How Do We Become and Identify as Cultured Beings?... Are Some of Us Already There... Possibly?

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

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

This Episode:     

How Do We Become and Identify as Cultured Beings...?

Are Some of Us Already There...  Possibly...?

cul·ture  [ kuhl-cher ] 

Is There a Common, Universal Definition?.......

"...All the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, 

religion, rituals, art."

As we progress along the great journey of human existence, ultimately -- if we're fortunate and if we truly hope to achieve advanced age -- we arrive at a railway stop some, including myself, prefer to term, "GeezerHood."

Many sentient creatures like to think of ourselves as being, well, call it "cultured."  That is, we tend to believe we have reached a certain plateau along the intellectual growth chart.  It's somewhat like a pencil notch on a natural, unpainted wooden plank in "everyone's" kitchen where mothers mark in pencil physical attainments in height, an achievement many parents deem vitally important to record.  

Returning to the theme of this frequent foolishness, SweetHeart and I recently witnessed Shakespeare's superb comedy, As You Like It, in an outdoor, forested setting.  Wonderful ambiance.  And the cast, crew and overall performance, including the use of a live tree, were superlative.  We left feeling terribly cultured, almost erudite!  I walked from the play feeling quite superior, with a sneer on my silly face for those who seemed to be staring at me askance!!    

More recently, we traveled to Spring Green, WI, to the American Players Theatre, a gorgeous outdoor playhouse, and witnessed Romeo and Juliet, one of Bill Shakespeare's remarkably fine dramas.  The performance was spectacular.

The character of Romeo was played by a deaf actor, beautifully and sensitively performed.  Another deaf actor played the priest or confessor.  Both actors signed their roles while hearing actors spoke the lines, somewhat offstage.  Wonderful concept!  The principal props were wooden partitions that actors could climb, sit atop or use as props, such as a prison-like enclosure.  All four of the props, or partitions, were set on castors to be moved about as needed by the actors and the scenes being portrayed....  and for climbing, perching atop! 

At a point in this outstanding performance, the wooden partitions play a key role in the slaying of Mercutio.  Romeo steps between Tybalt and Mercutio causing the latter to become distracted, thus causing the fatal blow from Tybalt's saber, through an opening in one of the partitions.  Before succumbing to his fatal wound, Mercutio cries the fateful lines, "A curse on both your houses," referring of course to the long-feuding families -- the Montagues and the Capulets.  (Editor's Note:   Not the Hatfields and McCoys!!)

Earlier on in the adventures of SweetHeart and "Geezer the Kid," we attended a performance of A Midsummer's Night's Dream, another outdoor performance in the forest, beautifully done using the ambient setting as a sort of "character" in that well-known Shakespearean comedy.  (We sat in the "Royal Box" and were revered and applauded by the more rustic attendees!  Please don't take offense!)  

Well, golly, whether we have become cultured individuals as a result of our, now, intimate relationship with Will and other prominent literary figures, it matters little, 

I suppose....  But I am beginning to use such terms as "forsooth" more frequently in my everyday discourse, and "Fie Upon You"...   I guess that's better than the nasty words used by many angry combatants in modern society.  Whither goest thou?...

In any event, I give thanks to my legions of faithful readers and devotees...  both of you!??  And I take my leave with this thought:   (Soon) Comes the Winter of Our Discontent, Made Glorious Summer by This Son of (Milwaukee...  with profound apologies to purists!!).  (We plan to hire a snow removal crew so that I don't have to strain my aging back!!)  A Final Thought:  We hope that Winter takes an early leave of us, but looking forward to our next encounter with high culture in whatever season it presents itself!!

(Dedicated to all who seek cultural outlets in this increasingly bizarre and lunatic society in which we find ourselves, with apologies to those who may mistakenly and undeservedly believe they are included, or lumped!!)

Humbly Submitted 08-27-2023...  Joel K.

 

       

        

 

The Atheists' Picnic!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

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

This Episode:        The Atheists' Picnic...

Every pivotal moment in life begins with an epiphany, a cathartic event.  Is that the same as a revelation...  I guess so?!  Or maybe not, but sometimes fortune shines, or it doesn't.  Depends on the individual, the objective and the specific overarching demon.      

