Aging Capriciously

We were the greatest class that ever lived.  Never again in the history of the world will a class see the likes of Casey, Lopez, Macera, Giarrusso, Kennedy, Molloy, Sanderson, Powers, St. Lawrence, Esposito, Cotugno, Arpin and Pezzullo.  These are only a few of the graduates of my class.  Italians and Irish mostly but probably not one of us spoke Gaelic or Italian.  We were third generation kids growing up in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.  We walked the streets that were allegedly paved with Gold.  It was still a land of opportunity but a land where problems simmered just below the surface.  That’s why we were born.  We were going to right the wrongs of America and set it on the path to becoming even greater.  We had been given a mission by God himself.  God was still a man in our days.  Our mission was to right the wrongs in America and bring democracy to the rest of the world.

We began soon after graduation to start on our task.  First we had to end communism by defeating them in Vietnam.  They had the audacity to try to take over the world.  A world that belonged to capitalism and free enterprise.  It would not take us long to set them on the right path.

But our energy knew no bounds.  We had more to do.  We started a Second Wave of Feminism to free women from the kitchen and allow them to go to the bedroom with anyone they wanted to.  We called this the “Free Love” movement.  We started the Free Speech movement where we could say anything we wanted to like Fuck, Cunt, Shit and Asshole.  Sexism was also a word we added to our jargon.  We all got pretty good with these words.

Our parents were horrified but we gave them Rock and Roll to listen to.  Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Avalon, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly and hundreds of other rock and rollers now shattered the once peaceful airwaves so popular to our parents.  Oue parents ranted that this was not real music.  They were sure that our music heralded the end of the world.

But this was just the beginning, we took part as White People in the Black Movement to overthrow the rabid remains of Racism that existed in the Deep South under the cover of Jim Crow laws.  We helped Gay people to come out of the closet and to march down Times Square to show that they were not going to give up what so many OLD people thought were deviant ways.

Our leaders Jackie and John and Robert and Martin helped lead our movements.  They were our heroes.  Jackie showed women what power they could have.  John helped start a group called NASA to put a man on the moon.  Martin led the mostly peaceful protests all the way to the Washington Monument to describe a Dream that so many of us shared.  Robert was going to be the man to carry on the dreams of his brother to bring Camelot to the far ends of America as well as the rest of the world.

We needed energy to accomplish all these activities.  So, we added Pot, Acid, Peyote and Speed to our lives to help fuel our endless drive to put America right.  We eventually had enough of Vietnam and started some of the most massive protests in the history of the country to put an end to the war machine.  Along the way, we realized that peasants in Vietnam did not really offer much threat to the Camelot we wanted to build.

But like all engines we eventually ran down.  Drugs and Rock and Roll and Free Sex could only take us so far.  We started to get tired.  We decided that maybe joining the establishment would not be all bad.  We could get a nice home in the suburbs, go on vacation once a year, have some kids that would be just like us and continue our fight for liberty and justice for all.  We became middle class.

We got jobs as dentists, plumbers, lawyers, doctors, insurance salespeople, car salespeople, teachers, carpenters and nurses.  Life became good.  John, Martin and Robert were all murdered.  Jackie married Onasis and the rest of us had little boys and little girls who wanted to play football or become cheerleaders.  Our kids did not seem to share the mission and vision that had propelled so many of us to march and chant and protest.

We went from being screaming liberals to staid conservatives.  Maybe things really are not so wrong in this country?  Maybe having a two car garage, being a senior manager and retiring on a nice pension is not all bad?  We became more and more like our parents.  Nothing wrong with that right?

Over the years, several more generations came along.  We gave them names like the Millenniums, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z.  None of these generations would ever be as great as we were.  They all seemed to lack the spark and drive to fix America.  Some of them even seemed lazy and could not be bothered about social ills.  Others were too busy playing video games or surfing social media.  We went from an analog world to a digital world.  Where once upon a time you would hear the tic tocks of a clock as you sat in your living room now you will only hear the beeps and chimes of cellphones, Alexas and robotically controlled timers.  The tick, tock, tick, tock of the past is as long gone as the Pyramids of Egypt.

