I Have Never

I am a straight, white, elderly, married man.  In all my years, I have never had a friend who is anti-Semitic.  I have never had a friend who is racist or homophobic.  Nor have I ever had a friend who is misogynistic or xenophobic.

In all my life, I have never had a friend who is regressive or punitive.  I have never had a friend who is a bully or cruel.  Nor have I ever had a friend who is narcissistic or egomaniacal.

From time to time, I’ve encountered people who exhibit some of these attributes, of course, but I’ve always and quickly exiled myself from their presence.  Except when I’ve had no recourse, I have steadfastly abjured their company.

Throughout my life, I have had friends who are religious—and from several faiths—or atheist, even agnostic.  I have had friends who espouse differing political sentiments than I, but never aggressively so.  I have had friends with points of view different from mine on such issues as pro-life/pro-choice, gender equity, capitalism/socialism, green energy, global warming, pandemic mitigations, famine, warfare/diplomacy, the likelihood of life eternal after death, and more besides.

I have even had friends who disagree with me about my lifelong support of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, for goodness sake!

But never have such disagreements interfered with our friendship because those I consider friends have at no time lowered themselves to crude, ignorant, or abusive rhetoric and behaviour in our discussions and encounters.  Nor have they ever resorted to violence to advance their views.

Rather, they have relied on logic, facts, and persuasion to win the day—as I have always tried (sometimes unsuccessfully) to do.

That’s less easy today, though, because of a problem we face with our global society—the unprecedented proliferation of supposed facts presented across the wide range of media outlets available to us.  Some of these deliberately masquerade as the truth, which promotes confusion and conflict—forcing us to question what is information, what is misinformation, what is disinformation—and as a result, to begin to query our own values and principles.  Critical thinking skills have never been more crucial, it seems to me—and in many quarters, alas, more lacking.

Healthy skepticism has always been a positive thing, I think, a part of those very critical thinking skills.  But noxious skepticism, knowingly force-fed to a naïve public by pernicious purveyors of media in pursuit of their own, oft-malign agendas, has the effect of reducing the level of societal discourse to the lowest common denominator.  Loud, vituperative, violent acts against each other and our governing bodies are increasingly the result.

In any free society founded on the people’s faith that their government will act in the public interest, such discord cannot be good.  Because when the public loses faith in our civil institutions, those institutions will crumble from within.  And they will take down with them the very foundations upon which they have been built and thrived—citizens’ rights and responsibilities, the rule of law, equality of opportunity for all.

There is little doubt that, as a collective, we could do a better job of acknowledging our responsibilities (rather than just demanding our rights), and of ensuring equality of opportunity for the dispossessed and marginalized among us.  But lacklustre performance aside, the bedrock values are legitimate.

In recent times, unfortunately, I have seen people elected to public office— ostensibly to serve the citizenry—speak and behave in ways that are definitely anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, regressive, punitive, cruel, and narcissistic.  I have witnessed their acolytes and followers, to no one’s surprise, then ape them.  And they are all doing so—increasingly, it seems—in more extreme language and deed. 

Disturbingly, I no longer believe I can respectfully disagree with those folks about their points of view, as should be the norm in any democracy; instead, I fear I would be shouted down, verbally abused, perhaps physically attacked.

Such people are not my friends.  Nor, in my opinion, should they be yours.  We should be electing and supporting the very best from among us, not the opportunists, grifters, and self-seekers.  But to do that, we must bestir ourselves and, at the very least, engage in the process and cast our votes on election days.

Plato wrote, The heaviest penalty for refusing to engage…is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

I have never wanted that.

Will Wishing Make It So?

We humans have a boundless, perhaps fatal, propensity to gravitate towards, not reality, but what we wish reality to be.  Collectively, we opt to ignore what our senses and intuition are telling us in order to satisfy our desire for gratification and fulfilment.

A few years ago, I was on a golf vacation in Guatemala with family and friends.  We played the magnificent Fuego Maya Golf Course at La Reunion, situated on the side of a mountain near the colonial city of Antigua.  The course, located in Guatemala’s Ring of Fire, was surrounded by four volcanoes, the only active one at the time being El Fuego.