Like finding a $20 bill or a rare coin in the gutter on an overcast morning, a pleasant discovery can replace gloom with a nugget of hopefulness.  In my / our GeezerHood, we found an exit, a means of escape from the vise of addiction, a program we could embrace.  AA was not an option for us.  We could not, would not surrender our personal responsibility to a "higher power," as if to announce to our weaknesses that we were powerless, thus permitted to drop back in a murky pond of toxic semi-consciousness, or blackout, each time the seductive lure of "spirits" beckoned.

There happened to be a chapter at a particular church, its own traditions or form of theocracy, its religious or spiritual concepts hitherto unknown to us, or at least not to me!  The church symbolized by a Question Mark, not a cross, burning or mounted symbolically, or a star or thin towers with enclosures protected by parapets.  

Had anyone ever heard of it before?  That new and different method...  I certainly hadn't.  Secular Organization for Sobriety (SOS), a new idea, at least to us, an idea that proclaimed one's personal power over addiction.  Extraordinary.  For us it worked, as for many others, we soon discovered, to our satisfaction.  Kindred spirits occupied chairs and tables, as opposed to the potable kind of spirits!  

(SOS included a concept known as Rational Recovery; an excellent book described its process and its effectiveness for combatting addiction.  Many in our group embraced its rationale and its well-reasoned path to sobriety.)  

Nothing's perfect.  We had to absorb a brand new paradigm.  And we had to listen to a number of, in fact too many insipid "drunk-a-logues," as well as, admittedly, a number of fascinating tales of deep depression, hopelessness, ultimate victory over demons, abysmal failures as well.

One of our new SOS companions was a mynah bird with a broken echo in his beak.  "I can drink pop; I can drink coffee and tea; I can drink lemonade..." as if repeatedly, each weekly meeting, attempting to convince himself that there was great joy in drinking non-alcoholic beverages.  And each week we heard the same litany of soft drinks he could

actually ingest without becoming inebriated.  We felt sorry for the chap.  He was something of a bromide, indulging in a sort of self-hypnosis.

Another of our group members was addicted to booze and cannabis, his brain addled by his twin addition that occurred over too many years, too much, too many days and nights of anesthetizing himself with forbidden or damaging substances.  His chatter was a stream of somewhat unconscious drivel, a prattle that often took a different direction, a new thread.   Each time someone in the group ended a sentence with a particular word, that word sent him on an entirely different course of nonsense.  Sad.  Sometimes so sad it was, in a way, pitifully comic, if one could actually jump aboard his crazed train of illogic, if one could find humor in his convoluted monologues.  We often did, while at the same time feeling badly for the poor chap.  

And then the young woman who announced each session she would never abandon her fifth of vodka a day habit, even if it meant losing everything, her marriage, her children, what remained of a working brain, her livelihood, her life...  Nothing mattered but the vodka, the perpetual buzz, the numbing elixir that shut down her mind and her pain, an inexorable devil that she had no words to describe or define.

One of our number called another of us an "amateur" in the hard-drinking culture.  He once said, "I wish they'd invent a pill that would allow me to have just one or two drinks, and then stop!"  

The woman responded, "I wouldn't take such a pill for the sake of one or two drinks.  Not worth it."  

"Then you're just an amateur..."  That made her angry, and she shot back at him with a suitable reply.

"That kind of thinking is dangerously inappropriate for impressionable young people within ear shot.  You're giving them an excuse to have a drink or two, as if they can do so without falling back into excess, deeper into addiction, diving back into alcohol abuse possibly without ever looking back!" 

Enough of the serious part of group support and therapy!  One of our members -- he having joined a multiple-addition group that we too joined at some point on our recovery journey -- was a loud, self-proclaimed atheist.  He wanted every one of us to embrace atheism.  He was an atheist proselytizer!  More frenzied and passionate than any door-to-door preaching lunatic -- Witness, Priest, Monk, Rabbi, Muslim, Mormon, Hare Krishnan, Buddhist, Church Lady, Whirling Dervish...  

