The one I’m using to type this is a wonderful computer, but it doesn’t really do what I want it to do, whereas my old Mac came a lot closer to doing what I want a computer to do.

First of all I love being able to load and store many programs, pieces of music, pictures, documents, etc. on my computer – something my little Mac couldn’t even come close to doing. What my little Mac did though was it loaded an operating system, but not much more when I turned it on. It included a little text program and a little paint program, but not much else. Anything else had to be run from a disk. In other words the computer couldn’t load or access or run any other program until I wanted it to run. That’s what I want a computer to do.

I want a computer to load it’s operating system when I turn it on and Nothing, NOTHING else (well, maybe a clock). I don’t want it to connect to the Internet or load a virus checker, or load ‘explorer,’ or any word processing or music or java or control panel (well, maybe a control panel, but a very rudimentary control panel) or any other programs.I want to be able to tell the computer what else, if anything is going to be started when I turn the computer on, I don’t want the operating system to do that.

I want all those other programs to be stored in the computer and I want to be able to add/download/install other programs, but the only part of them I want added to the operating system would be an icon that includes a link that will open the program for me.

Sometimes I want to do just one thing when I turn the computer on. Maybe I want to write, or draw, or work on a spreadsheet, or browse the Internet, or send an email, or listen to music; but I don’t want the computer to set itself up to be ready to do any and all of those things and many more that I might never ask it to do.

My little Mac was usually booted up and ready to go within a minute. This laptop sometimes takes as much as three minutes (depending on how long it takes to access the Internet). That’s pretty frustrating when I have an idea I want to work on, but the computer won’t even let me open the program because it’s busy opening bits and pieces of hundreds of other programs.

Do today’s Macs do this or do they have the same problem?

What were the words to that song Sally sang/sung/singed in the Broadway play, “Peanuts”?

“Why are you telling me? That’s my new philosophy?”

The recipe was described with comments that this was a favorite of the author’s family, that her kids often begged her to make it. I don’t know if I made a mistake in the preparation or not, but it was horrible, probably the worst think I have ever made. I tracked the horrible taste down to the tarragon and have never since made anything that included tarragon among its list of ingredients.

To be honest with you, I was quite surprised at how pleasant the “Tuna Tarragon” was. I would describe the flavor as refreshing or spring-like. I am looking forward to returning there and getting a more sizable helping next time.

All these years I have blamed the terrible taste of that dish on the tarragon, and although it might have been the culprit, the real blame probably should rest upon the shoulders of the cook who prepared the dish. It was probably due to a mistake on his part. Now, I wish I had not thrown that recipe away, because I would like to try it again. Maybe the result would be different.

This has me thinking that there are probably a number of other “grudges” I have been carrying that maybe it’s time to reopen the investigation to try to determine where the real “crime” lies or if the “judgment” was or is justified.

This also has me thinking about how long we hold onto things. For instance, I purchase the tarragon just for that recipe and you might have thought I would have tossed the stuff when I tossed the recipe, but I didn’t. I held onto it partly because it was completely paid for, partly because there was only a tablespoon taken from it, partly because it was a respected spice in the same league with other well known spices such as: sage, savory, and rosemary; and partly because I hoped to discover something prepared by someone else that contained tarragon so I could find out if the stuff really was not worth keeping.

That little bottle of spice remained in my spice rack for more than 20 years before I threw it out! Twenty years!

As I’m writing this I’m thinking I should go check my spice rack and toss any other spices that are well past their prime. While I’m at it, maybe I should also toss out some of the other things that I no longer have any desire to use such as that bottle of mincemeat a friend gave me about five years ago after I commented that a slice of mincemeat pie heaped high with whipped cream can be a special treat once in awhile. I meant “once in a great-while,” but she didn’t hear it like that. There are just too many other pies that I like better.

While I’m at it there are those clothes that I’ve been holding onto, thinking I might be able to get back down to 140 pounds again and be able to wear them again. Of course, I’ve been thinking that for almost as long as I’ve disliked tarragon!

Then there are the boxes of old papers, bills and receipts that the income tax people aren’t going to care about any more than I do.

Gosh, I’m wearing myself out just thinking about this and you know what? I’m beginning to think that maybe I should continue not liking tarragon.

One thing about being older than the average human being is that you also have more

memories and, hopefully, more wisdom.

Take this evening when I got to the front door, for instance. Anyone watching me would have thought my brains had become addled. “Poor old Bob,” they might have thought, looks like he’s losing it.

