60 is the new 80 - ouch!

60 is the new 80.

At least that’s how I’ve felt these past few weeks due to crippling back spasms. The pain has been so stunning that I now understand why maturing individuals have a tendency to overdo drugs and alcohol.

As my 80-something aunt advised me just yesterday, “There’s a new ache somewhere almost every week.”

Most days, I’m a pack mule, lugging and toting the stuff I need without the benefit of a hand cart or other aid. If something has to be moved from here to there so be it. Size and weight be damned.

My spine, having been disrespected lo these many years, has developed a love/hate relationship with me. Years ago, it began bulging discs in retribution and for the thrill of the pain it could inflict --- chronically, thank you so very much. (I don’t know why we can’t work together but nooooooooo.)

I physical therapy. I Pilates. I yoga. I work on my core. Nothing’s ever enough for those discs, that spine, and the back that claims them.

And now this.

When it kicked in, I thought it was just a strain that would go away. It wasn’t. It hasn’t.

I’m waiting not so patiently now for an anonymous insurance company representative to weigh and measure the value of helping me over the cost savings to his/her employer by denying a referral to a pain management specialist.

I’m also on my second tier of pain killers and muscle relaxants since the first round of recommended drugs didn’t even hint at relief.

Eight years ago on the tail end of menopausal symptoms, I was suffering from such severe pain that I couldn’t focus to work. In there somewhere, I happened to have some strong alcoholic beverages, strictly for their entertainment value I assure you, but the relief was life altering. It was then that I understood what alcohol could do for those with chronic pain --- physical and emotional. After that, I was far more understanding of those “tipplers” among us. Finally understanding that some aches and pains simply do not go away because we demand it or swallow a couple of over-the-counter pain killers. Some pains are here to stay and perhaps foretell the future. Just the thought of that makes me ache.

Later, when the bulging discs added sciatica to their repertoire of painful entertainment, I was reminded of this earlier lesson. Although the pain is always with me, it seems best treated by movement and exercise rather than alcohol, which I continue to reserve for enjoyment…and escape ;-)

So, here I am again in total disagreement with my back. My online medical sleuthing offers nothing but hydration (I’m about to drowned already), heat and therapies out of my reach until someone else feels my pain and approves a therapy from some heavenly position of power.

These times don’t try my soul. They try my patience and tolerance for pain. They also remind me that there are more trying times ahead. The aging process naturally includes the slowing and breaking down of the body. While I can’t predict what’s next (my body tends to keep its conniving evil plots close to the vest), to protect the quality of life, I have to commit to pushing back at the body that tries to bully me into submission…and take a shot (of Tequila) from time to time. ;-)

April Fools: I fooled myself

I am my own April Fool.

After an absolutely frenetic Thursday from early morning to way past my dinnertime on the road, I arrived home thinking it was Friday and my weekend was ahead.

I couldn’t understand why none of my Thursday night TV favorites were in On Demand. I even wished a friend a “good weekend.”

Friday morning, I jumped out of bed (well, not really since I’m experiencing lower back muscle spasms), ah, got up slowly and early to run (OK, drive) to the credit union to be sure I got there before it closed as it does on Saturday, at noon. I went on to run my other regular Saturday errands.

Upon returning home, I settled in to do some homework before getting ready for my cousin’s wine tasting party that Saturday evening.

What I couldn’t figure out from the moment I had started my car to run the errands until about an hour into my homework was: Why is Michigan Radio running its weekday programming on a Saturday? I knew April 1 was April Fools Day and wondered if this was their joke to the listening audience but… So, as Diane Rehm started her second hour, I finally went out to the website to see what was up. To be fair, Michigan Radio has just recently altered it programming line-up but…for some reason, Michigan Radio had the date as FRIDAY, April 1.

I suddenly found myself with another day to add to my weekend. If I hadn’t been sitting down, I would have had to. I’ve been so crunched work-wise lately that I couldn’t process having an extra day to get all of the tasks done.

I simply couldn’t process this shocking excess. So I promptly took a nap. (That’s a Saturday thing too.)

I actually played an April Fools Day joke on myself and got away with it.

I know what you are thinking but you are wrong.

Clearly this is a mistake due to exhaustion, not, harrumph, age.

May your jokes be as successful! ;-)

Losing my frame of reference

I feel as if my life’s frame of reference is slipping out of my reach.

