Yin and yang, off and on, day or night, isn't that the nature of this reality that we exist in. Nonbinary seems to deny the basic truths. We're biological beings with two imperatives, don't die and perpetuate your species. Old and young, liberals and conservatives, rich and poor, It seems like a simple system to me.
Great column, Garrison. I enjoy being old also. For one thing, when I was young I did somethings just because it was expected such as going to socials at the home of the boss, etc. But now there are none of those expectations. Covid also is the perfect reason not to go anywhere or do anything one does no really want to do. I actually enjoy the quiet, secluded life. Email is a great way to communicate when I want to communicate.
I’m only 69 compared to your 79 (such a young thing I am) but I’m trying hard to live up to your motto: It’s not my problem, y’all. (Pardon the southern twist).
I’ve nearly given up reading the daily newspaper. There are a couple of problems out there I already know more about than practically anyone, but nobody would listen if I commented on those, so why bother with the rest of it?
All that brings me to my reason for writing. I do read the Writer’s Almanac nearly everyday (a paid subscriber by the way). The news that it may not last past the summer is disheartening. So to paraphrase the Beatles song, which you referred to:
I don't wanna sound complaining
But you know there's always rain in my heart
I do all the pleasing with you (paid subscription, remember), it's so hard to reason
Thanks for this great piece, which I read while sitting on a park bench in the sunshine. I’m 39 and trying to live like a 79 year old so I can enjoy practicing Not My Problem while I still have all my faculties intact. What is it they say about old age being wasted on the elderly?
70 was a nice age to be, but that was 10 years ago, so I have to deal with today and not the past. As you indicate, deal with the present, make the best of it and appreciate what you have today and not sometime in the past.
"I want to hold your hand" really resonates with me - it's one of the songs my daughters used to sing around the house in those "golden years." That, and "The Power of Love!" I was at a physical checkup, on the treadmill machine, when the overhead speaker switched to that song. I had spent so many warm times in my daughter's bedroom, head in the loudspeaker, as she sang along "We're headed for something, somewhere I've never been. Sometimes I am frightened. But I'm ready to learn Of the power of love." When that was just a memory of a daughter who was grown and gone, you should have seen the spike in my heartrate on that magical treadmill!
One of the benefits of being in our "going-on eighties" is that we have such a storehouse of warm memories to cheer our days to come.
Those memories may sometimes be a bit befuddled. For example, Suddenly I see myself in the Ryman (?) auditorium, in a live APHC performance. It felt so "historic" to be in that hall - seats like a church, as though it was "sacred" to music! In the memory that suddenly overtakes me,
there's a youngish man with a white Stetson hat sharing the stage. What was his name??? Brad.... Brad Paisley - Let's hear it for Google! What was he singing? "Geology!" Oh, yes! As a compulsive rock collector and observer of rock cuts on highways myself, that song tickled me pink! I've never heard sung about geology before or since!
And, in a way, it highlights the "Glory of A Prairie Home Companion!" The recurring appearances - Dusty, Lefty and Evelyn Bebalo, the Ingqvists and all the many inhabitants of Lake Woebegon, for sure. But, beyond the regular cast, the guest musicians represented such a wide variety of interests! It was like opening a special Christmas present, week after week throughout the year! Where else on the airwaves has anyone given time to those of us with rocks in our heads? Or had an introduction to a young Moslem pianist from Detroit, for that matter?
Viva APHC, and the programs on computers that help us relive those memories in our minds!
Sentence by a guy who prides himself for having majored in English:
"I love the songs I love and for me country music hit a peak with Loretta Lynn’s 'Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin On Your Mind),' which was Loretta’s statement of empowerment and anti-oppression in hopes of changing lives and challenging patterns of discrimination so as to bring about evolution of behavior and clearly stating a moral imperative in order to liberate herself from systems of oppression to bring about a sense of authentic belonging and promoting values of mutual respect as an effective tool for social justice rather than perpetuate a structure of male privilege in daily life and mitigate its effects."
