Ponderings and Musings

To all you folks that stay in the left lane not passing anyone even though you’re doing the speed limit, you’re a major part of the problem leading to the higher accident rates in the United States.

Earl and I live less than a 1/2 mile from a set of railroad tracks leading up into the Adirondacks. In fact, the main purpose of the railroad tracks is for the Adirondack Railroad, a passenger train that makes its way up into the Southern Adirondacks at key times of the year. The train is most popular during the autumn months while the leaves are in all their vibrant color glory.

When I was learning to drive in the early 1980s, not all railroad crossings had lights and gates to block crossing traffic when a train was coming through. In fact, these safety measures were a rarity; crossings in the area usually just had a sign on either side. When approaching the railroad tracks one had to slow down and look both ways because there was no other indication of an approaching train. This apparently led to too many accidents and someone in New York State decreed that all railroad crossings with have arms and lights.

While I was on my morning walk, I noticed that motorists rarely even slow down for railroad crossings these days. Unless the crossing is particular bumpy, folks will drive across the tracks at full speed without a moment’s hesitation. I don’t think folks even stop talking on their cell phones, shaving or putting on makeup, they just barrel across somewhere near the posted speed without giving it a moment’s thought.

When driving home I always slow down by 10 miles per hour or so and look both ways before crossing the tracks, probably because I can still vividly remember the days when there were no lights nor gates.

I don’t think folks should be putting 100% of their faith in safety in these electric gadgets. It doesn’t seem unreasonable for people to slow down, even just a little bit, to make sure it’s safe to cross the crossing regardless of what the gates or lights might be doing. Who knows, there could be a malfunction, the power could be out, something could prevent those lights and gates from being a tell-tale sign as to whether it’s safe to cross or not.

I guess I’m a dying breed that clings on to common sense much like lint clings onto your socks in the dryer. At least I’ll live a long time to talk about it.

Earl and I spent two hours on Interstate 690 waiting to get a parking space for The Great New York State Fair today. Prior to this fair, the state spent $50 million in renovations to the over a century old fairgrounds. Apparently part of the enhancements did not include improvements to parking, in fact, I think there are less parking spaces available because in the over 40 years that I’ve been to the Fair I can not recall ever waiting two hours to find a parking spot. 

This was our second adventure at this year’s Fair, which by the way, is the largest State Fair in the United States. On Friday night we visited the outdoor exhibits and the midway. Today we visited the barns and other indoor displays. And as always, I loved every minute of seeing the animals, talking to them and asking them about their adventure at the fair.

This is not us. This is a screen cap of the New York State Thruway near Rochester in the late 1950s.

Earl and I are out on a ride in the Jeep today. We both have been going a hundred miles an hour for work for the past couple of weeks, so I decided we need to spend some time alone, disconnected from reality a little bit and just relaxing. Instead of sitting in front of the television and watching whatever that is spewing out these days, we are in the midst of a Jeep ride in the Finger Lakes Region. At this moment we are parked at a Starbucks having a quick iced tea before continuing our journey.

They did not have Starbucks back in the late 1950s.

Our ride is comprised of all two-lane roads. We are avoiding toll roads, expressways, freeways and thruways on this jaunt. We had a simple lunch at one of our popular haunts, a family restaurant called Mimi’s. I had a BLT and Earl had corned beef on rye. Quick, cheap and delicious, just the way we like it.

Riding around and seeing that some leaves are just starting to change into their autumn glory is a reminder that summer is coming to an end. I’m not particularly bothered by this right now as Autumn is my favorite season of the year. I’m determined to remain upbeat and positive as we approach the winter months. This would be a nice change of pace for my 40s.

I’m probably going to write a separate blog entry about the video that provided the screen grab I included above. One of my daydreams during this ride is whether the late 1950s was a simpler time in general for the average person or if we only portrayed it to be that way.

I went to my primary physician today for a routine checkup. As a middle-aged man on blood pressure medicine, it’s probably good to make sure things are functioning as expected on a routine basis, and today was the day for that endeavor.

I don’t really care for my doctor. He is a replacement. A year ago, the doctor I had been seeing for two decades gave his shared practice two weeks notice and he retired somewhere down south. He left no forwarding address and the folks left behind don’t speak well of him leaving. His patients were divided up between the two remaining doctors.

The first time I went to the new doctor he didn’t bother to come in that day, despite pleas from the desk clerk letting him know that he already had the first patients of the day waiting in the waiting room, and I was one of those people.

Anyway, I went in today feeling pretty good. I’ve stepped up my regular exercise. I’ve lost a few pounds since my last visit and I was in a sunny mood. The drive was pleasant, the desk clerk was relatively friendly and the wait was short.

The nurse ushered me in, did the routine vitals and such. She called out all my numbers as she assessed me. Saving blood pressure for last, she used my right arm for the task and then gave me an alarming look.

“138 over 92”.

