Welcome to Bud’s Blog

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes – Marcel Proust

Sometimes Older Eyes work, too – Bud

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Necessary Definitions

Sage – a wise man; a man of gravity and wisdom; especially, a man venerable for years, and of sound judgment and prudence.

Curmudgeon – an ill-tempered old person full of stubborn ideas or opinions.

Fool – A person with poor judgment or little intelligence; a jester, a person whose role was to entertain a sovereign and the court, often with foolishness.
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I’ve been wondering lately what it would be like to be able to relive my life knowing what I know now. Or if I was able to give my grown children a view of the world through my Older Eyes, would it change their lives? Here’s a provocative proposition: If I could get every twenty-year old to look at the world through sixty-four year old eyes for just a few minutes, it would either change them for the better or kill them. Provocative but probably not true. I doubt there are many young men making bucket lists as a result of watching Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

With a do-over unlikely and getting my children to listen to my archaic opinions only slightly less so, I’ll record the view through my Older Eyes here in Bud’s Blog.   As you read each post, you decide … Sage, Curmudgeon, or Fool … we can agree to disagree on which is which. Your comments are welcome, whatever your age.   If what you read changes you for the better, I’d especially like to know.   Hopefully there will be no casualties.   If you are new here and want a taste of my Older Perspective before diving in, The Best of Feeling Older offers a few of my favorite posts on aging.  Finally, if my work inspires you to try blogging … or even if you think, Jeez, I can do this better than Older Eyes – there are a series of posts on doing just that on my page, Starting a WordPress Blog.

Irony

I’ve had a case of blogger’s block lately, at least in part because I’ve been trying to avoid posting about politics since the Republican menagerie was sworn into the U.S. Senate.  But a story today about Marjorie Taylor Greene was such low hanging fruit, I couldn’t resist posting about it. Headline:

Marjorie Taylor Greene ‘Attacked’
by Woman While at Restaurant

Green was quoted in Newsweek as saying, that a woman and her son started shouting at her like “demons” while she was working with her staff on Monday evening, saying that the two of them were “completely out of control.”   In referring to her tormentors, she went on to say, They are self-righteous, insane and completely out of control.  People used to respect others even if they had different views.  But not anymore.  Our country is gone.  This from the shrew who recently heckled the president of the United State during his State of the Union address.   I wonder if MTG could possibly see the Irony of her statement.  I doubt if she even knows the meaning of the word.  She will say anything to get in the news because news coverage means attention and attention means contributions from the MAGA right.   The phrase Taste of your own Medicine comes to mind.

Perhaps it is time for Democrats to take the gloves off and treat these people the way they treat others.  Yeah, I know.  We don’t gain anything by stooping to their level.   Well, except for some satisfaction.

Earworms

I woke up this morning with an Earworm.  No, not an earwig.    You don’t know what that is?  Yes, it is different than an earwig. According to Mirriam Webster, an Earworm is song or melody that keeps repeating in one’s mind after it is no longer playing.  According to Psychology Today, one study found that nearly 92% of people report having such an experience once a week or more frequently.  I definitely fall in the more frequently category.  For me, there are good earworms and bad earworms.  A Bad Earworm plays and replays catchy songs that I hate or even worse, commercial jingles.  Think Meow Mix (Meow, meow, meow, meow. Meow, meow, meow, meow. Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow).   My Earworm today is a good Earworm, meaning it is a song I really like even though I’d like to turn it off for a while.  I contracted this Earworm listening to a live performance by on YouTube.   A forgotten song pops up, often by a performer I haven’t heard in a while, always with catchy lyrics and tune, and … CLICK … the music player in my brain starts playing it, over and over.  Today’s Earworm is typical …the tune is On the Radio by Donna Summer, a great song by a performer I perhaps underappreciated.

Burt

This morning I awoke to the news that Burt Bacharach had died at the age of 94.  I occasionally write about the sound track of my life, the hundreds … maybe thousands … of songs that not only touched me but connected with something that was happening in my life at the time they came out. We are so fortunate that Mr. Bacharach hit his stride as a composer in the sixties when sentimental lyrics set to catchy tunes featuring majestic harmonies with abrupt key changes and ornate time signatures (per The Washington Post) were part of the pop music landscape.  He would have been a magnificent songwriter in any era but is hard to imagine him adapting his style to today’s soulless auto-tuned,, hip-hop driven pop music. I am happy to have had his writing prime coincide with my young-adult listening prime, even if that means I’m 78 years old.

A Tale of Two Georges

When I was in grammar school (shortly after the dinosaurs disappeared from the earth), I regularly heard the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree.   As the story goes, when George was 6 years old, he received a hatchet for his birthday.  Apparently, there was no Consumer Product Safety Commission back then to advise what gifts were safe for kids.   George took his new toy out and chopped down a cherry tree which happened to be his father’s favorite.  Furious, George’s father, Augustine, confronted the boy, demanding to know who had cut it down.   George, already showing the integrity that would be a hallmark of his life, responded, Father, I cannot tell a lie.  It was I.  Legend has it that Augustine was so pleased with his son’s truthful response that he praised the boy and forgave his mistake.   There is no real evidence that this story in in fact true. but it was very popular with teachers and parents to teach children the importance of telling the truth.

The Portal

If you are a college football fan, you probably think this post is about the NCAA Football transfer portal, which allows players enrolled at one school to transfer at any time as long as they have remaining eligibility.   It’s not.  This post is about the online Health Portal which comes with my health plan here in Utah.  By signing on to The Portal, I can make appointments with my doctors, request refills of prescriptions, check the dates of previous visits and review the results of those visits.   For person who doesn’t like using the phone, isn’t good with dates and doesn’t maintain a personal calendar recording everything I do (as my wife does), it is a Godsend for monitoring my health care.   Another feature is that results of tests, from simple blood work to MRIs, show up quickly in The Portal, often a day or two before the doctor gats back to you with the results.  That is a feature on which my wife and I have a difference of opinion.  She waits to hear what her doctor says about the results and I look as soon as the results appear in The Portal.