Could you please diagram that sentence. I'm a visual guy, not an English major.
I can picture certain "conservative" "news" networks covering this fictitious country music kerfuffle in their efforts to spread hate and bigotry... No one is up in arms over Rainy Day Woman, and Christmas is not canceled!
Why does this end abruptly, mid-word?
Yin and yang, off and on, day or night, isn't that the nature of this reality that we exist in. Nonbinary seems to deny the basic truths. We're biological beings with two imperatives, don't die and perpetuate your species. Old and young, liberals and conservatives, rich and poor, It seems like a simple system to me.
Now it's also, been to outer space and haven't.
Great column, Garrison. I enjoy being old also. For one thing, when I was young I did somethings just because it was expected such as going to socials at the home of the boss, etc. But now there are none of those expectations. Covid also is the perfect reason not to go anywhere or do anything one does no really want to do. I actually enjoy the quiet, secluded life. Email is a great way to communicate when I want to communicate.
Best wishes and happy life to one and all.
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy Tablet
----Subject: FW: Kitchens and Cellars
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy Tablet
-------- Original message --------
With thanks to Stanley Tucci's memories
Growing up I had several sets of grandparents.
My paternal grandfather had remarried a wonderful Italian woman.
We spent many a summer night with them at their camp in Bridgeton.
There was nearly always her unparalleled, fragrant tomato sauce,
Homemade meatballs, braciole, adults enjoying a glass of scotch,
Hugs and ballroom dancing lessons,
The paneled pine walls, the laughter and incredible smells
Occasionally there would be pan fried bass,
Which the men had caught an hour before on Woods pond.
My father's mother's kitchen had an old Queen Atlantic stove,
Wood fired, taking up a good portion of the kitchen,
Heating that old tin ceilinged room and most of the farmhouse.
A pantry with floor to ceiling cupboards and a hand pump
At a slate sink....
Sitting in Uncle Mitch's lap drawing fish,
Smells of chicken and stuffing.
The cellar was granite with a dirt floor, cool and damp.
An old cylindrical furnace with ducts like arms reaching up.
A door so huge that one could have tossed a body in the furnace.
When we put the wood down there in the fall,
My dad tossed a chunk down the stairs to "scare the snakes away".
There was a cold cellar down there, with an old pickle crock.
We'd dare each other to reach in and put our hands in that
Hundred year old crock.
Next door to us growing up, were Roy and Aurora Pomerleau,
A childless French Canadian couple, who became grandparents to us.
Huge gardens, a cellar fragrant with root vegetables stored in sawdust,
Roy's homemade beer lent its scent.
A toolbench with every tool needed for fixing a tractor or a sagging shed.
He'd have me (90lbs) stand on the granite counterweight on the tractor
Hanging on to the seat with a huge grin on my face,
Helping Roy because he "didn't have enough weight back there."
The kitchen was light filled, meat and potatoes abounded,
Butter on everything....
My mother's kitchen, scents of home baked bread,
Tomato sauce, sugar cookies, always a dog underfoot
Hoping for scraps to drop,
Getting to lick the bowls and beaters when she made brownies.
The cellar with tools hanging from the workbenches,
And ceiling.
Now and then he'd pour a few drops of quicksilver Mercury
On the floor and let us chase the tiny sliver drops.
Tools and petroleum smells, a hammer pounding on something.
Kitchens and cellars impossibly embedded in memory...
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy Tablet
Started my day with this column. Loved it. Thank you. You may growing older not so terrifying……
I’m only 69 compared to your 79 (such a young thing I am) but I’m trying hard to live up to your motto: It’s not my problem, y’all. (Pardon the southern twist).
I’ve nearly given up reading the daily newspaper. There are a couple of problems out there I already know more about than practically anyone, but nobody would listen if I commented on those, so why bother with the rest of it?
