The Simple Joys of GeezerHood!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:              ...The Simple Joys of GeezerHood!

It's like trying to grab hold of the spark of a sun crystal tossed from the white crest of a breaking wave...  Dazzlingly bright, elusive, slippery!  Akin to a dreamy concept of Retirement!...   Seemingly unattainable, at least at present.  Semi-retirement is, perhaps, a more plausible aim, however, and we cling to its pretense in various forms, cheerfully if, at times, a bit delusionally optimistic.

When free of workday hours, or from caregiving or the joys of being with children and grandchildren, we seize, for example, a certain delightful "Tea Time."  Heading for a favorite coffee house, we order Sport Tea, the extra large variety, with lemon and a quantity of ice that doesn't over-

whelm the tea.  Adding a bit of natural sugar, we seek the waters of Lake Michigan, or those of the confluence of rivers just west of the the huge arcing bridge that aims itself south, or north, depending on one's desired trajectory.

In summer, primarily owing to their greater occupancy (but in fall and winter as well!), we love watching big ships plowing the waters of the Great Lake, or tug boats,

sometimes the ferry.  We tend to sit and relax and sip that delicious sweet tea, equally savoring the scene in front of us, the waves and the palette of ever-shifting colors painted by the sun and the skies.

Among the most enjoyable sights are the St. Mary's Conquest or Challenger, cement-carrying ships that sometimes emerge like giant grey apparitions beside the Breakwater Light.  They inch with agonizingly deliberate slowness into the confluence, turning left as does the Menomonee River, heading for the river-front factory and its dispensing trough.  When filled to capacity, the ships back out of the narrow river, turn past the Light, pivot forward and then cruise to their (mysterious) destination ports on the Great Lakes.  

Wonderful sights.  Beautiful to witness for those of us so inclined and interested.  We're not always alone.  There are others of our ilk who enjoy the spectacle, not always of the GeezerHood variety.  The young are also sometimes in evidence at the water's edge, their eyes following the slow, grey, nearly waveless progress of the ship, whichever is in port at the time of its sighting.

On at least one occasion, hoping to prolong the nautical adventure before us, we hurry to "The Point," park our vehicle facing the Lake Front, and follow the ship's more urgent exit journey as it plows northward or eastward to deliver its viscous cargo, like exceptionally thick grey soup, too long left sitting and hardening in the pot.  Both ships have towering tugs attached like barnacles permanently to their sterns, guiding and steering the big ships into and out of our port with its narrow, meandering waterways.  

At other times, tide and time permitting, we take ourselves in a northerly, followed by a westerly direction to the banks of the river named after our state's largest city.  Prior to landing ourselves at the river's edge, we stop for our golden tea at a suburban oasis serving the same sought-after potions as those of  locations in the City we call home.  

(To be fair, truthful and accurate, we favor two different coffee houses, one for our preferred

This Aint Us!

coffee beverages, the other exclusively serving the sport tea of which we're so fond!)

The River and the park location we discovered a few years back gives us a very different set of spectacles.  An Osprey family that nests high atop a baseball field's "night-game light" --  a family we hope returns to its nest in Spring -- and bufflehead ducks, the black and white variety that dive into rivers and lakes for their dinner, geese and other species of duck, occasionally turtles and other amphibians.  And small furry woodland creatures and white-tail deer.  Nature and a natural setting at its most beautiful and gratifying. 

Such are the Simple Joys...   If we can't actually retire in the relatively near, or distant, future, we can in fact approximate a kind of semi-retirement, in which we can snatch a few restful hours with delicious tea, not necessarily "and sympathy" (if you get the reference!), but glorious nature and so many of its natural denizens, those native to our world and the specific biosphere we're privileged to inhabit. 

(Special Note of Attribution and Dedication:  For SweetHeart, my constant tea-savoring and much-loved partner, who, with me, so enjoys the ship sightings, the beasts, the waters and the flora, the natural settings we long to spy through our binoculars or naked eyes when we can in fact savor a semblance of leisure time, of "semi-retirement"... the Simple Joys of GeezerHood!)  

Humbly Submitted, 01-31-2022 -- by Joel K.