Each time we played the course, El Fuego was erupting—benignly, we wanted to think—and it provided a magnificent backdrop to our games as its smoky plume rose high in the blue sky, its gray streams of lava spilled slowly down its side.  At night, it was spectacular, and frighteningly so—tremendous, booming explosions of fiery sparks shooting skyward, the ground trembling under our feet, red ribbons of molten rock spewing sinuously from its yawning maw. 

Within weeks of our return home, El Fuego blew its stack in a major eruption, propelling ash nearly four miles into the sky across a sixty-mile span, completely destroying the magnificent Fuego Maya golf resort, burying it in a pyroclastic flow as once Pompeii and Herculaneum had been entombed.  The golf resort is gone forever.  Nearby villages were wiped from the face of the earth, countless people died or fled from the volcano’s fury.  And yet, when we were there, we had chosen to ignore the signs, believing they were simply part of nature’s show, mounted for our pleasure.

In a similar vein, people across the globe delude themselves into thinking their actions are benign—allowing the deliberate dumping of raw sewage into our oceans and waterways, for example, or toxic, chemical slurry from mining operations and munitions manufacturing.  Such actions are bringing our planet to the brink—and probably beyond—of a severe threat to our survival.  We ignore this at our peril.

Consider this list of issues currently facing humankind, and the potential calamities they may visit upon us: global warming, ozone layer depletion, loss of biodiversity, ocean acidification, water and air pollution, soil degradation, deforestation, natural resource depletion, overpopulation, urban sprawl, inadequate public health response to once-and-future pandemics, generation and disposal of unsustainable waste, so-called artificial intelligence, and the rise of ultra-right-wing autocracy.   

Do you deny the existence of these?  Do you choose to turn a blind eye to them, not wishing to focus on anything but your own indulgence?  Perhaps you do not, but too many of us do.

Whether we ignore it or not, our mother-Earth is at an existential tipping-point, vulnerable to disasters and tragedies both now and in the future, a state of planetary emergency.  The planet itself, this lump of rock suspended in our galaxy, will survive in some form, of course.  The issue is whether we, as a species, will do so. Are we too ignorant? Or too arrogant?

Our first-world economy is nowhere near as healthy as reported by the media.  The poverty gap is not shrinking dramatically, regardless of what the numbers say.  In an increasingly-technological society, low-skill jobs are gone forever, so state-of-the-art education and innovative entrepreneurship are of utmost importance if the situation is ever to improve.  Are we investing in these?

Racism and bigotry are pervasive and, it sometimes seems, part of the human DNA; there is no quick fix for that, only generational change brought about by relentless pressure and, unfortunately, oft-violent protests.  Terrorism is part of our world, and (whether foreign or home-grown) unlikely to be eradicated any time soon; there are too many disenfranchised people in the world, with too many grievances, too much hatred, and too many weapons. 

The leaders of nations—elected or appointed, allies and foes alike—are not so much interested in international cooperation as in their own national aspirations, or their own political survival.  Large, multinational corporations are less concerned with the common good than with their own, often obscene, profits and dividends.  And it is they—not we, the people—who will continue to exert an overweening influence on the state of international relations.

We, the people, are all too often willing to be shunted to one side, caught up in our own pursuits, perhaps so overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the crises in front of us that we deliberately shut our eyes to their significance.  Once upon a time, many of us would pull the covers over our heads when the night-monsters invaded our bedrooms, wanting desperately to believe we would thus be kept safe from harm.  And back then, for the most part, we were.  But we were children then, and the time has come to set aside childish beliefs.

There are those who toil diligently on our behalf to face up to the crises facing us, of course, but they are too often scorned or left bereft of support.  And the deliberate and pernicious presentation of disinformation by malignant forces against people too naïve or unwilling to think critically works against the best efforts of the best among us to counter the threats.

So, we have a choice.  We can ignore our problems—just as I and my companions, in our arrogance, chose to ignore the threat from El Fuego. But unless we consciously choose to acknowledge and address these various issues seriously, to take action to support those who do so choose, we shall never solve them, never make them go away.  

Will wishing make it so?

I think not.

From This Moment On

Some folks worry about getting old.  And they bemoan the passage of time.

But once upon a very long time ago, nobody kept track of the years.  People in their nomadic, tribal clusters got up when the day dawned and went to sleep when it got dark.  They did it every day, over and over again, until, inevitably, they didn’t awaken from their final sleep.  Nobody ever worried about getting old; they just lived until they died, and the tribe moved on without them.

