Tribute to an Unforgettable Garbage Man; Pamplin Avenue 03

The alley behind our house in North St. Louis was used primarily as a means of accessing garages and as a service corridor to collect trash and garbage. One early summer morning shortly after turning five years old, I was feeling particularly full of the old Nick, as my grandmother would say, and decided to give Jack, my older and much wiser brother, a demonstration of my stout-hearted courage. As the black men walked down the alley alongside the enormous garbage truck I boldly strutted to the rear fence and, in the brave voice of a little boy secure in his own back yard, called the nearest black man an offensive name I had heard from play-mates in the neighborhood, “Hey, you jigaboo.”

Without missing a beat the man gave me a hard look, slowly pulled an object from his front pocket, and held it up. He pressed a button and as if by magic a long, slim, shiny blade seemed to leap from nowhere. His grin was pure malice as he put the knife to his throat and pretended to cut from ear to ear.

Jack, my previously giggling witness, and I slowly backed toward the now too distant house, terrified. The black man easily vaulted the low fence and reached out as if to grab us. We bolted for the house, screaming at the top of our lungs as if a dozen fire-breathing dragons were in hot pursuit. Up the porch we flew, running through the house, down the basement stairs, screaming all the way, until we squeezed behind the huge octopus-like furnace in a space so tight no adult-sized person could possibly fit, quivering in silent terror lest he find us and slit our soft, white throats.

Even when Mom came downstairs and finally figured out where we were hiding, we refused to obey her order to come out. We were too scared and balked at leaving our safe haven. Not until she went outside and checked the alley and assured us that the garbage men were long gone.

We were never punished for that misadventure. Just got serious lectures from both parents on treating people the way we wanted to be treated. In my mind, I have thanked on countless occasions the nameless but never forgotten black man for teaching a stupid little white boy a lifetime lesson in behavior.

A couple years before her death Mom and I laughed almost to the point of wetting our pants, remembering that story. She and Dad had discussed calling the City’s Sanitation Department and telling them what had happened. Not to cause trouble but as a way of thanking the man for teaching Jack and I an invaluable lesson in racial sensitivity. In the end, they decided that the man would likely be punished or fired by a supervisor without a sense of humor or an ounce of social conscience. So, they let it slide. But neither my brother nor I ever forgot that lesson or the nameless black sanitation worker who taught it.

Pamplin Avenue 02

Once we get past infancy and into early childhood I’m into territory that’s increasingly familiar. One incident is so fresh in my mind it is as if it happened only a few years ago. Mom and Dad promised Jack a Mickey Mouse watch if he learned to tell time before his fifth birthday, which was then about a month away. Of course he jumped on what he recognized as a golden opportunity, Mickey Mouse watches being the cat’s ass of the day. I was also excited, thinking that that was a piece of cake. Even at a little more than three an a half years old I had the attitude that anything Jack could do I could do better. And a lot faster.

So, that very day, a Saturday as Mom and I remembered in a conversation sometime in the early 1980s, I started learning time on a large wooden play clock with movable hands (similar to today’s Playschool clock). Believe me, the look of scorn on Jack’s face is still fresh in my mind as I concentrated on memorizing the numbers and their respective positions. Incidentally, I was reading and counting by that time.

Early Sunday afternoon Mom and Dad began quizzing Jack to encourage him and determine his progress. After a few questions it was obvious he was headed in the right direction but didn’t quite have it down. Especially with the numbers indicated by the clock’s small hand. Naturally, after he finished I jumped up and boldly announced that I knew how to tell time and they should ask me. That claim was greeted by no little skepticism by my parents and outright daggers from my justly irritated older brother. But my mother persuaded Dad to relent, saying that I should be given a chance too.

They began with the easy part, moving the big hand for the hours. Those I knew perfectly, even when they jumped around the clock face trying to confuse me. Then they got tough, switching to the minute hand. What number is this? They would move the hand. What number is that? Again the hand would change. Every time I had the correct response.