He was continuously after all of us to come to the Atheists' Picnic.  He and his fellow converts and rabid proselytizers were frequently organizing Atheists' Picnics, reserving enormous swaths of parkland in and around the city.  "We always serve nice food," he said, "and lots of stuff to drink...  nothing alcoholic, of course, but yummy and fruity with vibrant colors, bubbly even..."  

We were not swayed.  We did not convert, possibly because some or many of us were already in that camp.  For the two of us, we were content to practice our own form of religion or non-religion, or spirituality, or the lack thereof...  No one's business but our own.  I hasten to add that we respect and admire all forms of religion, not-religion, spirituality and non-spirituality (if there are such terms!)      

Fearing the lack of alcoholic stimulants would kill our senses of humor, we once attended a multiple-addiction party, at which we were asked by our hostess not to tell her friends where we had met.  Ignoring her, we kept inventing ridiculous therapy and support groups and sharing them loudly with her friends as they arrived at the party.  One fellow entered, smiling broadly like a toothy dental commercial, and promptly dropped an entire platter of nuts.  On our hands and knees recovering the precious salted, mixed nuts, I announced to the latest arrivals:  "Oh, um...  Beryl, yes...  How we know her?  We met at a fear-of-standing-erect at parties group..."  

Possibly it's akin to riding a bicycle.  Maybe you never really lose your sense of humor, or "sense of silly," even if they take away your booze, your stout and porter, your former reason for living,  that of gleefully stumbling, belching and dribbling, assuming your daily role as the perennial buffoon in a galaxy of cocktail lounges and gin joints!  (Oh, that was really funny...  uh, wasn't it?  Wha-did-dat guy say again?...)  

Special Dedications:   To theists and atheists and all who struggle with addiction and demons, but who do their darn-dest every day to combat the imps and devils that dwell within their / our minds, hearts and souls!  Thank You, readers and devotees, for your kind consideration and indulgence, or at least your lack of scorn!!      

Humbly Submitted  06-15-23 -- Joel K.

 

  

  

         

  

Split Pea Soup!........ A Thing of Beauty and Deliciousness... Until...

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

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

This Episode:        Split Pea Soup!........  

                    A Thing of Beauty and Deliciousness...  Until...  

In the glorious and wondrous age of GeezerHood, sometimes one's mind wanders, travels to distant galaxies, where thoughts and recollections live, like distant stars, 
occasionally appearing with greater illumination as the earth spins and, itself, wanders along, following a prescribed pathway through the endless vacuum of space.

In those cerebral wanderings, at times, inexplicably, brilliant thoughts collect like plundered treasure secreted in a gunny sack, as if gathered unconsciously by someone claiming the disorder of kleptomania.   

I should elucidate...   make the specific point for which I appear to be reaching.  My dear mother, now long gone from the mortal sphere, was, by her own admission, to herself and anyone who'd care to listen, an awful cook.  She didn't care.  My mother was a wonderful artist, creating beautiful  paintings, sculpture, ceramics and other art pieces using a variety of media.  That was her joie de vivre.  Not cooking.  She even set a gorgeous table, though the food laid upon it was not particularly palatable, unless prepared by a caterer. 

There was, however, a notable exception.  Split pea soup.  In her "fabled" pressure cooker, the old-fashioned sort with the rocket launcher at its top, that thing that at times exploded skyward, aiming with extraordinary velocity for the stratosphere, but merely landing and poking significant holes in the kitchen ceiling, she boiled smoked butt, cabbage, carrots and peeled potatoes.  

From the leavings of that concoction, the juices, the leftover pieces of cooked meat and vegetable matter, my mother made her marvelous split pea soup.  It was always thick and rich and suffused with particulates, chunky pieces of smoked butt, bits of cabbage, carrot and potato.  I longed for that spectacular culinary delight, one of the very few things my mother did unfailingly well in her meager repertoire of actually palatable edibles.  

I would sit at the kitchen table, knife and fork poised skyward as if I were a fat royal, bib tied under chin, dribbling profusely, entitled to a lavish feast.  The bowl would appear, its savory particulates floating proudly in the rich and beautifully pea-green liquid.  Aaaah....  wonderful!  "Mudder dear, where are the crackers?"

