Its been over a year since my fingers touched keys and produced a legible sentence.

During that time I was diagnosed with (in this order): cancer, arthritis, and Advanced Macular Degeneration (AMD). It seems I’m getting old. Aging.

All the circumstances surrounding these three health issues will be talked about in the future but here are some observations of importance:

1. Hearing the word “cancer” when my OWN health was being discussed was one of the hardest, strangest events of my life. Almost as bad as Red, The Dog, dying. It was less of an event than the death of my mom, but the impact a six letter word can have on your view of life is not to be overstated.
2. The US Health Care System (UHCS) is a mess. My care over the last 12 months was mainly marked by confusion, poor communication, and 6 figure financial bills. Sadly: too much of the UHCS is dominated by financial concerns that usually are of no benefit to the patient but huge benefit to the Insurance and Health Care Providers that rule the world of care. It’s got to be a fine line doctors walk to determine the correct care for an individual patient without costing the patient too much money or missing an opportunity to save the patients life. Its was astounding the cost of my care and it felt like some providers were more attuned to cost than care. More on that, later.
3. There are a lot of smart people on the internet. Who knew? When faced with my cancerous dilemma, I found the best information, help, and support from the various blogs at the Mayo Clinic, Harvard Health, and others. The most important lesson learned from all the participants was this: each patient is a unique individual and no one should be forced to endure a drug or operational protocol simply because it worked for others. It will be hard and take time from the doctors/specialists, but they need to see the person/patient the doctors are treating as that unique human being, not a slot-filling, money-generator. My heart goes out to all the care providers who really, really try to do the right thing for the patient and yet, have to keep supporting the hospital system that writes their paychecks.
4. Of Note: Both insurance companies and the UHCS are well off. Don’t feel bad for them. At all.

Last month there was a murder in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. According to local news outlets, the murder happened “feet” from security cameras installed by the city to help combat rising crime.

However, due to “budget cuts” the cameras service had been shut off since 2018.

The state of North Carolina is controlled by Republicans who cut taxes every chance they get, and have proposed an amendment to the state Constitution saying taxes CAN NOT be raised past a certain level, thus limiting the amount of income available to the state now and forever.

The heavily-gerrymandered Republican Legislature is also proud of a “Rainy Day” surplus of about $6 billion.

Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, has employment vacancies in both its Fire and Police departments, and both public service groups recently protested low pay as a problem. So did Emergency services.

The state is also trying to deal with a very public lawsuit that resulted in a court decision ordering the state to spend more on Public Education. The Leandro case determined the NC Legislature has been under-funding Public Education by millions of dollars a year for many years, and was–therefore–not providing a proper education to its citizens.

In the meantime, the legislature has refused to expand Medicaid in the state, leaving close to a million citizens uninsured. Why does the legislature refuse to accept Federal Money to expand a state program? Politics.

These are all random, but connected, facts. Many different reasons can explain all of them, and spin the narrative of each issue to the liberal or conservative viewpoint.

But simply put, the state of North Carolina is a “business friendly” state. Not a citizen friendly state. And we are true “Trickle down” state in the eyes of our elected politicians: all boats will be lifted by the rising tide of new jobs flooding the state.

It’s an experiment in true Capitalism, free market forces, and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

As a 71 year old, healthy, financially secure, white man with two adult kids, I appreciate all the legislatures has done for me.

Is everyone else in North Carolina as grateful?

Maybe not. Health outcomes, marginalization, low-income jobs, low income housing, climate change, mental health…none of these issues matter to our politicians as much as Critical Race Theory or Second Amendment Rights, or what bathrooms will be used by what people. We even have a Lieutenant Governor who is religiously against abortion, now, but not years ago when he needed one.

Ah, well. Maybe one day politicians will realize when they win an election with 51 percent of the vote it is not mandate to forget the other 49 percent.

If you’re worried about the end of democracy, and even civilization, look to North Carolina as the canary in the coal mine.

An hour ago, I started a column about the little things in life that annoy me.

It didn’t take long for the list to grow.

But as I wrote about the first annoyance on the list, serendipity! (Please look up the definition to better understand this article.)

The number one annoyance was the inspiration for the original column: I’d gone to my favorite gym and wanted to park in my favorite spot…but someone had parked there, already. Damn it! Why?