Actually, just as I was looking for the key for the door a memory flashed to mind of a moment just like this when I was looking for the key to the door, but it wasn’t there.

It happened about 30 years ago when I lived in Wisconsin on one of those very cold days, the day after a snowstorm. There was about 15 inches of snow on the ground, about six of it new snow. The temperature was about 10 degrees. I retraced my steps back to my car, but there was no sign of the key. I knew it had to be somewhere between the car and the house because my car key and my house key were on the same ring of the chain. I had one large ring with three smaller rings on it. House and car key on one, work keys on another and miscellaneous keys on the third. The other two rings were there, but the house key ring was gone.

I scoured the path between the house and the car, but still did not find the keys. There were only two things left to do. I could break something like the door or a window to get into the house or I could go someplace to be warm. I tried the neighbors I knew, but none of them were home, so I walked two miles in the bitter cold to a gas station where I called my wife. I’m sure she was calling me an idiot (because that’s what I was calling myself). An hour later she picked my up and took me home. I got the spare car key and found the missing keys in the car, on the floor between the seat and door.

That incident caused me to make two changes. I put the car key on the ring with my work keys and I found a place to hide spare house and car keys.

This memory took a lot longer to tell about than it took to remember. It spent only a moment flashing through my mind. That’s where the memory came in.

Now, here’s where the wisdom came in. I spent most of the time that I was staring at my keys realizing that the spare house key I had hidden outside my apartment was no longer there. It was inside the house. A few weeks ago my daughter borrowed it and I forgot to put it back in its hiding place. I still keep my house key on a separate ring from my car key, but if I got locked out of my home it would mean either breaking something to get in or spending the night in my car because I no longer have a wife to call and rescue me.

You might be thinking there’s no wisdom in my story, but if I was 20 years old, rather than in my 60s, I might not yet have had a “lost key” experience and wouldn’t have thought to get that spare key and hide it back where it belonged before I did anything else, before I sorted the mail, checked for messages on the phone or walked the dogs.

That may still not be enough wisdom for you, but this should be: Next time you see an old timer staring at one spot for an inordinate amount of time, don’t assume he’s having one of those extended Senior Moments. It might not be a case of having forgotten himself, but a case of having remembered.

I envisioned this blog to be a sort of journal, my daily musings and that sort of thing. I had hoped to keep such things as age out of it, but the matter of the fact is: I am an old guy.

I hate to admit it. In my mind I’m still 23 years old, but you wouldn’t have to look very long at me to know that I’m not 23. I’m not even 53. Realizing that you’re no longer young is something no one really wants to admit. We all work very hard at not being old. We rationalize it by saying such things as: “I’m still pretty young, I’m not 70 yet” or “I don’t act or look or feel as old as ‘so and so’ who is younger than me” or “sixty isn’t really that old. Sixty is the new 40. I could still have 30 or even 40 years left.”

The fact is, I am a scosh older than 60 and when I was a kid sixty was old (actually, 60 was OLD). Seventy was real old. Eighty was really, really old. Ninety was too old to think about and to live to 100 was almost impossible.

I’m sorry, all you other 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 year old kids, it’s still the same, even though now that we’re here it doesn’t seem the same. We seem to have more fun than those old folks we watched back when we were in our 20s seemed to be having. We knew those old folks couldn’t run or dance or move or make love or even think as well as we could. They were slowing down and we were still speeding up.

While I desperately want to stay young, my body tells me I’m getting old, maybe even that I am old. I rarely had more than one part of my body or one place in my body hurting at a time when I was as little as five years younger. Right now, I can count four places that hurt and six that hurt on a regular basis.

I am also far more overweight than I want to be and I am more overweight than I ever have been. In the past I adjusted my diet and jogged in order to take the weight off. Now, while I am able to adjust my diet, I am no longer able to jog. I am also unable to do any sort of strenuous exercise that involves my legs or knees (two of the four body parts that hurt right now). I’m looking forward to warmer weather in the hope that I will be able to jump in the pool and jog in the water. I’m told that might take some of the pressure off my knees.

About eight months ago I went to a wedding. At my table were a bunch of “old folks,” some younger, some older than me, but all of us were older than the average age of those at the wedding. When the music started I, like all the other folks at my table waited for the “slow” music. A couple swing tunes were played and a danced two both of them with my youngest sister. Then they played a rap song and we stayed out there. Eventually, I was dancing much like my nieces and nephews who were in their 20s. “Don’t let anybody say, we old folks can’t keep up with the young kids,” I thought.