And then one day, while seated expectantly at my side of the pale yellow, formica-topped kitchen table, the split pea soup in its commodious bowl appeared in front of me.  I was already drooling in rapt anticipation.  "Hey," I began, "where are the chunks?  Where

are the usual floating particulates?  What happened here??!!  What's gone wrong??!!..."  

Smiling angelically, my mother began to respond.  "Oh, JoJo honey dear, your brother, Kris, doesn't like chunky pea soup.  He insisted that I puree the soup in our blender.  You know, to liquify the chunky matter.  Your brother doesn't care for lumps in his soup."

"What?" I exploded in rage and disbelief, like the rocket launcher at the top of the pressure cooker!  "How could that happen?  How could he, Kris, usurp the quality, the condition and the texture of my beloved split pea soup?  How could you let him do that?"  I was livid, enraged!  

"Well," my dear mother elucidated, "If I don't puree the pea soup, he won't eat it, and then he won't achieve any nutritional value from his meal.  Your brother doesn't care for lumpy soup.  I have to de-lump it in the blender."

"Well why can't you just make him eat salty broth and a raw carrot or something.  Give him some mushed potatoes or some other slop he doesn't have to chew!  How can you

give him the right to destroy my favorite soup?" And then I muttered, "No chunks, no particulates.  It's an outrage."  And then I further muttered, sotto voce, "Makes a person wonder who Mom really liked best!...  blended pea soup mush...  insanity has permeated our dinner table and ravaged our once peaceful lives!" 

It wasn't until many years had passed that I was able once again to enjoy split pea soup the way nature intended it be presented, with wonderful chunks and particulates swimming happily in the stew.  My sweet wife and life partner, SweetHeart, made the best split pea soup, with attendant big chunks and particulates, all doing delightful back strokes and dips and flips in my beloved pea soup.  Once again, the earth was on its proper course, happily plowing through the ether with big smiles and toothy grins on its continents and in its oceans.  Joy had returned to my once vapid visage!!  

********************************************************************  

As I reflect back in time, I shoulda hidden that darn blender, now I come to think on it, and realize there may have been a perfect solution.  Ach...  Who'my kiddin' the big brother would have found it and maybe hit me in the head with it before replacing the evil, rotten instrument back on the kitchen counter!  

Humbly Submitted 12-20-2022....  Joel K.

   

        

We Miss YOU Already... Um... Let Me Explain, She Just Moved Away!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

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

This Episode:      We Miss YOU Already...  

                   Um...  Let me Explain, She Just Moved Away!

An aircraft arrived, one of its passengers returning home from Israel.  We weren't aware of it, of course, or its impact upon our lives, not until Fred arrived at our door to suggest we wait a bit, wait for his good friend.  "She'll be here very soon.  She'll stay at the Astor until her furniture and piano arrive, a baby grand piano."   

"Wait?" SweetHeart and I asked, sort of in unison.  We were poised to rent our upper flat to an interested couple eager to submit payment and then schedule a move.  

"Hmmm..." SweetHeart mused, an index finger pressed along her jaw line.  "A baby grand piano!  She'll probably live here for a very long time!  That's a good thing."  She remained our very best tenant, becoming a best friend in the process, for 23 years.  We've long referred to her, to Joan, as "The One Above."  That piano gave us sweet music for many of those years as it sang, its black and white notes and chords penetrating through hardwood floor boards and a high ceiling.      

"She'll be the best tenant you could ever have," Fred stated with emphasis, quite insistently, his hand and arm gestures a convincing argument.   "I guess we'll wait," I said in reply, or maybe SweetHeart did.  "I mean, all the way from Israel to rent OUR upstairs flat."  That last remark was definitely hers.    

"She used to live on this street, north of here.  She loves the neighborhood.  You won't regret it for a moment...  best tenant you'll ever have," Fred repeated with even greater emphasis, his warm smile a reassuring promise, a kind of excursus or a codicil to his testament.  

