Skip to main content

He’s Turning 90 on His Birthday

I called my Grandmother to wish her a happy Mother's Day.
"He's not feeling too good. He's turning 90 on his birthday. July 18," she said.
"Does he stay active?" I said.
"Well, he hires the lawn out, but he does little stuff around here," she said.
"At least he does not clean the gutters himself anymore," I said.

I hope they are not buying twelve-month certificates of deposit or extended warranties. They do not need a deep freezer for frozen strawberries. They should only buy fresh.
They should not wish for the Cardinals to try to build a team from their farm system. They need them to win now.
He's turning 90 on his birthday.

He was my age in late December back in '63, the year his son and my mother got together, just as the song says. Maybe they were still mourning Kennedy’s assassination and thought they should steal a moment in the back of a ’60 Ford Falcon. But the moment turned into a baby boy and a life together. Then they should have been thinking about my future but they split up anyway in '66.

Her hands do not feel quite right after carpal tunnel surgery last year,
but she chose not to go through therapy afterward.
She was 87 on her last birthday.
Who wants to rehab to recover from surgery at 87? Roll the dice and take your chances. You could go any day now. Why go down trudging to rehab three times a week?

She fell over backwards putting the flag in the holder the next week.
Took a couple of days to get over that.
This I cannot explain, going to the trouble of flying the flag when you're 87. Isn’t patriotism proven by then?

They probably should move out of their house into Rose Lane, where they could have a one bedroom with central air and no maintenance responsibilities. They could have meals on premises and no one would have to cook or go to the grocery store and have a heart attack in the parking lot like that one time. But why go to the trouble of moving when you are turning 90 on your birthday.

Why not just get through the day, this one?

Popular posts from this blog

My First Book Has Now Been Published

My first book,  Touching Other Worlds: A Collection of Poems , has now been published. This collection of poems was primarily inspired by my visits to Flat Rock Brook Nature Center in Englewood, New Jersey and a two-month special assignment for UPS commuting to New York City. (You can get a lot of writing done while riding a bus to and from New York City.) It is available online through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  Click here to print version of Touching Other Worlds on Amazon Click here to Amazon Kindle version of Touching Other Worlds on Amazon Click here to see Touching Other Worlds at Barnes and Noble Click here to LIKE Touching Other Worlds on Facebook

Letting Go of Parcels

Today, I am feeling “off” in an “everything is fine but I still don’t feel right kind of way.” It went on for a few days until I finally became so desperate that I needed to go and sit on a boulder next to the constant roar of the swooshing brook at Flat Rock Brook Nature Center. I'm trying to let the sounds of the water drown out all of the oppressive thoughts in my head. Sometimes it takes a while. This is the view of where I station myself, and I think the video captures the sound. (I know some people use this kind of soundscape for sleeping, but I use it today to combat oppressive thoughts.) However, one unoppressive thought is conflicting with the rest in my head, a quote I used in the class I'm teaching this semester: “A man whose hands are full of parcels cannot receive a gift. " C. S. Lewis Lewis said this about spiritual dryness, and I guess this is a good description of where I am right now: spiritually dry. And my hands are full of parcels, which resonates wi

I Heard the Voice of Robert Plant Say, “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”

The other day, as I prepared for my 30-minute commute to my office, I let Spotify pick a playlist for me and off I went to work. You may remember in recent years, I commuted in an older car , a 2002 Mercury Sable with a few quirks that made life interesting. But now I have a 2016 Honda Accord with Bluetooth. It starts all of the time, doesn’t break down and require towing, and this means I have to look for other forms of excitement while commuting. This newer car also meant my music went from cassettes/CDs to Spotify Bluetooth in a remarkably short time, so I’m sticking my hand deep into the musical candy jar each day with Spotify (yes, I heard about it from my children). On this chilly April morning, a few songs into my Daily Mix 1 playlist, Robert Plant , the former lead singer of Led Zeppelin , came on singing the lyric, “Satan, your kingdom must come down . . . Satan, your kingdom must come down . . . I heard the voice of Jesus say, Satan, your kingdom must come down.” I had list