I had a great time and after it was all over a young guy, about 20 came up to me and very seriously, with no hint of sarcasm told me that he had enjoyed watching me dance. That seemed to be the consensus of my nieces and nephews, that they were very surprised I was able to keep up.

Fortunately, none of them saw me the next morning when I could hardly move. Both knees were throbbing. My lower thighs were burning. Every step was agony! Now, eight months later one knee still hurts and sometimes throbs and the thigh below it sometimes burns.

I hope I don’t sound like I’m moaning or whining. That is not my intention. I’m just trying to set the stage for the fact that, while my body is telling me I’m not a kid anymore, I’m still pretty happy with my life.

It has in no way been the smashing success I hoped it would be when I was in my 20s, but it also has not been disastrous. I am not a millionaire. I am not famous. I am not outstanding in any field. I am divorced. I am overweight. I am not prepared to retire.

On the other hand. I am not in jail. I am not dependent on drugs or alcohol. My health is probably very good for a person my age. I have a daughter who loves me and whom I love very much. My ex-wife and I continue to be very good friends. I have live in a place I am very happy to be. I have a job that I enjoy enough and pays well enough to meet my needs. I have two dogs who are great company.

In short, I can lament the past, but there’s no value in hanging around there because the present is still worth my time and effort. In fact there is another wedding coming up in less than eight months and I plan to be out on the dance floor and if my knees hold up, even though I know what could be coming the next morning, I still intend to have the most fun I can have.

I think that’s the first line of a poem I will soon be working into something resembling the stark reality of trees in Winter.

This is something I have missed since moving to California. Here, during the winter the trees either never shed their leaves or hang onto them until the new leaves begin replacing the old. There are few trees that reflect to cold bareness of November, December, January and February – four months that many people, especially as they get older and find fewer things they enjoy doing (skiing, snowmobiling, snowball fights, making snowmen or snow angels, ice fishing, sliding sideways down a highway) think of as dreary and painful.

Trees in the Autumn changing color as they begin their plunge to the ground are the most memorable for many people. Others enjoy the full greenness and shade of a tree on a hot summer day. Still, there are those who thrill at the first signs of Spring when a tree buds and sends out the shoots it will use to form new branches during its next growth cycle.

The look of trees in Winter I miss.

During winter I have seen trees that look to me like:

• An audience of hands ready to applaud the completion of a concert;
• the hands of a crowd reaching for a handful of cloud or sky or stars;
• a single hand in the distance, preparing to pray;
• a soul scrabbling out of the grave ready to embrace its true existence;
• an old woman’s hand, sore, arthritic, barely able to knead another loaf of bread;
• the hands of a few dozen zoo monkeys, stretching their fingers toward some floating peanuts;
• the way my hands feel after a day of cleaning and dish washing.

There are better times than others to observe the trees of winter. During the day Winter trees are usually no more enjoyable to see than a tree when it is pregnant with leaves. The best times for me are at dawn or dusk with the dimmer light of day in the background or on a full-moon-night or when there are one or two or very few trees in an open expanse giving the trees the greatest opportunity to say whatever it is they have to say about birth or death or old age or loneliness or hope.

She’s been combing through the ads for a few days now, made a half dozen appointments and is hoping for the best: a-spacious-in-her-price-range-with-suitable-amenities-and- preferably-all-utilities-paid apartment.

I’ve been helping her with the research. Here are some of the things that caught my attention.

Located on the 4th floor.

While the apartment might have a very nice view from there, a call to the apartment manager revealed that there is no elevator. Four floors and no elevator! If you’re a health nut with no furniture, living in one of the 4th floor apartments might be very desireable, but if you’re going to be climbing those stairs with a sofa on your shoulder and later after a hard day trying to spoon feed math to 10th graders, you might just want to sell the sofa, sleep in your car and use your apartment just as a place to pick up your mail.

Refreshing swimming pool.

To be truthful a pool that offers me the opportunity to continue being tired and worn out and leave me just as exhausted as when I jumped into it would be tolerable as long as it was wet. A dry, but refreshing pool would be okay if there were a couple nice flower boxes nearby.

Starbucks within five minutes.

In other words the neighborhood is civilized, no wild animals roaming the streets and none of those signs that say things like “Democrats not wanted here” spray painted in an elaborate script on the fences and walls. However, and apartment with a Starbucks five minutes away may not be acceptable for people such as me. It sounds like the place is just too close to the “sticks.” I would prefer an apartment with a Starbucks within three minutes. In fact, the ideal would be an apartment with a Starbucks so close I could show up in my pajamas (and if you think I misspelled that, because you wear pyjamas, then you probably paid too much for the things because they were the creation of someone like Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent; and those of us who do not sleep in our money know we prefer to wear pajamas or made-in-Italy pigiami or even Schlafanzüge, which are not to be sneezed at).