Even today in this wide world of ours, there are still countless numbers of people who don’t worry about aging.  They live in unforgiving climes where their every effort is bent toward eking out a subsistence-level existence.  Or they’re driven from their homes by ravaging armies—persecuted for their beliefs, their skin colour, their ethnic origins, and often enslaved by their captors.  They, too, live only until death frees them, far too burdened to worry about the realities associated with getting old.

Yet here are we, inured from such extreme conditions—secure, some of us, in our developed, civilized world, inundated by the availability of all the essentials and luxuries we might desire—and what do we do?  We worry about getting old.

Not all of us, of course.  Many young people appear to have the same nonchalant, carefree attitude I probably had at their age—back when immortality was a given.  The halcyon days of youth seemed destined to last forever.  Only old people were old. 

Others of us, the more elderly, have learned a sterner truth.  Youth lasts only until it’s over, only until our bodies begin to betray us.  The rosy morning of youth gives way, grudgingly, to a more austere noontime of life, and then, inexorably, to a deepening dusk we all are destined to enter. 

Some folks accept that truth more gracefully than others, some more stoically, some more fatalistically.

But some, of course, do not accept it at all.  In the words of the poet, they rage, rage against the dying of the light.  Nips and tucks; silicone, botox, collagen, and dye; enhancements and reductions; diets and purging; even exercise—all undertaken by men and women in a fruitless pursuit of everlasting youth.

Why is this so, I wonder, here in our world of plenitude?  Well, perhaps it’s because we have become obsessed with measuring time.  After all, time’s passing itself is neither our friend nor our enemy.  It’s just there, it’s always been there, and it will forever be there.  So, I’ve come to believe it’s the keeping track of time that plagues us, wreaking havoc on our youth, eventually forcing us to an acceptance of the stark reality that we are going to get old.  And we are going to die.

But remember, we are the first cohort of people since the dawn of time who has ever had the luxury of worrying about that.

From this moment on, perhaps we shouldn’t.

A Party? No Thanks!

Another birthday, the eightieth since my actual day of birth, is looming.

If I have my way, there will be no party celebrations to mark the occasion—no gathering of friends, no gifts, and most mercifully, no public rendition of that ubiquitous birthday song by a bored, yet dutiful, cadre of restaurant servers.  Rather, the occasion will be marked by a fond embrace from the one who has been alongside for all but the first twenty of those eighty anniversaries.

For me, the party tradition has gone on too long.  It’s not only over now, it’s overrated.

The last big celebration I remember was on my twenty-first birthday, when my parents planned a party to honour the passage of their firstborn from boyhood to manhood—as if it had happened all at once on that given day. 

In 1802, Wordsworth memorably observed, The child is father of the man…, and so it has always seemed to me.  But truth be told, in all the years spent being a man since then, I don’t believe I ever left the boy behind.  He lurks behind the adult mask, only rarely emerging, as though fearing he’s no longer welcome.  But I still search him out sometimes, if only to reassure him.

I don’t really remember that twenty-first birthday party, of course, it having occurred almost sixty years ago.  But I do have photographs to remind me of the momentous occasion—washed-out Kodachromes of people who meant the most to me back then—some gone now to their spiritual reward, others, like me, to lingering adulthood.

My mother and dad grace several of the photos, beaming with parental pride (I’ve always chosen to assume), both of them decades younger than I am now.  How can that be, I wonder, and where did those years go? 

My siblings—a brother and three sisters—all stand with me in other pictures, our arms around each other, full of that relentless, youthful optimism that has not yet encountered the eroding onslaught of time.  It did assail us eventually, of course, but so far, all but my brother have survived.

A couple of close friends were present at that party, too, both mere weeks older than I, and eminently wiser (or so I imagined, given their earlier entry into manhood).  Both remain  fast and true friends to this day—and they, too, like me now, have reached the end of their eighth decade.  Imagine!

Most dear of all in those faded photos is my high school sweetheart, smiling happily, if a tad uncertainly, still getting to know the large, somewhat strange family whose son she was keeping company with. 

On that day, we were still two years removed from the moment when she would accept my offer of marriage, and she, I’m sure, had no idea right then that such a fate awaited her. Even I, it must be said, had only begun to suspect she might be the one. That longed-for wisdom prevailed, I suppose.