The herald, Fred, arrived at our door in April of 2000.  The "best tenant," Joan, took up residence in June of the same year, or perhaps it was earlier in the year, April or May.  I can't find a record to verify the exact time.  Not terribly vital to this narrative, I suppose.

Don't know if it's a kind of phenomenon, as perhaps not all landlords / landladies and their tenants become friends.   So often, we're told by others, those relationships become more adversarial rather than warm and fuzzy and friendly, with cultural and social interaction mixed into the recipe.   But, after all, 23 years with the "best tenant..."  As landlords, we've been exceptionally fortunate.  

She became our surrogate "Auntie," sharing our cell phone provider, for example.  For 23 years, we've backed her car into her side of the garage.  Joan was never very good at backing.  Didn't matter.  I casually mentioned to her family, a son and two daughters, other relatives and friends, "I've driven Joan's cars for 23 years, but only backwards."  She's had three different automobiles over the years, the first was blue, one green, the current motor, a compact, is silver-grey.

Of course, there were a few challenges in our relationship.  Joan was, still is, an ardent devotee of The New York Times.  For quite a long period of time, the paper arrived sometime between 5:00 and 6:00AM.  It arrived with a resounding thud against the wall of our porch, as if hurled by a beefy shot-putter with great muscular arms.  The wall was just outside our bedroom, the noise of its arrival nearly catapulting us out of our warm bed. We spoke to Joan.  She spoke to the delivery people.  In a couple of years' worth of newspaper arrival explosions we forgot all about it.  (Or was it three years?  I probably exaggerate a bit!)

Joan has been, in the main, a quiet and considerate tenant, neighbor and great friend.  Except when she dances.  Or is it clogging?  Old houses tend to magnify sound, from floors through ceiling to the ears of downstairs denizens.   Things that fall or drop have contributed, over time, to certain evidence that Joan is in residence.  

Only once was there a sort of atomic blast, when a huge mirror dislodged itself from the single nail that held it in place.  We had trouble identifying the source, wondering if an aircraft had crashed into the neighbor's attic.  Glass and debris covered the floor of Joan's bedroom.  She was traveling to visit her daughter in Minnesota.  SweetHeart and I helped clean up the shattered glass and other resultantly exploded material, books and artifacts!  The mirror has not been replaced.

SweetHeart has helped Joan over the years with eyedrops, television issues, cell phone and land-line-phone matters, physical challenges.  I've carried up her groceries and other supplies over the years -- all of the above simply labors of love!  Keeps one in shape, of course, so not a complaint, you understand.  Repairs, too, of course...  plunging and plumbing, paint, knobs that come loose, carrying up, supplying and moving of chairs, leaking downspouts, outdoor umbrellas, luggage, spring and winter window manipulations...  But all of that goes with property-owning territory.  Mustn't grumble...  Exercise is beneficial...     

At 90 years of age, soon to be 91, Joan is moving into an apartment that does not require her to climb stairs, something she's done with grace and, recently, somewhat decreasing ease.  Her new place has an elevator and gorgeous views of Lake Michigan, watercraft and surrounding structures, grassland, the traffic that crawls or speeds along Lincoln

Memorial Drive.  The "crawlers" are cruisers looking for fun and places to park.  The "speeders" are eager to get home or to the tavern, a restaurant or shops, using the Drive as a kind of unintended expressway, unless, at times, when sirens and their official user-occupants intervene. 

We'll miss her terribly, that is, the proximity of her, of Joan, the ease with which we can see her and follow her activities, her travels, her wonderful poetry.  She has published volumes attesting to her poetic talents.  Joan is a rabid reader.  Her books, a mountain of them, will leave with her, or find homes with other avid readers.  Joan is very generous, kind and thoughtful, and funny, too.  She has a terrific sense of humor!  

Happily, she's not moving far.  We'll visit; we'll see her whenever we can, whenever she feels up to hosting her former lower-flat neighbors and friends.  We'll make plans to collect her for a trip to one of our favorite coffee houses, or for a spot of breakfast or lunch.  Errands perhaps, possibly a visit to our local bookseller.  Joan never forgets our birthdays and wedding anniversaries, gifts and treats of breakfast or lunch always part of the celebrations.   