Looking for Female roommate under 30…. Please include full body foto.

The first thing that bothered me about this ad was the use of the word foto, which seemed to indicate a person who probably spends too much time text messaging friends and occasionally family. I ask you, in my most candid manner, would you want to be the roommate of a text message fanatic? Me neither!. A closer reading of the ad reveals a couple other possibilities, either of which could be quite upsetting (and by upsetting I don’t mean: about to do funny things with mice, I mean the use of phrases roughly translated as: not fit to walk the face of the earth even with membership in an exclusive exercise club). First, there is the possibility of age discrimination. Wouldn’t a woman older than 30 likely be just as good a roommate as any woman in her 20s, probably even better because she would be able to offer so much more due to her additional life experience? Second, is the likelihood of sexism. Whether “Sam” is a man or a woman, I do not need to tell you what a turn-on reading this ad would have been for me when I was in my 20s, because even as a five year old I was already being described as a boy with a vivid imagination.

Call 555-123-4567 if interested.

My active imagination pictures (or simply hears) the following conversation:

“Hello, I’m calling about the apartment you have advertised in the Acorn.”
“Yes, it does sound like a very attractive apartment.”
“Yes, the location does appear to be very desirable.”
“Well, actually, I’m calling to get the number I need to call if I’m not interested.”

You see, this revelation was made mere minutes after the New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots in the Superbowl (you could also take it as a sign that The Universe is trying to maintain some semblance of balance in the fact that both teams had the word “new” in their official name, although it is a well known fact that neither New England, nor New York should be considered “new” any more, but just as it is next to impossible to eliminate the penny from our everyday usage, it is next to impossible to eliminate the word “new” from the names of such places as New Orleans, New Jersey and New Ark, not to mention the afore mentioned New York and New England. Just as most U.S. citizens, not to mention fifth graders would have little idea whether it was hot or cold if you said, the temperature is 48 degrees Celsius, many people who are smarter than fifth graders who have no idea what you were talking about if you said something like, I’m going to spend a couple weeks this summer in American England or tomorrow I’m flying into Boston for a meeting in Buryport).

Nevertheless, the Universe has been balanced. The Giants beat the Patriots and my friend has balanced the time I wasted watching something I had very little control over by spending an hour or so solving Sudoku puzzles. You could argue, however, that by watching I have in some very small way affected the outcome, if not of the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl result, the result of some future Superbowls. Such an argument, of course, would be another example of The Universe keeping itself in balance, because the time spent developing or maintaining the argument for or against this theory that watching a Superbowl game can affect the outcome of future Superbowl games, would help balance either the boredom releasing or maintaining levels or the time using/wasting levels required to maintain the smooth operation of The Universe for, as we well know, if The Universe becomes imbalanced in one area such as the amount of hydrogen peroxide in the world so that a nurse at a hospital in Yesuntuki would have a problem with her enemas.

The shocking thing here (and I know you, too, are thinking these very thoughts or similar thoughts, because you could not be thinking my thoughts, without being me and if you are thinking my thoughts, then we have a whole new can of worms to open up here and to tell you the truth, I am really tired of opening cans of worms, for reasons that should be obvious to you and if they are not obvious, then you are as confused as I am about either where I am going here or why you are going there with me) is that if my friend had not recently become fascinated by Soduku puzzles, then New England would have won the Super Bowl.

It’s true!

If New England had won the Super Bowl, then The Universe would have needed balancing somewhere else. There would have been a man in someplace like Malaysia who wouldn’t have eaten some cookies and suddenly fallen asleep.

I know, it’s fascinating the way The Universe fits together. You sneeze and the next thing you know the mayor of Alice, Texas has dog problems and somewhere else in the world there is a man puzzling over a letter demanding he pay a $16.96 debt.

Kind of makes you want to grow skip that next enema, quit playing Sudoku and by all means, not bother to watch the Super Bowl next year. In fact, maybe I’d better stop writing this because

I live in an apartment complex. One of my neighbor’s, John, moved in a couple months after I did. The first time I talked with him I didn’t realize he was telling me about how he wanted his life to go, not the way it was going. He said he and his wife, Evelyn, were going to be doing a lot of traveling, mostly to places in the West, but they were looking forward to a month long trip to Europe they were going to be taking.