My father, growing increasingly impatient, then had me do both together, hour hand and minute hand. He was determined to prove that I really didn’t know how to tell time. Even as a small child I realized my father was growing angrier and angrier at each correct answer I gave. I thought I must be doing something wrong. They asked me every combination they could but I had the right answer each time. Finally, they both had to admit that there could be no mistake. I certainly did know how to tell time.

About 40 some-odd years later Mom related that story to me, marveling that Dad was furious because he had to buy two watches and not one. Never once did he acknowledge that I had done something praiseworthy. On Jack’s fifth birthday he received the coveted Mickey Mouse watch. As I did on my fourth birthday a little over two months later. But even then, despite my joy, I knew our rewards were not quite the same. I certainly remember the confusion and bewilderment I felt, even as Dad was browbeating me for accurately telling time. It was an experience to be repeated many times in my life.

Pamplin Avenue 01

Perhaps my clearest early memory is of getting in trouble, with a capital T, not long after turning three. For me, the most fascinating thing the new house on Pamplin Avenue we had just moved into was the dirty clothes chute, located off the main hall, between the living room and our bedroom. The chute led from the first floor to the laundry area in the basement immediately below. The chute had a circular lid, vaguely similar in size and shape to a small toilet lid, that was hinged above the opening to the vertical shaft. Perhaps I was drawn to the chute because it was situated only a foot higher than my head. If I dragged a footstool over and stood on my tip-toes, I could look down the chute directly to the dirty clothes hamper in the basement. That view and its promise called to me.

One day, not long after we had settled into the routine of the new home, I stuck my head in the chute and declared out loud that I could slide all the way to the clothes hamper in the basement. I sought immediately to recruit my brother, Jack, in the scheme. Naturally, being 14 months older and therefore wiser, he disapproved of such craziness. But, seeing that I was willing to take all the risk, he said he would “watch” me do it. Although I do not remember all the details, I’m sure a little goading entered the equation in the form of, “Bet you won’t do it,” or “I dare you.” I’m certain he covered his ass eventually by saying, “You better not. Mom will be mad.” Magic words that simply spurred me on.

Pumped with excitement to the point of exploding, I ran downstairs and shoved a load of dirty towels that Mom was preparing to wash that day back into the hamper to cushion the fall. Although I may have been an adventurous three-year-old I wasn’t stupid.

I hurried upstairs, grabbed the footstool, and positioned it in front of the chute. After making sure Mom wasn’t in the immediate vicinity I boosted myself into the chute head first, with a little help from my previously reluctant brother. After balancing precariously for a couple seconds on the lip of the chute, I tipped forward and down I slid toward the basement, arms stretched out in front like Superman. And promptly got stuck.

At first I tried to wiggle loose and continue my journey downward, convinced I could do it. No luck, the chute was too tight. Even my skinny three-year-old body was too large for the opening. That’s when the very tight quarters started working against me. I did the unthinkable and called for help from Jack. He grabbed my feet and pulled. To no avail. Of course, he panicked immediately and started to wail out loud, which started me crying because it was pretty damned frightening in that dark chute.

That’s when Jack lost it altogether and began screaming hysterically for our mother. Who came running to find her eldest son standing in the hallway crying his eyes out. When she asked him what was wrong he pointed toward the dirty clothes chute and said, “Bobby’s stuck.” Not understanding what was going on she opened the lid and nearly collapsed when she saw my feet sticking up in the chute.

Poor Mom didn’t know what to do. She was worried that if she pulled too hard I might be injured by a sharp piece of metal inside the chute. She thought about calling the fire department but quickly dismissed that idea because by that time I was growing more and more frightened by the possibility of being stuck there permanently and began yelling my fool head off. She simply took the bull by the horns, so to speak, grabbed my ankles, and cautiously but firmly pulled. Up and out I came, no worse for the experience, other than quite a few tears.

After a minute or two of maternal reassurance, hugs, and careful inspection of all the body parts, her parental disciplinarian streak asserted itself. Mom turned me over her knee and gave me a well-deserved spanking on the butt. Then, she stood me upright, shook me once or twice and in a properly exasperated tone demanded, “When will you be good, Bobby? When?”

