Aug. 31, 2002 - 17:12 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

This Picture ?

An old timey scene I have read a time or two in one story or another presents a comforting side light on extended family life back in the old days.

An oldster, in a rocking chair by the fireside, idly rocking and sometimes nodding. Later on helped to the table supported by a male relative and later in the evening helped to bed by someone. 'Tis a pretty picture, no ?

But back then the senior might not have been much over fifty, living in his house and cared for by his progeny and mate who run the farm or business too. Old man in a rocker, feeble and disabled in a his by a fireside probably with a blanket over his aching, chilled knees. One side baking the other side freezing. Back then they didn't even have a TV to doze in front of, or a radio to make racket enough to prod one to wakefulness. Kids would get too noisy and be cautioned, "Now quiet, don't wake grandpa up."

I'll take today, with a TV guaranteed to put me to sleep and a radio alarm to wake me up. With kids around to make me feel young again, ones I can play games with, get down on the floor and and help build with Legos, shoot - they are better than Lincoln Logs or Erector Sets anyhow. Or be the giant ogre threatening a whole doll family. Maybe sitting comfortably with a great grand baby in my lap in the middle of the work day.

I nap, not because I am bored, but because I have been over doing enough to need a respite. Set my radio alarm for an hour and enjoy the fact that I can do in the middle of the day the thing I wished to be able to do when I was working for a living but couldn't. Just not being tied to the damnable clock which kept me in fear of being late or dragging for two hours before quitting time. I was able to ignore the clock if I was deeply interested in what I was doing, but then the union steward would be looking at his watch telling me that it was time to knock off for the day. Back then, one way or the other the clock was my enemy.

I have adapted to living in an apartment where I don't have to do the maintenance, mow the lawns and things like that. Sure there are things we miss, our breakfast room just off the kitchen with its glass table lit by the sunrise. The view down the avenue from our bedroom window (which was above the terrace level) at night watching the headlights coming up the street. The shrubs and trees I used to keep just the way I wanted them.

But there are many things that are not as exhausting for me to be happy doing and a plus - an exercise room in the building across the street in our complex when days are stormy. A pretty park two blocks away with nice blacktop paths, a variety of trees and bushes to exercise walk in on nice days.

Now we have the time to run see our kids, visit and sometimes go out to lunch with them and visit with them when they are off work and many other things - hang out at the Tattered Cover, possibly the best book store in the whole world. Spend whatever time we want to at things we like to do and not have to go prop up a house or cut a path through the urban jungle of grass and shrubs.

Having a house when we were younger, had more strength and energy and a family of kids was of course the very best way to go. That was our castle that, with age became our prison. I would much rather be living in the present than way back then. I would probably have been pushing up daisies for thirty or more years if I had lived then.

Contemplating such a homey, comfortable scene as in the first part of tonights blather leads one to say, "what's wrong with This Picture ? . . . . . . . . . .

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