Democracy, Youth, and Old Age

          When I was a young man learning about the work-intensive and time-consuming steps required to enact the simplest piece of legislation, the least contentious of new measures, I grew stridently impatient.  It was clearly wrong that good people had to waste endless hours and days and months trying to do something worthwhile.  I couldn't wait so long.  I was desperate for fast action.  I complained bitterly about the mired-down failure of the democratic process.  It was depressing at best, spirit-crushing at worst.
         Now that I'm an old man, I'm much more patient.  Now it seems good to me that change should come slowly, after long and exhaustive debate.  After filibusters.  After compromises.  After presidential vetoes.  I don't want professional do-good Liberals putting their permanent imprint on national legislation; nor do I want selfish Conservatives to close the door on any sort of scale-balancing social programs.  I'm still mostly in favor of left-of-center political agendas, but I don't want the Left making hasty changes—except in the area of human rights.  Speedy action often requires further action to correct problems not seen the first time around.  You know what they say about haste.
          I don't object to change, of course--only quick change.  Slow things down, I say.  Talk it all over.  And then talk some more.  Sleep on it.  God, it should be pointed out, was remiss when He left out the Eleventh Commandment, Thous shalt not rush.  Someone was probably telling him to hurry up, maybe Moses was waiting.  

Tampa Bay Rays' Attendance

Tampa Bay Times, June 25, 2012.  Letter to the Editor

          The ongoing saga of attendance at Rays' baseball games has seemed to me over the past five years a little beside the point.  The team's value has increased from $145 million, when owner Stuart Sternberg "bought his initial stake" in 2004 (according to Paul Sullivan in the New York Times on June 2), to $323 million, as reported by Forbes in March.  The size of that "initial stake" was not made public, but it would appear that Sternberg saw well over a 100 percent increase in his investment in eight years, if the reporting is accurate.  In other words, the team has more than doubled in value during that time.  Would you be happy with that rate of return?
    
          Eventually fans will come to the Rays' stadium, wherever it is, but don't weep about the financial straits of Sternberg and the rest of the Rays' ownership.  They're doing just fine.

Edward Cifelli, Dade City

April 28, 2012

            Today I am 70 years old.

            My father in the 1960s used to talk wistfully about living to see the year 2000, but he came from a line that led short lives, so he knew it was unlikely that he would live to see the new millennium.  He was right:  he died in 1970 at age 55.  When he did the arithmetic back in the 1960s, he knew he’d have to live to age 86 to see 2000.  No, he conceded, that was hardly likely.  But it pleased him to think that I, his only child, might.  After all, I’d only be 58 in 2000.  Yes, he smiled, there was a good chance I’d make it.

           When I turned 55 in 1997, I wasn’t so sure.  That was the age when my father and his father had died, both of colon cancer.  But in 1969 medical science made a breakthrough in the fight against this particular cancer, which led me to think in 1997 that I might escape the family fate.  In the late 1970s, I began having sigmoidoscopies and then a few years later full colonoscopies, procedures that allow doctors to remove colon polyps which otherwise turn slowly into deadly cancers.  Modern medicine had extended my life:  becoming 58 and actually seeing the year 2000 had become a real possibility.  Still, I was surprised and relieved when I finally made it because I hadn't thought, down deep, I'd last that long. 

    
            When I turned 60 in 2002, I really did think I had reached old age.  No question about it.  I was so thrilled that I quit my job, began receiving my pension, and waited impatiently two more years to begin receiving early Social Security benefits.  I wanted to experience the retirement part of my life, which I hadn’t thought I’d ever see.  I was overjoyed that I had cheated death and that I would have a 60-something-year lifespan.  My God, that was truly old compared to my poor father and grandfather.  And I was grateful.  Deeply grateful.

     
           Then I began creeping toward my 70^th birthday, one slow year at a time until I was but a year from it—and suddenly I wanted it very badly.  I had never even imagined living that long.  70 was really old.  In my heart I had known all along that 60 didn't amount to much on the longevity scale, but it was old enough to satisfy my imagination.  70 was different.  At 70, no one would ever say “the poor guy died so young.”  No way.  And so I wanted desperately to become 70, to defy the odds that had seemed to argue all my life for an early demise.  My tombstone would read 1942-2012, which has a nice, easy-to-compute balance to it.  Oh, there may be a little more time left, but it’s okay with me.  I’m not greedy about longevity.  Not anymore.

          70 is a wonderful age to be. 

Bumper Sticker: Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

           Not many people step outside their comfort zone.  The same thing over and over again is what they want—and need.  Ordering a pizza with peppers and mushrooms and onions, for example,  instead of one with pepperoni (or vice versa) is ordinarily well outside most people’s comfort zone.  When they head to an Italian restaurant, it’s always the same one they go to, and most often they order the same thing from the menu.  It's the comfort zone.  Again and again.

