Indiana Oh Indiana

Sunday morning temperatures in Pompano Beach, Florida this week dipped into the forties.  To people living in the upper Midwest, and New England, this is not news.  In fact, in some of those places during the long winters, any temperatures in the forties might be considered balmy, so it has been interesting to observe how the true natives here, AKA Floridians, have reacted to the relative cold.

I’ve been living in Pompano Beach for ten weeks now, growing slowly used to the warmer climate and increased humidity that doesn’t exist in Colorado, even in the summer, when humidity levels can remain under ten percent for long periods.  It’s funny how, over time, people become accustomed to temperatures, wherever they may live.

While walking my dog Dudley at around seven this morning, I saw a neighbor, who was returning from an early breakfast at a local IHOP and wearing what appeared to be a heavily quilted and hooded sweatshirt with gloves.  After saying a quick good morning and asking how I was weathering the storm, he rushed indoors as though the temperature were twenty below.  OK, it was rather windy, but I was wearing only a light summer jacket and long pants (for the first time discarding short pants since I came here) and felt quite comfortable.

The only other person I saw was a lady walking her dog while wearing a muffler around her face and a coat that could have kept Nanook of the North toasty warm during a blizzard.  She waved at me while rushing back indoors with the surprised little dog, as I pondered something a Florida friend had told me upon my arrival here last December.  “You will become used to the warmer weather here, John, so that within a couple of years, even sixty degrees will seem very brisk.”  He was probably right about that, though I haven’t reached the point of  feeling comfortable in ski garb when we experience temperatures only in the forties.  Only God knows how these folks would do in Denver or Boston this time of year.

The value of true friendships is probably inestimable. Lasting friendships anchor us in a world that is changing ever faster each year.  Those friendships give us a shared history of experiences from good and bad times, because friends have seen each other at their best and at their worst.  They know each other’s strengths and weaknesses but are able to extol those strengths over the weaknesses, so that forgiveness always triumphs over any possible grudges.

Our hair may whiten with the years, as Microsoft programs come and go, and gas prices continue to rise higher than those we used to pay for fine jewelry, but our good friends are able to keep a sense of continuity and meaning in our lives.  Whenever we ask, “Do you remember?” about something or someone from forty or fifty years before, the smile of recollection on the friend’s face as he answers, “Yes, I remember” means we are not alone.  We have something together that no amount of money can buy, because we are connected by reminiscences, even when they become the only ones left to stave off the slow approach of dementia or the oblivion of Alzheimer’s.

As the years roll by, the number of friends with whom we share remembrances shrinks, like the old clothes from college that no longer fit us and have been tossed into the attic.  Our perspectives shrink too, until there is no one remaining, who remembers what we remember.  The old friend with whom I took the wrong train and ended up in Cleveland when we were in high school together may be the last to laugh at that private recollection.

As someone who has moved across the country twice during the past ten years, I know the enormous significance of dear friends I have left behind, even though we are still in regular contact by phone, computer, and occasional visits. Our dearest friends cannot be replaced by better climate, a lovelier home, or increased financial opportunities.  Friends are the “family” we choose.  They are our mainstay, our stability, our safeguard in a world that is spinning faster year by year toward ever more impersonal, electronic communication, and mere “virtual” relationships as disposable as plastic water bottles.  If we do nothing else of importance during our golden years, it should be to value and nurture those friendships that are the best ones, often the oldest (while continuing to make new ones), along with all the shared laughter and tears that they provide.  JB

I wonder sometimes about how far the feminist movement has really come over the past forty-four years since I began teaching in Northwest Indiana. In many ways the movement has made great strides in politics and in the corporate world, but in the media women seem still to be of interest primarily because of what they’re wearing, how much weight they’ve gained, and how they wear their hair.

