An Homage: A Great Friend, a True Champion!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    An Homage to a Great Friend, a True Champion!

Whenever I was privileged to be with him, I knew I was in the Company of a Champion.  My much-loved, lifelong, richly cherished, marvelously talented friend, Stephen F. Johnstone, slipped away on September 8th.  Far too young, far too soon!  Over the course of two or so years, Steve wrote a manuscript about his great passion -- gate-crashing.  It's entitled, In the Company of Champions, and chronicles his longtime adventure, something at which he was the true master, the greatest champion ever to gain entry, surreptitiously, into varied iconic events, those into which lesser mortals might only project their longings and their dreams.

Steve and his son Joel

Steve with daughter Shannon

Steve entered the hospital last Monday, the 1st of September, Labor Day.  About three or four weeks ago, it became obvious he had been assaulted by a form of cancer so aggressive, so virulent, that it claimed him just one week after entering Froedtert Memorial Hospital in Milwaukee County.  His family members and Connie gathered round him.  Happily for Steve, most were able to speak with him, hold his hand, express their love.  It seems they turned away for a moment, and he was gone.  As Mary, my wife, suggested, "He gave us yet another gate-crashing moment, almost a mystical performance, the consumate phantom charmed his way along a bright pathway in pursuit of a far more desirable destination."

Reading with Gina's daughter,
Granddaughter Juliana

 

I hope it's not an irreverence, but I have an image of Steve appearing at the Heavenly Gate, speaking briefly with the temp on duty, presenting credentials, being asked, "Do you have your entry ticket?"  And then he's gone.  He's made his way to the Throne where God is smiling broadly, then seizing him in a warm embrace, announcing to his minions, "Steve's here!  He may have snuck in, but I couldn't be happier to have him in the Circle."  

At the Kentucky Derby

The man who, both in callow youth and maturity, spent more time in the Kentucky Derby Winners Circle than any winning owner, trainer or jockey, made it into the greatest Circle achievable.  Along the way, he witnessed extraordinary sporting and cultural events, too numerous to detail.  I am honored to have had Steve in my life.  He was in my wife's and my wedding.  He was one of our original volleyball teammates, an original is so many other ways as well, a first edition in every sense.

My brother, Kris, and I met Steve and his brother, Jimmy, when we were all just 8 or 9 years old.  We bonded -- like tubes of super glue colliding -- almost instantly, forging a lifelong friendship that never wavered, grew stronger with time, seamless, a treasure among the gems of a good and satisfying life.  Even cribbage -- with its extravagant boasts, its wins and losses, battles and tournaments -- couldn't lessen our friendship and our affection for one another.  

Steve (at right) with Joel and Mary,
Gina, Alie (Kriofske) and Shannon

Steve was generous beyond imagination, loving and kind, a truly outstanding friend, father, brother and grandfather.  He gave us -- all who knew him -- the remarkable gift of himself, his time, love and friendship.  I'll miss him far more than I could ever express in mere words, as will we all.  

I hope for Steve that his afterlife includes all of the celebrated figures encountered throughout his magnificent career and his remarkable life, that they'll gather with him to ruminate, laugh and embellish, and to re-live their happiest moments, their greatest triumphs.

I'm finding it difficult to end this tribute, as I can't stop remembering and thinking about him.  I find it hard to put aside my anger that someone so extraordinary, so special, could be wrenched from us with such seeming cruelly, so prematurely.  But everything ends, and so I'll put this passage to rest with his own words.  Steve's beautiful writing included many poems, such as this one, entitled...

WANDERING

The world's a big place  
Blanket it with deeds and seeds
To embrace your place 

Humbly Submitted, 09-10-14 by Joel K.

    

           

  

Perhaps not "The," but... "A Beautiful Game!" -- VOLLEYBALL!!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    Perhaps not "The," but...  "A Beautiful Game!" -- VOLLEYBALL!!

It's not futbol, or Euro football or soccer.  The net's quite high, about 8 feet tall, and smack in the center of the playing surface.  And there's antennae on either side of the net, inside of which the ball must pass.  If you happen not to be a volleyball player, or an aficionado, forget your preconceptions for the moment.  The sport of VOLLEYBALL is quite simply a magnificent activity, and one you can live with as an active player for a remarkably long time -- depending, of course, upon the state of your physical and emotional health.  My wife, Mary, and I have played for more than 40 years, and continue to play competitively at least once per week...  on hardwood-floor courts in the fall and winter, on sand in the spring and summer!

