Senior Daze

by Katie Bourg

About Katie: Having arrived in time for the Great (?) Depression, WWII, and all other 20th century problems, I am endowed with long and varied memories. Writing classes have long been my home away from home. Other people's stories are fascinating, and sharing is growth at its best. Hope you seniors will join me with your stories. Try it. You'll like it.

I'm getting a little irritable already. And it just turned August. I haven't been altogether happy with the weather, but that's something I can live with most of the time.

My red and white geraniums have enjoyed it, and are blooming their hearts out. I'm kind of proud of that. I never got the chance to develop a green thumb. I was told early on that the house was mine, but I was to stay out of his garden. He was the farmer. When I did interfere I usually pulled up the wrong thing and got a lecture. That almost happened again this spring when I tried to remove what started out to look like a weed, to me anyway. Turns out it was something called Verbena, with gorgeous purple flowers and lots of them. My neighbor Kitty saved me. Now they have spread among the geraniums and I'm getting undeserved compliments. I'm feeling a little smug about that.

What I'm not so happy about is the politicians who have found their way into my phone messages. now being left on my computer. I didn't invite them. I didn't even learn to use the fool thing for months after I'd acquired it. I am beginning to feel like I'm under bombardment. I look for personal messages and that wild screen that's like an old-fashioned kaleidoscope starts my eyeballs rolling as some fool attempts to tell me how to vote. I know how to vote. I can think for myself, thank you.

I listen to the short clips on the TV all day long, telling me of some important story coming at 5 p.m. But every afternoon, as I settle down to watch, the phone starts ringing again. I race to answer it, hoping I won't miss the best part of some reporter's story. By the time I get back to my favorite viewing station, I'm too late.

Back before education became such a political football, and the money for kids dried up, I was lucky enough to learn how to read. I've been doing it ever since. I'm pretty good at reading between the lines, too. There is enough information in a little pressed wood pulp to let me decide what I think a government job requires, and who is likely to fill the job. I don't need Mr. Bell's fancy phones or Mr. Gates' electronic screens to make up my mind. As a matter of fact, if you hand me a candle and a match I would probably get along pretty well without Mr. Edison's light bulbs. I can think for myself, and the overkill insures I will not vote for anyone disturbing my programs.

I would suggest, if I could get past the canned voices beaming at me, that the money being spent on superfluous persuasion might just pay for today's kids to get the education they need to run this land for another hundred years. Not that anybody would listen. They are too busy sending messages. Still, I always hope.

Having said this, I just finished a good paperback. It was fiction but based on the WWII battle of Bastogne, and the bitter complications our servicemen were up against during the Battle of the Bulge. A lot of them didn't come home. The ones that did have been good citizens. Married, raised another generation, paid their bills.

In spite of our struggles with each other, we've continued to build a pretty good country. It's not perfect, nor is the system we use to run it. There are always obstructionists. There are always loud mouths pointing at the other guy. But somehow following every election we usually get down to business and work of running the country. We have made mistakes. Sometimes we correct them. At least we try.

Call me Pollyanna. But I still think we are pretty good at doing things right. With or without all the electronic hogwash, I think we remain on the rocky road to success.

But don't call me. I may not answer my phone until Thanksgiving.