Of Giants and Little Men

"An era can be said to have ended when its illusions are exhausted." Arthur Miller "Man is conceived in sin and born into corruption," declared Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men, "...he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something out there that will get you." Although he was referring to political corruption, old Willie was on to something quite profound. Indeed, there is always something - sinister, lurking, waiting to upset the precarious balance of our perfect lives. From the very instant of our expulsion from the birth canal, we are given our personal “use by" expiration date - unknown to us - that will follow us from the womb to the tomb. That expiration date may be many decades away - or tomorrow. Perhaps the malady is in you at this very moment, a simple backache suddenly diagnosed by your family Doc as some malignant monstrosity that punches your expiration ticket before you can even get your parking validated - or worse, will signal your painfully slow descent that initiates your ignominious final decline. Or, perhaps some external event in the random cosmic crapshoot of life; an insurance salesman, with whom you have no known affiliation, speeding distractedly to his weekly sexual assignation with his secretary at a motel room - worried that his wife has become aware of his dalliance and weighing his options - wondering what the ultimate cost will be...just before he T-bones you at an intersection, bringing you instantly to room temperature. I was never a rear-view mirror guy, (unabashedly believing the most unappreciated word in the English lexicon is next ) - personal reflection was not in my wheelhouse - and these fleeting thoughts of mortality seldom struck a chord of dread within me when my years on the planet numbered, say...30 or 40. Not even being aged 50 gave me any significant pause; indeed, those years were a fabulously crazy halcyon period of purposeless conspicuous consumption that reached the heady hedonistic heights of first rate piggery - old enough to know better but still young enough not to give a shit. It was a spectacularly irrational race to the bottom when I managed to turn my myriad drinking problems into fabulous drinking opportunities and my life's mantra at the time was "...nothing succeeds like excess." By 60, however, these years were beginning to feel more than simple mileposts along my journey and, facing the serious business end of one's mortal existence, were no longer far off ephemeral way stations. But finally, having reached the septuagenarian stage of my life's program, I find myself given to an uncharacteristically retrospective view of the whole mess - and what it was all about. And that reflective process would be less tasking if it were possible to recognize the country in which I currently dwell. Being a stranger in a land that one has inhabited for one's entire life has a surreal, discomfiting feel to it - an unsettling, off balance unfamiliar dissidence. Somehow, while I was growing old, the nation had engendered a subculture of vindictive violence, victim hood and entitlement that finds half the country distrusting our time-honored national institutions and the other half attempting to destroy them. As this New America mindlessly rips down the existing societal structure in this suicidal search for equity , we are left to ponder exactly who will even be left to take refuge in the remaining rubble. To many of us this New America has become a foreign country on virtually every social and political level, the myriad pathological symptoms easily recognizable: Monuments of traditional heroes (the very people who founded the country) are thrown into the scrap pile while congressional legislation and city streets are named for commemorated career criminals. Who needs Thomas Jefferson or George Washington when you you've got All American heroes like George Floyd and Daunte Wright. Move over MLK, Rosa Parks and Medger Evers, the New America, wallowing in its modernity, has a new class of "Hero." Fantastically, we are told that men are "birth people" - can have babies, indeed, can breast feed (by what bizarre biological process this could occur is never precisely explained) while sexual groomers, posing as teachers and educators encourage minor children to consent to grotesque body mutilation under the auspices of "gender affirmation." In classic Orwellian fashion, '60's and 70's Neocons of both parties, still hanging around government sewers - who have yet to see a war they didn't love - are ensuring that the country maintains involvement in constant and never ending foreign conflicts, blood lust in nameless shithole countries around the globe that has produced military leadership so weakened by social equity policies and woke-ism that it managed to lose a 20 year war in Afghanistan to a pack of itinerant goat herders. We are asked to provide unlimited funding for an unlimited time frame to protect "the sovereign integrity of the Ukraine border," one of the most corrupt nations in Eastern Europe while the "integrity" of our own southern border has been unrelentingly and flagrantly violated for the last three years by literally millions of illegal immigrants, inviting a Trojan Horse into our very backyard. And, inexplicably, with a curiously unresponsive silence from a cognitively incontinent President who, like some witless bystander, placidly watched our cultural decline into idiocy - until he was unceremoniously kicked to the curb by his own Party like some hollowed out, punch-drunk boxer. "Sorry Joe, we're going for the price on Kamala, it's not your night kid" - thereby giving the American electorate a choice between two presidential candidates who have elevated the free-wheeling, inarticulate, vapid word salad to an art form. But wait... that's just where defining down our cultural and societal deviancy begins. Apparently we Americans, a nation once known as "The Arsenal of Democracy" - doers of great things, builder of interstate highways, armaments, automobiles and rocket ships are no longer capable of keeping trains on the tracks, on-time airline scheduling...or even managing to keep airplane wheels and hatches from falling off in mid-flight. We watch on the nightly news the shocking proliferation of a national Jew-hating antisemitism movement reminiscent of 1930's Germany that ignores the horrors of Hamas while accusing the Israelis of genocidal occupation of Gaza - when, in fact, the only territory the Jews ever occupied was Miami Beach. Can't wait to see the Post Modern Progressive celebrity game show version of Kristallnacht in prime time cable TV - " Who Wants To Be A Nazi?" or perhaps "Jew Or No Jew?" interspersed by those ridiculously cheesy commercials encouraging the adoption of Polar Bears (really...Polar Bears?) or ubiquitous drug ads depicting pre-diabetic female fatties, a chorus line - a virtual cavalcade of camel toes - waddling around singing (badly) about "...a little pill with a big story to tell" to fix something called their A1-C. We all see these things. We know - we feel it viscerally - that this new cultural shift does not seem to be merely the age-old generational disconnect, the natural antipathy of elders to their impudent progeny, but a Sea Change in our culture. Given that the road ahead is so much shorter than the road behind, perhaps it is no small wonder that those of us, in our dotage, would gravitate to a seemingly simpler, more familiar time and place while coming to the late realization, regretfully, that oftentimes we did not recognize the value of a moment until it became a memory. Nostalgia. The Webster's New World Dictionary defines it as; "a return; a longing for something far away or long ago," a definition that barely captures the true essence of the sentiment. In Greek, the word alludes to a melancholy memory and is defined loosely as "...the pain from an old wound." The Portuguese term "saudade" is an interesting word, defined as; "an emotional state of foreboding or profound longing for a beloved - yet absent - something or someone; a love that remains." It is a delicate word that evokes the fear that one may never encounter the object of their longing again and captures the emotion of a love so powerful - so fiercely intense - only hate could truly understand it. Yes, life is different now, sometimes incomprehensibly so. We grasp for familiar signposts to make sense of the chaos, to find some familiar touchstones that are relatable. I am part of that vaunted Boomer generation of men, born in the middle of the last century who came of age at the dawn of TV and mass media manipulation. We were the Darling Generation, admired, adored - the apotheosis of the Cambrian baby explosion of the post-war era. Deified, catered to and exploited by ad agencies, service providers and product manufacturers for virtually our entire existence...and