This is an image of a volleyball.

We're talking, here, about "real" volleyball, not the backyard or "jungle" variety that ignores rules, skill and the endless practice required to play like Karch Kiraly (used to play, probably still does...), and the likes of Kerri Walsh Jennings, Jeremy Casebeer, Phil Dalhausser and April Ross  still do -- on the AVP Pro Beach circuit.

Here the author demonstrates the
correct technique for receiving
service and passing the VB to
his setter!

Alright...  alright!  I'm not comparing my current fellow volleyball (hereinafter referred to, for convenience, as VB!) devotees and myself to or in the same company as those mentioned in the paragraph above, but we do adhere to the time-honored rules of the great game.  We pass, set and "kill" (or hit or spike, as one may prefer) with practiced skill, even a modicum of panache, sort of...  (I freely admit, however, my vertical leap has diminished to approximately 6 inches, and I seldom return to earth without knee pain!)  

My wife and I, along with our two (former) partners of long-standing, won at least a dozen league championships, and we four played for many years in six-person leagues.  Currently, my wife and I play each week for two hours in a structured "adult co-ed VB program" sponsored by a suburban school district.  The level of play is generally excellent.  Few of us have sustained serious or permanent injury!  (Well, sure, of course there's always an exception or two!  Drop that raised eyebrow, already!!)

Allow me, please, to amend and append the above just slightly.  Some years ago, my four-person team was engaged in yet another championship match.  We had won the first game or set, while losing the second.  The third was well underway when a seeming painful blow -- as if shot from something or someone -- assaulted my lower right leg.  I collapsed in agony, looking round for the assailant.  Then in full recognition, I felt the back of my right ankle.  Nothing there, no large sinewy cord of connective tissue.  I had incurred a full rupture of the Achilles tendon.  I was dragged off the court by teammates.  Concerned that we might be unable to continue without our full complement of four, our male teammate asked if I were able to stand one-legged on the court and look determined!  I tried, but fell down.  They dragged me off a second time.  

In this photo, we learn the correct
posture prior to the "kill" or
spike, as some might prefer.

As if to heighten the drama and render the episode truly memorable, almost legendary, the remaining three of us -- permitted by officials to play without the injured party -- won the third set and thus the match, awarding our team another championship and the championship T-shirt that was the envy of all of our vanquished opponents.  Including our own four-person squad, the league in which we played was some 10 - six-person teams strong!  (Several weeks later, thanks to surgery, a splint-like boot, physical therapy and time, I was back in the fray.) 

Something the young should understand about the "aging VB player."  At a recent session, Mary, a consumate "digger" of hard-struck kills (spiked VB's), hit the floor soundly, dramatically after making a spectacular play (a dig!).  Young spectators, who happened to be at the gym door that evening, collectively gasped, eyes like exaggerated poker chips, murmuring, "Is she alright?!  Will she get up and continue to play??!!  Shall we go help her...??"  Mary objects to that kind of reaction -- as do all older VB practitioners! --  as if the "seasoned" player somehow hasn't the physical strength and agility to perform the difficult challenges the game demands, and then get herself (or himself) up and ready for the next play.  I mean, would she be on the court if she couldn't perform all of the game's rigors?  Of course, she wouldn't.  C'mon, kids, pay attention!  We're not passing, setting and hitting and then shuffling back to walkers.  We're fit, competent and skilled, not to mention greatly experienced!  [Footnote:  The poker chip eyes of the kids at the door grew even larger when Mary bounced up (um...  rose to her feet with just a touch of struggle) to face the next volley!]   

         

Some of our current VB practitioners are more than 70 years old; some are in their 60s, while others are in their 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s.  One among us can still execute, and with exceptional skill, the "pancake dig" -- palm of hand reaching the floor consecutively with the ball, causing it to pop up to the setter.  He'll be 70 in November!  In our early playing days, we recall a man of 40-something who was an exceptional player, and we marveled that someone "so ancient" could still play the game with such exemplary skill!  The great game has no restrictions based on age.  Some of our fellow players still say "like" to begin and accrete a sentence, while others forget what they wanted to say, or use archaic language such as "icebox" and  "aerodrome."  Makes no difference.  VB is our common language, our shared passion and obsession, a lifestyle, an accumulation of experience and dialogue, a siblinghood, a sacred bond.    