As I typed about this annoyance, suddenly this thought happened “in a happy or beneficial way”: I sound like an angry, old man.

Yep. it was a shock. A revelation, especially as I looked over the list of grievances. What had happened to me? I consider myself a happy, well-adjusted senior human so why, why, why am I making lists about things I find annoying? Who’s kidding who? And who am I really?

But it gets better. As I considered my newly developed questions in life, other thoughts took over:

1. Why would I think the parking spot was put there just for me?
2. When I parked in another spot because I couldn’t park in my favorite spot, did I then park in someone else’s favorite spot?
3. Did losing their favorite spot make them go home and write about it? (Probably on Facebook?)

It was a never ending loop of consequences pointing to my annoyance and my inconvenience as the only important things in life. It is narcissistic. It is troublesome. It is a waste of time.

So the thoughts of others flooded my brain. For example, the lady I honked my horn at because she was slow to move at the green light: was she okay or was she suffering a physical or emotional catastrophe resulting in her sitting there for 10 seconds before I rudely shocked her awake?

The thought of her possible problems did more than generate curiosity, the thought reminded me that I did not have any of those problems. None. It brought me back full circle to the human being I always thought I was: grateful for my health, sanity, limbs, and loved ones. Content with what life has given over the years, and not all that upset with what life has taken away.

And when I go the gym, if my parking spot is not available, I’ll be happy for the person who beat me to it. Lucky bastard.

It is not hyperbole to say America is a great country. We are the best country in the world. Immigration issues prove it: everyone wants to come here.

But it is also fair to say even GREAT things have problems, and are not without flaws.

Ironically, one of America’s greatest attributes is also one of its great flaws: Capitalism.

In America, people with great ideas or skills can make themselves unique, make themselves rich, make themselves special. Only in America can this happen to anyone, from any walk of life, from any race, from any gender, from any financial strata. It’s an unique opportunity existing for everyone in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

We won’t get into why America possesses this opportunity, that’s a long story. But we do need to understand what being a successful Capitalist society means to those who are not special, enough, to take advantage of the opportunity.

As noted before, our Capitalist system is fertile ground for special people with great ideas or great skill and the nerves to profit from them. American baseball players, for example, make millions of dollars per year playing baseball.

But there are 300 million Americans and approximately 1,500 professional baseball players.This means, in our Capitalist system, the remaining 299,998,500 American citizens pay money to support the baseball players. Even simpler, the CEO of Walmart needs 300,000,000 million Americans to buy Walmart’s products so he can pay himself $10 million dollars a year in salary.

As simple as it sounds, there doesn’t appear to be anything sinister, so far: special people get rich in America by convincing un-special Americans to fork over their money. It may hurt the “unspecial” to be called “unspecial”, but no law has been broken and the system has now worked for centuries.

But…when a small per cent of the citizens become “too” special, too rich, the system is headed for ruin. In the US now, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and all the poor can do is dream they could get rich, too. Or buy lottery tickets.

In our system, the rich getting richer does not make it easier for any special, poor person to get rich.

If you think of the US money supply as a pie, imagine the 1% of America that is really rich, taking over 90 per cent of the pie. There is not a lot of pie left for the remaining 99% of Americans.

This is a way over-simplified summary of a huge problem and it would take a book to detail it all, accurately. But it needs to be said: America will not survive another 200 years, or even 100, if the rich keep taking more and more from the poor without a process to end the homelessness, hunger, crime, drug abuse, and depression caused by being poor in an affluent society, with the resulting hopelessness. America will become a country of gated communities, each with their own security, maybe even their own economic systems. And areas of America will be economic deserts where the America’s great asset, Opportunity, will no longer exist.

And when the opportunity no longer exists for each and every citizen, how GREAT will America be?

Pretty stupid, it appears. Pretty, damn stupid.

In 2016, about 40% of America’s registered voters voted for a misogynistic, egotistic, name-calling, orange-haired billionaire with no political experience because he “fights for the common man”. Or because he “talks just like us”.

One of the billionaire’s sentences proclaimed “I could shoot some one in the middle of 7th Avenue and my voters would still vote for me.”

Four years later, professional politicians supporting the billionaire–and the billionaire–lost an election they call “the greatest heist in American History”. Their words. The 2020 election was full of fraud and illegal. So much so they stormed the Capitol to “take back” the country and restore power to the billionaire.