soon to be the most despised generation as we suck up our social security checks and demand (from what primal yearning?) our Medicare while the nation circles the financial drain. No longer Cock of the Walk, Boomers will be vilified and blamed, rightly or wrongly, by younger, more progressive generations as a thoroughly selfish, self-indulgent, self-absorbed epoch - the guys that raided the frat party, drank all the beer, ate all the food, left a mess and flipped the bird to the remaining revelers. While the idea of death was always a muted part of our lifelong conversation, it has now entered the lexicon in a more frequent and intimate manner - an old comrade, forgotten in the fog of living, come to visit. We attend more funerals than weddings, see many old friends of 55 plus years who struggle with a variety of serious health issues and ultimately succumb. I feel fortunate to have dodged any serious problems. My vitals are good and, so far, I'm not on any meds. Despite several back and rotator cuff surgeries I am in semi-fine fettle, still digging life while pugnaciously fighting a rear-guard action, making Old Age battle for every inch I concede. I still love the sound and feel of a solidly struck golf shot that moves from the club face to your hands and vibrates through your entire body - deceives you into thinking, perhaps one can live forever. I still thrill to the rumble of diesels under my feet while standing on the bridge of a sturdy vessel as it slices through a sea so blue it makes the sky jealous. I work out regularly, still climb stairs two at a time, knowing full well that a day will come when I can no longer perform even that meaningless display of bravado. A charitable explanation for my late stage-of-life health condition would be a lifelong dedication to physical fitness - which would be a colossal canard. Far from treating my body as a Temple, for years it was my own personal pool hall. Beyond good genes, the ubiquitous Progressive refrain of "Social Inequity" has convinced me that the real secret, my personal talisman of longevity, is simply my unearned White Privilege - which, they tell me, is like a Super Power. It seems I am visited by these reflectively mystic musings more often these days as I sit quietly on my patio facing the lake of my youth. Closing my eyes I listen to the gentle sound of the water on the break wall, the balmy breeze of late Summer soft against my cheek. A lifetime of memories float by me, as weightless as moonbeams. After all the years, all the roads taken and abandoned, all the money, all the exhilarating successes, all the humiliating failures, all the jetsam and flotsam of living - all of it - I am chagrined to find that I have, finally, ended up right where I started. I open my eyes. I am alive. Freddie Van A Child of God

How do you thank a guy for a lifetime of memories? A thousand laughs? Certainly a few written words could never capture the essence of John Kosinski, a man who managed to jam several lifetimes into his 71 years on the planet. But even the gilded words of the gifted poet could not contemplate the profound void created by the death of an old friend. But I can try. In the summer of 1963 (perhaps the last year of relative normalcy before the cultural tectonic plates began their ponderous yet inventible shift into the dizzying, unrecognizable world of assassination, incivility and social decay), I met John for the first time on the roof of Ferry elementary school while we were engaged in throwing tar soaked rags at an unsuspecting rival gang (if a collection of boys hanging out on the mean streets of upscale Grosse Pointe could be characterized as a “gang”.) Having just moved from the City of Detroit, he was the new kid in the neighborhood, maybe a little rough around the edges, as his style of dress, attitude and language boldly announced. Smartly attired in an untucked and wrinkled mustard-stained Detroit Tiger tee shirt that barely covered his 11-year-old embryonic pot belly, khaki shorts and unlaced Chuck Taylor high tops, he was bellicose, blaringly boisterous and a charmingly deranged dynamo hurling insults to the tar stained kids below. But John’s most commendable attribute at this tender age was his unparalleled and extensive vocabulary in vulgarity – a tour de force in profane performance art. He was a virtuoso in his employment of obscenity, using crude, shockingly indecent language and foul-mouthed idioms that stretched the limits of the lexicon and expression the way Jackson Pollock would work with acrylics on canvass or Leonard Bernstein would conduct a symphony. He was the most curious person I have ever known (a trait he maintained into adulthood) and was like nobody I had ever met; we became fast friends. That summer it seemed like the Yankees were in town every Ladies Day, (Wednesday was Ladies Day at old Tiger Stadium – all bleacher seats $.75) and on several occasions we took the bus (Kercheval Deanhurst – one transfer) which dropped us at Michigan Avenue a few blocks from Tiger Stadium. We would walk to the stadium, baseball mitts dangling from our belts (brought on the off-chance a blast would be hit in our direction) excited to see our hometown heroes Kaline, Cash and Colavito with the bonus of seeing Mantle and Maris. One Wednesday, Mantle, batting left-handed hit a bullet that Jake Wood actually made a leaping attempt to snag at second base on a ball that never climbed higher than 15 feet and cleared the right field fence by three feet as it was still climbing. Ski and I had a 60 year running argument on who was on the mound; Ski said the right hander Paul Foytack, I insisted that Old School Manager Charlie Dressen would never let Mantle face a right hander and the Lefty Don Mossi was pitching. I suppose we could have googled the game to determine if either one of us was correct – but then we wouldn’t have had the decades-long discussion. The time passed. We grew up - different High Schools, interchangeable groups of friends - but our paths crossed through the years through college and into adulthood. Me to Florida to finish college and chase my fortune, he to Medical School and to his practice in Marquette where his brilliance was evident. Although separated by 1500 miles, life moved on and we would catch up with phone calls, weddings, Christmas parties and funerals, with a whole lot of living in between. Later, we found time to visit he and Kris in the UP and he made the occasional sojourn down south – despite his abhorrence of Florida – to Lakeland usually during Spring Training to see our revered Tigers. On my last visit this summer, we spoke in his backyard garden in that soft ethereal twilight of a U.P. summer evening. We spoke of the ephemeral nature of life and - facing the end of the runway - what was all this about anyway? What did it mean? That evening there was a quiet melancholy about him, a reflective quality at odds with his explosive, larger-than-life persona, a quality that I had recognized in him even as kids. As a surgeon, John had more than a nodding acquaintance with death in all of its dreadful configurations. He was a man who had come to realize that we are all prisoners of our own reality, fair or not, and understood the limits of loss and love – and that oftentimes one is the price of the other. He was a paradox of pluralism; he was self-effacing and vainglorious; he was impetuous and thoughtful; he was fanatically rational and fantastically eccentric; he was infuriatingly argumentative and incomprehensibly conciliatory; he was steadfastly dependable and demonstrably irresponsible; he boldly traversed the summit and plunged headlong into the abyss. He lived big. He loved big. He was eminently human. The past is but a shadow, a hazy penumbra eclipsed by time and the movement of the earth…but always with us. In the words of Faulkner “…the past is never dead, it’s not even past.” In the end, it is not the past that haunts us. It is we who haunt the past. Goodbye Buddy. See you on the other side. Freddie Van (a child of god)