Now, that’s fairly high as far as normal folk go but it’s considerably lower than it was two years ago. Her look said, “Your head is going to explode at any moment” and followed up her alarming look with a gaze of disapproval. I told her of my tendency to have white coat syndrome, where my blood pressure is always high on the first try but comes down considerably on the second reading. She told me she’d leave that up to the doctor.

The doctor, a heavy-set man that has a hard time walking and breathing at the same time, plopped down in the chair and started rattling the keys on the keyboard. After confirming my birthdate, he informed me that my blood pressure was high and that it was obvious that my current medication wasn’t cutting it. He was prescribing another med to go on top of what I had. I asked him to take my blood pressure again, because I had just checked it this morning at home and it was 126/84. He told me he had a good reading the first time and he went about pounding on the keyboard, prescribing some sort of medication that would make me pee more. He asked me a few questions and I responded in monosyllabic, irritated sounding grunts. He walked over, pounded on my stomach a few times and told me to come back in a month. He shook my hand on the way out.

It was at that moment that I decided that 1. I needed a new doctor immediately and 2. I wasn’t ever going to see this man again.

Now, as I get older I understand that I’m going to need a little more care and maintenance to keep this masterpiece running in tip top shape. I don’t mind getting my oil changed once in a while. But as the driver of this vehicle, I know what works and what doesn’t and I really don’t appreciate a doctor that doesn’t listen to me.

By the way, when I got home my blood pressure was up, it was 128/86. I fully blame him for it.

It’s obvious that we’ve become a culture that throws medication at symptoms rather than getting to the root of the problem. I know the root of the problem, I need to shed 30 pounds, I need to cut salt out of my diet and I need to considerably ramp back the caffeine I consume on a daily basis. (I’m drinking an iced tea as I type this blog entry).

But my body is my temple and it deserves more than throwing more chemicals at it. Either I’m going to Tibet for a full physical, psychological and colonic cleanse or I’m going to find a family physician that is willing to work WITH me as their patient instead of throwing medication at me.

My temple is going to be back in tip top shape on my terms.

My career allows me to travel on a semi-regular basis.  I’m not traveling for work this weekend, but I am on my way to North Carolina to visit friends. I’m currently sitting at DTW Detroit Metro Airport. I’m in the middle of a three hour layover. Normally I’d use this opportunity to get a massage at a place similar to Xpress Spa, but I decided to relax in a different fashion this evening.

I’m sitting in the Delta Sky Club for the first time in my life. Totally worth it.

The open bar is self serve. The cookies are plentiful. There is unsweetened tea with lemon. A woman to my right is doing decoupage. She might be building a piñata. I don’t really know. I’ve had a couple of drinks and she could be really knitting or dancing a jig. How do women get knitting needles onto an airplane but I can’t bring my safety razor in my carry-on? A guy has to look good when he lands.

The kids to my left look like your typical rich kids, however, if they were rich kids they’d be on Daddy’s private jet, not sitting in a Delta lounge. Thusly, logic dictates that they are really well-outfitted suburban kids. They probably play tennis.

On my flight from Syracuse to Detroit the man next to me decided to chat after he realized that there was no seat B in our row. He was flying from Syracuse to Portland, Maine, so naturally he was flying through Detroit. I told him about the guy I sat next to that was flying from Minneapolis to Syracuse and he had flown Minneapolis to Salt Lake City to Atlanta to Syracuse. Because he could.

And so can your luggage.

I felt kind of low rent paying for my admittance to the Sky Club with a debit card but Earl and I are (laughingly) trying to keep our debt low and our accounts high. He’ll love it when he sees this charge in the ledger come Monday. He’s in Chicago. He flew either United or American. My poor husband. At least it wasn’t Spirit or Scooby Doo Airlines.

The suburbanites to my left are all using iPhones. Two have eyeglasses, one with tape. He’s a hipster that can’t grow a beard yet. I enjoy labeling people.

I shall label myself “aging yuppie”.  It fits me best.

So apparently it’s OK to leave your luggage while you go help yourself to the open bar. Ms. Knitting Needles/Decoupage/Piñata just left and came back with a drink. I bet it’s a High Ball. I’ve never had a High Ball. That’s what grown ups always drank when I was a kid. I’ve had some wine and a Guinness tonight. I’ll probably have one more glass of wine before I nap on the flight to Raleigh-Durham.

I don’t feel comfortable napping in here. I snore and I don’t want to suck up a knitting needle/piñata/decoupage project.

It’s the only way to fly.

When I find myself running into a bout of “programmer’s block” during work hours, I take a few moments and search up a Winners’ Circle challenge from “The 10,000 Pyramid” on YouTube.  I usually turn away from the screen to see if I can guess the subject based on the clues quicker than the contestant in the video. I think I’m getting kind of good at it.