Anyway, that’s the last big celebration I recall.  There have been many so-called milestone birthdays along the way—the thirtieth (Never trust anyone over thirty!), the fortieth (Forty is the new thirty!), the fiftieth and sixtieth (the golden years, so dubbed by those who couldn’t avoid them), and even the seventieth (entry point to the last of the three stages of life: youth, adulthood, and You’re Lookin’ Good!). 

But the milestone birthdays never impacted momentously on me.  Each was just one more marker in a so-far-endless progression of years, gratefully attained, yet no more important than any of the others.

Among the most special greetings I receive on every birthday are those from my two daughters, both of whom endearingly insist that I’m not old, I look terrific, and I’m every bit as good as I once was.

“Hmm,” I tell them, “maybe I’m as good once as I ever was!”

For the past twenty-one years, I’ve been further blessed to hear from a younger set, my grandchildren, five in number now, who cannot for the life of them understand why there won’t be a big party on my special day, with balloons, and cake, and lots of presents.  Not to mention the goodie-bags they used to get at their friends’ birthday parties when they were younger.

“Don’t you like parties, Gramps?” one of my granddaughters once asked.

“Don’t you have any friends, Grandpa?” my grandson chimed in.

But I always told them I’ve had more birthdays than I have friends and family combined, and that on my birthday, I’m more than content just to have my grandchildren loving me.

“Oh, we love you, Gramps,” they affirm.  “But grown-up goodie-bags might still be a good idea, y’know.”

I do know.  My goodie-bag has been overflowing for eighty years.

To Make An End

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language.  
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
                                                                    - T. S. Eliot

As another year draws to an end, and with it the approaching close of my eighth decade on this journey, I know I am among the most fortunate of my fellow-travellers.  For sixty years of my passage, I’ve been accompanied by the wonderful young woman I first met when she was but sixteen.  She is young no more, of course, but as W. B. Yeats wrote in When You Are Old (almost as if he had her in mind)---

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

I still do.

Also with me for fifty-plus years of my journey have been the two magnificent daughters who have graced their mother and me with their love, their friendship---and increasingly now, their protection against the failings of age.  When they were little, we made a pact to hug them close for as long as we could, then let them go when time dictated.  As you might expect, the hugging was easy; the letting-go was hard.

But it has been written that when we love someone, we should set them free, and if they come back, then their love is ours forever.  That has certainly been the case for us, for which I’m eternally grateful.  Our girls are women now, but as I’ve often told them, although they are no longer children, their mother and I will never stop being parents.

In due time, those women brought two wonderful men into our lives, and with them produced five wonderful babies of their own---four granddaughters and a grandson for us.  It was as if the cycle started up again, but with my wife and I one step removed this time---loving them, wishing the best for them, but somewhat distant from the immediacy of their lives.  We strive to remain relevant, of course, and they, in return, take pains to make it so.

Kahlil Gibran wrote of that in his meditation, On Children---

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

And in that last line lies the very essence of the joy and sadness, both, that are implicit in our lifelong journey.  Things begin.  Things end.  Things begin anew.  Or so it has always been for me, and will be for some time to come, I fervently hope.  But there will eventually come a moment, I know, when no next beginning will follow the final end.  Despite my reluctance to face that day, I do not fear it.  My approach to its inevitability is summed up in this final stanza from one of my own poems, I Haven’t the Time--- 

I haven’t the time for anger or rancor, or grumbling, self-pity, or frown.
Life’s about living, getting and giving full measure before it winds down.
When that day is nigh, as ‘twill be by and by, I hope it will be widely said,
That as man and boy, I strove for the joy of living until I was dead.

My closest companions along the way have certainly brought that hope closer to reality than it might otherwise have been.  To paraphrase the late Queen Elizabeth II, my dear family have been my strength and stay the entire way.  As we enter into 2023, I hope for all of you who read these posts that you will feel as blessed as I, and that the ending of this old year, no matter its triumphs or tragedies, will be a new and happy beginning for you.

To make an end is to make a beginning.

Happy New Year!

The Reasons For the Season

It’s hard to believe, but this soon-to-be-upon-us Christmas will be the eightieth time I’ve celebrated the festive season with family.  I have no memory of the first five or six such occasions, and most of those that came after are a hodge-podge of recollections jumbled together across the years.