We used to never say never Used to think we live forever Flying free beneath the sun Days go running and hiding The weeks go slippin' and sliding Years leave quicker every time they come Remember when we were young Passenger When We Were Young Time. Whether an artificial man-made chronographical construct of measurement or an immutable universal principle of the cosmos, the idea visits more often these days. In those seemingly halcyon salad days of puerile youth the concept of time was relevant only in the microcosm of the seasons; winters were cold and dark, spring was new life and baseball, summer was freedom and autumn was football and school. Wash, rinse - repeat. The routine, the minutia of the day-to-day business of life distracted us from any thought of the larger constraint of the concept of time. But eventually, the hours began to pass with a conspicuously ferocious velocity - the click of the clock cannot not stop. Perhaps it was the first realization as a child of how suddenly one particular Summer raced by and a flicker of consternation fluttered through our vestigial lizard brain - but did not light - chased away by our primal fear of the inevitability of time running out. The very thought was dismissed, safely stuffed way back in that deep subconscious, that dark place that allows rationalization to thrive. But in that seminal moment - that flash of reality - it lingered - lurking, waiting - confirming the dread that there is an end to everything. As Paul Newman famously said in the movie Hud, "...horses, dogs and men - nobody gets out of life alive." In many ways, the process of aging is one of subtraction - the taking away or casting off - of most things cherished. The tendency to focus on the end of the runway is inevitable at times. Seven jaded decades have molded a world view - hardened the heart - that allows adults to navigate all manner of shit that life sometimes throws at us. While life can only be understood backwards, it must be lived forwards and, despite the ravages and loss of aging, our humanness compels us to look to the future, to find those touchstones, those reminders that allow us to recreate that wonder and serendipity we knew as children. One of my touchstones many years ago was Stevie Van Elslander. Stevie was a child who marched to the beat of his own private drummer and had a remarkably whimsical fascination with flags that flied high and birds in the sky. I first met Stevie Van over 20 years ago at the Lochmoor Invitational. Along with his mom Cindy, he would follow his dad on those rare occasions when Gary would make the Sunday finals, getting ripped apart by his opponents like a sock puppet in the mouth of an angry Pitbull in his ever illusive quest for his 15 minutes of Warholian golf fame. What conceivable transgression the poor kid could ever have committed to be subjected to that sort of corporal punishment, only God knows. Thankfully, the boy was too young to completely comprehend the carnage he was compelled to witness. Stevie reminded me of Danny, a younger cousin I had growing up, also a boy who was "different", who listened to his own silent tune and, by the standards 60 years ago, he was judged to be a child of a lesser God. To many in my extended family, Danny was a problem child - except to my grandmother, who, much to the chagrin of the other grand-kids, took a special interest in the him. No doubt, the current enlightened modern medical geniuses would have doped the kid up with more drugs than a lab rat and pronounced him cured. Once, at the annual family Christmas Eve party at one or another uncle's dreary knotty pine basement - a mad house with a broken down rent-a-Santa, a besieged assemblage of stressed adults consuming vast quantities of adult beverages and a pernicious pack of 40 screaming cousins (a testament to the Cambrian explosion of prodigious, postwar procreation), my Grandmother was cleaning up little Danny, who had gotten into another little girl cousin's Christmas gift - a finger paint set. Apparently Danny used it to cover his face in brightly colored war paint in an effort to compliment his Native American Chief's feathered war bonnet, (clearly a gift that today would be considered a disgraceful form of cultural misappropriation). The 6-year old girl cousin's whose gift was pillaged was watching our Grandma clean up Danny and was understandably unhappy and articulated her outrage between spasms of uncontrollable, stuttering gasps. While she did not understand Grandma's well known solicitous soft spot for Danny, she was certainly well acquainted with our Grandmother's rigid rules of grandchild behavior and decorum. (To characterize Grandma as merely a "strict" disciplinarian would be like describing Jeffery Dahmer's cannibalism as an eating disorder.) "You love him more than you love us," blubbered the little girl cousin to our Grandma in a less than respectful fashion that would have normally elicited a stern rebuke - not simply for the tone of the statement but because it drew a clear distinction between "us" and "them" - always a no-no with Danny. "Well," Grandma said softly, "if I love him more it's because he needs it more," she replied in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. That was more than 60 years ago, but I never forgot what she said that night. On a visit to the Van Elslander home in the summer of 2001, when Stevie proudly displayed his personal flag collection, giving an impressively detailed description of each flag by shape, color and function, I had an idea. On my return to Florida, I contacted a specialty store and ordered a bespoke flag emblazoned with his name in big letters specially for him along with a whimsical little poem about flags flying high and the simple joys of childhood. In turn, he sent me pictures of him proudly flying the flag high atop his lakefront flagpole. I truly got a kick out of his enthusiasm for the present. In the spring of 2002 while playing in a golf tournament in Jamaica, I saw a beautiful, island-made birdhouse in the shape of a lighthouse, hand-carved of Jamaican Cottonwood - and I immediately thought of Stevie.Upon my return to the States, I had a sign made that identified it as "Stevie's Fly-Inn Bird Hotel", wrote another simple poem about the precious summer days of youth, had it packed up and sent it off Fed EX to Stevie Van - quite certain that he would love this surprise gift and I would hear from him or his mom in short order. After several weeks, however, having heard nothing from Cindy I reached out to FedEx on several occasions. Of course they claimed the package was delivered and signed for and, as I quickly realized, arguing with Fed Ex customer service is like arguing with a Forever Trumper - unpleasant and unproductive for you and pure obstinate rapture for them. I surmised the package was signed for and inadvertently misplaced by one of the numerous Van Elslander minions employed on the grounds, and, as the gift was designed to be a surprise and never mentioned, I figured it would turn up sooner or later. So, as adults do, I got busy with the business of life - weeks became months which in turn morphed into years. From time to time I would wonder whimsically about the mystery of the missing "Stevie's Famous Fly-Inn Bird Hotel". Then, several weeks ago while standing in line with my wife at a Bed, Bath and Beyond (yes, Bed Bath and Beyond where I learned quickly that if you are so hapless to be coupon-less, the middle aged women in the queue will gaze upon you with pity one might reserve for fools and imbeciles), Jeri receives a call from Cindy Van Elslander and, after the obligatory friendly salutations, immediately hands the phone over to me. "Did you send Steve a big birdhouse" Cindy asks? I'm puzzled for an instant as the cognitive tumblers click into place...Stevie's Famous Fly-Inn Bird Hotel! "Yes I did - about 20 years ago," I reply. "Well," Cindy says excitedly "it's here!" Apparently, the neighbor next door, some type of hoarder, signed for the package and stashed it, unopened with the rest of his swag, only to be discovered when the old guy was moving and clearing out his house. And so, on December 1st, 2020 in the year of the Covid, Stevie Van read the words I wrote to him about the enchantment of those tender years of ageless youth, not as a child - but as a young man. Stevie is doing quite well these days. He is an Equestrian, employed at Grosse Pointe Equestrian stables, riding and tending to his cherished horses. He is, happily, living his best life. And, in an ironic twist of Kismet, the very gift meant for Stevie turned out to be, in a year so fraught with apprehension, anxiety and an appalling lack of human interaction, a gift for me - a reminder that at times when our own light is extinguished, it can be rekindled by the simple spark from another person. Freddie Van (a grateful child of god) December 25, 2020