Watching the older game shows from the 1980s and earlier on YouTube has made me realize just how much times have changed since then. The contestants are often dressed well: women usually in a lovely dress and men in a suit. Scruffiness is set aside. The whole set and game play of Pyramid gave the viewer an air of respectability. The players were serious, the special guests wanted their partner to win and the play and the rules of the game involved a healthy dose of thinking. You couldn’t just bark out a bawdy answer to fill in the blank.

Earl and I have been watching the summer run of game shows on ABC and have been enjoying them for the most part. I like watching the “$100,000 Pyramid” but after comparing this summer’s run to the shows of the past, I can’t help but notice that they’ve dumbed down the categories and expanded the allowances for clues. The show is fun but seems a little more raucous. While it looks and feels like “Pyramid”, the new show is really a sign of the times in that we just don’t seem to be as sophisticated as we used to be.

It’s often said that we need to be the change that we want to see in the world. I’d like to see the world change toward more respect and sophistication with the celebration of education and being well-read. I really think we’d all be the better for it.

Random photo from the Internet.

It was winter of 1984 when the intercom speaker in the ceiling chimed, signaling the beginning of sixth period Biology class. It was my sophomore year of high school. The teacher stationed himself behind the ever-lit overhead projector, looked at me and asked in a loud voice, “Mr. Wing, do you know what a homosexual is?”

Laughs from around the room probably garnered the attention the teacher was looking for. The girl to my right, always wracked with drama, ceased her ever-present tears long enough to admit a giggle. The girl behind me simply said “wow”. The girl to my left, my lab table partner said under her breath, “asshole”.

The teacher then quickly said, “uh, I mean homo SAPIEN, do you know what a homo sapien is?”

I replied to the affirmative and class went on, but I never forgot that moment of humiliation. It reinforced the rare but ever-present taunts from fellow students that I was different and that made me less in some ways. I’ve never admitted this before today but later that year, when I was working in the computer lab on a Friday after school, I wrote a program that printed one line on the green and white barred dot matrix paper. I printed it out and slipped it under his locked door when no one was looking. It simply said, “You are ugly on the inside and out. And you need a shave.” The latter part of my message referred to his awful looking scraggly mess of a beard (that part of me hasn’t changed much). Looking back, this was clearly not the best way to handle the situation, however, I had mentally prepared myself to deal with the consequences of this note the following week of school, figuring it would give me the opportunity to voice to someone how I felt when asked his “humorous” question earlier in the year. Nothing ever came of it.

Life went on.

I bring this up because, like many Americans, I keep hearing that we need to make “America Great Again”. Folks rally around screeching about how they’re not going to be politically correct anymore. They are going to take back this country. They are going to take back speech. We were safer “back then”. We were great back then.

I must have been read a different script along the way.

Movies like “The Day After” reminded us of what would happen if the nuclear codes were ever used, a threat always present during the Cold War.

Inflation was driving prices up to the point that Hamburger Helper was everywhere, even on our school lunch menu.

We were still driving 55 MPH on roads designed for 80 because we had to save gas due to the energy shortage.

In my little corner of the world, in a school of nearly 1,300, we had one African-American girl that was two years younger than me. Apparently no other minority families dared enter the village borders. There was a sigh of relief when her younger sister entered school because things were then in balance. I’m sure the argument of “See! We have two black children in our school!” justified the racial imbalance for many.  No one spoke Spanish as their native language. There were several churches in town and all were some sort of Christian derivative. We took a field trip to a synagogue so we could exposed to a “different” religion. The few taunts that I endured during high school usually came from those that left school early on Monday afternoons to go to “Religious Education” classes. God help the woman that wore anything that resembled some sort of “native garb”. I can’t help to think what would have happened to any man that might have had a Middle Eastern accent. A few years later a small grocery store was purchased by folks from somewhere in Asia. They shut it down in less than a year because apparently the locals felt it had been infested with terrorists and subsequently no one patronized their business. They were just trying to make a living.

The point of all this is that we learn from our past to make a brighter future. Life is meant to be lived with a forward momentum. We are not suppose to repeat our mistakes. We live, we learn, we grow.

Do we want to live in a country where the nuclear codes can be used at whim? Do we really want the sand to glow? Do we want to live in a country so full of aggression that people are chanting racial slurs or denouncing the very existence of people that are “different”? Do we want to live in a country where minorities are treated differently, under a different set of rules, simply because they don’t fill a prescribed notion of what an American is?

I know I don’t.

I believe that America is already great. No, our country is not perfect, but we can expand upon our experiences, learn from our mistakes and continue to be the country we have always aspired to be. We trumpet the fact that we are world leaders but many desire to keep everything close and inside our borders. Ultimately, it’s the people that choose to be fully part of the world that will lead the world. Not a country that closes off its borders and bitches from their little corner, yelling cheap shots from the cheap seats.

Let’s do what we can to keep our momentum moving forward.

Author’s Note: I made some changes to some of the descriptive language in the 11th and 14th paragraphs. I should really learn the concept of “drafts” and “final copy”.