In the fall of 1969 when I began teaching high school, girls were still on shaky ground before the Equal Rights Amendment was passed.  Betty Friedan had made an important stride for women in her book THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE in the early 1960’s, but teenage girls in Northwest Indiana (and elsewhere) still believed that wearing the right hairstyle, eye make-up, and clothing would validate their lives for the only purpose society still offered through marriage and having children, just as most of their mothers had done.  America was on the brink of a powerful feminist movement, but most of my female students in 1969-1970 were as yet unaware of the options that were coming to them.  In some ways, that value system hasn’t really changed.

Certainly most female movie stars are in the limelight due primarily to their visual appeal, a standard of perfection that is easily shattered if the poor women gain even five pounds. The first thing said about each concerns what she is wearing.  So and so stuns in her bikini or Ralph Lauren gown.  Even the Duchess of Cambridge (wife of Prince William) has constant media attention, but that attention is due to her pregnancy, her hair style, and what she’s wearing.  Almost nothing is said or written about what she thinks or feels about issues of the day or even about her own life (if she has one).  In that way, women (at least those who are famous) are still mere mannequins in the media, held up as icons, not of thought or ideas, political issues or social change, but rather as visual paragons of such perfection that the average woman, though captivated by the ideal, must see that perfection as unattainable. The dieting industry alone is probably one of the richest sources of unending income in the country.  The cycle from half a century ago is still firmly in place and likely to continue in terms of society’s infatuation with a pretty face and lovely clothes on a woman over any interest in what she thinks,  feels, and accomplishes. When was the last time you read about what a man was wearing or how he cut his hair as the most important issue in a news article about him?

This brings up the question about how much our values in some areas have really changed over the past forty years. It’s not wrong to be concerned about looks and fashion, but when that concern becomes obsessive to the exclusion of real interest in social significance and thought, women are once again reduced to the status of paper dolls, to be admired only for their appearance.  Imagine Madame Curie, Golda Meir, or Margaret Thatcher in a swimsuit competition.  Absurd?  Of course. The main message we are sending to young girls should not be based solely upon how they should look but how they can also actually help to change the world for the better through politics, science, the arts, charity, and the media. That change has begun and come quite a long way since 1970, but there’s still a long journey ahead for us all, at least through the media.  Barbie and Ken are alive and kicking.  JB

I’ve been taking some rather mediocre bird photos, three of which I’d like to share with anybody who might be reading my blog from time to time.  The pictures are of a Muscovy or Canal Duck and her ten ducklings.  My condo is on a little lake, where there is a pleasant variety of wildlife, and from my terrace room, I’m able to observe, in a non-threatening way, the lives of many birds, turtles, and frogs. My photos are often a bit obscured by the screen that encloses my terrace, but I think the reader will be able to discern the unspoken narrative of each one.  The first is of a mother duck giving a swimming lesson to her offspring, and they are enthusiastic learners that bring right from the eggs the wonderful instincts for their aquatic frolicking, though the tikes never venture very far from Mom, who in her manner reminds me of Jemima Puddle Duck from the works of one of my favorite authors from childhood, Beatrix Potter. All this hen needs is a shawl and bonnet.

 Some of the ducklings are already practicing diving with expert skill, even though they are only a few days old and could fit into the palm of a child’s hand.  They play with each other but are most careful to remain within view of their mother, who seems to have an easy time of keeping her brood together in a neat little group.  At times they all seem almost like a single organism, any movement affecting other movements, no one part any more important than any other. The mother is very protective, and at one point this afternoon after the swimming lesson, she herded her ducklings out of the water for a nap.  They all fit snugly under her wings to keep warm and safe for about an hour before two or three began coming out again to play.  I was struck by the simple beauty of the scene and was reminded of a line from one of my favorite Psalms, 91:4, “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.”

The eastern part of the lake has a sheltered area of reeds and water grass, where some of the ducks nest and where this charming hen headed at last with her ducklings in late afternoon. I felt deeply moved by their journey together, a gentle little caravan on the water. I was privileged to watch the scene, a miniature drama undoubtedly repeated often all over the world, not always observed by humans, but a theme we share with all other living things, the need at day’s end of going home.

