Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Interment

Today was a solemn day for us. Robin and I transported my father's cremated remains to the National Cemetery in Farmingdale where he was interred in their Columbarium. The National Cemetery is for military veterans and celebrates their service to our country. 

My father, born in Germany in 1930, came to the America in 1951. He learned the fastest path to U.S. citizenship was through military service. He enlisted and spent two years in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He earned several medals and emerged from the Army an American citizen. He was proud of his military service and wanted to be laid here.

I didn't expect today to be emotional but it was. Robin and I shed tears for both my father and thousands of other dead soldiers in the cemetery. It's impossible to walk among them, as we did, without dolorous sorrow at this human loss. We saw graves of many young men and women cut down in the prime of their lives (18-22 years old). Thankfully my father escaped that plaintive fate and enjoyed a long life.

His final resting place will be marked by a plaque in a month or two. The VA also has a memorial website on which I'll add biographical data. Anyone who wishes can later offer a tribute on the website to my dad. I'll let you know when both projects are finalized and ready for visiting.

If you're wondering why it took a year for me to arrange this interment, the answer is simple: I was, um..., distracted last year by another matter. Attending to this now was the best I could do.

Saturday, November 2, 2024

Another Birthday


Tomorrow is my birthday. I normally take stock on these occasions. This year the report is encouraging.

I'm working out regularly and improving my physical health. I've learned how to function with limited vision (20%), discovering dozens of techniques to compensate for bad eyesight. I'm also active mentally, reading abstruse work with glee.

Best of all, my enthusiasm has returned. After last year's set-back I've re-discovered joy. Simple pleasures delight me. Staying in touch with friends is a priority. And unexpected experiences pop up frequently. Let me describe a recent one. 

A few days ago I was waiting at the light to cross a busy four-lane street. There was lots of traffic. A frail old lady with a cane approached me and asked if I'd help her cross the road. She said she walks very slowly and wasn't sure she'd reach the other side before the light turned. Of course I volunteered to be a tutelary. I didn't mention to her that her eyesight is way better than mine.

I escorted her across. As she predicted the light changed before she could reach the other side. I stopped traffic with my hand and protected her with my body; this enabled her to continue and reach the sidewalk. 

I felt unexpected emotions afterward. Surprise that I'm able to help others, not just be a recipient of assistance. And pride at using Badass Biker Confidence to stare down large threatening road-bugs. The only way to safely deal with aggressive motorists is to intimidate them so they back off. And when you're vulnerable on two wheels or two legs, the way to do that is with ATTITUDE. Leonine aplomb.

In the past year I've started to feel younger, so this birthday isn't bad news.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Geneviève Bujold


I saw Geneviève Bujold in several movies during the 1970-80s. I fell in love with her. The Canadian actress's beauty is mesmerizing. She's a true houri.

Yesterday I was shocked to see Geneviève in a movie made a decade ago ("Still Mine"). In it Geneviève looks OLD. Now 84, she seems like someone on her last legs -- but her eyes are the same, twinkling with inner pulchritude.

How can this be? I'm still young, why isn't she?

Thursday, October 24, 2024

A Life Of The Mind

“Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.”

  -- Ernest Hemingway

One of the consolations of my current condition is the ability to read, think and write. From childhood to today reading has opened doors for me, supplied knowledge and engaged my curiosity. I can't imagine being without it.

Every week I devour The New Yorker cover-to-cover. Lately I'm waist-deep in Tom Wolfe's oeuvre. It's fun to encounter new words (like "shambolic", "boulevardier" and "houri"). I'm also tickled by clever sentences such as: "It would be as risky as trying to beat a burning fuse to the dynamite"; "...the peculiar male compulsion to display knowledge"; and "Moral bitterness is a basic technique for endowing the idiot with dignity."

What do you like to read?

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Whimsy

Modern life is insipid. Unless you make independent effort, life's banality will bore you into stupor. That's why I search for eccentricity and whimsy anywhere I can find them. They make life exciting.

The Volkswagen Beetle, acclaimed as "a people's car," was introduced in 1938. VW's idea was to provide folks with cheap basic transportation. Eliminating frills and unnecessary expense enabled budget consumers to get on the road. It also, unintentionally, allowed arrant oddballs to create custom cars at very low cost.