Through my tears I sniffed and, without hesitation, replied, “Tuesday.”

Years later Mom told me she had to walk away because she knew she was going to laugh and didn’t want me to be wrongly encouraged. After that, “Tuesday” became one of the stock answers to all sorts of questions in our family. And it always had the same connotation — never.

Introduction—EATING FLORIDA

Let’s start with an observation that’s both obvious and universally accepted. Over the past two hundred years the sustained consequences of population growth, migration, and technological innovation have changed the face of the Earth. It should be equally obvious that a great many of those changes have been extraordinary since they have improved the human condition in measurable ways. After all, how many of us would volunteer to return to the “Good Old Days” and experience surgical procedures without benefit of modern technology, including anesthetics or antibiotics? Or to experience life where thirty to forty percent of all children died before they reached age twelve and mothers regularly died giving birth, especially those poor women unfortunate enough to have had their children at hospitals teeming with septicemia and worse? Or to try to survive the four dreaded horsemen of the Apocalypse that ruled the Earth not that many hundreds of years ago?

My guess is that few of us would willingly forgo the many improvements brought to our daily lives by scientific and industrial innovations. After all, where would we be without modern food production, transportation systems, electrical generation, information and telecommunication systems, or even something as comforting but non-essential as central heating and air conditioning?

Then again, everyone not mentally challenged, comatose, or sealed in Saran Wrap knows that the Earth has been beat to shit by greedy, indifferent, or brain-dead people in ways too numerous to document in these few pages. But, have a little patience while I list a few choice examples. The majority of America’s first-growth forests have been gone for well over a hundred years. Open prairies are but faded memories as are the herds of buffalo that once darkened the Midwest and the Great Plains. Only a few sorry-ass remnants tantalize us with images of their former glory. Global warming, holes in the ozone layer, air and water pollution up the ying-yang, and cancer caused by environmental polluters are all too familiar topics. Remember Love Canal, PCBs, and mercury poisoning, among many others?

My point is simple. Although not all land-based change is negative or harmful, some is. The fact that humans have altered one ecosystem after another as they organized their lives and struggled to wrest a living from their surroundings is not an automatic and universal cause of breast-beating or weepy guilt trips. After all, animals alter their specific environments and indigenous people across the globe do the same and few would censure them for those life-giving behaviors.

What it comes down to is change is simply change. Things change, people change, and the Earth is changed as a result. Whether those changes are positive or negative depends on the specific social and environmental consequences of the action itself. And that brings us to my topic: the effects of wide-spread change caused by unsustainable growth pressure in locations with numerous delicate and sensitive environments. Which, in turn, leads us straight to Florida.

It’s one thing for people to read about the melting of some unpronounceable glacier in the heretofore frozen Antarctic and quite another to learn about the impending death of the Everglades as a natural system. The reasons for that interest are straightforward. First, what happens in America is usually regarded as more important to us because it’s our country. That may be parochial but so is life as lived. The result is that American urban and environmental issues have more immediacy in our lives. Which in my eyes is good and natural. That’s the way it should be. We’re territorial animals and this territory is ours. Second, many of us have been to Florida and relate, as visitors or residents, to its varied problems. Third, even if you haven’t been to the Sunshine State, you know at least a little about it from coverage by entertainment and news media and from reports of friends or relatives who have vacationed or lived there. Therefore, in ways significant as well as trivial, Florida is familiar to all of us and serves as an excellent example of how humans have changed their environments in the past 100 years.

Florida’s siren-songs are so sweetly intoxicating that they demand attention and pull people like iron filings to an electro-magnet. Sunshine that won’t quit. Clear waters, salt and fresh. Sugar-sand beaches to frolic in. Sub-tropical winters to die for, especially if you’re from Minnesota or, worse, from North Dakota, which so sucks the big one that every young person with a brain and access to transportation seems to be heading for some place a lot more exciting. And yes, we can’t forget Florida’s lack of income taxes so beloved by the Silver Panthers. Those narco-seductions, combined with the State’s almost pathological inability to control growth or to protect the environment in meaningful ways, have attracted migrants to Florida like the honey pots of yore drew greenbottle flies in thick clouds.