Although my extended family was a blend of Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian church-goers, Christ was never the centre of our celebrations back then; family was always at the centre.  As a youngster, I was taught all about the virgin birth—the trek to Bethlehem, the sojourn in the stable, the babe in the manger, the shepherds and wise men who visited the creche—but the visitor I most looked forward to every year was Santa Claus.

It may amuse you to know that I still believe in the spirit of Santa, that jolly, old elf who freely gives us presents while taking nothing in return (save, perhaps, for cookies and milk).  I still hang up my stocking every Christmas Eve.

It may surprise you to learn that I still believe in the teachings of the Christ-child, too, despite the fact my knowledge of them springs from English translations of the writings of men (no women, alas), who told their tales in Hebrew and Greek long after the storied crucifixion.

It seems to me those teachings can be crystallized in two succinct statements attributed to Jesus: Love one another.  Treat everyone else as you would like to be treated.  There are world-religions other than Christianity that preach similar sentiments, of course, but I fear I know less about them than I’d like.  Nevertheless, I dream sometimes of what our world might be like today if all of us, regardless of creed, could adhere to those two maxims, person-to-person, nation-to-nation.

Despite my belief in his teachings, I confess I cannot be sure Christ was the divine son of the god to whom we attribute our creation—that beneficent father-figure who reigns over us from on high, portrayed so majestically in magnificent works of art over the centuries.  I simply don’t know if Christ really turned water into wine, raised Lazarus back to life, rose again from the dead, or will return someday in rapture and glory.  I was taught these things, never with any proof offered, though—because true faith requires no absolute proof.  Faith and proof are each other’s antithesis. But no matter; whether one believes Christ was divine or not, the truth of his teachings shines through for me. 

It pains me when I hear so-called Christians take those teachings, impart their own twist to them, and then insist that everyone else adhere to their interpretation.  I’ve read the entire Bible, some sections repeatedly, and I’ve yet to find the condemnation purported to come from Christ’s lips that is used by judgmental Christian proselytizers to justify the stances they spew forth on such issues as marriage equality, abortion, feminism, and science education, to name a few.  The Christ I know loves everyone.

Nevertheless, despite my difference of opinion with such folk, I respect their right to believe as they do—so long as they do not seek to interfere with my right to do the same.  Christ, it seems to me, invited people to accept his teachings; he did not force them.  It is wise, I think, to be wary of those who use Christ’s teachings to further their own ends, to rend us asunder.

Lest I appear to be doing that here, let me clarify that I am not; I am simply riffing on my understanding of the meanings of Christmas.  Both my continuing belief in a Santa Claus, and my endorsement of Christ’s two great maxims, are important aspects of the celebration for me.  But I readily acknowledge that others may feel differently.  I begrudge no one their right to hold and profess their own beliefs, even to disregard mine, and I do not seek to impose mine on anyone.  

In addition to the influences of Santa and Jesus on my understanding of Christmas, there are others whose interpretations reflect my own.  For example, in his famous story, A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens described the occasion thusly—a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant, open hearts—these words echo the intent of Christ’s teachings, do they not?  It’s a pity such sentiments surface so infrequently in our interactions these days, except for a brief time at Christmas.

Another artist, Elvis Presley, released a song in 1966, written by his friend Red West, whose lyrics included this plaintive call—

Oh, why can’t every day be like Christmas?
Why can’t that feeling go on endlessly?
For if everyday could be just like Christmas,
What a wonderful world this would be.

Anyway, buoyed in the spirit of Christmas, I’m looking forward to my eightieth celebration with renewed hope that the true reasons for the season will once again manifest themselves—and, I fervently wish, pervade the new year to come. Surely then, we would find the way, know the truth, and approach the life to which we aspire.

A wonderful world it would be, indeed!

A Canadian’s American Thanksgiving

“You’re Canadian, right?  From Canada.”

“Right,” I replied.  “And right again.”

My neighbour from across the street continued, “So you celebrate two Thanksgivings, right?  One at home and one here in Florida.”

“Right again,” I smiled.  “On both counts.”

“Well then, I sure hope you got enough to be thankful for,” he said as he sauntered away.

I found myself thinking about that as I lay barely awake in bed this morning, long before dawn, wishing I were still asleep.  In Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of every October, and this year we had gathered, as usual, with our two daughters’ extended families—numbering twenty-two with our granddaughters’ boyfriends added to the mix.

