Honesty Can be Harmful to One's Psyche, Possibly!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:             Honesty Can be Harmful to One's Psyche, Possibly *!

Children, as most of us who have progressed beyond a certain age know, can be brutally honest.  True, the utter candor of the very young can be amusing, even refreshing at times. Grandchildren, for example, have a way of expressing whatever's in their sweet little heads that can seem a bit offensive, particularly to geezers who may not always value or appreciate total

Papa receives a mighty blow from Grandson
Seany during a slow-motion, mock fist fight!
(Full video available upon request!)

candor.  
Recently, my grandson, Seany, labeled me the "Great, Grey-Haired Sloth."  The reference was not intended to comment on or make an allegation of slovenliness (a sometimes side-car attached to the definition of "slothfulness"), but rather to the relative speed with which I tend to accomplish tasks or offer an explanation or commentary, when asked!  I am often accused by various family members of being rather slow, of having a deficiency in the alacrity department. I repudiate such unwarranted accusations.  I am merely deliberate!  Seany also does an imitation of what he perceives as my "old man walk," in which I'm bent nearly in half and shuffle at the speed of a mile every two or three days or so.  

Our youngest grandchild, a granddaughter, Phi Phi -- she's six years old -- sometimes calls me "a very old man."  (The modifier "very" is really quite unnecessary!)  I suppose that at my current age, the suggestion is not merely a "suggestion" but an accurate statement. It depends on one's definition of "old" in the context of the current average life expectancy of the human species.   

I looked it up.  One of the sites lists average age expectancy by state.  In ours it's 77.8.  By that standard, I'm really quite a youngster, and still have good years ahead if indeed I make it to 77.8.  I wonder, though, if the average male is expected to drop off the "mortal coil" at precisely that age??!!  This is disturbing!  We'd better make plans!! **   ...But I digress...

In the splendid "Age of Geezerhood," I note that grandchildren have a special manner of reminding one that one is considered a creature of another era, such as the Pleistocene Age, or maybe Paleolithic.  Grandson, Coen, in his sweet way once told me that I look or could be maybe 20 years or so younger than I actually am.  Granddaughter, Lucy, feels she can still jump into my arms without causing me back spasms or broken skeletal parts.  Maybe they're just being polite.  All the grandkids might be more inclined to ask, "Hey Papa, did you ever ride a bucking triceratops?...  Rope a troodon?...

I forget!  When did you last skin a mastodon?..."      

Society, given today's apparent attitudes and preoccupation with the young, reflect the ideas about age that little children seem to prefer:  "Old goat," "ancient baboon," "fossil breath," "mollusk mug," "prune face" and other offensive terms the elderly tend not to embrace willingly.  Persons of high school and post-high-school age seem also to harbor a peculiar notion of older adults.  According to many of our younger citizens, an "elder" is practically deceased or nearly there when no longer in the "20-something" category.  But, one must also bear in mind that, prior to age 30 or 35 or so, the two hemispheres of the brain have not yet collided to form a cohesive unit!!

We've numbered the states in the order
in which we'll move there to prolong
our life expectancy!  Thank you!

** Returning, for a moment, to the "...plans" allusion in paragraph four of this fascinating treatise on...  well whatever the hell it's about...  if we move to Vermont we don't have to drop dead until we're 80.5.  We could stay there a few years until the big gong of time sends us packing once again, and then we can move to Hawaii where we won't drop dead until we're 81.3.  This is exciting!  We may have a real plan, here!!    

It has been said, or possibly written somewhere, that interaction with grandchildren and house pets can prolong our lives.  We have both, sort of, a daughter and friends with doggies we can borrow, and grandkids too.  But what about when the grandchildren grow up and maybe move to New York or Philadelphia and begin selling subordinated debentures?!!  Some other lucrative obnoxious career path, possibly??!!  What then? Will we become former human beings right away, deceased creatures, before they even reach Ohio?

The Grandchildren:  Seany, Phia,
Coen, Lucy (fm. l. to r., of course)!

Well, I guess it's better to live for the moment, enjoy the time we have, allow the young to berate and belittle us as we wrinkle and stoop.  Let them have their little jokes at our expense. We should place pictures of goats and wrinkly elephants on our ice boxes...  embrace the "Era of Geezerhood" with joy and pride in our aging hearts!  We're the survivors, after all.  We are the Solomon's, the towering intellects who have attained the wisdom of the ages, repositories of knowledge through longevity and eye bags!!  ...jowls and veiny noses, maybe, too!... 

But on the other hand...  "Sweetheart!  Call the real estate people!  Pack stuff!  We're moving to Hawaii before it's too late!!..."  (What'd I do with that straw suitcase again?...) 

Special Note of Gratitude and Attribution:    The perpetrator dedicates this posting to his beautiful and incomparable grandchildren -- Coen and Lucy, Seany and Phia.  I thank them profusely for keeping us "young" and balanced and focused on the present!  I must also thank our beautiful and incomparable daughters who did their share in providing such superior grandchildren.  And to Sweetheart, who suggested the topic, my continuing gratitude for that and so much more! Finally, I thank Vermont and Hawaii for making it possible for geezers to live longer!  That's all.  

*  A subtle homage to The Lady in the Van! 

      Humbly Submitted 03-16-16 -- Joel K.                              

  



  

  

  

A "Paperless Society"?! -- What a Load of...

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    A "Paperless Society"?! -- What a Load of....