This isn’t a “time is passing so fast now” experience. It is one of context. The context that has shaped my life is forgotten or, in the case of my young students (born in 1996, sheesh!), has never ever been learned.

That younger people vaguely remember or don’t care even to learn about the life altering events of the past leaves me feeling diminished or inadequate somehow. As if what I have to share has no worth.

I feel like celluloid film that is drying up, cracking and turning to dust in my ignored tin. If all of that is lost, forgotten, ignored, underappreciated, what happens to the rest of me? The whole me?

My college journalism training began in the thick of Watergate. It’s a frame of reference --- context --- for anyone who studies investigative reporting, politics, and history. Yet, my students today, having been born two decades after the scandal, may have memorized Nixon’s name among all of the presidents in grade school, and perhaps they recall that he was forced to resign for something, but what is kind of hazy.

Watergate is as unknown to them as the “global village” theory of the 70s. You know, the global village they are now living in thanks to the Internet. (I have a student who travels daily to Spain to practice his Spanish via the application Periscope, where he talks to Spaniards and visits live lectures in Spanish and is able to interact with the speakers and other online audience members.)

In my lifetime, free citizens of African decent were still (are still) fighting and dying for the rights guaranteed to them 100 years before (Civil War) and even earlier in our Constitution. The knowledge that people around me, people I knew were not (are not) equally enjoying the privileges and protections of this country DID shape my life. Now, though, that’s just the stuff for some history books. Those who are not directly affected have no frame a reference for it, no context.

I recently pointed out to a media class that the FCC has determined the cable providers can no longer require customers to rent their cable boxes. If we do the monthly rental fee math for a life-time of rental fees we can easily figure out why these companies are making healthy profits. How much could one cable box really cost? U.S. Senators Edward Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) reported last July, in preparation for the FCC decision, that the rental boxes are worth $19.5 billion a year to the cable industry. Hello! Seriously, how much could that box cost to make? Ars Technica, an online technology blog reports that the average household pays $232 a year on cable box rentals, suggesting that the boxes are well paid for even in the first year of rental. (Ars Technica, July 30, 2015)

My students weren’t shocked, offended or outraged by such a bilking of the viewing audience. Their response was to just stare at me as if wondering aloud why I would bring this up in a media class.

I’m the one who was shocked when I realized that these students have little or no frame of reference for cable boxes. They are the unplugged generation. They don’t have cable, so no cable boxes either. They get all of their media on smartphones, tablets and computers. For many, email is also a vintage idea having been replaced by texting and social media forms of communication with friends and family. Cable boxes are as foreign to these 20-somethings as are CD players and newspapers. Don’t even mention typewriters and record players. ;-)

Welcome to the generation gap, where the “when I was your age,” stories are not welcomed by the younger recipients because they have no frame of reference. Give it 40 years and they will be wishing they’d listened more closely.

It’s as if we are on slightly different plains with the generations that follow --- just enough off kilter and out of the frame that what we offer is too foreign for them to put into a context for their own understanding.

So here I am at an age when this epiphany can only happen and with no one younger willing to listen or able to understand the awareness that just smacked me in the face. No wonder bad history repeats itself. And what energy we are wasting on that repetition. We have the lessons just too few willing to learn them.

I’m pretty sure that all that’s left of me in my frame of reference is the bad profile side of my nose.

Hate, ageism and the 2016 presidential election

On Trump

I’m saddened by the hate expressed in my state last week as demonstrated by Trump’s sweep in the Republican primary. It was manifested again this week by the events in Chicago, where reports are genuinely upsetting and heartbreaking. Trump protesters faced verbal and physical assaults outside of the venue. At the same time the media replayed video from previous Trump appearances where he encouraged his followers to attack protesters and offered to pay their legal defense fees. Is this really who we want as our president? (Time.com, March 10, 2016)

NPR - Getty Images

“This Can’t Go On In Chicago,” Says Anti-Trump Protester,” NPR Weekend Edition, March 13, 2016

Listen to the disrespect this American suffered at the hands and minds of Trump supporters. Listen to his message. “America is great without the hate.”

On ageism and the presidency

Senior Planet

Those around me who think Bernie Sanders is too old to be president have captured my attention. He’s 74, Hillary’s 68 and the Donald Drumpf is 69. I don’t get it and apparently the youngest voters among us don’t get it either since they seem very comfortable with everything Bernie.

