and that no divisive banners are held up over people’s heads, but I pulled the plug on the guy long ago. I’ll be living my life.

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