The inevitable result, in a State where environmental regulations have largely been honored by their lack of enforcement, is that over the past 150 years each succeeding wave of new residents has altered larger and larger chunks of the environment until little remains that even approaches ecosystems in a natural state. Today, no place in the State is what it was before development. Not Palm Beach. Not the Everglades. Not Key Marco. Not the Panhandle’s Emerald Coast. Not Tampa Bay or Miami-Dade. Nothing in the environment has been able to withstand the onslaught of people intent on grabbing a piece of the good life and to hell with worrying about what had to be done for them to get it.

Any number of intelligent Readers might demand indignantly: So what? Nothing in the U.S. is what it used to be. What’s the big damn deal? What makes Florida so all-fired important?

The answer is cutting-edge environmental decisions are being made in Florida as you read this page. The pace, scale, and intensity of change in fragile and sensitive environments is what separates Florida from Wisconsin, Idaho, New York, or Texas. Of course, environments across the U.S. have been and continue today to be altered by human activities. However, few states have experienced the unrelenting and sustained assault that has transformed Florida environments from natural conditions into sterile cultural landscapes in so short a time. Think of the implications of the historical fact that in 1900 1,681 people were living in Miami. That environmental assault began even before the ink was dry on its Statehood papers in the mid-1840s and is still raging out of control. In addition, no where in the world can ecosystems like the Everglades or the Fakahatchee Strand be found. Nowhere. Not just in the U.S., anywhere in the rest of the world. Once gone they’re gone forever. That ridiculously overused word unique applies to Florida environments in spades.

The powerbrokers responsible for the existing development patterns in the State are eating those sensitive and irreplaceable environments and in their place are replacing them with one sterile subdivision, regional mall, retail strip center, strip mine, or agricultural field after another. As if we desperately need those rare and hyper-critical types of land use more than we need fresh water, clean air, and healthy ecosystems. It makes me wonder if most Floridians care that their grandchildren and great grandchildren will be left with little but concrete pavements, an aridified climate, and stagnant drainage canals.

The Eating Florida section of this blog has two goals. First, to help Readers understand the land use patterns and development trends that led to present-day Florida and the inevitable consequences of those trends — enormous profits for some and environmental degredation of all. Land, that’s what it’s all about. Land and how we’re using it. What I’m really talking about is land as it’s affected by four very easy to appreciate elements: limitless greed, easy-virtue politicians, inadequate regulatory enforcement, and an indifferent populace. Second, and most importantly, this book identifies ways ordinary citizens can change those patterns and presents realistic, workable strategies to make that happen. The blog will also provide a hard look at the State’s future if the existing patterns of landscape alteration continue.

Although the word Eating, as used in the title, may not be the most technically accurate way to describe what’s happening to Florida, it conjures up the very real image of fat politicians and their greedy powerbroker lords and masters feeding at the trough. The sobering thing is, Eating applies perfectly to the Florida of the future if the status quo remains the rule since numerous sensitive environments will be consumed in the development process.

Although the jury is still out on that issue we’re closing in on the twelve o’clock witching hour. Decision time stares us in the face. As the well-respected biologist Ernest Partridge writes:

In a vast library of published books and papers, these scientists warn us that if civilization continues on its present course, unspeakable devastation awaits us or our near descendants. Turning away from that “present course” toward “sustainability” will be difficult, costly and uncertain but far preferable to a continuation of “business (and policy) as usual.”

But that’s what this blog is all about, to open Readers’ eyes to Florida’s harsh realities. To look past the sun and surf, the glitz and glitter, not to mention the bullshit peddled by shameless politicians and their powerbroker patrons, to see how the land has been drastically altered in such an astoundingly short time. To see how Florida’s natural places are being eaten as you read this page. To get you to realize what’s been done right and what’s been done horribly wrong, both in cities and in the countryside. My purpose in all this effort is to ensure that Readers recognize the Wizard at work, only it’s not Kansas or Oz we’ll be looking at but the powerbrokers who have shamelessly manipulated Florida politics for decades and in the process have gotten fat by eating one environment after another.

