Funerals

This afternoon I went to a funeral for the daughter of a friend I don’t know very well. But it seemed appropriate to go. I wanted to affirm my friend, a Tai Chi guru, let her know how sorry I am that she had lost her daughter - so untimely!  Her daughter was the exact same age as my oldest son. I can only imagine what a tragedy it must be to lose a child!

This is the fourth funeral I have attended in this chapel since I have lived here in this town. By now, I know where my seat is, the last spot in the last row of pews so I can make a timely exit. The cast of characters in all these funerals have a strange sameness, and the person conducting the ceremony is always religious in a generic Christian sort of way.

This one today started an hour later than the time we thought. This would have driven me crazy except that I was seated next to my best Tai Chi friend and we passed the time exchanging all kinds of personal information we never had known about each other.

These funerals are just for grieving families and friends. Usually there are videos of photos of the deceased, and everyone appreciates this and we have something to look at as the photos roll on and keep on looping.

Here, for funerals, the folks wear their usual sturdy clothes and the men never take off their ball caps. Women wear outrageously inappropriate get ups, sometimes featuring extremely short and strapless dresses and cowboy boots. Seems just great.

I remember some other funerals I have attended for famous people in the Washington Cathedral where pews were cordoned off for the sitting President and the speakers were revered. (No ball caps in that crowd.)

But whatever the funeral was, they are the same in that people have to mark the passing of their kin.

When you have to deal with a death in the family, you are grieving and in shock. At this point you have no plan so it seems best to get a church or funeral home to arrange everything.

When Nelson Pointer. the founder of the St. Pete Times, now the Tampa Bay Times, died he specifically directed that nothing would mark his passing. His successor, Gene Patterson, planned what he wanted, and we all went to his dignified funeral and wept together with this closure on his wonderful life.

But, I always was sad not to have had the opportunity to mark the passing of Mr.Poynter.

Just letting you know, what I want as the closure of my life is to be cremated and then for everybody who has known me and been touched by me to gather for a wonderful celebration outdoors with great food and music and joy. Scatter my ashes where you want.

Going nutty with technology!

It’s a dirty little secret that even the millennials, for the most part, haven’t a clue about the technology they use every day. It’s true that their thumbs fly over the keys and can come up with where to eat in Topeka or how old an alligator gets to be on average. They are familiar and friendly with their smart phones and they are constantly checking and checking.

But ask one of them to sit down with you at a regular computer to help you figure out how to get rid of some annoying thing that keeps popping up, or how to manage the ever increasing passwords, or give me tips on managing a huge amount of photos, or, or.. They can’t do it.

I know that for sure, eventually, I will find out the answers because the technology we use is instinctual, algorithmic, and somehow, we finally get how to do it. As soon as we get used to some way to achieve the end, there is a BRAND NEW FREE UPGRADE! - for all of our devices. So, we hunker down and learn a new routine.

Lots of people my age (old) dutifully go to the computer workshops in stores and libraries to learn more. But, I know, that as soon as they learn this and that it will be all changed! Upgraded!

I am glad to have lived long enough to have been able to experience the birth of the internet, and I believe it has been the most important thing to happen in my lifetime. The incredible speed of the development of technology stuns and delights me. It comes with a cost to we slowly evolving humans.

This evening as we were leaving the airport and we were in a line of cars to pay for parking, I was surprised that so many cars opted for the cashier line where there was an actual human being to take the cash. Even so, several cars ahead of us fumbled with the touch screen machine (“what do I do? what do I do?”)  Do we humans have to catch the technology, or will technology have to wait for us?

A few people I know do not have cell phones! I think of it as a funny and dear idiosyncrasy. I also think that they are missing out on the incredible fun of being in the slick and shiny and wondrous world of instant information. Probably it isn’t safe not to have a smart phone. But we oldsters have gotten to this age without them. Remember phone booths?

Hello! 

I am beginning a new blog. Facebook just doesn’t do it for me. I need to write longer than Twitter or Instagram, and, frankly, I cannot keep up with all the rest whose requirements keep shrinking in the verbiage they allow. 

The name for this blog comes from the name of a dear woman in my community who, at almost ninety, attends a twice weekly jazzercise workout, still dyes her hair and shows up at the community book club, She has a lot to say! And she has the experience of the ages. She is my role model. 

I will be writing more on Ms. Josephine.

In these times I have made peace with the fact that anything can be hacked, there is no privacy on the internet. Facebook is too personal and there are all those “friends” in the neighborhood who turn out to be racists and misogynists or venting venom or posting Hallmark religiosity. So many of these folks are basically good people as I see them in the community. But I want to do more than post a love symbol.

So, this blog may be offensive at times, but it will never be cruel or impolite. Just saying.

I live in the rural south on a large property in the middle of the most magnificent swamp in the U.S. We think it is paradise. We have a herd of cows who meander between the pastures among the wetlands. We grow a large vegetable garden that feeds us for eight months of the year.

My husband and I are retired to this place, glad to be out of the urban rat race, and happy to take up the chores of the pastoral life. 

These days we are on edge worrying about the coming election for President. How could it have happened that this unsuitable man, Trump, could have gotten this far? Everyone thought that he would implode months back. My neighbors will all be voting for him. These folks run up the Confederate flag on their flagpoles, they all have many guns. They made up their minds months back and NOTHING will change their minds. 

More to come.