I first dated my wife when she was a lissome lass of sixteen, and neither of us ever went with anyone else after that.  For sixty years, we have celebrated Thanksgivings together, and once upon a long time ago, hosted the family events.  But we are honoured elders now, along with the other grandparents, and at our age, find the celebrations a tad tiring, if still wonderfully joyous.  When someone asked what we are thankful for this year, we agreed on the big five—our family, our friends, our two homes, our financial security, and our continued good health.  And then we raised a glass to the hope they will continue for some time to come.

American Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of every November, some six weeks after ours, and so, being in Florida by then, we celebrate it, too.  More quietly, though, as if somewhat apologetic (as Canadians are wont to be) for our privilege and good fortune.

As I lay abed this morning, pondering these thoughts—half-awake, wanting to be asleep—I could sense more than see my wife beside me.  Both of us were lying on our backs, she snoring ever so gently—as I had likely been doing, too, before stirring.  And it slowly dawned on me that we were holding hands, our fingers loosely interlaced by our sides.

I smiled quietly into the darkness of the pre-dawn bedroom, acknowledging, not for the first time, that this is what I am most thankful for.  No matter where I am.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So Wrong!

Pandemics are awful, I’ve had a craw-full,
So many still shut in alone.
Lonely and cut off, they’ve worked their butts off,
Miserable, clear to the bone.

Tough though it may be, they strive to be free,
Rid of the pandemic wave.
Emerging all bright-eyed into good health-side,
Evading the forbidding grave---
Saluting good health with a wave.
People are crying, all of them trying
Against all odds to be well.
Like a great hero, reducing to zero
This virus’s terrible spell.

Tell me it’s over, we’ll soon be in clover,
Really, it’s been way too long!
Everyone’s ready, trying to hold steady,
Each of us praying to be strong---
Sadly, this is so wrong!

You’re So Vain

This week’s prompt from my Florida writers’ group is to write a story, fewer than five hundred words, for STROLL, a local publication.

A friend I met sixty-five years ago in high school will soon celebrate his eightieth birthday, as I will shortly afterwards.  We stood up for each other at our weddings, and I did that again at his second wedding, a few years after his first wife passed.  He named his first son after me.  I have two daughters, neither of whom is named for him, but they love him dearly.

A long-since retired art teacher, he is a painter of some renown, with water-colours hanging in the homes of several distinguished collectors, including the recently-crowned King Charles III.  Likewise retired, I am the author of eighteen books of fiction, with worldwide sales numbering…I don’t know, in the hundreds?  Maybe?  Anyway, both of us garner numerous hits on various search-engines.

My friend was always a personable and handsome man, and he knew it.  In our younger years, it used to be said of him that he never met a looking-glass he didn’t like.  Mutual friends would joke that he’d never be alone as long as he could find a mirror.  When we’d stroll downtown together, I’d laughingly reproach him for constantly checking his reflection in storefront windows.

“It’s never going to get any better,” I’d chide.  “Gravity wins!”

He’d flash his trademark crooked smile.  “Yeah, but we don’t have to let it pull us down, right?”  And he’d steal another quick glance at the window.

I met my friend for coffee at The Forum the other day, and as I was parking, I saw him waiting on the sidewalk for me, studying his image in the restaurant’s plate-glass window.  Indeed, I saw myself growing larger in that same reflection as I walked over to join him.

Clapping an arm around his stooped shoulders, I crooned an off-key variation on a Carly Simon hit from days gone by—You’re so vain, you prob’ly think you look amazing…

Leaning into me, he chuckled ruefully.  “Yeah, once upon a time, I guess.  But d’you know what I was thinking just now, watching you come up behind me?”

“Let me guess,” I ventured.  “You were probably hoping this weird-looking old guy approaching you would spring for coffee today.”

“Not a bad idea,” he laughed.  “But no, I was actually thinking how happy I am to see you.  The day is coming when one of us will be staring at a reflection like this, and the other one won’t be there.”

“There’s a happy thought,” I said.  But, alas, I knew it to be true.

For several moments, both of us examined our images in the glass—slightly bent, frailer than we’d like, each leaning a little on the other.  When we turned to hug one another, it was a long hug.  A moist-eyed hug.

And then we went for coffee.  My treat.