But why should ordinary people like you and me care? Because sensitive environments in the State have moved rapidly up the ladder of negative urban and consequences until they have reached a dramatic crossroad. Turn one direction and the consequence is the chaos of uncontrolled growth and non-sustainable social and economic conditions. Turn in another direction and the result is slightly more controlled growth that will still destroy the environment but at a somewhat slower pace than the first choice. Turn toward the third direction and the consequences are controlled growth that will not destroy what’s left of our natural environments and will preserve the remaining parts for future generations.

The critical problem is that decisions about which direction the State should take are being made by the Big Three powerbrokers — land developers, mining companies, and agribusinesses — meeting behind closed doors with their well-controlled politician pals. Not by ordinary citizens. And that’s the other real challenge this book addresses head-on.

One intriguing way to think about Florida is that’s where one of the country’s last high stakes poker games in real estate development is being played. Only the table stakes are the future of human settlement as well as the future of fragile environments throughout the State. So, who are the players in this high-stakes poker game? The list below ranks the dramatis personae with respect to their relative importance and power.

1)         Land Developers/Large-Scale Agribusinesses/Mining Companies

2)         Three-way tie, see #1

3)         Three-way tie, see #1

4)         Federal/State/Local Politicians (in that order)

5)         U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

6)         Other Federal Agencies (EPA, Fish & Wildlife Service, etc.)

7)         State Agencies

8)         Environmental/Conservation Organizations

9)         Florida Residents/Voters

The Big Three powerbrokers are tied for first place because they are equally adept at stuffing munificent campaign contributions into the pockets of their trained puppets, the fat-cat politicians, who in turn bust their asses to do whatever they are ordered to do by their real bosses, which, naturally, are the powerbrokers. History books and the daily Florida newspapers are filled with mind-boggling examples of the venality and reprehensible actions of the Florida business community in concert with State legislators. The skeptics out there might want to read Carl Hiaasen’s columns in the Miami Herald and the work of investigative reporters Beth Reinhard and Samuel P. Nitze.

Please note the group that is in dead-ass last place on the list of players. Not only are the citizens/voters poorly informed and typically powerless, they simply are regarded by the powerbrokers as brain-dead, expendable pawns whose sole purpose in life is to be moved about the game board and even, if required, sacrificed on the Altar of Profits. That situation will be the status quo and modus operandi until and unless a populist movement rises up and drives the powerbrokers from center stage. I can hear the negative chorus from a bevy of cynical Readers: “Fat chance of that ever happening in Florida. Get real.”

Perhaps the cynics are correct. Perhaps Florida is already doomed. That’s a very real possibility. But this blog is built around the premise that similar obstacles to preserving our environmental heritage have been overcome in recent Florida history. We do not have to look elsewhere for inspiration. The road map to sustainability and environmental health can be found in places like Lake Apopka, the Kissimmee River, and, most importantly, the Cross-Florida Barge Canal. The critical lessons of environmental preservation are right in front of our eyes. All we have to do is recognize them and act accordingly. And then apply those lessons to other locations throughout the U.S.

The Four Seasons

 

At a meeting the other day someone casually mentioned that we were rapidly approaching March 21, which she told me was the first day of spring. Naturally, that set me to wondering about why so many people have unthinkingly come to associate the Vernal Equinox with the onset of spring. Or the onset on winter with the Winter solstice and so on. There are two easy answers. First, a number of ancient societies are widely known to have observed certain celestial events and tied them to religious and agricultural celebrations. The Egyptians, Romans, Druids, and Mayans are good examples. Second, it’s my opinion that TV meteorologists have been the main culprits responsible for this identification by touting it on TV during their daily weather spiels. Which actually is very strange since they, more than many others, should know better.

But first a little note of clarification about the Vernal Equinox itself. Vernal is from ver, the Latin word for spring. Equinox is Latin for equal night, by which the Romans meant that on that day there were an equal number of hours during the day and night, which although is not exactly true it is widely believed to be so. What really happens is that equinox occurs twice each year when the center of the Sun is directly vertical over the Earth’s celestial equator (with a declination of 0°), occurring each year around March 20/21 and September 22/23. But the key question is why does that happen?