December 24, 2051 Celebration of the Solstice Eve As I weave the intricate narrative of her family history on this cold winter evening by the fireside, my seven-year old great grand daughter Danielle (my daughter's granddaughter) gazes at me with that mixture of quizzical disbelief and comical condescension usually reserved for elder citizens and idiots. I imagine it was the same reaction I had nearly a century ago when my Grandpa related the stories his Grandfather would spin about trading with the Chippewa Indians on the shores of Lake St. Clair in what was once called Grosse Pointe (renamed years ago Big Point due to cultural appropriation violation). "Careful Dad," my daughter Katie leans close and whispers to me softly. "Her school gives regular 'Social Quizzes' and the teachers take notes." While the Federal government has abdicated virtually all of its responsibility regarding border security, national defense and civil rights protection over the years, through Executive Orders and virtual single party legislation, it has ramped up its draconian enforcement of Hate Speech,1st and 2nd Amendment "violations", Federal government education mandates and Disinformation Crimes. I forget sometimes that virtually every State has different school curriculum in "Historical Truth", a significantly modified history of the old United States which permeates every discipline from math to geography and is completely un-tethered to any historical truth. Deviation from the proscribed teachings is frowned upon, especially in Katie's home State of Maryland and usually leads to Social Credit adjustment. "What can they do to me," I ask stupidly. "I don't even live in Maryland. After all these years, I still bristle at the dystopian shithole this entire continent has become. "It's not you we're worried about," Katie replies cryptically. " We have to live there." Her family lives just outside of Baltimore in a state that has some of the most restrictive "Citizen Freedom and Equity" statutes. In winter I am still in Florida, a state claiming to be the least restrictive of all the States in the country - which I'm quite certain is a claim made by virtually all the remaining States - and, of course, is a completely fabricated prevarication. Freedom and Liberty - as I understood the term in a previous life - no longer exists...anywhere. For the last 35 years we have summered in Michigan, also considered a restrictive State where civil liberties have been limited for years, and now legislation is actively discouraging ownership of private property. For the final time I have gathered the family together in Michigan for this Solstice Celebration, because the State has recently passed yet another law during the last session of the legislature and, effective January 1, 2052, I am considered a "non-resident alien". The " N on-Resident Alien Equitable Property Act" authorizes the State to invoke Eminent Domain to acquire the property - offering me about 20% of the current market value - despite the fact that there is no indication of "public use". I suspect by this spring, some well connected faceless political apparatchik will be enjoying my beautiful sunrise views. There is little celebration this "Solstice Holiday" week (all holidays are secular with no religious affiliation) as my wife and I are essentially inventorying and packing up our personal effects from our summer home of more than three decades. The State has determined that the furniture, artwork and any chattel are part and parcel of the real property and must stay with the house. In anticipation of this draconian demand, I had my boat shipped to Florida before the final ruling of the Alien Commission Board, essentially a rubber stamp for the State. Perhaps the Board will determine that the boat is personal chattel and not deduct the value from the pittance they will pay for the real property. I am not hopeful. Several friends who are in similar circumstances approached me to mount a law suit challenging the new law, but included in the "Resident Alien" statute is a state government indemnification - Michigan cannot be sued for these Eminent Domain claims. These heretofore un-imagined trans-formative laws over the past three decades were all implemented with such rapidity the change was on us before we knew what was happening. As crazy as it sounds, I fear this is merely the logical extension of the national trend of Federal confiscation of all private property, which was once the backbone of our governmental, cultural and economic system. Gazing out at the desolate winter lakefront landscape, I see the beauty "...in the nothing that is not there and the nothing that is" ** and am gripped by melancholy. How did it ever come to this? But frigid winter nights by the fire are made to tell tales - so listen... let me tell you a story. It is a story of a time and place and a way of life that no longer exists, destroyed by a people who did not know how to protect it. After another summer of rioting in the cities, by the summer of 2021 with COVID raging, Capitol riots, after the impeachment of former President Trump and over 50 arbitrary Executive Orders issued in the first few weeks of the Biden administration, the social and cultural fabric of United States was torn in two. Within four years, the border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada were flooded with 16 million "undocumented" aliens. In the same period, tax-paying citizens and businesses fled, decimating the tax base while creating a true welfare state full of unemployed illegals and Social Justice Warriors. A portion of these new arrivals were dispersed to the interior of the country, never returning for their asylum hearings. Of course, these immigrants were eligible (thanks to several of those famous Executive Orders) to receive full health and welfare benefits and achieved full citizen status within a year. (After the 2024 Presidential elections, the demographic nature of the voting population irrevocably altered, a secession referendum held simultaneously in those four border states overwhelmingly voted to secede from the United States and formed a new country, now known as La Raza Nacion. An additional plebiscite on that referendum codified the official language in La Raza as Spanish.) By 2023, COVID relief, Medicare for all, Social Security along with numerous other gratuitous transfer payment social programs had drained the U.S.Treasury and, with the Fed crazily printing worthless money, (11 Trillion dollars in two years), the unprecedented record inflation and corresponding rise in interest rates was not only predictable, but predicted by nearly every economist who was not employed by the New York Times or CNN. But the geniuses at the Biden Economic Advisory Committee were dumbfounded - their long discredited tax and spend Keynesian theory of economics failed once again. Guaranteed Universal Income was passed, income and corporate taxes were raised and, because money has no home, capital fled - along with the jobs. Not surprisingly, our "guaranteed" U.S. Treasury bonds were as worthless as a degree from the long defunct Trump University. There were no buyers and no market ...not even China. The once omnipotent economic powerhouse of the United States of America, for the first time in over 250 years, defaulted on its debt. The worldwide economic tectonic plates had irrevocably shifted, creating a new reverse paradigm; China, now the Global Superpower, flaunted its hegemony with the largest navy and standing army in the world. The Yuan became the official global currency and China used its now muscular purchasing power to flood Asia with cheap American imports produced by low wage American workers. By the late summer of 2024, in the midst of this financial and cultural chaos, the Biden administration was reeling and, despite an obviously biased media narrative, was polling poorly for the November election and desperately scrambling for some miracle "October Surprise". But the Political Gods seemingly smiled upon the Democrats when, through a Biden campaign operative leak, they learned of the Genome Project. The Genome Project was a parallel shadow research program, funded by the Trump administration and conducted in conjunction with the development of the Pfizer COVID vaccine. The project essentially analyzed chromosomes contained in DNA to identify the genetic code and isolate (and edit) genes that breakdown in the body's immune system as we age - a revolutionary "youth vaccine" designed to mitigate age related diseases in an effort to maintain a healthy aging cohort - ostensibly to reduce the Medicare for All policy that was swiftly developing into a fiscal and policy mega-disaster . Racing to avail itself of this apparent panacea, the Biden administration rushed to take credit for the discovery. In an effort to mollify the disenchanted "fixed income" Seniors who had suffered the most as a result of these ambitious Progressive fiscal and tax policies, the normal testing protocols were circumvented (via Executive Orders) and the Administration immediately approved (and encouraged despite serious concerns of prominent bioethicists) the vaccine to be distributed to any American citizen 65 years of age in the same fashion as the COVID vaccine - compliments of the Federal Government...and of course, Uncle Joe. Pfizer, having been indemnified from any possible negative side effects and anticipating another huge payday was totally on board and hurriedly churned out millions of Genome Project vaccine doses. With the now efficient COVID vaccine infrastructure still in place and (despite being a bureaucrat-run government program) operating like a well oiled machine, millions of Seniors (virtually all Baby Boomers) dashed to queue up to receive the