I’d like to end this blog entry with one of my favorite poems:

The Little Duck

Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.

It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf,

And he cuddles in the swells.

There is a big heaving in the Atlantic.

And he is part of it.

He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.

Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is.

And neither do you.

But he realizes it.

And what does he do, I ask you.

He sits down in it.

He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity – which it is.

That is religion, and the duck has it.

I like the little duck.

He doesn’t know much.

But he has religion.

By Donald Babcock

Living in a gated little community of condominiums in Pompano Beach, I often have the chance to chat with my neighbors, who sometimes meet me walking my dog, Dudley, on the grounds.  Those charming neighbors make a fuss over Duds and have made us feel right at home here and lucky to be in such a welcoming environment.

The past week, though, I have started something unintentionally that I am sure is going to catch up with me.  My next-door neighbor, Molly, knocked on my door last Tuesday to see if I could help her install the filter to her air conditioner.  Of course, I panicked, because if there is anyone more inept than I at dealing with mechanical fixes of any kind, that person remains successfully hidden from my view.  Anything more complicated than changing a light bulb requires a set of directions for me with plenty of visual illustrations and a possible video.  All my friends know this and continue over the years to use my mechanical fumbling as comic material.

Not wanting to appear unwilling at least to help her, I followed Molly to her apartment, where there was another neighbor, Sandy, standing with a new filter ready to be installed. Both women looked at me as though I were a doctor bringing a serum to eradicate some kind of horrible plague in their village.  The pressure was on as I prayed silently for a little miracle. I noticed a tray with a spring load, that I opened to reveal the only place the filter might fit.  Handing me the filter, Sandy looked like a nurse giving the surgeon just the right scalpel to save the patient’s life. I asked Molly to hold open the door to the tray as I slipped the new filter in before allowing the door to snap shut.  She thanked me profusely as I left to return to my own apartment.  Suddenly I knew how a football player felt after making the winning touchdown at the end of the fourth quarter.  That analogy may seem exaggerated, but for me this was big stuff, worthy of a prize of some sort and an interview on the TV evening news.  If that had been the end of it, I’d probably be better off now, but that was not the end.

Molly’s next-door neighbor on the other side is Harvey, a quiet but friendly fellow in his late seventies, who had evidently talked with Molly about my having helped her. Knocking on my door last Thursday in an uncharacteristic panic, Harvey asked me if I might be able to fix something in his den. Again, wanting to be as helpful as possible, I went to Harvey’s where in his den, he handed me his TV remote, a look of utter despair on his face as he said, “I think it’s dead.  Can you fix it?”  You have to understand that I’m not used to that kind of pressure to fix anything, as just about everyone else I know is pretty much on to me as a person who is just this side of knowing the difference between a wrench and a screwdriver. I turned the remote over to remove the battery cover and noticed that the batteries seemed loose, so I pushed them in tightly and put back the cover, asking Harvey for a piece of cellophane tape to secure it.  The remote worked just fine as Harvey’s look of admiration made me feel both proud and afraid.

It seems I have unintentionally bamboozled the people in my building into believing I can actually fix things.  This is unprecedented in my experience as someone who has never even changed a tire. Now each time I greet one of my neighbors, I wait nervously for a request to repair or install something else. My dreams are haunted by statements and questions from quizzical faces.  “Hi, John.  Ya know, my fridge is on the fritz, and I was hoping ya might come over to look at it.”  I hear imaginary knocks on my door, followed by, “Hey John!  My car wouldn’t start this morning, and I really need to get to work.  Can you check it out for me?”  Word of my having helped those two people could spread like dandelions on a front lawn unless I do something, like put up a poster with my picture on it in the lobby with the message, WARNING! THIS MAN IS A FRAUD.  ONLY PURE LUCK CAN ALLOW HIM TO FIX ANYTHING. As someone who can hardly use a can-opener, I’m bound to be exposed eventually.  It’s very unlikely that those first two lucky breaks could be followed by a third, so the loving looks of admiration I’ve been enjoying the past week from neighbors could change to tittering and hand-covered mouths. Any minute there will be a knock on my door to tell me that someone’s oven is broken.  Talk about a case of mistaken identity!  JB

