Bush is getting the plunger
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This way to the egress
By
Mitzel
I just came back from my annual physical. I have a new doctor, a young woman. Her immediate report: my liver is slightly enlarged; my prostrate is slightly enlarged; my blood pressure is elevated; my ego is diminished.
I've always had reasonably good health and each sign of deterioration is depressing. But I'm in my mid-50s and things change. Things can change dramatically for some; this has not been my case. All medical changes
for the worse occasion a meditation on mortality. We all die in time; the haunting question is when and how.
I recently made my annual pilgrimage to Ohio to see my parents and siblings. My parents are in their 80s (they divorced back in 1958 and have had subsequent marriages; both are single now) and Dad's
30-something girlfriend dropped by for a visit and I had the opportunity to meet her. She was a very nice young woman. I told one of my brothers that I expected the both of them-- the parents-- to just go on and on. But, of course, this
won't be the case.
How long will I live? How long will you? People die at all ages. I wonder if some advice columnist for a mid-east newspaper ever gets an inquiry from some nubile female worried that she's engaged to a lad who's
signed up for a suicide brigade. "Does this relationship have a future?"
When you come to that point in your life when you see the clock ticking down-- for some after 40, for even more after 50-- there is a certain clarification that draws the mind. What shall I do with the years left me--
whether 15, 20, or 30? It is a worthy consideration. By the time this meditation comes into one's cortex, for so many there may not be a lot of options: spouses, children, jobs, mortgages, property, prospective pensions,
long-term obligations, just the force of habit.
My dear brother, while I was visiting in Zanesville, a small city of 25,000 citizens an hour east of Columbus, Ohio, was so pleased that the family members were all together on this rare occasion. "Brother John," said
dear brother, "now that everyone else has moved to Zanesville, when are you going to exit Boston and join us here." We were having drinks with family and friends right along the banks of the Muskingham River, a central feature
of Zanesville-- when you're in Zanesville, be sure to drive over the famous "Y" bridge!
My brother and I have sparred over many things for many years, though in fact we like each other a lot (he is very enthusiastic about "gay marriage," as he called it, and he wondered why I was not as avid as he; I gave
him my take on the issue). I was not going to be out-challenged by brother. "I could move to Zanesville," I told him. "But," I noted, pointing to the small, charming river, "if you want a dead brother, you'll have one in ten
minutes!" Case closed. For now, I will try to construct my own prospective future with myself at the center. Am I selfish? If yes, why shouldn't I be?
This way to the egress. I hate to drag into my lovely essay the sordid reality of the state of this nation and some of the bully boys who created what I consider as nothing short of a nightmare. And more of a nightmare for
others than myself and my friends. One dear friend ankled ("ankled" is old
Variety magazine speak for "got out," in case you didn't know; my rule: explain everything) the US shortly after the 2000 election; he's my web guy, the one
who communicates my bookstore with the world. He was big-time pissed-off with life in the USA and found digs in Europe, where he remains. Two other friends came by and we chatted. Each mentioned his "exit strategy," that
is finding a place other that the USA to live.
Greener pastures
When I was a teen and young adult in the 60s, I heard about and read about all the folks who actually did leave the good ole USA, to avoid the draft and military service or as a protest against our Asian wars. Some
stayed away forever. A Southern President later issued a somewhat truncated amnesty.
Our dear Republic has many charms; a lot are geographic-- the Grand Canyon, Pike's Peak, the Mississippi River, the Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts (though I should note that in Brenda Wineapple's new biography
of Nathaniel Hawthorne, she notes that NH, in his sojourn in the Berkshires-- that time when Melville made his pitch to be his buddy-- just hated his time out there in those glorious woods. I don't think Hawthorne was ever
happy-- by his programming he wasn't meant to be-- or maybe he just needed a good boyfriend).
My other friends, in pursuit of This Way To The Egress, have yet to make a decision. Each has sampled other venues. There is the complaint that the American culture-- its entertainment culture, its therapeutic culture,
its sexual and drug police-- are now globalized, perverting other historic cultures with our talk-show idiocies. By what right should the US industries-- cultural, religious, entertainment, and the others-- have the opportunity to
dump their dreck on cultures with different histories, different traditions and behaviors? All done with the smug American sanctimony of an evangelical missionary. Why do they hate us?
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