That question brings us to Earth-Sun relations and the world of astronomy. Actually, we experience celestial events known as equinoxes and solstices because the Earth’s axis is inclined with respect to the plane of the ecliptic, about 23½° from the vertical (celestial poles), a condition known as obliquity. It is that inclination, the Earth’s rotation on its axis, and its procession around the Sun that result in the climatic changes that are so prominent across the surface of the Earth.

So, on or about March 20/21, the Sun’s vertical rays strike the equator at a 90° angle and the Earth experiences an approximately equal number of hours of day and night. From that day until June 21/22 the hours of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere grow longer and the nights shorter while the reverse pattern pertains in the Southern Hemisphere. As befitting their astronomical nature, those events (equinoxes and solstices) are experienced in the very same manner and at the same time all over the Earth.

It should be obvious from the explanation above that both equinoxes and solstices, as astronomical events, depend on obliquity, the Earth's rotation on its axis, and its revolution about the Sun. But if spring, summer, fall, and winter were astronomical events they also would be experienced in the very same manner and at the same time all over the Earth. But, are they? Here’s a specific example. Does the onset of spring occur on the same day in Fairbanks, Alaska, as in Key West, Florida? Average daily March temperatures in that part of Alaska are still around freezing while those in Key West are in the low to upper eighties. Are those locations experiencing the same season? Or what about Maiquetia, Venezuela? It’s in the Northern Hemisphere and therefore according to popular wisdom should be having its first day of spring on March 20/21. But its daily average March temperatures are in the mid-nineties. Is that also spring? Actually, the season of spring does not exist anywhere in Venezuela, nor does winter as we know it. So, what’s going on?

Confusion, that’s what’s happening. We have been mislead by TV meteorologists and others who, without cranking up their brains and thinking about the situation, tell their gullible audiences that spring arrives every year precisely on March 21. And that’s sad because they should know the difference between an astronomical/celestial event and a climatological one. They are not the same and never will be despite uninformed people claiming they are.

Okay, when is the first day of spring? Who knows? Since spring is the transition between winter and summer its onset depends on regional and world weather patterns that vary from year to year. Consequently, spring is early some years and late in others. The good news is you can empower yourself and pick whatever day you want to celebrate spring. You’re not limited to March 20 or 21. When you want to celebrate spring you pick the day, line up a virgin to sacrifice, light the bonfire, chill your favorite booze, and have at it. And while you’re at it, do the world a favor and throw a TV meteorologist on the bonfire and save the virgin for another day.

How to Avoid Disappearing

It was only after turning 58 I realized that for some time I had been slowly disappearing. At the time of that eye-opener I had returned from six months in the Dominican Republic and was in the process of readjusting to American culture. On a fall Saturday afternoon I was walking in the Mall and looked at a bank of store windows across the main concourse. Not only did I see my reflection in the glass but also that of a group of young women in their early thirties. Although they passed close by, I received not even a casual glance as they strolled along, chatting gaily. And that’s when it hit me. They didn’t see me because I had started disappearing. My substance and identity were fading as I grew older, a consequence of living in a culture that places its highest priority on youth and vigor.

The implications of that realization took my breath away. Without knowing when it had happened, almost as if it were a gate I had passed through without noticing, I had morphed into the age at which few people care about you, especially not the marketing gurus desperate to determine the right niche to target (meaning which youth group), nor attractive young things honeypotting for mates, who look past people older than 40 as though they were invisible. Naturally, I had done the very same thing when I was younger and much more physically attractive than I am today. Who hasn’t? I mean, why on Earth would a 34-year-old guy check out a 60-year-old woman? Hey, at that time of my life it wasn’t a topic worthy of consideration. 

Today, I’m in my 60s and the topic has fresh importance. Now, I look women my age with a critical eye to see if she’s a G-MILF, which stands for Grand-Mother I’d Like to Fuck. 