Not all television commercials are of Super Bowl interest or quality.  A few remain entertaining, like the one for a spaghetti sauce in which a father, in his attempt to make dinner more interesting, uses a remote control to steer a toy helicopter around the table to his wife and each of his children in order to drop a load of tomato sauce on the pasta, the remote control finally going haywire so that the copter crashes into the china cabinet, creating an unforgettable dining experience for the family, despite destroying furniture, linens and clothing.

Most commercials, however, seem to be mind-numbing attempts to make us buy drugs, cosmetics, or gadgets, or they are messages from ambulance-chasing attorneys telling us about the heaps of money we can rake in by filing injury lawsuits against those drug companies that have already tried to absolve themselves of blame by using tiny print and fast but quiet announcer voices to list the myriad side effects (including possible death) their products present.  One such attorney plea I watched yesterday afternoon went something like this:

ATTENTION THOSE WHO HAVE USED YASMO OR YASMINE!

If you have experienced heart palpitations, shortness of breath, faintness, stroke or even death,

CALL NOW!

You may be eligible for monetary compensation.  We can help!

Such commercials are becoming more common in our litigation-addicted culture, perhaps partly because drug commercials are shown about every ten minutes.  Half the time I can’t even tell what ailments the drugs are for, because I get caught up in the friendly, happy people walking on beaches with their dogs and friends.  Our country seems obsessed by what is too often perceived as the easy fix of a pill from the pharmacy.  We have honed our instant gratification needs almost down to an art form, one further developed by Madison Avenue toward the many, who seek easy ways to become thin, beautiful, healthy, or rich.

I’m not sure about the statistics on how many TV commercials the average Joe watches on a weekly basis, but I’m guessing the number is staggering.  We live in a time when we are assaulted by so many unsolicited messages through TV, radio, texting, FaceBook, cellphones, and billboard ads, that many of us have simply shut down some of our receptors to prevent overload from the terrifying number of communications thrown at us, often indiscriminately, by all and sundry agents, all with their own agendas.

After a while, we begin to get numb, because the personal meaning of so much of what we watch, hear, and read through the media becomes negligible.  I find it tragic that about the only thing that gets our undivided attention these days is a weather catastrophe, like a hurricane, or a mass shooting.  We are on overload from too many choices and messages, the irony being that because there are more and more on an hourly basis, each becomes worth less and less until very little means much anymore, as the world becomes louder and more obnoxious in order to get our attention, divided or not.      JB

I’ve been here in Pompano Beach since December 6, 2012 and am growing more accustomed to my winter home with its warmer climate and more relaxed inhabitants. I love my summer home in Colorado, but Florida is where I belong in winter.

There are times when sitting in my terrace room, I have to pinch myself into the reality that I’m looking out at a golf course on the other side of a charming little lake visited daily by various birds, including egrets, herons, and ducks.  That protected ecosystem is a peaceful reminder that there are other environments, that don’t include human traffic jams, useless rushes to get somewhere else, the annoying intrusion of cell phones, conversations the rest of us don’t want to hear, and blaring television sets playing silly programs, like “The Wrist Watch Channel.”  Drinking my coffee each morning in that room with that view gives me a different perspective on everything else and energizes me by putting me in touch with nature at her best.  There’s something glorious and inspiring about seeing a flock of snow white herons resting on the lake’s banks and then seeing a flash of white wings against a blue sky.  What better way to begin my day?

I have binoculars so that I can watch the golfers on the other side of the lake and their struggles in an out of sand traps and the occasional temper tantrum, sometimes from old men wearing Bermuda shorts, Izod polo shirts, straw hats, black shoes, and black socks.  Those scenes make me wonder what the herons think of it all.