miracle youth elixir. Then, in a perfect storm - a colossal collision of calamities and consequences unintended and, for reasons the vaunted medical "experts" never identified, the Genome immunization affected 40% of seniors receiving the vaccination by aggressively attacking their immune system. Of those, 80% died within 12 months - the majority after the 6th month of receiving the vaccine - with such alacrity that by the summer of 2025 the medical system collapsed nationwide. The new plague struck swiftly, killed by the millions and was no respecter of age or health, gender or wealth. There was no curve to flatten - just death on a pandemic scale. Pfizer immediately yanked the Genome Project vaccine off the market forever and despite the indemnification given by Biden's ill conceived and politically opportunistic Executive Order, were the target of the largest class action suit in history and quickly filed for bankruptcy. But all this carnage occurred after the Democrats won the '24 election and, in an outrageously overreaching, ironic twist of kismet, the Democrats never needed to juice the deal with the Genome Project vaccine to win the election. The Republican party, with their typical history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, jumped the shark when Donald Trump, the true Teflon Don (who in cat-like fashion used up another one of his nine lives by escaping the New York Attorney General investigation with only a fine), again received the nomination. With fabulously minimal reflection or consultation, he recklessly announced that his nominee for Vice-President was... the My Pillow Guy. The choice created a rift in the Republican Party with mainstream Republicans forming the American Patriot Party - a collection of decorous, dignified, propriety minded Moderate, Rino and Neo-Con "Conservative" apologists. These Republicans refused to default to sanity and their overwhelming choice for the nominee was Mitt Romney, another old white-guy retread. The outcome was never in doubt and no true Conservative has ever been elected President since. Due to the Mail In Voting and National Voting Standards Act of 2021 , (which essentially codified Mail-in voting, eliminated voter ID, the Electoral College and Federalized all elections, allowing the Democrats to maintain control of government in the '22 mid-term elections), no clairvoyant was necessary to predict the monumentally massive fraud that accompanied this legislation. By the '24 elections, all three parties figured out how to game the system and mastered the technique of vote harvesting, managing to generate 250 million votes between them - 80 million votes more than the total number of ballots cast in the record breaking 2020 election. Voter fraud had become institutionalized - endemic in the free election system. What was once recognized as the pillar of the Democratic election process had become a punchline to Banana Republic bad joke - welcome to the Third World. Amid the violent protests throughout the country, the Biden - Harris ticket, free from the cumbersome restrictions of the Electoral College, claimed victory with 40% of the popular vote. The formal Inauguration ceremony was done virtually - behind the fenced and guarded barriers surrounding the White House (which still stand to this day) as Washington D.C. burned. The virtual event was not surprising as "Hiden' Biden" did not make a single campaign appearance in person, locking himself down in the West Wing watching reruns of Matlock - reliving his salad days of 50 years before when he practiced law for 15 minutes. In the previous two years, for the first time in over a century, only a written State of the Union was submitted to both Houses of Congress. In 2025, perhaps because of the rumors swirling around Biden's cognitive impairment and possible Alzheimer's, the White House announced the State of the Union would be given in person. In a much anticipated televised evening event, the President began his stumbling address, reading off the teleprompter like a hostage reading a ransom note. Suddenly, due to a teleprompter malfunction, the President stopped, staring straight ahead, a deer in the headlights, became frustrated and angrily lashed out at the technicians - a classic Sundowner's Dementia Syndrome melt down - all of this on live TV. All networks televising the event pulled away - except Fox News, which carried the President's angry incoherent rantings for several minutes. (The FCC later fined Fox two million dollars for violating the Disinformation in Broadcasting A ct for failure to go dark.) In a pitiable and pathetic display, Biden was helped off the podium and shuffled off stage, still irritated and muttering unintelligibly. Later that evening it was announced that the President had suffered a stroke, was in stable condition at Walter Reed Hospital and the 25th Amendment would be temporarily invoked. Several weeks later, amid heroic fanfare for Biden's 55 years of service to the country, it was announced that due to the severity of the stroke, he would retire and Vice-President Harris would assume the duties of the office. This totally anticipated event triggered another pandering, disingenuously spontaneous round of phony heroic celebratory distraction commemorating the first Female/Asian/Black President. Although Joe Biden lived another five years, he was never seen in public again, dying in relative obscurity secluded in his Delaware home. Donald Trump outlasted him by six years when he succumbed to a stroke while choking on a Door Dash delivered Big Mac at Mar-A-Lago. Trump's final wish of receiving a State funeral was denied by President Eric Swalwell. Over these 30 years, life in what was once America has become unrecognizable. Big government and big Corporations are indistinguishable, controlling every aspect of life and culture. What at one time was identified as "censorship" has become so ingrained in the day-to-day life of the citizenry it is invisible - there is not even a word for it in the lexicon, the actual term having been banned years ago. All forms of internet communication are strictly monitored - if not by the government (Ministry of Truth and Disinformation) then by the disingenuous and biased fact checking organizations, wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporations that own the platforms. The major electronic and print media deny the well documented violent mayhem of the past and present that occurs daily on the streets throughout the country, altering our history in real time. Publishers have ceased publication of any material deemed to contain "disinformation, misinformation or speech in violation of authorized Ministry of Truth guidelines" under penalty of felony prosecution. America (what's left of it) exists in a constant state of McCarthyism, (a term banned 20 years ago) which was an historical reference to a period of governmental tyranny - and of which my grandchildren are completely ignorant due to the revisionist "Critical Race Theory and Historical Truth" curriculum now taught in all schools. Simply questioning - in any forum - the accepted conventional orthodoxy, regardless of the subject matter, is automatically considered Hate Speech - a felony. The right to bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment has been so diluted through state and Federal legislation it has become superfluous - initially by a firearms national registry and then in stages; by limiting the production and sale of ordinance, then by government civil litigation of retail firearms sales and finally criminal prosecution of the gun manufacturers. The fools that obligingly registered their guns soon realized that they were the target of confiscation by the authorities - who knew exactly who owned the guns and exactly where they were located. Eventually governmental confiscation became the order of the day but, of the 375 million guns in the U.S., less than 300 thousand were retrieved - the vast majority of which were the recent gun purchasers who were frightened by the complete lack of police protection in the cities. Despite the draconian penalties for firearm possession, like the Prohibition era Volstead Act of the last century, gun control was largely ignored as weapon ownership had become the primary means of self protection. With no funding to maintain police protection, riotous urban areas have created two tier policing; sociologists who respond to oftentimes dangerous domestic situations armed with only Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory or "incentive based" law enforcement - roving packs of of armed, uniformed "officers" who are essentially shake-down thugs targeting any business owner, citizen or potential criminal on the street who may have the ability to pay. I will be 102 years of age this coming year. Good genes, tremendous advances in modern medicine and dumb luck aside, that I have lived