We've grown to love Joan.  To be accurate, or to be honest, we grew to love her almost from the start of what "initial-ists" termed "Y2K."  It only took us a day, maybe two at the most.  She's easy to love, attested to by her many friends, her family, her grandchildren and great grandchildren, her poetry and Shakespeare groups, neighbors and so many others.  Stay well, Joan.  Settle in.  Enjoy your new digs.  We'll see you again in a couple of days!    

Humbly Submitted 12-08-2022...  Joel K.  

   

  

  

 

 

The Joys and Agonies of Writing...

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

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

This Episode:        

The Joys and Agonies of Writing...

E.g.     "Making a U-Turn in the Gig Economy"

Joel K

Not my Magnum Opus, perhaps, but, in what in my humble opinion is a creditable, almost noble effort. I started the book somewhat coincidentally with our new, if necessary career path…. Food Delivery Drivers. A joint effort, a partnership, a husband a wife venture, an adventure.

Making a U-Turn in the Gig Economy is a new work, published officially in April of 2022, printed by a superb organization called The Bindery, a creation owing to the genius of Zach. The cover, front and back, spine too, of course, was designed by Diana of “BearBear.” The entire process was accomplished in an outstanding fashion with professionalism and exquisite attention to detail.

The “joy” we can attribute to the fact that it has been accomplished and is now available in print, with gorgeous illustrations by a much-loved collaborator, 16 or so of them by Lucy. One for each chapter, and an extra or two depicting specific episodes in a brilliant career! I editorialize, just a bit. One illustration was made by a younger contributor, Phi Phi. We are grateful beyond our poor ability to express gratitude for those beautiful enhancements to our literary effort.

Many if not most of the ideas expressed in print were created by someone I lovingly call SweetHeart. She is my life partner, and my most cherished collaborator, the better half of our duo, one I would be a bit boastful, I suppose, in labeling “dynamic.” Or maybe I go a bit far…

The book has a beginning, of course, in which I describe our journey from a quite serious financial downturn to a kind of new beginning. We accepted our circumstances with a degree of dignity and aplomb — at least I believe we did, false modesty and self praise aside — though our self perceptions struggled with the idea of “classism.” One is never too old or too important to learn and absorb new life lessons.

As the story wanders into a kind of fresh reality, we find joy, and agonies, along the process. The hunt is a crucible, difficult and at times frustrating and seemingly hopeless. In the end we find light, a passageway. Acceptance! We meet extraordinary people whose generosity and kindness we found to be remarkable, and continue to do so, in spite of economic status, social and societal constructs.

I like to think of our new career circumstance as adventure. We became and are still becoming pioneers of a sort, like dusty, care-worn and exhausted denizens of the conestoga parade, plowing new ground to find ownership, independence and a proud new way of living. Perhaps I go a trifle overboard, like a mariner in storm-tossed seas, rescued by a lifeline, a fortuitous turn of events.

But I don’t want to give away too much. The book is available for purchase, for those who are able to identify, to learn, to be edified perhaps, to consider their own perilous journeys and events in the “Time of the Virus.” Caught in rip tides of struggle, trying valiantly to swim to safety, to survive life’s unexpected upheavals. Earthquakes and forest fires and mud slides, yet pulling themselves, ourselves, up out of the abyss, surviving, moving on, re-building. 

The great lesson learned is, can and should be a shared experience. Write down your own stories, not merely of survival, but of family members and friends, even your own trials and adventures. We all have fascinating tales to tell, populated often by fascinating personalities. Your and our stories don’t have to reach a wide audience, only our own compact and personal orbits, often our only modest limits…. Or perhaps your’s will resonate so profoundly with others as to generate a huge wave, a tidal surge, swallowing and consuming the minds and interests of a multitude. The point is to try, to begin. 

If anyone who may happen to wander into these paragraphs wishes to do so, contact the perpetrator, that’s me, of course. I would be delighted to help, to share, perhaps to counsel if such counsel is desired. Thank you and good sailing!