When Hillary started up her campaign machine again, so shortly after the 2012 election, “too old” was a common question and comment among the pundits. (“Is Hillary Clinton too old to be president?” MSNBC asked. ” Hillary is too old to run,” the New York Post claimed. Politico opinionator Pete Seat echoed the sentiment: ” Hillary Clinton is too old to be president.”) (Erica Manfred, Senior Planet: Aging with Attitude, May 28, 2015)

Senior Planet looked at this question in a great article: How Old is Too Old to be President? (May 28, 2015). In the article, the experts are split on the effects of age and office holding. Dr. Nir Barzilai, professor of medicine and genetics at Albert Einstein and director of the Institute for Aging Research, says, “biological and chronological age are not the same. The older you are, the more your genes rather than lifestyle are likely to predict longevity...Someone like Hillary, who functions at very high intensity, has the gene for longevity. “ Her mother died at 92.

Barzilai also points out that Alzheimer’s isn’t a forgone conclusion with age: “[t]he more educated and intelligent a person is, the less you’ll see the decline even if they have Alzheimer’s.” (According to Barzilai, if one of your parents lived to be over 85, your likelihood of getting Alzheimer’s is reduced by 25 percent, even if that parent had the disease.)

Also quoted in the article is Dr. Robert Epstein, a research psychologist and former editor in chief of Psychology Today. “As long as the candidate shows no signs of senility – say, from early Alzheimer’s – an older candidate is probably your best choice if you think the world is a fairly stable place. As we get older, our judgment regarding matters we know about generally gets better. Experience is a great teacher.”

But, Epstein says, “If you think the world is rapidly changing, that’s another story. The older we get, the harder it is for us to quickly learn, master and evaluate new information.”

The article goes on to point out that the issue for candidates today isn’t about age but about how visible they are to the voters through social media and how savvy their campaigns are in using these communication platforms to reach all of the voters.

Does age matter? You can vote 

Erica Manfred, the article’s author reports that the “jury is still out on age and the presidency.” You can vote on the site for how old is too old to be president. (at the bottom of the article)

No time to lose

Help! 

Somebody stole an hour from me while I slept last night! And I don’t have the time to lose!

Give it back!

Adding insult to injury. I have to be reminded of what I've lost as I run around the house resetting all of my clocks. That's just cruel. Crank me out of bed an hour early and leave all of the clean up work to me. Well, I never.....

A bi-partisan bill in the state seeks to eliminate the daylight savings time shifts twice a year. Sponsors of the bill, Rep. Pete Lucido, R-Shelby Township, and Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, cite educational, health and safety issues as the basis for the change, according to an interview on Michigan Public Radio (March 1, 2016)

We’ve been around long enough to remember daylight savings time (DST) taking effect in Michigan, but the process probably escaped us then.

According to Jeremiah Webster on MyMcKinley.com (March 8, 2013), Michigan and Arizona were the first states to exempt themselves from DST in 1967, but the exemption statute was suspended in June of that year when a referendum was invoked. From June 14 until October 1967, Michigan observed DST and did so through 1968. From 1969 – 1972, Michigan did not follow DST. A general election ballot issue, November 1968, sustained the exemption statute by a “close vote.” Michigan has observed DST since 1973.

Whatever the legislature and the grownups were doing at that time, all I remember is that it messed with the schedules of my TV programs. How was I ever going to keep track of the changes on all three channels! (I wasn’t into PBS yet.)

Like most people as well, I thought it had something to do with farming but indeed it has nothing to do with farming. Daylight Savings Time was first adopted to conserve electricity by Germany during World War I (History Channel, March 9, 2012).

But in recent years, studies have found that it no longer saves energy and there is an increase in car accidents and other health issues with each Spring Forward are Fall Back. Michigan Public Radio

Rep. Irwin suggests leaving us in Spring Forward mode to provide summer tourism with longer days to play under the Michigan sun and in its “salt free, shark free, no worries” waters. I say, good plan for those of us with pitchers full of ‘ritas who want the sunsets to last forever.

I can still Spring Forward on my ankles --- for get the knees --- but I’m not much interested anymore in Falling Backwards even if it is on my well padded bee-hind and thankfully not on my achy-breaky joints.