It was my wife's doing initially.  It began with a telephone call.  She and a good friend conversed

In this shot, we observe the author
mimic'ing a Beach AVP Pro expressing
referee contempt and disbelief, as the
aforementioned official makes a
tragically imbecilic call.  

for an hour or more eventually deciding that three couples, one of them my wife and me, would join a VB league and learn how to play the game correctly.  We committed ourselves to the task, spending a great many hours in practice -- serving overhand, receiving service and passing, setting and hitting drills, blocking, diving for hard-hit spikes, digging, yelling, calling "mine" or "yours," insulting our opponents -- doing it all to improve our skills and our abilities to play well and to win, eventually (the gift of time permitting)!  

We began league play as Poet's Pride (having done most of our early practice sessions on a gymnasium court at a school named for a famous bard).  Variously we dubbed ourselves Contempt of Court, Some Flew Over the Cuckoo's Net, South Wind and Spike, Net Loss, Sweethearts...  Silly names that held meaning for us, though we've tried hard to forget why.  

Now, 40 plus years later, the passion continues.  Sure, we've lost some quickness and speed, but gained guile and wit and ball placement skills that can still bewilder opponents, amid added cursing and stomping and balls hurled with great force at heads on the other side of the high net.  I tell you it's a love affair, and it won't end until we do.  

To put it another way...  Volleyball is its own sort of ritual, a kind of religion to those of us still obsessed.  Through it and our history as avid participants -- not only as players but as spectators of college, beach and Olympic volleyball -- we’ve enjoyed its various stages of evolution, made lasting friendships, reveled in its society and its camaraderie and benefitted enormously from its health-enhancing, vigorous exercise.  Quit?  Not likely.  Our new goal is to play until Mary reaches age 70.  After that, who can say?  Eighty?  Eighty-five?  Stay tuned.  Maybe we’ll  film a documentary!  The obsession continues to hold and enthrall us, and will, we hope, until something unexpected comes along and breaks the spell.

(Special Note of Attribution and Gratitude:   The perpetrator extends enormous thanks to the following, without whose love and support Volleyball would not have become the obsession (delusion?) it remains today:  Sweetheart, Carol, Jimmy, Steve, Captain Southwind, Jeff, Gene, Bob, Michelle, Shep, Scott, Eric, Jo, Henry, Abie, Dick, Jim, Carol, Ed, Sean, Leslie, Tom, Anna, Margot...  and (with apologies!) anyone I may have missed!      

Humbly Submitted, 08-01-14 -- Joel K. 

              

  

        

"What was That You Said...?"

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    "What was That You Said?...   or the 'Simple Joys' of Geezerhood!"

Prior to reaching the age of 40 or so, we humans tend to exist in a bubble that is sometimes slightly diaphanous, more often entirely opaque.  That is to say, in our callow youth, we often lack the vision to see beyond our own limited experience.  We tend to be unable to project ourselves out of the youthful moment of our 20-something or 30-something spheres of experience, not yet having surrendered the illusions of youthful immortality, intellectual and physical perfection.  Thus, the young are frequently disinclined to empathize with the more aged segment of the body politic, but rather tend to enjoy deriving humor from those a generation or two beyond their own, particularly those within the grasp of incipient sensory malfunction.

Here's a case in point:  When my wife's parents were traveling by train to some, now forgotten, destination in the western states, her father turned to her mother and whispered something.  Her reply:  "What did you say, honey?"  He repeated himself in a slightly louder whisper.  "What?" she responded again.  He increased the volume a second time, to which she replied,  "Apple pie?"  

"Oh for god's sake, Alma, why would I have to whisper 'apple pie'?"  And then he repeated the statement in a loud voice, amid the stares and whispers of nearby fellow passengers, "I have to go potty!"  ("Alma" was a kind of silly "pet name" for his wife.)    

The story became a favorite among the family, and was told and retold repeatedly, engendering considerable mirth, while both storytellers and listeners nodded in knowing assent, affirming the challenges of advancing age and the sensory defects that often accompany.  "Oh my...  tsk, tsk...  poor old dears, but really quite funny..." among other sighs and laments rolling along on a generous stream of laughter.

