WallPaper
I found a
fresh jar of Kava in the alphabetical mover’s carton between Jerky and Lemon
juice. I poured a tall glass halfway full,
straight from the cold water faucet, added a generous spoonful of Kava, then
some sweetener, stirred it all in a vigorous hurricane style and then added
cubes of the final ingredient for iced coffee.
We’ve
moved. There are lots of upsides to downsizing. Furniture, clothing, books,
electronics went to family, friends and charities by the ton. Ask almost any
Veldman, even a Wall or two, about the tonnage, much of it hauled up stairways
and down stairways, around and over obstacles fixed in place years ago by
determined plumbers and carpenters.
If you were
planning ways to downsize from a large home to a smaller one, you might turn
out a new home just like this one. Our move took us almost literally from one
end of Orland Park to the other. In the big house I used to think that a mild
nudge would slide us out of Cook county and into Will county. Our new address
is in Orland Park also, but the back door is not many steps from the Palos Park
boundary line, maybe 20 minutes closer to Midway Airport.
Marie and
Mark, my daughter and son-in-law, have brought the vibes of affection, fun and
caring along to this new address. Whether it is the five-pound tail-wagger
learning the ways of an invisible fence for dogs, or a 91-year-old grandpa enjoying electronic
super-gadgets and health gear only dreamed of by childhood space hero Buck
Rogers, everybody thinks this place is dandy. And dandy is the word for Mark
and Marie.
Along with
moving sofas, there’s the less muscular issue of moving the postal mail.
Friends and magazines have to be told. This move came just as my credit card
expired and was to be renewed for another three years. Simple, except that all
automatic payments of bills via that credit card come to a stop. The new
expiration date has to be applied to each one.
I began
with my monthly dues to the National Press Club. I emailed my message of change
and added that I appreciated the club’s decision some time ago to collect dues
monthly instead of yearly. I hardly noticed the modest monthly charge.
That led to
a return email from the National Press Club in Washington. I learned that I do
not pay any dues to the club, and that’s why I hardly noticed it. After 50
years in the club, a member becomes a Golden Owl and no longer pays dues.
Finally, a hooter.
I give a
hoot over what happened in Orlando. The horror is immense and the implications
are still unwinding. Violence and hatred force their way into cities as
hospitable, progressive and charming as Orlando, just as they appear in other
unexpected ways and places.
When I was
a kid it was common wisdom that a Catholic would never be elected president of
the United States, nor would an African American, nor would the candidacy of a
woman be taken seriously. Jews were denied rooms in some hotels, home ownership
in some neighborhoods and membership in some clubs. Black citizens were
subjected to wider restrictions, especially in justice, politics and education.
Just as white men and women were active abolitionists during the shame of
slavery, white legislators, judges and journalists of my generation fought
successfully for civil rights laws. The conscience of a nation was enlarged in
a couple of generations, not long in terms of history but each moment was too
long for the victims.
I’m no
longer that kid who was born during the Coolidge administration, growing up in
the Great Depression, coming of age during World War II. The population of the
USA was not much more than a third of what it is today. Most of the action in
commerce and agriculture seemed to be east of the Mississippi. Radio was big,
newspapers were bigger. Television was still a notion awaiting motion. John
Dillinger and Al Capone were famous, but crime and drugs seemed tamer than they
were to become.
Religion
was everywhere, in the Easter Parade, in the Catholic Legion of Decency and the
banning of books in Boston, in the serving of fish in Friday school lunches and
Bing Crosby crooning Christian music in the movies. The Methodists and others
enacted Prohibition for a while, then the country repealed it and the crime it
nurtured. The prohibition idea was applied to drugs, but it put huge numbers of
prisoners into prisons at great social and monetary cost. It stimulated more
crime.
Christians
do not seem to be taking religion as seriously any more, in North America and
Europe especially. Marriage is more optional. Mosques are being built, but not
so many churches or synagogues. I’d like to be around to see how this works
out, but I have lived through the most stimulating years in human history, years
of invention more than convention.
I’ve been loved and I’ve been hated. I’ve been
cheered and despised. I’ve been right and I’ve been wrong. In school I was
taught cursive writing and the use of blotters. I took classes in mechanics and
woodworking, using methods and tools now in museums, and with the rest of the
boys I learned about blueprints while the girls sewed. There’s an invisible
cosmic blueprint for goodness, for good impulses, and I think that blueprint is
adapted to worship everywhere. So don’t be surprised, if you’re one of my
friends of atheist, Jewish, Muslim, Christian or even Republican persuasion, if
sometimes you see the blueprint maker in the mind’s eye, or any eye.
In my teens I survived a strep
infection because my doctor decided to try something new, called penicillin.
Medical knowledge moves on and someday there will be a cure for multiple system
atrophy (MSA). Having it has not turned me into a snob, but it is a rare, if not
exclusive, disease. Doctors call it progressive. I call it aggressive. It
tampers with the brain. It causes dizziness and other distractions,
and thanks to my children and their spouses and their children — John Wall and Pam Heyda, who will arrive
here today from San Francisco for a visit; Drs. Marie and Mark Veldman, the
outsized downsizers; and David and Toni Wall, who were just here from
Seattle for a week — I am spared much of the exasperation of it. But writing
becomes physically demanding like rock climbing, so I’ll be
downsizing these essays. I used to get paid by the word. Old habits are the
toughest. So are old men.