Winter Ramble

Years ago, when I participated in WordPress’ Post-A-Day, I would occasionally wake with no inspiration for the day’s post.   On those days, I would post what I came to call a Ramble, a post that starts with no place to go and often stays that way.   Here we are on the sixth day of January 2023, a year in which one of my (unwritten) resolutions is to post more often.   In 2023, I have posted exactly once.   If I go back and look at my list of posts for 2022, I find that I posted fifty-five times last year, which means I posted on average, every 6.6 days … so six days into the 2023, I find myself on the verge of breaking my resolution to post more.  Therefore, dear readers, you get a Ramble.

Not Resolutions

   Courtesy Washington Post

There was a time, I made New Years resolutions every year and posted them on New Years Day here on Oldereyes – Bud’s Blog.  The last time I did that was 2014.   Sometimes, I would grade myself on how well I kept them at the end of the year.  I was not an honor student.   At some point, I realized I was making basically the same resolutions every year, so I decided to convert my resolutions to a daily checklist that lives on my phone.   For a while I religiously recorded my self-improvement performance daily … until after a while I didn’t.  Oh, I know what’s on the checklist and try to follow my goals but nothing gets recorded.   There is a part of me wants to spontaneously be a better person and there is part that doesn’t want to be bothered.  My Inner Curmudgeon says, You are 78 years old.  You are what you are.  Still, I think resolutions are good for the soul … and unlike my mother, I don’t believe the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Without good intentions, we never improve, and the same Mom that warned against good intentions taught me that life is for growing.

Delayed

If there is a hell … and I am in fact bound there … the perfect torture would be sitting in an airport, waiting for a flight that is delayed.   Originally, say, it was scheduled for 11:42, boarding at 11:02.  It is now10:30 and I have been sitting at the gate for almost an hour trying to ignore the guy in the next row talking loudly into his phone, closing the deal of the century.  Seriously, don’t you wonder if there’s no one on the line and these guys just want to sound important. There is a gaggle of business folks returning from a convention, bursting with comradery and yucking it up about something that happened as they finished the day in the hotel bar.   There’s a family with three adorable kids who just got off a connecting flight and are so full of energy spontaneous combustion is not out of the question.  They squeal and laugh and run.  I love kids but I hate airports which cancels out the love of kids.   As I am fetching my Bose noise cancelling headphones from my carry-on, I look up just in time to see the departure time click from 11:42 to Delayed 12:05 on the flight status board.  Shit!   And over the next two hours, the flight delay will advance maddeningly in 20 minute increments until either the flight is cancelled or, finally, blessedly, the loudspeaker announce We will begin boarding in 20 minutes.   But wait.   This is hell!   The flight delays go on for eternity and the businessman never stops talking and the conference goers laugh louder and louder and more adorable kids show up and my headphone batteries are dead.  I would be pulling out may hair if I had any.

I bring this up because at 9:30 am we were just getting ready to leave for the airport to send Christmas with our grandkids in Texas.   For three lovely years they live only ten minutes away, so enjoying Christmas morning with them didn’t require trips to the airport.  But now they live in Texas and we have to fly to see them.   Fortunately, my daughter texted us that our flight had been delayed just before we were ready to leave for the airport, so I was spared.   After three delays, it looks like we will be leaving two and a half hours late (since the incoming flight is finally on it’s way).  So, here I sit, passing the time by writing this post and grateful it’s just another day at the airport.  But of course, our outgoing flight could still be delayed due to weather in Dallas (believe it or not, it’s colder there than it is here in Utah).  But I know we’ll get there eventually because my wife is entirely too good to be sentenced to airport hell.

Brisket and Jelly Donuts

This morning my wife rolled out of bed at 7 am to put a brisket in the slow cooker. She then fed our cat and when he was done eating, she sent him in to wake me, which he did willingly. Twenty minutes later we were on our way to Star Donuts in Draper to pick up a half dozen jelly donuts. Now, I will tell you that as we venture into our late seventies, we don’t see 7 am very often. I do wake that early once a week to take care of cats at Best Friends Animal Society, but that is about it for early rising. So, did we have a sudden craving for Brisket and Jelly Donuts? Nope. It is the second night of Hannukah and we are having friends for a traditional Hannukah dinner. Jelly Donuts, you say? I’ll get to that in a minute.

Political Fundraising

For a few years, I posted every day.  It was work, coming up with a topic and writing every day.  I am now retired, and I post when I am so inclined, which seems to be once or twice a week.   Sometimes, it is because I am inspired.   Sometimes, it is because a topic appears in this old brain and will keep me awake nights until I write it.   And sometimes, it is because something bugs the crap out of me and I have to get it off my chest. Today’s post is the latter.

I consider myself a good citizen.   I follow what is going on in our various levels of government, try to evaluate election candidates carefully and I always vote.  At this point in my life, I am a moderate which means it is hard to find a home in either party.  I have never been inclined to donate to political causes or candidates.  Until 2020.   When Donald Trump turned out to be far worse than my initial opinion of him (which was a pretty low bar in the first place) and seemed to me to be a threat to the country I love, I contributed substantially to the Democratic Party and was overjoyed when Joe Biden won.  Of course, by contributing regularly, I placed myself on every Democratic fundraiser in the country.  And so, as this year’s midterms rolled around, I found my text inbox littered with requests for contributions to election campaigns all over the country.  While that is indeed a nuisance, it is not the number of solicitations that drive me crazy, it is their nature.  Here are a few examples from my inbox in the last few days;