But things change and tables turn.  Retribution knocks upon the door, a specter armed with white paint, a bucket of wrinkles, joint pain, flab, dentures, bunions and other transformative birdshot.  There are two episodes I recall in somewhat recent history attesting to my own sensory challenges.  

I'm in a restaurant with my wife and daughters.  The server arrives and begins her introductory oration using the most extreme "Valley Girl" intonations.  She offers her name.  "Johnny?" I quiz.
"Dad, her name's Jenny," my older daughter corrects.  The server announces the day's special.
"Baronial chicken?" I ask, seeking clarification and detail. 
"It's brown ale chicken," my younger daughter amends.  Amid the barely stifled laughter of my wife and children, the server continues to announce the day's menu choices, none of which I hear clearly or understood.  I order a turkey burger.  

More recently, I'm on a toll-free telephone line speaking to a live representative of one of the online hotel-booking sites.  In my daughter's home, the dining room is filled with friends and relatives, all discussing an upcoming wedding for which I'm attempting to engage a room.  The chatter is spirited, a bit loud, conversation flitting and circling like a flock of hungry pigeons.  The customer service agent is speaking with an unusual accent.  "What?  What?" I say.  "What...  could you repeat that, a bit louder?  Did you say the 'Hotel Frimary'?  How are we spelling that?  Oh, oh, I see.  I'm sorry.  Primary.  You want the primary card holder.  You want my name?  You want me to spell my name?"  The laughter is intense, making it even harder to hear.  "Oh, what the hell's the difference," I say in a muted voice.  "I can't hear anything anyway."

A typical conversation with my wife:  "Sweetheart, you want me to pause this thing?  What?  Shall I stop the program until you're finished with what you're doing?  What did you say?"  I walk into the kitchen, repeating my question.
"No need," she says.
"We have no seed?" I say.
"I heard what you asked the first time," she says.  "Do not stop the program.  I'm almost done!"  She's a bit exasperated.
"You're cooking something?" I ask.
"With the dishes," she shouts.  "Go sit down and watch the program; you can fill me in.  Whoever told you your hearing's fine is a lunatic!"  She's speaking quite loudly.  I say nothing more, but wonder if she's cooking something that requires filling.  I go back to the television.  I can't find the volume button...

There are vision issues too, of course.  I see words on billboards that become different words when I'm closer.  My knees and shoulders have apparent dice games going on inside them...  But, mustn't grumble.  I'm still able to find my mouth with a large spoonful of mush...    

Sometimes, I try to project my thoughts back in time to those occasions on which I was less than sympathetic and understanding to the senior population of my own acquaintanceship.  I consider calling to apologize if the parties in question aren't actually dead.  I admonish myself for my lack of compassion.  But then I think, "Oh, what the hell.  The cycles of life are circular, and now I'm the object of amusement, ridicule and scorn by the younger set."  So I guess life has its own method of reconciliation.  My wife is shouting something from the other room.  "What was that you said, Sweetheart?...  The doorbell is leaking?..."  

(Special Note of Attribution and Gratitude:   The perpetrator of this Blog extends enormous thanks to his dearest friend and great love of 40-plus years, Sweetheart, for suggesting the subject matter of this edition, for having an exceptional sense of humor, for putting up with her husband for so many years, for raising two extraordinary daughters with equally exceptional senses of humor!) 

Humbly Submitted, 06-07-14 -- 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. 

                            

   

A Strange New Language?! Translators Wanted!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    A Strange New Language?!  Translators Wanted!

"Dude...  Why you gotta bring your Xbox?"  As I entered my preferred coffee house recently, that's the first utterance that assaulted my ears.  (Is everyone named "Dude" today??!)  

"What the hell is an Xbox?" I asked, but not quite loud enough for the young questioner to hear.  I promised myself, however to "Giggle" the thing as soon as I was once again seated in front of my computer.  It's an iMac!  I'm a product of the 21st Century!  I mean, I wanna be hip; I'm a "now" kind of geezer.  (I mean, what if someone brings it up at book club?!)   

The Xbox statement spawned a deeply contemplative moment in my often porous brain, and like an obsessed salmon struggling up a roiling river cataract, the quest began.  I furrowed my brow and mused.  I think I even stroked my chin.  I began to think and wonder how the generations that preceded my own might have reacted to the newly fabricated words so common in today's "Techno-Age."