Illegal. Fraudulent. Stolen.

Except in the states the billionaire won. And not one Republican politician elected to office as a result of the “Great Election Fraud” has relinquished his illegally elected office and stopped receiving his pay check. Not one. Oh, but they have gone after civil servants who administered the elections. Those, lying, cheating, high-paid civil servants. And created tons of laws making elections–and election fraud–more difficult. Right. Now that THEY have their office.

And all cases of PROVEN fraud–less than 10 so far!–have involved Republicans. In NC, a local race had to be re-run because of Republican Fraud. The voters elected Republicans, again.

It is so mind-numbingly stupid it beggars belief. For example, the billionaire’s Federal Election Integrity Commission he started AFTER he won the 2016 election–FRAUD!–met for 9 months and disbanded. Nothing to do. At least the billionaire did not ask for that commission to be reinstated, That would have looked stupid.

So what to make of all this? Americans are really, really stupid. And not getting any smarter any time soon. In our local primaries in NC, three candidates did not attend debates, did not sit for interviews with established media, and spent millions of dollars on television attack ads. They all won. Without EVER discussing policy, facts, positions, history,…anything.

The common element in all this is money. Money is buying elections, and buying it for both parties, though the Republicans are much better at it. And what does money do? It pays for advertising and “messaging”. And it supports “silos” of specialized information for people to get lost in, without feeling lost.

But there is not one, single politician worthy of the blind loyalty of any segment of the American People. Or the money spent on them. Politics is now sport, but with no rules and no referees. And the winner is the one with the most money.

All thanks to us, the average citizen. The ones with very little money. But we can get those cool MAGA hats.

Until the American people wise up and see clearly how they are being used, money will take over entirely. No Medicaid for poor people. Social Security, done, because “its just a waste to spend money on old people”. Forget the looming Long Term Care Issue.

In fact, forget everything: we’re better off being stupid.

It’s taken me most of my life–and things can change–but I’ve finally gotten an understanding of our politically parties. Just the parties, by the way, not the fanatics who join them.

Republicans: these people believe in the American Dream, Capitalist Economies, and Laissez-Faire government. These are all wonderful concepts in theory, but when applied to the large, multi-national, multi-religious polyglot of American Society these beliefs turn into “I’ve got mine and want to keep it. Go away. And the less government, the better.” We’ll call this GMGA. (Got Mine Go Away)

GMGA is also not so bad a way of life but…

The Capitalist Economy needs winners and losers to make the system work. Ideally, the losers should make up a smaller per cent of the population than the winners. But in modern reality, the winners make up a small percent of the population while losers overwhelm the economic landscape. This is not opinion. It is fact. When someone builds a billion dollar treasure chest each dollar did not come from thin air, or a tree. It came from the pockets of the losers. But even then, if a billion people lost a dollar to a billionaire, things might be okay. But our economy has massive Winners, and they have created massive amounts of losers.

So the Republican embrace of GMGA has a huge problem in real life: what do the winners do with all the losers? Ignore them?

Democrats: these people actually believe in the same American Dream, the same Capitalist Economy, and have the same NATURAL predisposition to Laissez-Faire government. Trust me, they do.

So why do they oppose each other and fight all the time? Besides the human urge for power.

Democrats differ from Republicans only in the Democratic attitude toward the losers. GMGA Republicans could care less about losers, ( ask Donald Trump) while Democrats want some “moral power” to help the losers live at least a decent life. That moral power is government. There is a moral element to this discussion because of Jesus Christ, the poor, wandering, New Testament prophet who eschewed GMGA and told everyone to follow the Golden Rule, sort of. In light of Jesus’ teachings, how can a Capitalist economy let GMGA happen and ignore losers? Is the Stairway to Heaven really lined with gold?

Too many losers in a society leads to societal disruptions that are exacerbated by a small government that does nothing to help. Drug abuse, poor educational outcomes, lack of respect for the law, etc.

So, to fix our societal problems we need to “readjust” the Capitalist system to produce more winners (and less losers), or elect Democratic politicians who will increase the size of government to make sure too many losers do not make the society collapse. Sadly, the GMGA policies of cutting taxes, reducing government, and relaxing regulations benefits the Winners at the expense of the losers.

But is there really any effective way to regulate greed? Human nature? Maybe larger governments won’t really help. And do you think any Winners care about climate change?