so long is pure serendipity and, in no small measure, due to the Genome Project vaccine. In truth, this longevity is equal parts Godsend... and curse. I am blessed that my wife survived the Genome vaccine debacle along with me, a scenario not as common as one may think. Those of us who survived the second pandemic with our partners are referred to euphemistically as "Pas de Deux" couples - The Dance for Two. If Boomers were vilified as selfish, greedy and self absorbed 30 years ago, today we are easily the most despised assemblage of people since the Trump Derangement Syndrome era. Scorned by the Gen Xer's and the Cancel Culture Millennials (neither of whom were eligible for the short-lived Genome vaccine) for our Boomer reluctance to adhere to the group-think mentality and our refusal to acquiesce to their demand that we confess to our virulent racist and xenophobic tendencies, we are the symbolic Judas Goat, using up the scarce financial and medical resources while leading the unvaxxed to their demise. They anxiously await our final dirt nap and are quite candid and vocal about faulting us for the utter failure of Medicare For All - which, as also predicted 30 years ago, is actually Medicare For None. These princes of the New America, prisoners of their own ideology, are a symptom of the tribal decay into which this place has finally devolved - in which there is never enough blame to go around. But there are still millions of us and, joylessly, we are having the last laugh as we bear witness to America's final, death-rattling last gasp. We are outliving our children and even our grandchildren, with some older Boomers who received and survived the Genome vaccine still alive at 112 years of age. We are condemned for our music, our cultural norms and our refusal to embrace the victimhood in which the Millennials and Gen Xe'rs revel. We are a constant reminder, to those old enough to remember, of what once was. The right to grow old in the same familiar country that we grew up in was never a guarantee and, clearly, a benefit that that will never be afforded us. I am old, but I know things: I know I steadfastly believe we are a freeborn people with an innate distrust of government built into our DNA. I know that any government that did not bestow upon us this freedom does not have the authority to take it away. And while the very nature of life is constant change, these last three decades have borne witness to a transformational upheaval, a never-before-seen metamorphosis to our way of life - culturally, financially and socially - from which there is no recovery. I recognized long ago that I would never significantly change the world. Looking back, I can derive a small measure of satisfaction that the world has not significantly changed me. Freddie Van (an aging child of god) ** From the poem "Snowman" by Wallace Stevens 1921 - Cancelled 2026 by Ministry of Disinformation.

Day #1 Coronavirus quarantine It was only 10 days ago we laid to rest our old friend Jack, on a cool, clear and brilliantly sunny Saturday morning. The sort of morning certain Michiganders - for months subjected to the bitter deprivations of winter - may break out the clubs and hit the ill-manicured links for what passes as "winter rules" golf in this neck of the woods. I am quite certain that Jack, an inveterate linksman, would have been first in line had it not been for the decidedly inconvenient circumstance of being ensconced in the very casket I was helping to carry to the hearse. Later we gathered at Country Club of Detroit, one of Jack's favorite venues in all the world, where we drank wine and ate large shrimp and finger foods - Jack would have loved it. Later, people took turns telling Jack stories and saying nice things about him, which for me, was as effortless as slipping on an old pair of jeans: He was a kind and gentle man, whose motives were uncomplicated, navigating this world with the simplicity of achild and without a hint of guile. I will miss his laugh and his sometimes clumsy social graces, (like standing in the shallow end on the edge of Fossee's pool in Florida, reading his i-pad with his shirt on and butt naked from the waist down...full Porky Pig mode). I will miss my friend. But that was 10 days ago, a lifetime ago, and the dissimilitude between that bright sunny Saturday morning and the world today is inexplicably impossible believe. It is a world that is going sideways in a hurry, the type of world in which my friend would not fair well. As the hyperbolic craziness progressed over that hysterical week and a half (and continues to grow as exponentially as the reported statistics of the virus itself) one wonders what, exactly, is behind all this charlatanry. Has this country simply devolved into a pack of whiny, self absorbed snowflakes, afraid of contracting a flu that, (for the vast majority of those without underlying complications), while very contagious and perhaps somewhat more precarious than a simple flu...is still the flu ? Or, is something more sinister at work here. Not a big fan of conspiracy theories. I think Alex Jones is a crackpot, Lee Harvey Oswald probably acted alone, 9/11 was not an inside job and I seriously doubt that I'll ever run into Elvis at a CVS in Belize. All that said, are we completely shutting down a vibrant economy because of a minuscule fraction of the populace? I write this with the full knowledge and understanding that some will interpret this as a callous, uncaring, unempathetic and probably criminal, policy. Fuck 'em. It should be pointed out that we live with statistical realities every day. The actuarial guys will tell you that they cannot predict who will die, but they will proudly tell you, with uncanny an d unempathetic accuracy, how many will die. Nearly 40,000 people die each year from auto accidents. One could accurately surmise that if legislation was implemented to reduce the speed limit to...say, 20 miles per hour, the fatality number would be greatly reduced. How about 10 miles per hour - 5 miles per hour? We could save thousands of lives.Of course, a ridiculous policy like this would have an incredibly deleterious effect on the economy, would not be tolerated by the people and would be laughed out of an governing body to which it was proposed Established science has agreed that smoking (and secondary smoke) is the primary cause of lung cancer deaths, which exceed 140,000 per year. If we are serious about the safety of all Americans, let's outlaw all tobacco products, thereby sparing tens of thousands of lives. Forget about the fact that doing so would shut down the revenue stream to the Federal government, who still collect billions in taxes from Big Tobacco and whose DOJ attorneys chased those companies like they were a pack of ambulances leaving the scene of a horrendous accident to sue them for billions, which they are still collecting. And let's not forget the 84,000 deaths caused by diabetes annually. If "... saving lives of Americans" (God, I am tired of that trite and meaningless banality) why not get all the overweight and out of shape diabetics off the dime and create some mandatory, federally enforced diet restrictions. Why not compel those affected to eat according to the government outlines? And please, let's not forget the regular flu, which sends upwards of 50,000 Americans to the Grim Reaper annually. I have yet to read or hear (with the possible exception of Facebook paranoia) any material that indicates this virus, once contracted by those individuals not at high risk, requires mandatory hospitalization, is that much longer in duration, is more lethal to healthy individuals or has long lasting consequences when contracted. Discounting, for now, any possible nefarious undercurrents in all this, (the guy who could possibly have enough juice to pull off this world wide scam would make George Soros, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg look like a pathetic troupe of cut rate street corner grifters), and understanding the need for some "at risk" (a category in which I would be included) individuals to protect themselves, is it worth ruining this giant economic engine for our lifetime and our children's lifetime while we watch as this place turns into a third world economy? In an effort to protect an infinitesimal percentage of 'at risk" people? Really? Are we that afraid of the flu that we'll roll the dice on this plan - this poorly thought out piece of sophistry that may not even work - for a problem that may not even approach the epic and dire predictions of self-serving bureaucrats? The question, at this juncture, is how long an entire nation of free-born people will tolerate anti-constitutional expedience and infringement on their civil liberties before impatience and disgust take over. That's all for today, I'll be checking in with my daily diary as long as this pernicious pandemic persists. Stay calm and carry on.