I’ve met many of my neighbors, mostly retirees, who are wonderful people, always taking time for a little chat and to make a fuss over my Westie, Dudley, who loves the attention.

With the help of my GPS, and friends, I’m slowly learning where things are down here and the best routes. People seem generally friendly and less in a hurry than in places I’ve lived up north.  The other retirees I’ve met savor time and rarely seem rushed. Of course, that should be an important component of retirement anyway, but that’s not true everywhere else.  That’s probably one of the reasons people down here live longer than in other areas of the country.

My first week here Last December was warm and humid, due to the pocket of Caribbean air that blew away after a few days.  I haven’t needed the air conditioning since and have been able to leave my windows open for cross ventilation from the Atlantic Ocean breezes. Daytime temperatures are usually in the seventies or lower eighties with night time temps in the fifties or sixties.

I feel more physically active here and play Bocce Ball every Friday morning from ten ’til twelve.  I hope also to start some regular card groups for Canasta and pinochle, as well as for Mexican Train dominoes. I and three friends are planning a rotation of Sunday dinners, each of us preparing a meal for the others one Sunday per month.

Do I miss the snow and ice?  I miss only those times in Colorado, sitting with a cup of hot cocoa beside a fire, looking out at a snowy landscape.  I don’t miss shoveling snow and using a snow thrower with a scarf over my face when the temperature hovers around zero.  Snow scenes that charm us are found usually just on Christmas cards, not with snow plows, overturned cars, and the dirty slush that snow becomes so quickly after its first and ephemeral moments of pristine beauty.

I end this entry as I look out over the ripples on the lake, my dog Dudley watching a family of ducks gliding past our terrace window.  JB

On December 3, my old friend Pam, my dog Dudley, and I  left my house in Centennial, Colorado in order to drive to Pompano Beach, Florida, where my partner Jim and I bought a condominium last April as our eventual retirement home.  Jim will not be able to retire for at least another two years, but I wanted to go earlier to establish residence and take care of the condo.  Pam came with me for moral support, as driving has always been a threatening experience for me that I seem able to take only in small doses. Driving, however, was necessary due to my fear of shipping pets, which can be very dangerous and traumatizing for dogs and cats.  The result was that Pam, Duds, and I took our time, eating our meals along the way and staying at motels each night.  We drove about ten hours per day and arrived at the Pompano Beach condo on Thursday afternoon of December 6. The trip was almost 2400 miles.

In contrast to Denver, Pompano Beach was, during the first three or four days, very warm and humid because of a pocket of air from the Caribbean that lingered, forcing us to use the air conditioning, even at this time of year.  Pam and I had a good time despite the muggy air, but it blew away by the following Wednesday, allowing me to open all the windows to enjoy the pleasant sea breezes. Pam flew back to Illinois on December 10.

Today is December 26, and though I have enjoyed very much being with friends here, Christmas was unusual because of the weather being 80 degrees.  That was a first for me. The sound of sleigh bells doesn’t really work here, and People putting big plastic snowmen on their front lawns seems an affront to reason, but then there are many other things that at this time of year seem an affront to reason, not just in Florida.

I’m getting more used to being here each day, and Duds has acclimated splendidly.  We have things down to a routine, and I still glory in the fact that I can swim each afternoon in the outdoor swimming pool. I’m learning where places like my bank, the barber, grocery stores, post office, etc. are, but it will be a while before I feel completely at home.  Thank goodness for friends!

Jim will be visiting next month, probably becoming as spoiled as I have become in not having to shovel snow or chip ice off the car’s windshield. His coming here to settle after retiring will give him something wonderful to look forward to, and because he was born and raised in this part of the country, it will be for him like coming home.  JB

I’m guessing that most of us share unpleasant memories from childhood of going to the dentist, especially if we can recall those times during the 1950’s and 1960’s of antiseptic smelling waiting rooms with tables strewn with issues of magazines like “Field and Stream,” “Readers Digest,” “Humpty Dumpty,” and “Your Journey to a Happy Smile.”