We now rest in recliners.  Some of us are in senior centers, some in assisted living centers, and some in nursing homes.  Many of us are in gated communities carefully watched over by a Homeowners Association to make sure that we put the right colored bulbs out at Christmas time.  We are more careful now and suspicious of strangers.  Our grandkids no longer walk to school by themselves.  We don’t sit out on front porches anymore and talk to our friends and neighbors as they walk by.  We sit in our backyards watching the ripples in our swimming pools.  Isolation and loneliness have become national epidemics along with yearly outbreaks of some new virus or flu.  Our heroes often turn out to be pedophiles, and our leaders seem motivated by greed  as much as by any desire to improve humanity.

Some of us spend our days in memories of times gone by.  Times when life seemed better or easier or friendlier.  Times when you could trust a stranger or take an apple from a neighbor on Halloween without worrying about finding a razor blade in it.  We wonder what happened to the music that we once loved.  Music has become performance and we can no longer hear the words or lyrics that they are screaming.   Some of us wonder where we went wrong.  It was our mission to put things right in America and we seem to have gone the wrong direction.  We shy away from talking about the “Good old days” because that reminds us too much of our parents.

We wake up each day and find that fewer and fewer of our former classmates are still alive.  Each month or sometimes weeks brings news of another champion of Freedom and Justice who is now ancient history.  Many of us have more things to worry about than which of our former friends and classmates died, like getting to the doctor for our scheduled surgery, getting a new implant of some sort or simply trying to find out how to get rid of the pervasive pains that seem to rack our bodies one after the other.  Death can seem like a friend to some of us now.

Where is the silver lining my friends in growing old?  Are pain, heartache, loneliness and sickness the punishments we share for not saving America and the world?  If we had completed our mission would we now be living in Camelot?  A place where the leaves blow away by themselves:

Camelot, Camelot

I know it sounds a bit bizarre

But in Camelot, Camelot

That’s how conditions are

The rain may never fall ′til after sundown

By eight, the morning fog must disappear

In short, there′s simply not a more congenial spot

For happily-ever-aftering than here in Camelot

I want to end this blog on a happy note.  My fans and critics are clamoring for a HAPPY ENDING.  Who wants to see a movie with a sad ending?  Have your ever watched a movie that ends happily but it seems a bit contrived?  If I gave you a happy ending here would you be offended?  Would it seem fake?  Can you live with pain and heartbreak?  Do we have a choice?

A friend of mine always says that he “Is a man who lives with a glass half full.”  My wife Karen says that I am a pessimist.  After reading this blog you would probably agree.  However, a pessimist is really a failed idealist.  All my life I have believed in happy endings.  I fear seeing any movies or stories with sad endings.  If I could believe it, I would tell you that there is a heaven and all of the Johnston High School Class of 64 will be in it.  Well, at least those who tried to save the world.

Unfortunately, try as I might, heaven is not on my map or radar.  At best, I might push up a bright petunia or even a rose.  Nevertheless, I think there is a way to find joy in our travails, and it is very simple if not somewhat pedestrian.  Here it is.  You may find it underwhelming.  But if you wanted a happy ending, it is the best that I can do.

Stop complaining.  Stop worrying about what you did not accomplish.  Put on those rose colored glasses.  Look at the differences you made in the world.  The people you helped.  The children you gave birth to.  The things you created.  The loves you had.  The places you saw.  The ideas you discovered.  And most of all, nothing is over until you stop trying.  You can still make the world a better place.  Each of us can contribute a tiny amount that might just tip the scale.  Like the butterfly flapping its wings and starting a hurricane.  We can all give just one more flap to our wings and maybe save the world.

So go and give it just one more try.