         
           And you can’t argue these people into a broader experience.  They aren’t happy when you ask if they want to try that Italian joint on the other side of town for a change.  Okay, they might reply cautiously, but in their hearts they worry about venturing out past their comfort zone.  What will it cost?  What if I don’t like the spaghetti sauce?  Do they have a salad bar?  My God!  What about my food allergies?!   No, maybe we ought to stick to Mama’s Restaurant, they weasel, tonight's the spaghetti and meatball special.
 

An extension to these observations about the Italian Food Comfort Zone is that trying different Italian restaurants is at least theoretically possible for most people, no matter how unlikely, while more exotic foods are totally out of the question, like Thai or Indian or Japanese.  Maybe even Mexican.  All too spicy in one way or another.  No siree, thank you very much.  I think I'll just stick with Mama's spaghetti and meatballs.

         
           Physically heading off to Italy for a vacation is just as out of the question for most people, just as outside their comfort zone, as going to the moon—and going “on your own” instead of on a Parillo Tour of Venice, Florence, and Rome, is more or less like intergalactic space travel, utterly absurd, if not absolutely impossible.  But traveling on our own to Italy for three or four weeks at a time is precisely what my courageous and beautiful wife has had us do half a dozen times over the past twenty years or so.  And on top of that, we've been on dozens of other tours and "on your own" vacations, both domestically and internationally.

             At first, I admit, all that travel was well beyond my own comfort zone, but gradually I came to like the adventures—and so I actually broadened my comfort zone. Frankly, I didn't think that was possible for me to do. These days, a quarter century and a million air miles later, I feel sort of like a one-time adventurer gone to pension (though not to pasture), the Han Solo of my retirement community.  I'm comfortable with that.

Lean to Independence

      Political dialogue in 2012 is dreary and predictable, deadly dull.  One has the Right and the Left.  One has the Conservatives and the Liberals.  One has the Red States and the Blue States.  One has the Republicans and the Democrats.  That's it.  There are no other viable choices.  Just as we do in sports, we pick a side and then stick with it.  Loyalty matters.  Even insane loyalty.  One is expected to support his own side across the board, without bothering to determine if any particular issue makes sense from the Blue side or the Red side.  Or vice versa. 

     
      It's tiresome.  It makes no sense for me to be herded into one camp or another.  There are times when Republicans make more sense to me than Democrats.  I want to be able to support them on those occasions.  And just as logically, even inescapably, there are times when Democrats make more sense than Republicans.  As a representative man, I like to think that at least most of the time, I do the right thing.  That I think things through and decide on the right and proper course of action.  But acting in my own best interest factors in too, must factor in.

      In the current debate about reforming health insurance, for example, I don't know what to think quite yet.  What is known as "Obamacare," is packaged in a 7,000-page document (I hear), which means no one knows what it actually entails.  And as everyone knows by hard experience, the devil is always in the details, so I am skeptical, but open-minded.  And the Supreme Court may yet determine that the whole thing is unconstitutional and thus a moot point.  But I do support the idea that equal health care needs to become a reality in America even if "Obamacare" turns out not to be the answer.  Right now I don't know what the right thing to do is, which side is more correct--and I don't know what is in my own best interest either.  I'm hoping the whole thing will clarify itself, but one thing is certain, I will not vote because I am a Republican or Democrat.  I'll eventually figure out what "Obamacare" means to the country and to me--and vote accordingly.

      Sometimes the right thing and my best interest are not the same thing, as, for example, is the case with local school budgets.  I have long supported educators who argue for bigger budgets to support higher salaries (to draw the most qualified teachers) and better facilities--all because this will more likely result in better school systems and better-educated kids.  But this was easier to do when my own children were in the system and when my wife and I were drawing good salaries.  Now that we live on a fixed income and we no longer have children in the system, I vote against school budgets.  I can't afford to support them.  One needn't apologize for that either.  Things change--nationally, locally, and within one's family.    

        In another case, I supported George W. Bush in the infamous 2000 election because he seemed honest and appealing in his limitations, while Al Gore came across as a bully in their debates.  Bill Clinton had been smart, a great campaigner and debater, a man who, despite his widely covered sexual misadventures, inspired more confidence than censure, though it was a close call.  He was popular despite his moral shakiness.  Poor Al Gore was so bad at the confidence thing and so personally unappealing (despite his moral rectitude) that he couldn't even carry his own state, which, had he done so, would have put him over the top and made him president.  I worried about Bush's intelligence, but I voted for him anyway--and hoped for the best.  

      But I also voted for Barak Obama because he was smart and spoke well and promised to bring a moral superiority to the country after Bush's middle-Eastern wars had begun to smell so bad.  I liked the old man John McCain too, the Republican candidate, but Obama promised a new post-Civil War recovery from entrenched national racism.  It was clear to me that a vote for Obama was the right thing to do.  

     The point, as I continue to see it, is that it is impossible to vote the straight Republican line--or the straight Democratic line.  I can understand locals rooting for their baseball team "through thick or thin," but being loyal to a political party has never made sense to me.  Judging what is right about the Republican or Democratic position on any given issue is most important--and that's why I lean to independence.