Monthly Archives: March 2014

Much Like Deer in the Woods, Tomorrow Will Take Care of Itself

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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Frank deer

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

When you’re young, it’s easy to put things off to some unspecified future time. After all, when you’re younger than 40, you probably have more future ahead of you than you have past or present. It seems like there’s a lot of room in that attic for storage of dreams. But as we age into the right side of 50, the amount of future time left to us begins to shrink to a point where the idea that putting off things (such as pleasure) to a future time is no longer a viable plan. Those of us in the 50+ club have to live in the present.

I was reminded of this in church, of all places, as I attended services this week. While there’s some silly stuff in the Bible, there’s also a lot of wisdom. In fact, there’s a whole book in the Bible called “Wisdom.” And there’s also a book of Proverbs. It seems to me that a lot of the purpose of the Bible was to write down the collected wisdom of the herd. Unfortunately, some of the thoughts of the lunatic fringe made it in as well.

Anyway, the Bible reading was from the Gospel of Matthew. The evangelist quotes Jesus as saying to his followers: “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.” (Matthew 6:34.)

And if I was in a more evangelical kind of church, I would have shouted, “Amen.” But Catholics aren’t into public displays of emotion and so I remained silent. But it seems to me that these are words to live by for us over-50 folks. We need to be present. We need to not put off anything we can enjoy now to the future, because the future is growing short, and what there is, is not guaranteed.

Now, I know that Fleetwood Mac urged us to “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” But the message of that song was not to dwell on the past because “Yesterday’s gone …” It’s the same sentiment that Little Orphan Annie expresses in her “Tomorrow,” where the sum will come out. It’s okay to look to tomorrow optimistically; it’s wrong to worry about it.

Recently, I was looking out at the backyard of my mother’s house in suburban New Jersey. Suddenly about 10 deer appeared, all foraging for food in the snow. Sadly, this has become an all-too-common sight, as human developments have encroached on traditional deer habitats.

But these deer live day to day. They don’t worry about tomorrow. Finding food today, and staying warm is their focus in these winter months. And it occurs to me that our cave-dwelling ancestors did likewise. They may not have lived as long as we do now, but I’ll bet they enjoyed every minute they had when they weren’t working to feed and clothe themselves.

I know that some people can’t help worrying about tomorrow and everything else. Will the 401(k) be enough to live on? Will Medicare allow me to see the doctors I want to see? Will I be able to stay in my house? But even those people can resolve to enjoy today, and be present enough to notice the details like the beautiful scene the snow has created in the trees, or the rosy cheeks on a three-year-old playing in a park on a cold winter’s day. Being present means enjoying what is before you, and not thinking about what’s next. Because tomorrow will take care of itself.

I’ve Come to Be a Man for All Seasons

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Confessional

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seasons 3

BY BOB SMITH

Friends of ours from Sydney, Australia visited us recently and, true to form for this miserable winter, it was 30 degrees with intermittent snow showers all day. And they loved it. In Sydney, they explained, it never gets cold enough to snow. In fact, during their warmest months (January and February), the temperature ranges from 66 to 79 degrees Fahrenheit. In the cool months (July being the coldest), the temperature ranges from 46 to 61. So their seasons aren’t differentiated by extreme temperature variations or cold-weather events like snowstorms. As a result, they said, in retrospect, they have a hard time distinguishing one year from another.

So, for example, if a noteworthy event in their lives were to occur on a day when the temperature was 64 degrees, they couldn’t later readily distinguish the season when it happened, because it could as easily have been a cool day in January or a warm day in July. They can’t automatically think back on the day, and recall, as we might, that we were wearing gloves and scarves and heavy leggings, and say “Oh yeah, that would have been last winter, when it was bitterly cold.”

Or remember that the event occurred, or that the happy (or sad) news arrived, just as they were finishing up raking leaves on a crisp fall day. Let’s be thankful for the clear mental marker this season gives us to define this point in our lives. Someday Maria and I may fondly recall this as the hard winter when Simon and Monica from Sydney first came to visit us at the shore, when we shared dinner and a lovely pinot noir at a deserted restaurant on the Asbury Park boardwalk, then went home, and played guitar, and sang until our fingers hurt, and our throats were raw.

Winter descends, plants die, birds flee, and the days grow short – sobering harbingers of mortality. But the dark days blossom into buds on trees, and longer twilights, and spring’s timeless cycle of renewal, followed by a riotous explosion of exuberant life, and activity in summer.

Which, dying too soon, morphs into wistful fall. The wheel is always turning, and with our starkly different seasons, we see tangible evidence of it every day. As my 50s recede into the past, each change of seasons seems a touch more poignant, colored by a greater sense that, indeed, we will each see only a finite number of them. Whether we curse that reality or embrace it, we cannot change it one whit. As this long winter draws to a close (whenever that finally occurs), I vote for embrace.

Ukraine Crises Stirs Memories of 1960s Russian Showdown

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

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russia 5BY MARGO D. BELLER

Anyone who grew up during the 1960s remembers “duck and cover.” At an alert, crawl under your desk and put your arms over your head, and hope the nuclear bomb lobbed by “the Russians,” as we called what was once the Soviet Union, would miss and hit elsewhere.

There was a time my boomer friends and I laughed at that memory. Today, watching the 24-hour coverage of the Ukraine crisis, we are not laughing. We’re back to fearing the Russians again.

