Prescription-Mellow

Happy Hour Morro Bay, Ca

Halter Ranch Vineyard, Paso Robles appellation

      At risk of sounding self evident, everything is relative.

      I was sinking into depression as I read a favored blogger who lamented his approaching turn to 61. He reflected how quickly the last year passed and how in just a few more quick passes he will be 70 when he noted it will be "hard to ignore the reality," the reality of which he wrote are "the intimations of mortality!"  Gosh, thanks a lot pal!

      I raised it at coffee after a 90 minute tennis slug fest with another elder boomer and a couple of battlers a few years ahead. The gents in our circle on the coffee deck at Lily's are of a similar age. We noted village elders in their 90's who are dynamos of activity, including tennis and pickle ball and civic groups. The number of 80 somethings who run, play court games, lawn bowl, hike, kayak, bike, dance or find romance are too numerous to count. 70 year olds are like the 40-50 year old's back east, with full engagement in everything, including surfing that stretches the body in extraordinary ways. 60 year olds here are teeny boppers. 50 and below are the kids.
      Our "circle of wisdom" agreed that attitudes about age in our village on the Central California Coast are schematically different than those back east. Given the blessing of health, age is relative, and relatively younger here. Or so we have convinced ourselves. 

       You could argue that we are surrounded by beauty, without freeways, urban sprawl or high density humanity. True and that helps but one of the youngest people I know is our friend Tod, who lives in the heart of New York City. A dancer, choreographer, artist and renaissance thinker, Tod has mentored generations of creative spirits. He is north of 80 but his passion for life, learning and expression makes me think he has the fountain of youth on tap in his kitchen. It is a mind set, like so many of our friends here. 
      In Indianapolis I served on the board of an historical, Presidential Home and was surprised when two powerful and influential men, still fully engaged, needed to retire from the board when they reached 65. They had years of experience and yet had years of service to give, but "retirement age" was a custom, part of the cultural mores. 

        Relativity-age and vitality, creativity and passion, setting and culture. If fate smiles health upon you, the calendar need not imprison or limit. I wish my mid-western Geezer writing friend good recovery from a blown knee, success in his goal of walking every street in his city and 9 years to get younger so when he reaches 70 he won't be thinking of the end of things but rather the continuation of the sweetness and opportunity that comes with each sunrise. 

harvest is for grapes

    Grape growers and wine makers expect an earlier harvest this year. In some vineyards, that means soon.

          From the "captain of the watch," Cheers!

    See you down the trail.

"YOU WHO ARE ON THE ROAD" and BEYOND THE PARTY

'BECAUSE THE PAST IS JUST GOODBYE'

   The CSNY lyrics have been playing in my head the last few days. Life's trail has delivered us to another side. 

      "And you of tender years 

     can't know the fears that your elders grew by.

     And so please help them with your youth,

     They seek the truth before they can die."

     There was a time and it doesn't seem so long ago when we stood on one side of that time scape, but now the view has changed.

THE MENTOR REACHES A MAJORITY

   The door opened on these musings when my long time pal, one time colleague and mentor began plans for his 75th birthday.

    Bruce Taylor, aka The Catalyst of the blogosphere, is one of the old guard and he has friends of the same ilk.

     These old boys were once hell bent for leather newsmen.

We were of the generation that worked hard in the pursuit of the evening's news, because it was a good thing to do. Family time, meals, days off, hostile weather or surroundings, distances, dangers and the like were of less concern than getting the story and getting it told. I guess we sensed a kind of entitlement because of the importance of what we were about and so we'd push it. 

     At the party our mentor, second from the left, reminded us of the old adage, "it's better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission." We lived that way. There was no place off limits, no question unaskable, no speed limit or big shot so important as to stand between us and the job-a job we believed was being done for the public's good and right to know.

    We were of a generation of smoke filled news rooms or edit bays, with colleagues that worked, played and drank hard. Sometimes too hard! But that was then.

        I'm happy to see my old pal living the genteel life of a retiree, enjoying the beauty of his surroundings. But it launches ponderings about where is it all going and so quickly. Once we were on the edge, now we are on the sideline.

  I hope he'll tell me someday what thoughts were behind this expression as he beheld his 75th. This is one of the all time great deadline kings, raconteurs and madmen! So if he is 75, is it time for us to grow up?        Naw!

  Thanks to Judy and Gail for preparing such a wonderful feast and two days of party. It was good to connect with a couple of other older boys as well.  

   So as I ponder the complexities and mystery of the calendar and passing equinoxes I offer a series of shots, as a kind of advice for Old Taylor, cat lover that he is. Maybe we should all do a little more of this.

   

     So in the meantime, you of a certain age,

    "teach your children what you believe in

     Make a world we can live in…"

    "…and feed them on your dreams

    the one they picked, the one they'll know by…"

    See you down the trail. 

    

   

    

YEP, THE SEASON'S TURNED-THE WEEKENDER

JUST WAITING

   I remember hearing a Harry Reasoner commentary many years ago where he said "Labor day was like a new, new year."  His logic was that everything sort of stars over then.

   Well, he was right that with summer ending there is a kind of final lap of the year, but as I got older, raised daughters, discovered more home owner chores and lived in the country I found that fall is something different than Reasoner's idea.

    As my friend Frank now does, I put up wood for the winter and put Hatteras shutters on a screened porch, and styrofoam around foundation, basement and/or crawl space openings. And I got out the snow shovel.

    Each step along the path toward winter reminded me, the summer party is over, the beach is closed.

     A lot about this time of year is an homage to waiting.  Maybe some fitness or travel dreams are put on the shelf until next year as we go about preparing for the oncoming end of the year holidays, a distant patch of light.

    Again, my friend Frank had a "wisdom" about the time from Thanksgiving to the New Year.  He said "nothing gets done."  
    At the time he and I were journalists who were looking to improve our lot by developing and producing a television series. I can't begin to tell you how many times I have quoted him over the years.

   But I've also learned there is a special quality to fall.  It seems to be a natural frame for reflection, gathering with family and friends, contemplating a kind of intellectual or spiritual pre winter-hibernation preparation.  

   Putting up wood, winterizing, cleaning a garden and the like are all cues for a recognition that we have about completed another circuit of the sun.  But the older we get, the more quickly the beach seems to open again. Even our waiting seems to fly by.

THE WEEKENDER VIDEO

Please take six minutes to see this

fascinating display about the real wealth 

distribution in the US.  I suspect that regardless of

what you think, you'll be amazed.

See you down the trail.