New Year's Eve

Dear George,

It’s probably been 30 years since we’ve gone to a New Years Eve Party. Maybe 40. This might mean (a) we need more friends, (b) our friends aren’t the sort celebrate the new year with a party, or (c) both of these. In any case, I’m happy to not be going to a New Year’s party. There’s too much emphasis on doing crazy things and having an unattainably good time. I suggested to Katja that we celebrate with Ryan Seacrest, even though he’s my least favorite celebrity. It looks like we will join Ryan.

New Year’s resolutions are a lot easier this year since we’ve been deprived of so many things in the past nine months. First of all, I plan to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Then I will start going back to the gym and doing line dancing and zumba. I’ll re-enroll in OLLI courses at the university, and I’ll rejoin my “Underground Writers” group. And I can’t wait to travel to visit family members. Unlike most New Years resolutions, these are very pleasant and will be easy to follow.

We are thrilled that the inauguration will be held in less than three weeks. In some ways, the Trump era has been the most disturbing and depressing period in our lives. There’s not going to be a magical transformation however. Trump’s not going to disappear, the country remains deeply polarized, and Washington is likely to remain dysfunctional. However, anything will be better.

Most commentators suggest that 2020 was the worst year in memory, and I won’t disagree. However, there are always good things. One consequence of the pandemic is that Katja and I spent more time at home together, and that was enjoyable — a reminder of why we got married in the first place. Because of Covid, we had the longest Cincinnati visit of all times with J and our grandkids, and that was a treat. As they departed for New Orleans, they left their miniature schnauzer, Iko, in our care, and Iko has become my close friend, making sheltering in place much more tolerable. Although my poetry classes at OLLI were cancelled in March, I’ve spent more time at home trying to hone my poetic skills. Though I haven’t made any visible progress, I remain hopeful.

So that’s it for 2020. When you’re our age, every year is a blessing, and it doesn’t matter if one feels bored or short-changed. 2020 was catastrophic for many millions of families, and Katja and I are appreciative of our relative good fortune. Happy New Year to all!

Love, Dave

Warm Fuzzy Christmas Feelings

Steve and Dave, Christmas 1943

Dear George,

Happy Christmas greetings to all of our loved ones. The pandemic puts a bit of a crimp on the occasion since there are fewer get-togethers than normal, but we still find ourselves in a festive frame of mind. I started making a list of Christmas memories. Here are some of the things that came back to me.

In my childhood we had an extended family gathering each Christmas: my grandfather V.A. Sr.; uncle Ralph and aunt Martha with their kids Ann and John; uncle Kent and aunt Millie with Thor, Stewart, and Kurt; and my bachelor uncle Karl (Kent’s twin) who drove up from Neenah-Menasha. With no spouse or kids of his own, Karl always brought extravagant gifts, e.g., fur stoles or jewelry for for sister-in-laws, a nuclear chemistry set for me one year. Between family gifts and Santa, we kids were all running over with excitement. In the upper photo I’m Santa along with my cousins and siblings: (from the left) Thor, Johnny, Peter, Ann (in my lap), Steve, Vicki, and one of our Irish setters. The middle photo pictures Karl, Millie, Thor, and Kent. The bottom photo is my grandpa V.A. and myself.

We must have been pretty good children since Santa always brought plenty of treasures. We liked games the best since we could play them together. The carom board was one of our favorites, although it ended in disaster when Steven made a particularly boisterous shot, and his cue struck my sister Vicki’s front tooth, knocking it out. We admired the gold tooth she acquired as a consequence, but as a self-conscious pre-teen, Vicki was mortified.

Skipping ahead about twenty years, Christmas was always an exciting time in our Cincinnati home, though less gala an event than my own childhood. After he turned 4, we took our son J to Johnny’s Toy Store the week before Christmas each year to try to determine what toys he was attracted to. It always started out exciting but then proved too overwhelming — after half an hour J would break down in uncontrolled tears. However, J was in a calmer and more upbeat mood when Santa came to visit at his friend Jessica’s house.

We got a tree each year, and I usually decorated it with cookie dough faces painted with acrylics. One year I brought home a bare-branched sumac tree and decorated it with paper-mache heads molded over balloons. It was such a success that we left it up in our dining room for two or three years.

Whenever we had a white Christmas, J and I went outside a made a snowman in the side yard. As he grew bigger, we started making snow rabbits, and eventually they were taller than both of us. One year we were saddened when neighbors started putting their Christmas trees out at the curbside after the holiday, and we started dragging them back to our house. Soon we had seventeen trees on our back patio — a small forest which we kept there until Valentine’s Day.

When J was just a little kid we started going to Katja’s sister Ami’s and brother-in-law Bruce’s Upper West Side condo for the holidays. Manhattan at Christmas time was a winter paradise. J and I hopped on the subway shortly after we’d arrive and headed down to Times Square, joining the holiday crowds. Ami always made a delicious Christmas meal, joined by Bruce’s mom Vera, sister Sandra, and brother-in-law Clarence. Then Ami and Bruce treated us to dinner out at an elegant Manhattan restaurant. Katja and Ami would always have a lunch date at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, followed by shopping at Bloomingdale’s. The Met, MOMA, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick’s, so many holiday treats. J became enthralled with New York, eventually deciding that that was the only place he wanted to go to college, a decision that helped shape his life course.