The truth is that Evelyn is now in the later stages of Alzheimer’s. The retirement including the travel and visits to their sons and spending time with their grandchildren they planned on when John retired, were merely part of the miracle John was praying for. Now John is retired but there are not yet any grandchildren, there will be no traveling because Evelyn either will not remember the trip when it is finished or, more likely, the places and sights they see will mean nothing to her, no more than one of the walks they take around the complex.

So now, John just spends his days in this terrible sorrow as he watches this woman, whom he has loved all his life, slowly forget everything that was important to them, everything that was ever important to her, including their sons and him. She has become a stranger in his wife’s body. He spends his days trying to protect this woman from herself because she has moved into another world where whatever she is looking at, whatever she is doing is often something else than it looks like. A few months ago she apparently unintentionally hurt herself, almost killing herself. I think she cut herself with a knife. I feel terribly sorry for both of them.

Life has also been cruelly ironic to the man who lives next to them, Bill. All his life Bill spent trying to figure out how to both have a job he liked and earn enough money at it to be able to afford doing the things he thought both he and his wife liked doing, traveling, going out to eat, buy a nice house. His ruin, as he puts it, came about because he didn’t pay attention. While he worked diligently to accomplish his goals, he didn’t realize they weren’t exactly Sherri’s goals. They often talked about buying a house on a lake, about going out to nice restaurants, about traveling to England, Italy, Boston, it was just talk. None of it, as far as she was concerned was a real goal. Her real goal was just to build a relationship that included making goals together as a couple. For some reason he never realized he wasn’t doing that.

Now, he lives alone. They have been divorced about 10 years. He says he finally understands what she wanted, finally thinks they could develop the kind of relationship she wanted, but it is probably too late for him. They still see each other occasionally and even though he says he wants and is able to give her all the attention she wanted, expected and deserved, all those years of inattention lead her to believe no matter how he acts now, no matter what he says cannot wipe away the coldness she felt during the final years of their marriage.

Two very sad men, one with a wife and his life only a shadow, a shell of what he thought it would be; the other with his wife and the life he expected to be only an image, a hologram he can visit, but never experience.

Neither man is a widower, but both have lost the woman they loved and both are hoping for some sort of miracle to bring her back.

I started thinking about some of my observations about birds after noticing four different sparrow species in the same area. I easily identified two, but the other two would take some research to get to know. People are a lot like that. Some you can tell just about what they are, or what they are like just by looking at them, others disguise their true being and often look like something they aren’t. Some people you like immediately, others either have to grow on you or neither of you ever bothers to get past that first sighting.

When a bird is a nestling it does little more with its life than wait for its food to be brought to the nest. For this to go on forever, the bird would eventually become fat and either die from lack of activity or from the fall when it’s nest collapses. Did I hear someone say; government subsidies or tax breaks for the wealthy or welfare?

The early morning bird song, wafting through the air well before the sun arises sometimes calls attention to the bird, but more often calls attention to the wonder of life, of existence. There is no warming sunlight, there is very little movement, there are no other particularly noticeable sounds, but then as if in response to the shuffle of your footsteps comes this piccolo sound or a sound like the gentle tapping of a glass bell from somewhere in the dark distance as if the voice of God was whispering for the new day to come into existence and you have no choice but to listen, because the sound is also calling your soul to join what will be the day’s symphony or dance.

A bird’s song can brighten our day, lift our mood, and hold our attention long after the bird has moved on. It can have us sitting on the edge of our lives waiting for more and sometimes, if we are lucky, cause us to break out into a sweat of sheer excitement or ecstasy.

There is something about a bird with a broken wing, we want to protect it, we want to capture it and try to mend it or nurse it back to health. It is more than the fragility of the creature. It is more than our instinct to shield and aid the damaged. It is more than not wanting to see it harmed, to see its injury lead to its demise. It has something to do with the inherent beauty of the thing, as if even that minute loss of beauty in the world would noticeably diminish all that is beautiful, like putting a microscopic scratch on the Mona Lisa. It might not be noticed, but that almost invisible scratch could lead to a crack, a crack that could grow and become conspicuous and change the painting as we know it. In the same way the loss of that bird could grow into a crack in what we see as beautiful whether for us as an individual or for us as a society or culture or species, it could grow to the extent that all beauty and wonder for us is lessened and perhaps changed.

A bird in the hand is a curiosity, but a bird in the bush is like a heartbeat able to sustain a lifetime.