Those of us who study history, or in my case is married to someone who does, see a strong parallel between Vladimir Putin sending Russian troops into Crimea to “protect” the ethnic Russians there, with Adolph Hitler sending German troops into the nascent nation of Czechoslovakia to protect the ethnic Germans in 1938.

You might remember what happened a year later when Hitler’s troops went from “protecting” to invading, this time Poland.

In today’s world, we have instant and constant bombardment. You can watch an invasion as it happens, not wait as our parents did to read about it in the newspapers. There are tweets, blogs and Facebook posts.

I find it overwhelming on a normal day, and these are not normal times.

Back in the 1960s, I did not understand the implications of what we were doing when we went through the “civil defense” drills and hid under our desks. But there was a real fear in the adult world the “Russians” would lob missiles at major cities, as the Cuban missile crisis showed.

My parents and their generation were finally feeling some economic security after growing up with immigrant parents trying to “make it” in the new world. They feared another world war, only this time with nuclear bombs.

“The living will envy the dead,” the Communist USSR’s Nikita Khrushchev supposedly said, perhaps mocking as he quoted from Revelations in the Bible.

Boomers, until recently, have had it easy. We grew up comfortable, and took it for granted we’d go to college and live better lives than our parents because that is what they wanted. The USSR disappeared. The US “won.” We spent our money, and buoyed the economy.

We’re older now, and times have changed.

Wages are stagnant, unemployment is high (particularly for us over 50), and those who can’t afford to retire keep working. There is fear of another economic recession. Now, like our parents, we might fear a nuclear war with the Russians.

Perhaps we can ignore the crises in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan (unless we have a personal connection, of course.) But for me and perhaps you, Ukraine puts us face to face with the Russians again, the “Evil Empire.” At a time of economic instability, that only heightens the tension.

We’re beyond “duck and cover.”

Remember, it wasn’t Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal that ended the Great Depression, it was World War II. If Ukraine escalates, that economic “lift” could happen again.

We boomers won’t pay that price. My nephew and his generation will.

Oscar Musings

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Opinion

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One is missing.

One is missing.

BY JULIE SEYLER

There are no doubt thousands that turned a blind eye to the Oscars. They have no interest that Jennifer Lawrence was wearing a strapless red Dior, or that she was up for her third Academy Award nomination in four years, and she’s all of 23. But there were millions of others who had one foot in the door, anticipating tucking into a fun night of watching who’s wearing what, and wondering whether this year’s host, Ellen DeGeneres redux, could top Billy Crystal’s Hannibal Lecter skit during the 1992 awards show, when some of us had not even reached 40 years old. Geez Louise, it seems like yesterday. All in all I thought Ellen DeGeneres was a mighty generous, relaxed and comfortable host, although the morning after comments from friends have weighed in with “too much”, “boring”, and “not edgy enough”.

I adored watching Angelina Jolie accompany Sidney Poitier to announce Best Director (Alfonso Cuaron for “Gravity” – that movie swept up). The man who starred in “A Patch of Blue” (1965), “To Sir With Love” (1967), “The Defiant Ones” (1958) and “In the Heat of the Night” (1967) is 87 years old. I can watch Sidney Poitier movies over and over again. He’s such an incredible actor.

I was in complete agreement with Bill Murray about Amy Adams dress. It was a knock-out.

It’s always a trip to check out the cosmetic surgery procedures, and this year, Goldie Hawn sort of made me gasp. I recently watched “Butterflies Are Free” (1972), for the first time and I think she may be 27 in that movie – a real pixie. I guess she is still going for the pixie look – don’t think it quite works at 68. Her smile was the same though.

I rarely relish the acceptance speech because it can be so predictable – the winner rattles through the prepared list of thank-yous, while at the same time making the PC call out to their fellow nominees. Yawn Yawn. However, I applauded Jared Leto for his for Best Supporting Actor for “Dallas Buyers Club” and Darlene Love for singing thanks for “20 Feet from Stardom.” Definitely want to see that movie.

I had seen all of two of the nine nominated movies. “American Hustle,” which I found captivating from the moment you see Christian Bale’s oversized exposed belly, and “Her,” to me a puzzlement as to why it was even on the list. Love with an operating system? I guess the novelty, along with the possibility that, yes, it really could happen in the not so distant future, kept it in the game. It turned out I do not have my hand on the pulse of the voters. Her won for best original screenplay. It was original, even if I found it a bit enervating.

The whole month of February had been one big celebration on TCM because every movie aired was, or starred, an Academy Award nominee or winner. In fact I saw a few starring Jean Hersholt. I mean they always give out the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. It was nice to put a name to a face.

But my favorite part of the evening is when the room goes silent, and the film is rolled for the tribute to the persons that have died during the past year. It is a trip down Memory Lane to see the actors, directors and other legends of Hollywood lore, some of whom I grew up with, that are now cast in movie heaven. In a weird way, it marks how quickly time has flown, and will fly. While I knew Shirley Temple and Philip Seymour Hoffman, both of whom passed away in the past month would be honored, I’d forgotten that Joan Fontaine and Julie Harris and Peter O’Toole had also died this past year.

So now we know that “12 Years a Slave” won Best Picture, and Cate Blanchett won Best Actress, and Matthew McConaughey’s hero is himself in 10 years. I’ll definitely be tuning in next year to see who are the winners for the 87th Academy Awards. I love them!