I, for instance, inherited a 1966 VW Bug as my first automobile. I learned on it, grinded gears while mastering "the stick" and drove the car to high school. With teenage exuberance and quirky artistic vision I converted the Bug into the strangest vehicle in my town. I stapled white shag carpeting to the interior walls and roof, removed the entire muffler system and installed "straight pipes," painted racing stripes (actually a decal), boasted racing-style "mag wheels" and tires, replaced the plain knob on the stick-shift with a black billiard eight-ball, and mounted loud, uncovered speakers to boost stereo volume. My proudest achievement was to add a risible car-horn that moo-ed like a cow. Seriously, it moo-ed. The horn had a lever you pulled to RELEASE THE MOO. I thought that was the wildest idea ever. True éclat. Needless to say I was the only kid in town with one. 

MOO!!  "Ralph's here."

One feature I didn't add -- only because I wasn't aware of its existence -- was a coffee-maker. In 1959 -- I SWEAR TO GOD YOU CAN CHECK ME ON THIS -- Volkswagen offered the option of a coffee-maker mounted on the dashboard (Hertella Auto Kaffeemachine). Drivers could harness car electricity to brew a cup of Joe. Matching porcelain coffee cups had magnets in their base to stay attached to metal holders while driving. In case you don't believe me, here's a photograph of the device. I invite skeptics to do their own research and confirm this.

"Would you like cream or sugar with that?"  :)



Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Tom Wolfe

I just solved TWO problems. Dos. Zwei. Deux.

I surveyed science, philosophy and literature, searching for intriguing pools into which I could dive. In the past I didn't have leisure time for recondite writing, now I'm ready to take a plunge. But what should I read?

I sampled prominent writers, luminaries like David Foster Wallace, Albert Camus and Anthony Burgess. None grabbed me. Few have the right blend of perspicacious content and stylistic brio.

Long ago an author impressed me with his bestselling novel, "Bonfire Of The Vanities." That book captures the zeitgeist of New York in the 1980s. Tom Wolfe, who wrote mostly non-fiction, intensifies his creative writing with reportage on salient topics like class, social status and history. That appeals to me.

During Wolfe's 88 years on Earth he published 18 books and many magazine articles. The books include titles you'll recognize: they were turned into movies: e.g., "The Right Stuff." I've begun exploring Wolfe's books on my new Kindle. I love their flavor. They're both delicious and filling. I just decided to devour Wolfe's entire oeuvre by the end of the year. I hope I don't get fat. :)

Tom Wolfe, as everyone knows, was a "boulevardier", a sophisticated man-about-town who socialized at fashionable places. I learned that fun word from his 2004 novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons." The book is a trenchant description of life on elite college campuses. The story and characters remind me of my four years at Hamilton College, a prestigious private college in bucolic upstate New York. 

Founded in 1793, Hamilton College has an endowment of $1.3 billion. The school offers exceptional academic education. It also provides social opportunities for drunkenness, debauchery and class struggle. A sizable contingent of my class were pampered rich kids -- the kind born on third base who mistakenly believe they hit a triple. Hamilton was my first exposure to lazy, louche offspring. 

During my time in college I often -- deliberately -- affronted moneyed classmates. My favorite weapon was a blue-collar work-shirt from my summer job at Roadside Auto Parts. The shirt (literally dark blue) had my first name stitched above the shirt pocket. The garment shocked ovine snobs. They couldn't believe anyone at a fancy private school would admit, let alone celebrate working class roots. Haughty snobs themselves love to conspicuously flaunt their families' wealth by wearing coded florid clothes, like LL Bean duck-boots, two polo shirts worn on top of each other, and lime-green shorts. And you can set a clock to their constant mention of tony prep-schools, designed to display supposed superiority. One student, son of a famous Hollywood mogul, drove a red convertible MG around campus with the top down. IN WINTER. At 10 mph.

Exposure to hoity-toity classmates taught me that class pretension is insignificant. True value is found in our individuality, in what ancient philosophers call our "haecceitas" (this-ness). Worth doesn't flow from family wealth.

Privileged children often get into good colleges by "legacy admission": i.e., through Daddy's prior attendance and generous donations. Rich kids spend time there partying and patronizing harder-working students. The group feels little pressure to achieve because they know their futures will be greased by Daddy's business contacts. I, on the other hand, am a son of immigrants who didn't attend college. I had to strive to earn grades good enough to open the heavy admissions door at a selective institution. And I had to do that while working multiple part-time jobs to afford private school's higher tuition.

Subjects like this are exactly what Tom Wolfe probes with mordant wit. His gimlet-eye teaches and I'm laughing every day at his piquant barbs.

So what's the second problem I solved? I know what to be for Halloween. Tom Wolfe has a recognized persona: white suit and soigné hat. That outfit is in my wheelhouse.

Monday, September 30, 2024

Czechia

Do you know that the Czech Republic changed its name? The country now wants to be known as "Czechia."

No word yet on what pronouns it prefers. :)