Several years after that initial flash of insight about what it means for older guys to disappear, it struck me that for the first time I truly understood Ernest Hemingway’s suicide. He was about the same age I am now when he jammed the shotgun barrels in his mouth and pulled both triggers. If you read the body of his work and Carlos Baker’s biography you quickly come to an appreciation of a vital, energetic, virile man who either celebrated life to the fullest or gave a strong impression of so doing. Okay, close to the end he may have become a pompous gasbag weighed down by a variety of injuries and infirmities, many of which were serious, and took his life in the remorseless grip of black-dog depression and rampant paranoia.

But here’s a different twist. His creative genius flickered out and his sex drive zeroed. Old and fat and tired he lost his grip on the core identity that had made him who he was for nearly five decades. He knew the Hemingway who had been had disappeared; he could see that reality in the eyes of his wife, drinking friends, editor, and literary agent. And when on that last day he stared intently at the mirror, hating the haggard, grizzled image before him because all his mind’s eye could recall was his younger, more vital self, he headed straight for the shotgun. Of course he committed suicide. What other ending could Hemingway have written for himself?

Actually, I wish he would have conceived a totally different ending. Because now that I’m his age and either have disappeared in the eyes of the young lovelies or functionally am invisible, I can see a far better ending, even if Hemingway could not. Maybe my life is not as filled with romance or excitement as it was previously. For sure I’m not as slim or as quick on my feet as I once was. Running up and down a soccer field for ninety minutes, or even for fifteen minutes, is out of the question. But I have developed other talents. I love to write fiction and non-fiction. I taught myself how to paint using acrylics. I read voraciously. Playing with my grandchildren is a blast. My wife and I love to travel. A couple months ago, to my wife’s consternation and drop-jaw disbelief, I taught my three-year-old grandson by example how to “avalanche” headfirst down the stairs from the second to the first floor. Laughing uproariously is something I enjoy tremendously. And a lifetime of professional experience has made me a highly qualified urban and regional planner whose advice is sought by younger colleagues and clients.

Maybe my disappearance from the eyes of young people isn’t as important as I first thought. Growing old doesn’t have to mean losing substance and identify. Vitality and energy are as much states of mind as they are physical attributes. If you want to avoid disappearing, at least in your own eyes, start celebrating life to the fullest. Get involved with stimulating people of all ages. Don’t bury yourself in a “retirement” community that banishes children. Make lists of fun things to do and then DO THEM. Like touring the best National and State Parks in your region, especially in the off-seasons when they aren’t so crowded. Put art museums on that list. Exercise every day. Visit several of the great museums of the U.S., like the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, or the Field Museum in Chicago, or the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Or visit first-class zoos, like the ones in San Diego or St. Louis.

And while you’re in a visiting frame of mind, what about those old friends you’ve lost touch with. Become involved with an environmental organization seeking to save the Earth for our great grandchildren. Volunteer once or twice a week with a charity of your choice or in a church-sponsored nursery school. Take up old athletic activities that you haven’t done for decades, like table tennis and billiards. Find a new hobby with like-minded others that will take you outdoors, like bird-watching or rock collecting. If you’re not connected to the internet at home hightail it to the nearest library and find out what you’re missing. Buy tickets to Cirque du Soliet. Take a course or two at a local college. Teach literacy classes at an educational center. Try new foods. Be positive about yourself. Quit watching mind-numbing television. Stay active, physically and mentally.

Young people will never look at you the same way they did when you were one of them. So what. Get over it. Worse things in life can happen. Like Ernest Hemingway staring in the mirror and seeing nothing worth living for. And disappearing forever.

The Rule of 85

Some time ago I was Director of Sales and Marketing for a mid-sized general contractor. Marilyn, one of the women who worked in the office, was from Licking, a very small town in central Missouri. She had a very pronounced “country” twang and was proud of being the first in her family to graduate from high school and have a year of community college under her belt. She handled many of the bookkeeping tasks for payroll and contract details with sub-contractors and individuals who rented equipment from the firm we worked for. She was bright and hard-working and fun to talk to.