The Magic Soap

The weekly prompt from my Florida writers’ group was to imagine we have some sort of magic soap, and write a story about what it might wash away. This is my response to that prompt—

“Mike Eruzione?  No way!  Grandpa wasn’t that good a hockey-player.  No way he played with Eruzione!”

“He says he assisted on Eruzione’s game-winning goal against the Russians.”

“That game was played in 1980!  Grandpa was born in 1935, so he’d have been…let’s see…he’d have been forty-five by then.  If he had played in that game, that would have been the miracle on ice!”

“Well, he says that’s what happened.”

[The five grandchildren, three young women and their brothers, are sitting by the fireplace in the parlor of their grandfather’s home while the old man is napping upstairs.]

“Grandpa says a lot of things these days, most of which never happened.  He told me a week or so ago that he helped Paul McCartney write Hey Jude while he was on vacation in England in 1968.”

“Grandpa’s never even been to England!  Do any of you believe that story?”

[A chorus of disbelief flows from the other four.]

“Nah.”

“Nah.”

“Nah.”

“Nah.  No way!  I know it’s his favourite song, but no way he helped write it!”

“It’s getting to be a problem, this story-telling.  I think he really believes what he’s saying.  You think it’s…y’know, dementia?  Or Alzheimer’s?”

“Maybe it’s just bragging.  Trying to make himself sound more important to us than he really was.”

“Yeah, maybe.  Like Baron Munchausen.”

[The other four glance quizzically at each other.]

“Who?”

“Baron Munchausen.  A German storyteller from the 18th century.”

“Nah, Grandpa’s never been to Germany, either.”

“That’s not the point.  He could be telling tall tales like…ah, never mind.”

“He told me a while back that he was on the bus in Birmingham when Rosa Parks refused to get off.  Said he got up and gave her his seat.”

“See, that’s another crazy story!  That happened sometime in the mid-fifties.  Grandpa would’ve still been in his teens.  And she wasn’t told to get off the bus, she was told to sit in the back.  And it was Montgomery, not Birmingham.  Grandpa’s never been to either of those places.”

“He gets things all mixed up now, which is how you know he’s…well, either lying or just mis-remembering.”

“Yeah, he sounds like Forrest Gump, right?  Thinks he met with famous people all through his life.”

“Yeah, but at least Forrest Gump was real!”

[Four of the grandchildren stare in bewilderment at their brother before one of them carries on.]

“He tells me these sorts of stories, too, but I never know what to say.  I don’t wanta hurt his feelings, but I don’t wanta act as if I believe him, y’know?  What do you guys do?”

“I laugh if he’s laughing, I’m serious if he’s serious.  I just go with the flow.  What harm does it do?”

[The five of them sit silently for several moments.]

“It’s too bad there isn’t some sort of cleanser for the brain, something that would wash away all his faulty memories and leave the good ones.”

“Not just good ones, but correct ones.  All memories don’t have to be good ones.”

“Right, yeah, that’s what I meant.  We need some sort of soap for his brain so we could just wash away all the mixed-up memories.

“You wanta brainwash Grandpa?”

[Everyone looks at the speaker, aghast.]

“No, not brainwash him!  That’s not what I mean.  I just meant some sort of magic soap—maybe he eats it, or we mix it with his cocoa at bedtime, and all the cobwebby stuff in there gets cleared up.”

“Just don’t suggest Ivermectin!”

“Speaking of cobwebs, he asked me this morning where his Spiderman suit is.  Said his spidey-sense is tingling.”

“Omigod, now he thinks he’s a super-hero?”

“So, what sort of magic soap do super-heroes use?”

“There isn’t one, not for Grandpa’s problem!  His problem can’t be fixed.”

[The five grandchildren stare into the fire, at a loss.]

“He is sort of funny with all his stories, though.  Right?”

“Yeah, he does make me laugh.”

“Me, too, so why are we talking about cleaning out his brain with some sort of magic soap?”

“Right, I agree.  As long as he’s no danger to himself or anyone else, who cares?”

[A loud, clattering sound is heard outside, and one of the grandchildren goes to the window to investigate.]

“Omigod!  It’s Grandpa!”

“What?”

“It’s Grandpa, dressed in his Spiderman suit!  He’s on the porch-roof, trying to climb down the trellis outside!”

[The five grandchildren scramble for the door.]