Day #2 Coronavirus quarantine Beautiful morning on Park Ave.in downtown Winter Park to meet up with my normal coffee klatch crew. Only one shows as the streets are as deserted as if a category 5 Hurricane was 20 minutes away. Our regular coffee shop indicates that "in an abundance of caution," they will be closing after today. As we are the only two patrons, this move is economically understandable, despite the fact that the proprietor just opened two weeks before after sinking a ton into the renovation of the trendy, upscale establishment. The young man will certainly take a haircut. Bad JuJu - bad luck. Trump is on the TV again in one of his loquacious, meandering word salad attacks on the English language, struggling as always with constant repetition while employing the few adjectives he has in his limited lexicon of superlatives. He is a man, even on the teleprompter, who never read a sentence he couldn't mangle beyond recognition while boorishly applauding his own extraordinary efforts. Although at times he looks a little shaky, I have to give him credit for handling the pressure over the last three years. His sidekick, Corona Czar V.P. Pence - who has the constipated pinched face appearance of a man who hasn't taken a good dump since he came to Washington - is blathering on about ventilators, respirators, medical masks and various equipment which he squeezes in between the fawning plugs praising Trump's efforts. The reporters in the press room could give a shit; the media goons are waiting with the patience of a spoiled self indulgent brat itching to tear open his Christmas presents. They shout over the top of each other to hurl their ridiculous accusations at Trump, - clumsily disguised as questions - about (what else?) RACISM, because Trump has saddled the virus with the moniker "Chinese." This despite the fact that virtually all these viruses are named after the area of origin. With my entire golf club shut down (course, fitness center, pool), I motored down to Dick's Sporting Goods to purchase a bench and weights for "quarantined" workouts. Dick's was shuttered along with the rest of the mall. Went to Publix and bought a broomstick and 4 one gallon jugs of water. Found a 4 foot piece of plywood and a concrete block and BINGO...my journey on the road to Adonis-ville remains unencumbered. I suppose this is how the convicts do it in prison. The rumblings that the cure may be worse than the disease are beginning to resonate; the people are getting restless, as well they may. Prior to this Black Swan event, this generation of Boomers have experienced three watershed events in their lifetime that became part of the collective consciousness of the nation, either with terrifying suddenness - the Kennedy assassination and 9/11 - and the Vietnam War. While Vietnam gradually crept onto our national radar and severely affected an entire generation, Kennedy's assassination and 9/11 shocked the nation - but none of them caused a panicked media to lose all perspective and the Federal Government to shut down the entire country - on scientific information that is sketchier than an Al Gore movie. This phony, kinder, gentler, pseudo-morality that has taken hold of this country and brought us to this marshmallow clouds and rainbows safe space - where the naive idea that assuming any risk of losing anyone is intolerable. Let's not kid ourselves - there will be pain. That's all for now. I'm falling behind in finishing these posts because...well, because I'm basically a layabout. I'll catch up. Please click on the link below to give you an idea of how this shutdown strategy is the greatest scam since the Clinton (Crime) Family Foundation.

Day #3 My wife was not the first person in my life to accuse me of the occasional battle with the iniquitous vice of procrastination, (although my naturally indolent nature dictates that simply postponing the battle is much more expedient than fighting it now.) So, imagine my justifiable chagrin when, finding myself with plenty of time on my hands, I made the admiral effort of cleaning the small 2nd story balcony in the back of our townhouse, (something that's been on my "mini bucket list" since moving in nearly two years ago), she was decidedly unimpressed with the effort. My righteous indignation demanded an adequate explanation, considering I had just braved the perils of the corona virus by spending the better part of a half hour in the hot sun, (who knows what malignantly lethal microorganisms are flying around in that potentially deadly air), cleaning "her" balcony - the place she frequents regularly for morning coffee. "Well," she replied with that haughty, imperious attitude adopted by people who are convinced of the virtue of their position, "it took a potentially civilization-ending, world-wide, pandemic for you to finally get it done!" I would remind her that old aphorism that nobody likes a smartass, but for me it's kind of a "kettle calling the pot" meme. Later in the afternoon, having accomplished the above mentioned Herculean task and finding the shelter-in-place lifestyle not only stifling but abjectly stupid, I meandered over to the only golf facility in the area still operating, Goat Hills Golf and Trailer Park C.C. to hit some range balls. GHGTPCC is a facility that, when built, ruined a good swamp. The dress code is, essentially, "clothes optional," where, if one were attired in a pair of ripped cargo pants and a bleached out "Cold Play Tour '96" tee shirt, one would be considered woefully overdressed. The golf carts appear as if they did a few tours in Afghanistan - a faded monkey-shit brown in color, replete with ripped seats and balding tires that are (as my North Carolina buddies were so fond of saying) "slicker than deer guts on a doorknob." But they have a driving range...of sorts. The range balls are golf balls in the notional sense of the word - they were at one time round, white and once actually had some component of compression. What passed for grass on the dismal teeing area of the range was the pathetic occasional clump of dried out weeds, where every iron shot resulted in a puff of dry dust and an erratic ball flight that resembles a hummingbird dodging a shotgun blast. Gone are the good old days (day before yesterday) when I was practicing with shiny, brand new, out of the box Titleist tour practice balls at my club...that solid feeling that moves from the hands through the entire body as a nine-iron meets the ball precisely, leaping off the face. The high, perfect parabola of the shot as it gently slides a little left at the apex, hangs for an instant and falls gently to earth - a sensation so pure it makes you feel like you could live forever. We will not, any of us, live forever. But we surely will die an ignominious, spineless and humiliating death if we hide like children from a Bogeyman that may not even exist. Catch y'all tomorrow. In the mean time - don't give out, don't give in and NEVER, EVER, give up! Stay Calm and Carry On.