[Bayview,WI -- Special to MofaG, LLC  (An Homage of a Sort!)]   Is this a "Green" concept, or is it a "Greed" concept.  I get confused!  We hear lots of talk and we certainly read a good deal in various media about moving toward a "paperless society."  Being a skeptic, and something of a cynic, I have to think it's an idea promulgated, and propagated, too, by the industry that comprises all manner of financial institutions.  You know...  banks, brokerage firms, investment companies...  credit unions, too, I suppose...  

In this country, it seems whenever an idea is put forth with such unbridled zeal, it has to do with money!  Making more money, saving lots of money, a reluctance to invest or re-invest company profit!  It's a money thing!  Why would a bank want to mail bundles of canceled checks to a patron, for example, when it's a whole lot cheaper to post that information through some sort of electronic medium.  The idea is, one has to admit, I suppose, somewhat laudatory in terms of movement toward a "Green Society," but, I'm convinced it's more about greed than green.

Here's another thing about the so-called "paperless society" toward which we're allegedly headed.  Haven't we all noticed the receipts we now receive at our local pharmacy, or grocery market, for example?  They hand us enough stuff to choke a rhinocerwust -- coupons for unwanted hair remover, oils, sweeteners, pimple stuff, feckless fat-melting pills, balms, fungus ointments, wart dissolvers and other unwanted products many if not most will never use or interest us as consumers!  Clerks roll up the receipt with the coupons and it all looks like a wad of bills, a bank roll!  (Would that it were!)  There's enough paper wadded up with the receipt to wallpaper a small bathroom!  (I tried origami, making a paper duck; didn't work!)

And what about the growing mountain of unwanted paper we receive through the U.S. Mails?  They never seem to get names right!  Once I received an absurdly thick envelope containing an offer of magazines I can't afford that was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jopl P. Kuriosovsky and the Family.  The covering letter began, Dear Mr. and Mrs. The Family...  

I keep a recyclable, webbed handled bag next to my desk specifically for recyclables.  It's constantly filled with paper material received through the mails...  Credit card offers!  I mean, Great Jumping Interest Rates!  I'm astonished at how many lunatic companies want to offer anyone a credit card!  It's clear they know or care nothing of one's history or fiduciary proclivities or wanton squander or what if one should accept each and every offer, max out the proffered credit cards and go live in luxury in some obscure east European duchy with which the U.S. has no extradition treaty??!!  I mean, the concept of unsolicited credit card offers is simply irresponsible!  Isn't it?  We must all guard against the specter of economic demons in their many insidious forms!!  

As a child, I remember my dear mother -- a model of responsible frugality and deportment -- using the comic pages or newsprint or grocery sacks in which to wrap gifts.  (She chose never to wrap gifts given to her children, the fact of which prompts me to heap praise upon her memory, as the bounty from that and other methods of frugality accrued to her issue!!)  In today's world of paper waste, we purchase great quantities of decorated "gift sacks" and stuff them with forests of tissue paper, we buy truckloads of gift wrapping paper slicing pieces to size while discarding snippets and snibbles...  Greeting cards, envelopes, ribbon...  Too much of it a tragic waste!!     

One Final (final, at least, for this episode) Rant:  Bean counters who seek to destroy our nation with its proud history of economic success -- one that used to be achieved through investing and re-investing in the future of commerce including infrastructure, manufacturing innovation and scientific progress -- ought to be strung up by their beans.  Not all bean counters are inherently fatuous and evil, one must admit.  But those who are shortsighted and unduly directed by elements of greed -- those who seek to destroy the economic well-being of the nation through exclusive devotion to wealthy and overly-privileged shareholders and corporate moguls -- should be papered with cancelled checks and shipped off to an isle of exile.   When there, they can endlessly count beans and babble fiduciary drivel.  

Frugality is a good thing when it benefits the whole.  (This needs to be elucidated so as not to condemn all money-savers, particularly those who operate from a platform of common sense for a common good!!)  

The conclusion, therefore, is that ill-guided bean counters may be responsible for the false, misleading and misguided aims of a so-called "paperless society."  The nation cries out for a committee of righteous, volunteer bean counters who'll dedicate themselves to "paperlessness" in a truly responsible fashion...  e.g.  Remedial training for merchants, collection of newsprint, including Sunday comics, for distribution to all gift-wrapping citizens, support groups for compulsive paper wasters -- including inveterate tissue and gift sack purchasers -- electronic receipts, widely expanded usage of E-coupon-ing, excise taxes on wallpaper and paper gift sacks, "no-paper" zones in public gathering places, paperless pickets...  (just a few random suggestions).  

And, we can all do our portions by refusing paper receipts at our local pharmacies and green grocers, super markets and retail stores, and through organized protest marches that circumnavigate shopping malls using computer-generated picket posters, vs. printed ones, held aloft while chanting, "Paper receipts with shafts of coupons attached are the arrows of Satan!"  (Something of that nature!)  And finally, we should all mark credit card, magazine and other unwanted offers received by mail, "Return to sender; send no more; curses upon paper wasters!!"  (That oughta do it!)

(Special Note of Attribution and Gratitude:   The perpetrator of this Blog extends enormous thanks to his cherished, lifelong friend and colleague, Steve J., a man of exceptional talent in the written word, along with other skills and triumphs some of which he'd prefer to remain solely among intimates and confidants!  Thank you, my friend, for your superb suggestion that ultimately led to this episode!  Or please forgive me, as the case may be!) 

Humbly Submitted, 06-03-14 -- Joel K.