We will all find out soon, enough.

And, yes, this is a simplification of a more complex problem. Dinner is ready.

Old age is an interesting state of mind. Think back to when you were 12 and wanted to be 13, to be a”teenager”.

Remember being 15 and longing for 16 and a driver’s license?

And (depending on your state) longing for 19 and the ability to drink?

And longing to be 21, just to be 21. Sidebar: I hated turning 20, as it was the end of all teenage life.

To my generation, being 30 was being old and over the hill.

And 40? One of the best ages, ever, until you realize its halfway to…The End. You’re going downhill, now.

Nothing special about 50 or 60 for me, though others were (and still are) fascinated with the idea of parties celebrating each age. Without revealing too much, I was assaulted at both these ages with the “need” for a party. From someone who said they loved me. Oy.

At 65, the financial and health issues ignored for years are brought into sharp focus by the urgency of Medicare, Retirement, and managing money to make it last the rest of your life, however long (or short) the rest might be.

Through all these years I never remember being impressed with the years the ages represented. But to even have the ability to age has to be celebrated. As a young child I escaped diseases like smallpox, polio, and rheumatic fever. The teen years were never scarred by accidents, whether by car, by adventure, or by romance. And sheer lottery luck kept me out of global conflicts that ended the lives of some classmates.

Oddly, and Thank God, life has been a relatively smooth sail from the 30’s to the 60’s.

Very seldom in all these years did the notion of being old ever infect itself into the life I led. Nor did it affect the enjoyment each year of life gave to me. I was never older, often better, and seldom mourned the passage of the years.

Now…

When I started this piece, I really did have a point to make. Damned if I can remember it, now.

Oh, got it: age 70. As it approaches, it brings a darkening cloud: the average life expectancy. As of this writing, that is 78.79 years for the average, American male. With all the other milestone ages in the rear view mirror, I hope the last one does not come in 8.79 years.

But even if it doesn’t, the remaining years will not be the same as those years passed. The potential calamity of old age has finally settled inside my head, and like most people in my circle, we hope nothing changes until our last 8.79 years are passed.

PS One piece of advice: do not try to explain aging to a young person. Ever.

In the last month I have been an active member of the Medical Industrial Complex here in NC.

I am a Medicare patient, specifically a Medicare Advantage patient, and until I became eligible for Medicare there was nothing wrong with me. Of course, I AGED into Medicare, but–still–healthy is as healthy does.

Since getting my card at age 65, I have gained a Heart Murmur, intestinal (benign) polyps, a “mass” under my right armpit, a back-sized fungus, and an interesting condition known as a “Hydrocele”.

I lost a crown on root-canaled tooth number 30, my ability to sleep through the night, and (if you can believe it) other functions too personal to mention. (Any senior fighting the financial ruin of senior dental care will understand the ramifications of a root-canaled tooth, rotting, dead, below the gum line, with no hope of re-crowning or resorbtion.)

In years past football, basketball, and baseball injuries came and went and often were unnoticed, or simply “waited out” until they fixed themselves. Diseases, too. There were colds but pandemics and health scares (think AIDS, Ebola, Swine Flu, etc.) never touched me and if they did, they didn’t last.

Medication was never taken. Even the colds were “run out” of me after several morning jogs around the neighborhood.

But now, I am a target of the System. Not only does every able-bodied insurance salesman in the nation (it seems) call during Open Enrollment and other strategic times of the year, but they get to repeat the process the next year, And the next, and the next….

Once a decision is carefully made about WHO will pay for my “Uncovered Medicare Expenses”, the real fun begins.

NOTE to all: Did any one think Medicare covered ALL medical expenses for us tired, old people? I did.

The fun is watching health care professionals scramble to fit their care into the Medicare system. I do believe too much medical care is better than too little, but when The System guarantees federal payments for certain activities, its odd to learn how many of those activities could be performed.

For example, the mass under my right arm looked to be fatty tissue, but was the subject of 2 different mammogram sessions, and a one sonogram with the head of the Sonography Department. The mammographer made the mistake of telling me if nothing was found in the x-rays, no further tests would be needed. When I was CALLED BACK for more x-rays, imagine how I felt. And then I was sent on to the sonographer after the second x-ray. Doom and death had to be in the offing.