Days #4, #5 & #6 (The lost Weekend - Some days will be condensed. When the highlight of your day is driving 4 blocks to the Publix, even Stephan King would find it a formidable task to create a compelling narrative for any protagonist.) You wanna talk desperation? I'll give ya desperation right here...played nine holes at Goat Hills Golf and Trailer Park with my wife this weekend!. I thought the driving range was rough...until I saw the greens. In the '70's, I had a shag carpet that was smoother than these babies. Hit it three feet on a 167 yard 3-par - the putt squirted left from the giddyup - missed the the hole by 6 inches. Good news, however. Jack Nicklaus Grand Cypress Golf course near Disney (usually at least a 35 minute drive in season - now maybe 15 minutes) opened for play. Individual carts, no touching flagstick, all bunkers played as waste areas (no rakes to touch), rangers are there solely to monitor the six foot rule. This new normal is the inevitable and logical result of the general direction technology has been driving us. Tethered to our machines and relying on them as virtually the only mode of communication has created an alarming inability to actually connect with other humans. Why go through the inconvenience of actually talking to someone when texting, while not as accurate, will suffice. And while all age groups are guilty of this behavior, Millennials and and the so-called Gen Z generations are clearly the most affected. At least with the AIDS virus in the '80's, the level of alienation was controllable; if two consenting adults wanted to get inter-personal and bump uglies, prophylactic protection was available. Is there any doubt this "no touch " culture will effect the way we interact with other humans. Will the birthrate decline even more propitiously with Millennials and Gen Z? Will they even care? Several months ago, smoking a cigar and sipping a MacCallan's 15 on the patio at my golf club, I overheard some junior members (perhaps early thirties) excitedly recalling a round at Augusta National that apparently all three had played the day before. As I listened to them recount an extremely detailed, hole by hole replay of their round, I wondered whose ass a couple of puerile, non-partner attorneys had kiss to gain entry to the storied home the Master's. I was fortunate enough to have played it over 30 years ago (when these kids were still shitting yellow) and I understood the level of difficulty involved in gaining access. When I asked them if they had an opportunity to walk through the stately clubhouse (oftentimes part of the Augusta guest protocol), they stared at me dumbfounded; the Augusta National they played was a giant video game with a wrap around screen at the Titleist booth at the PGA show, complete with sound of chirping birds and breeze blowing through the pines, and, if you so desire, the roar of the patrons.To these kids, who have been playing video games all their lives, this seemed to be as satisfying as the real deal. What happens when the virtual reality becomes indistinguishable from truth? Which, of course, is a question better answered by someone who understands the reality of life, say...a TV Doc like Dr. OZ. If one needs any additional proof of our devolution, if the new word abbreviation protocols for text and email isn't enough of a perversion of the language and communication skills, think about the prevalent use of emojis as a communication device. From Egyptian hieroglyphics to emojis in only 3 millennia - real progress. For those hipster individuals who think there's no difference - that a symbol is a symbol - try to convey the feeling and emotion of any of the great pieces of literature...with emojis. Frustration with the preposterous "run and hide" reaction to this virus continues to grow as American economic viability and wealth continues to circle the fiscal drain. Congress is throwing around trillion dollar bailouts like Bloomberg buying a quarter page political ad in a high school yearbook, deceptively burying Green New Deal and carbon footprint buy backs for airlines deep in the bill. if this pandemic concludes with a fatality number that is less than or equal to previous year's death rate, who will take the responsibility for this boondoggle? Where will these possibly unnecessary trillion dollar relief packages come from? Those hopeful Democrats who believe this is the end of Trump, may be correct. But the reality is that this just the beginning of an entirely new and perilous relationship between the individual and the Federal government, which is the silent price of the bailout money. No matter how this fiasco concludes, the face of the nation will surely change as Government intrusion will be an integral component of everyday life. Life moves on, sometimes the cultural tectonic plates shift. As much as we may want to, nobody ever promised we had the right to grow old in the same country in which we grew up. Truth be told, I don't know that I even care to coexist with a society that tolerates cheesy Medicare commercials with Joe Namath as the pitchman (YES , BROADWAY JOE ) and who don't even comprehend the significance of the hook line at the commercial's end when Joe intones, "...call the number - you'll be glad you did.. .I guarantee it! " Oh well. As Jimmy Hendrix so eloquently prophesied - "Ain't no Life Nowhere." Catch y'all down the road.

Day # whatever Have never been a big "rear view mirror" guy, believing that the most under-appreciated word in the English language is "NEXT"...next deal, next day, next dream. Looking back was the give-up- artist's mode of surrender, a rear guard action - a fighting retreat against whatever time one may have left. However, in this era of coerced uncertainty - when any future runway available to us grows more transitory by the quarantined day - reversion seems the only viable course available. So, who would've thought on my birthday 50 years ago today, I would be a 69 year old man under quarantine in Florida, with the dystopian media predicting the end of civilization while depicting joyless, depressing sepia colored video vignettes of the deserted streets of New York City with cheesy, melancholy background music. When not displaying these spurious Orwellian and totalitarian images, the cable networks bring on their charlatan TV Docs to help us deal with "...the anxiety and fear of isolation," as if we were children who lost their security blanket and are desperately seeking a safe space. While this Corona virus seems to play perfectly into the narrative of this new America - that is, you're nobody until you are a victim. However, this pandemic allows - EVERYBODY TO BE A VICTIM which, in turn, reduces the value of victimhood, the currency of the snowflake mentality. What the everyday, off the rack, pre-virus regular victims are learning is that when everybody's somebody, nobody's anybody. Leaving my domicile on Saturday, (how long before "papers" will be a requisite to move about freely), to pick up a script for my wife at Costco, I notice for the first time the taped off lines on the floor indicating the compulsory 6-foot social distancing mandate while in line at the pharmacy. While the mind reels at the opportunities to contract this virus in this sad sea of humanity - even at six feet, the fear of some of these people is visceral. The woman behind me was taking no chances; although the outside temperature is pushing 90 degrees, she is ridiculously costumed in a surgeon's cap, a respirator mask, rubber dish washing gloves that cover her forearms and (I am not making this up), some sort of cotton booties over her footwear - in the event, I guess, that little viruses are leaping up on our shoes like so many fleas. A slender, rather mousy woman, she resembled those actresses from the black and white movies in the '50's when, apparently, it was de rigueur to sport pointy breasts - as if two snow cones were fastened to her pigeon-like chest. The Latina woman in front of me, when finally arriving to the pharmacist's window only to find that her script hadn't been called in, began a rant a la Rickey Ricardo - part Spanish, part English (a form of spanglish) directed at the pharmacist, cursing the poor young man relentlessly.The rest of the Octogenarians in line, already scared half to death by, well...by fear of death from a virus and the constant dread that the conservatives (those faceless, nameless malevolent rabble) will use the Corona virus to steal all their social security and Medicare, simply cowered, averting their eyes. She was in her middle 40's, huge breasted and, at one time perhaps a genuine dark-haired beauty - but now just a chunky, high mileage, B list midnight Bootie call Senora beat up by the disparate inequities of life. A real man hater, she had the classic female "I need" line - a distinguishing crease that ran from the middle of her forehead to the bridge of her nose and let you know she could spew enough venom to make some unsuspecting man wish he had corona virus. As she paused momentarily to catch her breath, she turned around in time to see me shake my head and gave me a look she had probably used her entire miserable bullying life. I held her gaze, wagging my finger in a "make my day sweetheart" pantomime. She turned away briskly, her stiletto heels clicking on the concrete floor. The pharmacist greeted me at the window with a sheepish smile. "Maybe," I said with only a hint of sarcasm "there's a reason for this virus." The velocity of the recent societal transformation has a startling semi-permanent and Cambrian explosive quality to it that has perilous overtones. The arrogance, however, of a society that jeopardizes the immediate future and its children's future by tampering with the deciduous nature of life is astonishing. It is a cosmic reality; at maturity, some leaves will fall from the tree. Despite the constant media propaganda that saving every life is an imperative, I am unpersuaded. Life is, indeed, changing. I realized many years ago that I would not significantly change the world. I am gratified however, at this stage in my my life, that the world did not significantly change me. See y'all down the road. Stay well.