"Sancho, my Translator!!"  (I hope readers will forgive this paraphrased and possibly obtuse literary reference.)  I mean, let's begin, for example, with Giggle, I mean, Google, perhaps the world's most famous E-Commerce MegaSite.  Now, of course, the noun that has morphed into a verb.  My father would have pulled a quizzical face if I suggested he Google something.  Hell, I believe he would have tossed me out of the house.  Having been an intrepid and decorated FBI Agent, he was highly suspicious of almost everything new-fangled.  I recall he insisted the "Commies" had infiltrated CyberSpace as "dot-commies"!

And then there's "hashtag."  What a ridiculous word.  I asked a lucid 80-something-year-old man what he thought the word means.  "When I was a kid working the coal docks," he said, "Me and Mugwump used to grab lunch at Rosie Sluga's saloon and diner.  If we both ordered a bowl of Rosie's hash, she'd put a name tag on mine to tell it from Mugsy's."  

(I mean, what the hell's wrong with "number sign," or, better yet, because it has only one syllable, "Pound"!)

"Texting," "Sending a Text."  My mother would have said it meant mailing a book to an out-of-town relative.  "Blue Tooth."  Uncle George would have reacted in shock:  "See a dentist, quick!"  Then there's "iPod," "LOL," OMG," "IDK," "TBH," SIM Card," not to mention, "URL," Wi-Fi" and who knows how many other strange new and abbreviated words and phrases.  "Hey," remarks a good friend's 92-year-old father, "I've seen those letters floating in soup!"  

[ "You want a what?  A 'smartphone'?  Are you nuts?!  Telephones aren't smart or dumb...  They're emergency instruments!  When you get a job and your own place, go buy a telephone.  Until then, holler across the alley..."  (Excerpt from an imagined monologue, parent to child!) ]  

What would a past generation or two have made of bookface...  Or is it facebook?  Twitter?  Tweeting?  My foundry pals would have smacked me in the head if I suggested they "Tweet" their chums!  "How many MegaBytes you want?" would have sent many in our parents' and grandparents' generations running for the police.  Imagine trying to explain to our forebears and antecedents the new meanings of "cookies," "back button" and "surfing."  The brain spins freely in the cranium pondering the extraordinary changes in today's electronics-generated "tech-talk," the now frighteningly ordinary vocabulary of our modern age.  I can almost hear my long-dead grandfather:  "What the hell's E-mail?  A letter from Europe?"

So what do we do now, we geezers who love the English language and the elegantly refined speech patterns acquired in our own superbly educated youth?  Do we take up figurative arms in a quixotic (returning, for a moment, to the literary reference cited above!) gesture of defiance?  Ach!  Windmills!  It's of no use.  We must adapt or be wound up in a great web (not the World Wide one!) of anachronism.  Archaic relics, forgotten and ridiculed, an extinct species.  

As for me, I'm hiring a geeky 20-year-old kid with a few pimples on her (or his) chin.  A translator.  I'll do it!  I'll drag my tired brain into the Electronics Age.  I'll become a novelty, a geezer who knows how to sit for hours with friends and relatives, never once looking up, thumbs dashing over an illuminated keypad, OMG'ing and LOL'ing like a crazed "mute-babble" lunatic, inserting the word, "like" at every conceivable juncture! 

   Humbly Submitted, 05-21-14 -- Joel K.                      

  

        

              

The Cab That Followed...

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      The Cab that Followed a Play...  or, 

                            A PUZZLING PAIR OF MORAL QUESTIONS!

        Our “geezer feet” were screaming to be elevated as we trudged along State Street heading north.  We were two miles from our hotel following what would eventually be an eight-mile trek that included a tour of Chicago’s Chinatown and its outstanding Cultural Museum.  We had planned an evening walk to the Steppenwolf Theatre, but our exhausted, aching feet would carry us no further than the Red Line Subway headed north to Clybourn and North Avenues near Halsted.  We dined at Vinci, a fine restaurant a block from the theatre, prior to a much-anticipated evening of live theatre, all part of our 40th Anniversary celebratory weekend.   

As its central theme, the play, Russian Transport, offers a complex and ponderous moral dilemma.  Intriguingly interrelated, our transportation from theatre to hotel presented yet another moral question, this from a cab driver propelled into a kind of self-imposed exile.   