The equipment in the the actual inner sanctum always looked as though Dr. Goodman had purchased it from the torture chamber of some medieval castle. The long arms of shiny, robotic-looking creatures  loomed over our heads and above the little sinks into which we spat blood, chips of old teeth, and whatever saliva that might have remained.  The old dental drills made smoke of tooth enamel, and sounds that could make most people flee screaming into the streets.  Unlike our family GP, our dentist didn’t offer us kids suckers or other candy as bribes or blissful distractions from what was about to happen in that inner chamber. In those days injections were not buffered by numbing gel or by little theater screens playing DVD’s of Peter Pan that now take our minds away from the trauma of the dental experience.

Those images linger still in my psyche, where they remain haunting reminders of the terrors, real or imagined, I have saved from childhood, including those dark remembrances of Mr. Tooth Decay wearing his black cape in pictures provided by Miss Fowler, my kindergarten teacher, whose dental dictum of “Up and down…and all around” was the daily message about the proper way to brush our teeth.  The happy tooth was our goal.

Also, there is something intimidating about the usual quizzes we endure, which generally begin with questions like, “Have you been flossing regularly?” or “Are you brushing at least twice daily?”  I always feel disappointed in my answers and often come perilously close to downright lies to cover my disgraceful negligence.  However, considering the fact that for teeth cleaning sessions, I usually arrive with enough plaque and tartar to start a ceramic factory,  lies would prove too embarrassing and transparent.  Whenever my teeth are cleaned the place sounds like a sculptor’s studio or workshop, scraping and chipping as though with a big chisel, more stuff chipped off than Michealangelo discarded in creating his statue of David.  No, it makes no sense for me to enter the dentist’s office in any other way but sheepishly, regretfully, penitently as though preparing for confession before an ordained priest.

In the end, it’s probably simply mind over matter through my creating imaginings far worse than anything that reality brings.  I now have a wonderful dentist, Dr. Mullins, who has never once exposed me to the slightest pain.  Everything is done with tremendous courtesy and the most advanced technology.  My visit to his office this past week was for teeth cleaning and a temporary crown, which will be made permanent in two weeks.  Dentistry has come a long way, but I can still see my mother before those ordeals of my visits to the dentist, and I can hear her saying, “ It’s mind over matter, but of course, if you don’t have a mind, it doesn’t matter.” Then she would simply smile.

Political rivalry can create a polarization so extreme, that one’s head can swim in the vitriol created by both sides.  I’d like to step back for a moment from my personal political inclinations to look at the panorama of slings and arrows being used by both Republicans and Democrats.

Fox News and MSNBC are two examples of the extremes people support in trying to put over their candidates for president. There is good and bad in both.  It’s easy to become almost hypnotized by one side or the other if you don’t try to get on some kind of middle ground, but it seems that both parties are blaming each other for every hangnail in the nation. It’s a time of scapegoats. I do believe in fact-checking, as long as that research is done in a non-partisan way (if there is such a thing).  I hate political equivocation, which in both parties manages to carve away just enough truth to create views so prejudiced that the truth could win a prize for the best costume at any masquerade party, fooling anyone who isn’t extra cautious about where the facts lie. Stretching the truth seems to be very popular this season, complementing outright lies so outrageous that many voters, their brains having become anvils accustomed to being pounded by partisan ads, seem too stunned to know the difference anymore.

I am most suspicious of those whose acidic comments are more personal than political, comments cloaked in silly rhetoric sloping toward utter absurdity.  These are the people who come off as being just more of the same self-righteous, pompous windbags we have all heard for way too long on the extreme right and the extreme left.  Finding that sane balance somewhere between is harder than it has ever been before.  That doesn’t stop my longing to find  a middle ground, where reason prevails in terms of cooperation aimed at getting things done for the country itself instead of for a particular party with its power plays, vain images of personal glory, and the same old intellectual and partisan constipation in congress from which the country has been suffering for much too long.  JB