As we get older, things start to fail, or at least slow us down. Notice I said “get older” as opposed to “old.” Older sounds more respectful. The word “old” usually has a negative connotation. “That old lady is holding up the line.” “That old man shouldn’t be in the fast lane.” “Get rid of those old clothes. No one wears that anymore.” Some of us age more gracefully with aches and pains that are tolerable, others suffer years of pain as their body rebels against them. I’ve been lucky. One thing that seems to go wrong for just about everyone is our eye sight. It seems every older person wears glasses, progressives, bifocals, or readers. We’re all wearing something. I started wearing glasses when I was in my thirties. They were not very strong. For years, everything was clear. Then they weren’t.

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It was a terribly hot in Philadelphia in September, 1787 when a roomful of men were trying to create the Constitution for the new country. Maybe the most important meeting in American history.  Eighty-one year old Ben Franklin was a delegate. One of his contributions was setting up the two houses of congress. The House of Representatives based on a state’s population and the Senate where every state gets equal representation. Every day he noticed a carved sun on the back of Constitutional Convention president George Washington’s chair. He wondered whether it was rising or setting as a foretelling of the country’s future. James Madison said at the close of the convention, Franklin told him, “I have looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I know that it is a rising sun.”

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I’m sure you’ve all been waiting to hear the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year. Well it’s out. It’s actually two words, “Brain rot.” It was voted on by the public and Oxford lexicographers. The experts at Oxford claim the word gained new prominence in 2024. The frequentcy of use was up 230% over last year. I don’t know where I’ve been. I haven’t used it once and never heard anyone else use it. Oxford defines it as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging …It’s a word or expression that reflects a defining theme from the past twelve months.”

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It had been eight years since I last saw my uncle. It was at the memorial for my mother, his sister. He was driven by one of his sons and his wife the three hours from Long Island. He was slightly stooped over and walked slowly. After the service and my eulogy, I spoke with him off to the side of the room. He told me I did well and started to tear up. I put my arm on his shoulder and told him I understood. Over the next eight years, I called him for his birthday and Christmas. A couple of weeks ago we attended a fiftieth wedding anniversary. It was only a half hour away from my uncle’s house. My wife Maureen encouraged me to visit him. He is ninety-two years old now and I didn’t know if I’d ever get a chance to see him again.

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As we enter this new unchartered phase of American democracy, everyone has a theory about how Donald Trump won a stunning comeback victory. The one thing we keep hearing from voters and pollsters, it was the economy. Specifically, the price of groceries. Inflation had come down. Unemployment is at an historic low and wages are up. But it wasn’t being reflected in the supermarket aisle. People were fed up. Trump had the answer they wanted to hear, across the board tariffs and mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

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Everyone expected it to be close. All the polls showed a dead heat. It was about the “Battleground States” and the “Blue Wall”. It wasn’t close. It was a blow out. Trump supporters are delirious over having their guy back in charge. The rest of the country is stunned that the country elected the most dangerous man in America. The list of bad things about Trump is very long. Racist, misogynist, liar, incoherent, convicted felon, power hungry, fascist and let’s not forget, Hitler admirer. The Republicans have flipped the Senate and appear to be holding the House. What could the next four years bring?

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“…it’s a very dangerous thing to have the wrong person elected to high office.” This is from Marine General John Kelly who spent a year and a half as Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff. He was one of Trump’s closest aides who saw him on a daily basis. He is one of over ninety former officials who worked for Trump who now warn he’s not fit to be president again. Kelly has spoken to the New York Times. It’s frightening and we should all pay attention. Kelly says Trump would govern like a dictator, and he has no understanding of the Constitution or the rule of law. He made admiring statements about Hitler. Trump said more than once, “Hitler did some good things, too.” He had contempt for disabled veterans and for those who died in battle calling them “losers and suckers.” Kelly said Trump is a fascist who admires dictators. Kelly fears Trump would make good on his promise to use the military against Americans. “He just doesn’t understand the values-he pretends, he talks, he knows more about America than anybody, but he doesn’t.”

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It’s one month away. We are anticipating it. We are fearing it. We are hoping the madness will end. It appears it’s going to be close. And we know one candidate is a very sore loser. The presidential election will be one of the most consequential in our lifetime, maybe in our history. It certainly has been one of the most bizarre. An incumbent president stumbles so badly in a debate, he’s forced to withdraw from the race after insisting he wouldn’t. His vice president becomes the Democratic nominee just months before the election. She will be the first female president in our history if elected. And, oh, she’s a woman of color. Her opponent is a convicted felon and faces serious charges in three possible additional cases, and has been the target of two assassination attempts. One that came within an inch of probably killing him. Welcome to American politics 2024.

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Flying. We all do it. We take vacations. We fly for business. It’s one of the most unpleasant experiences we put up with to get where we’re going. The only other experience I can compare it to is going to the hospital for surgery. Which is something no one looks forward to. For both surgery and flying you have to arrive hours before you receive the service you’re actually paying for. You have to go through what can be an embarrassing personal experience. At the airport, you have to go through security which can require removing shoes, belts, everything in your pockets. Your carry on bag is x-rayed by a TSA agent looking for creams or lotions or threatening objects that you could use to hijack the plane, and you have to remember to leave your ammunition at home. You can be picked for a random check. The agent sticks a metal probe into you bag and starts digging through your stuff. It can make you very uncomfortable.

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The story goes that Ernest Hemingway was challenged with a bet to write a story in six words. Not a good bet. Hemingway supposedly wrote, “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.” Hemingway went on to write six word sequels. But upon closer examination of history, there are serious doubts about where the story really came from. A story in the Spokane Press on May 16, 1910 recounts a story that originally appeared in 1906 about the death of a baby. Hemingway would have been seven years old at the time. The grieving mother wrote an ad selling her child’s clothing. It read, “Baby’s hand made trousseau and baby’s bed for sale. Never been used.” Through twists of history the story was attributed to Hemingway thirty years after his death.

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