We stopped doing Christmas trees after J grew up and left home, but about a decade ago Katja bought a potted evergreen to celebrate the holiday. Come spring she planted it in our side yard, and now it’s some twenty feet high, a year-round reminder of Christmas at our house.

Christmas is a bundle of good feelings. There’s Santa, presents, and holiday meals, but the essence of it is family togetherness. The pandemic, of course, has complicated that, but we just finished a FaceTime visit with J, K, and our grandkids in New Orleans — a cheery and fun get-together. Next year we hope we’ll do it in person.

Love, Dave

Everyday Foibles: Creeping Dementia

Dear George, I keep a file on my computer called “Everyday Foibles”, and I try to add at least one item a week that describes some funny or quirky happening I’ve experienced. My most frequent categories seem to be: medical, marriage, technology confusion, hearing problems, being cheap, and senior moments. Here are a few of the latter. I used to worry about losing my mind, but then it dawned on me that I’ve had a tenuous connection to reality most of my life. Love, Dave FADING MEMORIES I went out to lunch at the burger joint the other day with my retired colleagues, Bill and Norris. Norris said we were like the ROMEO’s, and he recounted being out with a group of retirees when a woman came up and gave them that name: “Retired Old Men Eating Out.” We all chuckled. Then Norris went to the men’s room, and Bill and I started talking about working out. Bill said that every night he does exercises with 3-lb. weights while watching Vanna White on TV. Both of us got stuck trying to remember the name of the show. “It’s not Jeopardy…It’s…It’s…It’s…” But we couldn’t get it. Norris came back, and we told him we couldn’t remember the name of Vanna’s and Pat Sajack’s show. Norris scoffed and shook his head as if we’d totally lost it. “It’s The Price is Right,” he blurted out. The moment he said it, he knew he was wrong. Norris corrected himself – “The Wheel ofFortune” – but he was too late to redeem himself. Everybody laughed some more. TYLENOL MEMORY TEST Katja asked me to pick up some Tylenol at CVS, and, as I scanned the various options at the store, it occurred to me that it wasn’t that long since Tylenol had been completely banned from the market. I could still visualize the empty shelf space. Now, it finally seems, they’ve finally come back full force. Back home I told Katja that they now have a full stock of Tylenol, though it’s probably taken 5 or 6 years to recover. Katja scoffed and said they banned Tylenol back in the 1980’s and it’s been available for many years. Finding that ridiculous, I googled “Tylenol history”. It turns out that the product had been pulled from the shelves in 1982, nearly 40 years ago. I can still see the empty shelf space as if it were yesterday. I wonder if my entire memory is in a state of collapse. MY VALUABLES When I came into the bedroom Katja was frantic. Drawers opened, boxes all over the floor. She explained that some of her jewelry wasmissing. I pointed out that our cleaning lady crew has had had several different helpers recently, but Katja didn’t think that was the problem. Then I suggested that she might get a lock box and keep her valuable jewelry in it. Again, she was unimpressed. “I keep could my valuables locked up too,” I added. Katja said I don’t have any valuables. “Yes I do,” I countered. In my mind, I started thinking about my valuables. Maybe my cuff links. My big toe nail clipper. Then it came to me, and I blurted it out: “My Swiss Army Knife!” END-STAGE DIZZINESS For the past few weeks I’ve been feeling dizzy every now and then. A friend asked if my blood pressure was low, so I’ve been keeping aneye on it. The doctor had increased my BP medication a while back,and lately it’s lower than it’s ever been. So maybe the medicationwas taking hold (too well). I looked it up on the Internet and sideeffects of BP medication was a plausible explanation for dizziness. The other ones that caught my eye much more, though, were (1) brain tumors and (2) bleeding inside the brain. Those causes seemed more likely. When I brush my teeth these days, I watch in the mirror for blood to come out of my ears. If no blood comes out by tomorrow, then I’ve probably got a brain tumor. These are just the horrible facts of life, and I’m trying to accept my terminal fate gracefully. I’M NOT LOSING MY MIND (DO YOU THINK?) The other day on my way to the fitness center I stopped at the Family Dollar store to buy some pooper-scooper bags. On my way home I realized I didn’t have my sunglasses. I stopped back at the Family Dollar store, but they didn’t have them. The next day I checked at the reception desk at the fitness center, and, happily, my glasses were sitting there waiting for me. Then today I left the fitness center, but, when I got in my car, I realized that I was missing my sunglasses again. I went back to the desk, but the woman working there hadn’t seen them. Then she looked at me again and pointed at my baseball cap on my head. I reached up, and there were my sunglasses where I’d stuck them for safekeeping. I blushed deeply and said, “Oh please don’t tell anybody,” and the woman smiled and promised she wouldn’t. TOO MUCH SMILING (OR MAYBE TOO LITTLE) The other day I woke up with some facial pain on both my right and left cheekbones. I didn’t remember ever experiencing that before, and it was puzzling. Each time I smiled, I could feel the muscles moving in the very spots that were irritated. I decided my symptoms must be a result of smiling too much. Later that day I told a friend about my symptoms, and she said that it was probably due to not enough smiling. That was an interesting alternative. I liked my interpretation better, though I couldn’t recall smiling enough to injure myself. The next day the pain had moved up to my forehead. I told Katja about it, and she said it was probably sinuses. I said I didn’t have any sinuses in my forehead, but she said I did. But today the pain has gone away, so it doesn’t matter any more. However, I plan to not smile for two or three weeks to avoid a recurrence.