All that brings me to my reason for writing. I do read the Writer’s Almanac nearly everyday (a paid subscriber by the way). The news that it may not last past the summer is disheartening. So to paraphrase the Beatles song, which you referred to:
I don't wanna sound complaining
But you know there's always rain in my heart
I do all the pleasing with you (paid subscription, remember), it's so hard to reason
Why do you make me blue.
C’mon (C’mon)
C'mon (C'mon)
Please, please Me.
His computer broke down, one-word. 😂
Thanks for this great piece, which I read while sitting on a park bench in the sunshine. I’m 39 and trying to live like a 79 year old so I can enjoy practicing Not My Problem while I still have all my faculties intact. What is it they say about old age being wasted on the elderly?
I believe the words are “Love, like youth, is wasted on the young”. (The Second Time Around) I tend to believe it!!
70 was a nice age to be, but that was 10 years ago, so I have to deal with today and not the past. As you indicate, deal with the present, make the best of it and appreciate what you have today and not sometime in the past.
Darel Leipold
You make me happy! I'm with you, Grumpy old man, don't ever lose your wonderful sense of humor, you're a breathe of fresh air! Carry on!
"I want to hold your hand" really resonates with me - it's one of the songs my daughters used to sing around the house in those "golden years." That, and "The Power of Love!" I was at a physical checkup, on the treadmill machine, when the overhead speaker switched to that song. I had spent so many warm times in my daughter's bedroom, head in the loudspeaker, as she sang along "We're headed for something, somewhere I've never been. Sometimes I am frightened. But I'm ready to learn Of the power of love." When that was just a memory of a daughter who was grown and gone, you should have seen the spike in my heartrate on that magical treadmill!
One of the benefits of being in our "going-on eighties" is that we have such a storehouse of warm memories to cheer our days to come.
Those memories may sometimes be a bit befuddled. For example, Suddenly I see myself in the Ryman (?) auditorium, in a live APHC performance. It felt so "historic" to be in that hall - seats like a church, as though it was "sacred" to music! In the memory that suddenly overtakes me,
there's a youngish man with a white Stetson hat sharing the stage. What was his name??? Brad.... Brad Paisley - Let's hear it for Google! What was he singing? "Geology!" Oh, yes! As a compulsive rock collector and observer of rock cuts on highways myself, that song tickled me pink! I've never heard sung about geology before or since!
And, in a way, it highlights the "Glory of A Prairie Home Companion!" The recurring appearances - Dusty, Lefty and Evelyn Bebalo, the Ingqvists and all the many inhabitants of Lake Woebegon, for sure. But, beyond the regular cast, the guest musicians represented such a wide variety of interests! It was like opening a special Christmas present, week after week throughout the year! Where else on the airwaves has anyone given time to those of us with rocks in our heads? Or had an introduction to a young Moslem pianist from Detroit, for that matter?
Viva APHC, and the programs on computers that help us relive those memories in our minds!
I'm okay and you are, too. You're not my problem and I'm not yours. But I like you, anyway!
You're killing m
Sentence by a guy who prides himself for having majored in English:
"I love the songs I love and for me country music hit a peak with Loretta Lynn’s 'Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin On Your Mind),' which was Loretta’s statement of empowerment and anti-oppression in hopes of changing lives and challenging patterns of discrimination so as to bring about evolution of behavior and clearly stating a moral imperative in order to liberate herself from systems of oppression to bring about a sense of authentic belonging and promoting values of mutual respect as an effective tool for social justice rather than perpetuate a structure of male privilege in daily life and mitigate its effects."
Could you please diagram that sentence. I'm a visual guy, not an English major.
Thanks
Brian Forst
Fan from Reston, VA
I can picture certain "conservative" "news" networks covering this fictitious country music kerfuffle in their efforts to spread hate and bigotry... No one is up in arms over Rainy Day Woman, and Christmas is not canceled!