What’s your preference?

HBO’s Last Week Tonight weighs in DST in his “How Is This Still a Thing?” segment

Old Men Grooving

So you think you still can't dance huh?

Well, you still have the music in you.

Dance to the beat.

Let "Old Men Grooving" remind you how!

Old Men Grooving bust a move, and maybe their backs! - "Britain's Got Talent 2015"

Old Men Grooving  - Semi Finals - "Britain's Got Talent 2015"

Get your groove back.

Keep on keeping on. ;-)

Video's courtesy of "Britain's Got Talent" and YouTube

What to do? What to do?...In retirement

Sally Field, 70, has a new movie coming out (“Hello, My Name is Doris”) about a woman of a certain age…”late, late 60s”. In a NPR interview Saturday, Field talked about owning her age: “I've gathered strength behind my years, I owned them, I've earned them, I've deserved them, I have a right to have them. Behind my years I have value that doesn't come when you're 50 or 40 or 30 or 20, it doesn't come until you've been in that saddle for a number of years.”

Within the interview, she comments on how we are constantly in transition, “It [the film] looks at transitioning, you know, human beings; our task in life is to constantly transition from one stage into another whether it's toddlerhood into childhood into adolescence and then young adulthood and then middle age. It's just constant movement,” --- without much guidance.

By midlife, the guidance available emphasizes finances and health care in preparation for retirement. Little is done though to help us prepare for what to do once we get there.

I mean the morning after the retirement party with the box of personal stuff from the office still sitting on the kitchen table.

I am familiar with too many retirees who are bored on their way to death. A retired trucker, who traveled the country in his semi, now struggles with his health because he quit sitting in the truck and instead sits the day away in his recliner in front of the TV. He doesn’t know what to do.

Many people must teeter somewhere between boredom and depression --- the kind that takes them from not knowing what to do to not wanting to do anything because they don’t know what to do. A lonely and boring “Catch 22”.

People aren’t as ready to quit working cold turkey as they think they are. One recently admitted that after quitting her full-time job, finding a part-time one was her salvation in the transition to full retirement. Another, not so happy with the part-time work hesitates to give it up for the same reason. Then what?

I was lucky enough to work for an organization that offered retirement planning workshops for its employees. The all day event covered the standards --- investment planning, wills and trust and health care topics --- and then concluded with one I hadn’t even considered. The psychology of retirement. Preparing mentally for the moment when we realize we don’t have anywhere to go or anything to do.

I’d never thought to stop and prepare for that first free day and all the days to follow. We worked through exercises to help us identify purposes and interests we might choose to pursue in retirement --- from hobbies to volunteerism to education to travel to entrepreneurship --- just for the fun and adventure of it.

I’ve run into retirees who may not admit, but do demonstrate, their frustration with days filled with nothing to do. At the same time, I can’t escape those who have ventured beyond their homes to try something new. Notice the number of mature artists and crafters at shows…and notice the quality of their work.

My family couldn’t keep up with all of the volunteerism my mother did to avoid sitting at home --- at the voting poll, for her church, the local hospital, a thrift shop with a mission she supported. We finally had to get her an answering machine so she’d know we were looking for her. (When she returned our calls and got a machine she would say, “Donna, this is your mother, Lydia Ullrich, calling,” like I wouldn’t know who my mother is!) We’re all needed out there somewhere.

Seniors fill writing classes as they seek to tell the stories of their families or just try their hand at a good mystery. While it still makes the local news when an 80-year-old earns a diploma, most college classes are a nice mix of young and mature students. This gives the concept of peer learning a whole new depth.

There isn’t a fitness program out there that doesn’t tailor its programming to our grumpy bodies. Senior service programs are everywhere, as are non-profit resource centers to help someone find community involvements.

If we put our passions to work we will find our way successfully into retirement and no doubt, we will recognize that our contributions are just as important as we once thought only our career-self could be.

Consider these resources:
The Biggest Mistakes Couples Make Preparing for Retirement, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10, 2013

Preparing yourself mentally for retirement, USA Today, Oct. 22, 2013

Psychological and Emotional Aspects of Retirement: Planning for a Successful Transition, Yvette Guerrero, Ph.D., University of California San Francisco, (pdf)

The Emotional Side of Retirement, non financial aspects, Fran Larkin.com, 2013, podcast available.