But my sonographer was training a new technician and her trainee (and I) learned all the technical jargon involved in observing the Lymph Node. At Medicare’s expense.

Was there a problem? No. In fact, my lymph node was deemed “perfect” and became part of an afternoon class slideshow, without attribution. (Yes, I did ask and learned I’d signed my rights away in one of the ten forms I signed when the long morning started.)

It’s just as well. All the attention is fame enough, except when the test results show nothing but a “Fatty Mass in the right Axilla.” How embarrassing. I prefer the unwritten diagnosis of “perfect”.

I come here to write about things important to me, whether someone cares about my writing or not: writing is for me.

Note: There does appear to be a lack of appreciation for this effort, which really tests my belief in the sentence, above.

Today, I am tired. No surprise. At an elderly age, being tired is a normal state. You’ll see, young people.

But today I am more (sic) tired than ever. Yesterday was the verdict day for a landmark trial in Minnesota. A white cop killed an unarmed black man by kneeling on the black man’s neck for over 9 minutes. George Taylor and Derek Chauvin are the two men involved.

The process has become a race-related flashpoint, and the killing, trial, and verdict were/are extremely important events in the country’s efforts to understand racism in the United States.

But it is tiring. I’ll never understand either side of racism. It’s impossible.

All racism is–at its core–is hating someone you don’t know. Who would do that?

Sadly, racism itself, sees no colors and lures both hater and hated into a cycle of never-ending hate of the other. NEVER ENDING.

In Minnesota, the black man’s family suffered at his death. Consequently, the white man’s family suffered at his conviction and imprisonment. One life has been lost and other lives ruined.

Sadly, throngs of people supporting the black man, and educated pundits from around the world, celebrated the conviction. They danced in the streets. They cried “joyous tears”.

As a non-church person who believes in God and appreciates the teaching of the Bible (the Good Things, anyway), it has to be asked: what inspires this “joy”?

We need to know in our hearts and minds there is no joy in any single second of this entire process. None.

Joy will come when all people stop hating people they don’t know. All.

There are advantages to death if one is open to seeing them…and it’s not your own.

When my mom passed away in 2016, one of the most difficult aspects of losing her was clearing out her house. In case you think it, mom was not a hoarder. She was a saver. Her little two bedroom was neat and clean at her passing. Clearing her house for sale looked to be easy until we opened drawers and looked into the 20 storage totes piled neatly in the basement.

Quite naturally, she kept all her medical and dental records. And her taxes. And her purchases. And her daily schedules. And her personal clippings of her life as a professional singer.

Those records were in three filing cabinets and 8 storage totes.

Since there was a medical issue when mom died, we examined medical records to make sure we saved everything for a possible lawsuit. It took four days, one paper shredder, and 10 garbage bags dropped off at the local landfill/recycle center.

Her taxes took another 3 days as we sorted and shredded years of records not relevant to her final estate and tax year settlements. Another 3 totes down, and 4 garage bags delivered.

Shredding was constant except for times when the shredder needed to cool down. Mom’s small town did not have a commercial shredder with security, enough, to convince me to use them.

The remaining totes were my fault. One was full of my exploits as a young man, including proof I never learned how to really dress myself until my mid-30s.

Another was like the first but for my brother. Others were for my oldest daughter, one for my youngest daughter, and one for each of the five grandchildren engendered by my marriage in 1972.

All totes were filled with faded photos and news clippings. I gave each tote to each subject, however, and those totes were gone.

I came home with two totes. One was mine and one was filled with things snitched from the others: My mom as a young woman, my brother and I in baseball uniforms in 1968, my daughters’ news paper photo of them jumping rope on the first day of spring in 1982…important stuff.

The two totes were put high up on a shelf, out of the way and avoided until this past week. My intent was to whittle the two down to one and get my affairs in order. I wanted to be ready for when someone comes to settle my estate, do my final taxes, and close my books, so to speak.

But I got lost in the totes, in the years they represented, and the memories they inspired. My sober attempt to be a good deceased person turned into a regret I did not still have all 20 totes…or mom.

Regret–in context–does not lead to sorrow or unhappiness. I regret the losses of the last 68 years of my own life, but carry on with life happy in the knowledge someone will feel the same about me in 50 years.

Whether anyone really does or not, is irrelevant. I have faith, thanks to mom’s stuff.