Anyone who thought because Marilyn was what she herself called a “country girl” that she was a few bricks shy of a load would have been making a very serious error. She knew her shit and didn’t take lip from anyone, especially from construction guys who thought she was stupid simply because she was female. The only exception to that rule was the company owner; an obnoxious prick who delighted in terrorizing his staff and cheating anyone and everyone he could, even friends and relatives who had made the mistake of becoming entangled in his business ventures.

Although my office was next to the owner’s, when my door was open I could hear Marilyn talking on the phone about contracts and equipment. I could always tell from her tone if someone was giving her a hard time. One day, about a month or two after I started the job, I knew she was reaching the limit of her patience when she must have said for the third or fourth time, “No, sir. That’s not correct. Just read the contract you signed.” Then a pause while she listened.

“No, sir. Take a look at the second page. Paragraph 4b1. That tells you what your obligations are. It’s all there in black and white.”

A few minutes later, as I was walking past her desk on the way to the toilet, she hung up the phone. But instead of softly placing it back on the cradle she first slammed it hard into the desk at least three or four times. While growling, “You stupid jerk.”

When I stopped at her desk she began venting about the “fucking idiots” (her words and she very seldom used rough language) she had to deal with. Then she told me her theory of intelligence. The people she dealt with and practically everyone who drove a car or pick-up or worked in the construction industry all had IQs between 80 and 85.

I laughed and told her that the average IQ was intentionally set at 100 so it was unlikely that all those people had such low scores. But she said her observation wasn’t based on tests but real life.

“Just watch people,” she told me, frowning ominously. “Watch them do really stupid stuff. Doesn’t matter if they’re driving on the interstate or grocery shopping or raising spoiled little brats. It’s actions I’m talking about. Not IQ tests. They’re all 85s or lower. A bunch of borderline retards. Just watch. You’ll see what I mean.”

As I have gotten older I’ve come to understand intelligence somewhat differently than I did previously. It’s only taken about 20 years of watching people but I now find myself in total agreement with Marilyn. The way I see the problem, average people function in life barely above the level of borderline retardation. Yes, I still believe that an IQ of 100 is average, but once you get out of the testing environment that measures a person’s understanding of arithmetic, spatial imagery, reading, vocabulary, memory, or general knowledge and into the real world, that average intelligence quotient drops to the low 80s. It’s Marilyn’s Rule of 85 in action.

Actually, it’s a lot more complex than that because I really don’t believe the average person is borderline retarded with respect to IQ scores. But I do believe that person is typically so self-centered, narcissistic, inattentive, and indifferent to others that the functional result is the same.

People do stupid shit all the time. They drive like they’re the only person on the road, talking on mobile phones, sending text messages, putting on make-up, listening to their tunes. They don’t pay attention to what they’re doing at work or home. Carelessness has become a habit, even a virtue. They’re indifferent to all sorts of things, important and trivial. They’re narcissistic to a fault, giving new meaning to the term, Me Generation. They’re closet racists and homophobes and fear the Other. They’re blithering idiot birthers. They’re convinced scientists are nothing but left-wing charlatans. They especially can’t or don’t want to think. By thinking I mean ratiocination, not talking about a favorite football or baseball team or how to get into the pants of a co-worker or a favorite recipe. Thinking is difficult so they avoid it like they avoid the homeless on the streets.

A sure sign of what I’m talking about is people are no longer embarrassed by their ignorance or even their stupidity. Actually, in politics stupidity has become an attribute at the national level. Take for example George W. Bush or Sara Palin, both functioning idiots whose speech gives them away every time they open their mouths. Another horrific example is Jay Leno’s infamous street interviews.

It’s not that most people are flat out dumb, though we all know many who hit that mark. It’s that when you combine dumb people with those of average or even above average intelligence who are narcissistic, indifferent, thoughtless, ignorant, etc. that the Rule of 85 kicks in with a vengeance.

It’s gotten so bad I’ve been tempted to make signs proclaiming, I’m an 85 and proud of it, and hang them around their necks. “Here’s your sign,” I want to say. “You’ve earned it.”