The “first drama,” Russian Transport by playwright Erika Sheffer is currently running at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, the company’s name inspired by the Hermann Hesse novel that one of its co-founders was reading at the time of the theatre’s founding and inaugural production.

At the conclusion of the two-and-a-half-hour Russian Transport, we were no more than a few heartbeats out the doors when a taxi cab practically hailed us, beginning an almost karmic coincidence.  We jumped in for the relatively brief trip back to our hotel, and immediately began a spirited discussion of our impressions of the play.  The cab driver joined our conversation without hesitation, or invitation.  “What did you see?  What was the play about?”

My wife, Mary, began to describe its theme of a struggling Russian-American family living in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, NY.  “The family, particularly the mother...  well, I guess, to be accurate three of its members, were conflicted over the question of what we, in this country, will do to earn money, how we justify our means of earning income and what we’re willing to do to that end.”

The cabbie asked in reply, “What do you mean specifically, and what did you conclude?”

Mary said, “Well, I think it’s easy for those of us who lead relatively privileged lives to pass judgement on people, especially those from different social and economic circumstances, such as the people in this play.  The father operates a barely surviving business.  The family matriarch’s brother, Boris, arrives from Russia as the family’s ‘star boarder.’  He’s engaged in an illegal but very profitable business.  The mother is willing to allow her young son to be lured into Boris’s illicit business, while imposing polar opposite, strict rules of behavior on her teenage daughter.”  Mary went on to provide added details to describe the play’s narrative and central theme.

“In this country,” the cabbie responded, “I think Americans should be more judgmental.  We should question motives; we should hold certain people to account for the harmful and destructive ways they employ to earn money, particularly those who use highly questionable or unlawful means to generate their fortunes.”  He cited what he termed a real example of a New York and Chicago-based business that, he said, exploited political influence and used nefarious means toward attainment of significant wealth.

“Gatsby-esque,” I chimed in.  “I mean, the sham of the so-called ‘American dream.‘ The very rich in this country have cleverly crafted a highly effective propaganda intended to justify the acquisition and maintenance of great wealth.  The idea being, ‘if I can do it, so can you Mr. or Ms. ‘average American,’ and by any means you choose.”

The discussion continued, serve and volley, as we rode into the night.  Eventually, he pulled to the curb to let us out at our requested stop.  Over the course of another half an hour or so, the driver told his story.  “I’m originally from Karachi, Pakistan,” he began.  “I’m in this country on a fellowship.  I’m a cardiac surgeon, but I need the income from driving a taxi cab to earn a living during the fellowship period.  It is difficult to listen to a constant stream of racist remarks and insults, but I feel I have to endure until the (fellowship) process is concluded, and I can return to being a working doctor and surgeon.”

“I’ll bet you collect a great many stories through the conversations you hear,” I said; then added jokingly, “You could probably even achieve a secondary specialty in psychology.”  

His brief laugh was joyless, and then he said simply, “No.  That’s of no importance.”  He went on, “I left my country following a disagreement with my mother and family over a marriage arrangement.  My mother is a very strong and forceful woman, and so I left under difficult circumstances, abandoning my home, family and religion.  I could not accept my family’s demands or its particular ethos, one with which I could not agree.  But, because of all that I’ve seen, all that I’ve witnessed, I’m disheartened and distressed.  I fear for the future, and not just for this country.  I’m considering a return to religion...”  

Our conversation was fascinating, if all too brief to acquire any deeper sense of the man’s own moral and intellectual dilemmas and how they’d be resolved, if at all.  We exited his cab on State Street near Lake and walked a short distance to an all-night market.  

As we walked, I thought about this unusual “doctor / cabbie,” his nocturnal wanderings through the often frenzied streets of Chicago after dark, even as my wife and I thought about the fate of Russian Transport’s tormented characters.  When we left them, as the theatre lights dimmed finally consuming them in utter darkness, we were left to contemplate their uncertain futures, the profound difficulties and challenges imposed upon them by a thoughtful, unflinching playwright, gratified that at least we didn’t have to endure a “Hollywood ending.”  As we ambled from the market back to our hotel, our aging feet reminding us anew of the day’s adventures, I thought again about the play, the taxi driver, 40-plus years of marriage, my most cherished friendship, joys yet to come, puzzles yet to solve.

Humbly Submitted, 05-11-14...  Joel K.