I used to drive around Kentucky quite a bit in my job. Most of the time, it was a great blessing. I love living in Kentucky; the people and the places are precious to me.

One blissful evening I drove to Bowling Green to attend their bi-monthly city commissioners’ meeting which turned out to be a sterling lesson in civility and good government that completely refuted the “government doesn’t work” message that dominates our television news channels. Those smart, well-prepared, gracious public officials efficiently moved through their agenda, addressing issues of waste management, zoning adjustments, car-towing policies, golf course maintenance, personnel changes, and alcohol sales. Every voice was heard. No voices were raised. Decisions were made and accepted. Some of those decisions went the way I preferred. Some did not. Life goes on. I could not have admired the experience more.

Seriously!

What can I say? I’m a wonk.

Sha-nah-nah-diddy-diddy-bomp…

Then I drove home, fairly late at night – certainly too late to be talking to folks on the phone as I drove (which of course I would never do).

That means I had entered and was truly immersed in “Windshield Time”.

Nem-nem-nem-nem-nem-wurp-wurp-wurp-wurp…

Windshield time is akin to dreaming, especially on I-65 on a midsummer night.

• The tiny rhythm of the eight million bugs repainting your car with their lives.
• The mighty rhythm of the eight million trucks buffeting your car while chortling at your rate of speed.
• Giant dinosaurs looming at one roadside attraction.
• Adult bookstores larger than Fayette Mall looming at another…

Your mind disengages and works on unresolved issues of the day or, if you’re lucky and open to the night and the rhythms, it embarks on far more interesting paths not bound by the day’s sound bytes and tweets and grunts.

Thus it was this evening.

Doh-doh-doh-doh-ooooo…

I listen to a lot of music in the car. Queued up this particular night was a mini-festival by the pride of Pittsburgh doo-wop group, the Marcels.

In order to truly appreciate the Marcels you have to get past some curious facts. But, as a Trump-supporting friend of mine regularly and gleefully chants; “Facts lie!” Well, these are fairly benign facts. I think we can accept them without destroying the planet.

1. The Marcels were named after a haircut. The “Marcel Wave” was very popular that year and one member of the group had a family member who was a hairdresser and she suggested the name. Compare this to the opposite dynamic with the Beatles and their hair choice. It became a “Beatle Haircut” after their success as a band. Trust me; I know this…all too well from my years as a rock and roll singer who occasionally glanced at mirrors…though I think I’ve destroyed all the negatives and daguerreotypes (remember them?).
2. The Marcels’ vocabulary was amazing, but had little to do with English as we know it. I’m sure they must have been the inspiration for a Mad Magazine piece I recall that quoted a fictional rock singer’s biography entitled; “Famous Syllables I Have Sung”. Everyone has heard the story of how Dr. Seuss was challenged to write a children’s story with only xx number of words and how the result was THE CAT IN THE HAT. I would suggest that the Marcels managed to build a career on fewer words than Dr. Seuss if you deduct the un-definable syllables sung between the legitimate words.

Mum-mummum-mum-bah-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip…

Undeterred by these facts; in my 70mph dreamy opinion there has never been a better version of “Blue Moon” than that of the Marcels…

Bomp-bababomp-bom…

…and their “Get a Job” is an American anthem worthy of being sung before athletic events. Imagine 20-40,000 people with a few beers in ‘em wailing;

Dit-dadit-dit-dadit-doo-doo-didit…

I’m smilin’ at the concept and wonderin’ how this ol’ white-haired hippie might look in a Marcel Wave. An-n-n-n-d woooosh! There goes the Willisburg exit! Only 44 miles to go.

Lilla-lilla-lilla-lilla-wah-wah-wah…

God bless the Marcels!

Sometimes I question my qualifications as a geezer.

Oh sure.

• The hair is white. (check)
• Jeans and Birks are standard for most days. (check)
• Joe Ferrell, Walter Tunis, Joe Gatton, Eric Johnson, Jim Rodgers, Paul Thomas, Walter May, and Chuck Pogue – all renown geezers themselves – are friends of mine. (check)
• I hadn’t recognized a “Star-Spangled Banner” singer for a decade until Gladys Knight wailed and nailed it at the Super Bowl (though it was sans Pips to my dismay). (check)
• I once voted for McGovern…or was it FDR? (check)
• I forget things and happily confuse decades and various lifetimes. (check)
• And I can yell “Get offa my lawn” like a banshee. (check)

But sometimes I worry that I’m missing something somewhere.

Then my music mix shuffles to the next selection and by the end of it I realize I’m grinning in complete happiness at Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters’ rendition of “Don’t Fence Me In”.

Punch my ticket. I’m totally validated.

I love wearing a tux.

And clearly I wear them well (see above).

I’m pretty well convinced that if God had worked on creation one more day, we’d all be born in a tux.

The tie, the cummerbund, the flow of black…it’s all good.

Also, I think I’m at least two inches taller in a tux and I’m real good with being two inches taller.

I move slower in a tux.

I’m more thoughtful.

My vocabulary increases exactly one syllable per word.

I only use fountain pens.

I constantly feel like I should be wearing gloves.

I get to wear cuff links.

I want to break out in irrational song.

Those are the positives.

The negatives?

When I’m in a tux, I wish I smoked cigarettes…foreign cigarettes…in a holder…from an engraved case.

No matter what subject is being discussed, I find my contribution to the discussion is all too often; “Bond…James Bond”. It draws strange looks which I interpret as “awe”.

I want to break out in irrational song.

It’s prom season and we will soon be inundated with pictures of young, hormonally-driven/confused young people in tuxes of a variety of hues that God never intended. I’m OK and entertained by that, but young gents…if a geezer may suggest; bright colors may attract for the evening (and, as I remember the time, nothing else really matters), but black and white, slow and thoughtful, fountain pens and song…these will see you through life.

I love wearing tuxes.

I’m tempted to say I’ve given up for Lent;

• Interest in with whom and how President Trump attempts to shake hands.
• Interest in the flavor of the cake he was eating when he related the information to the leader of China, the greatest competitor the US has, that he had just ordered the bombing of Syria.
• Interest in Ivanka Kushner’s clothing/jewelry line.
• Interest in how much toilet paper you or anyone else has bought.
• Interest in Matt Gaetz’s sleeping arrangements…or Matt Gaetz for that matter.
• Interest in the wall.
• Interest in the health department inspections of Mar a Whatever.
• Interest in anything our president utters until it has been filtered through reality (I don’t particularly care if it’s been vetted by Spellchecker).
• Likewise, interest in anything “Occupy Democrats” and its ilk utters until it has been filtered through reality.

I won’t go on – it’s a long list – you get the idea.

The problem is I never had any interest in those things to give up.

Perhaps I should be interested. Perhaps they indicate and reveal something about the character of our current leaders and their fitness to serve. But I think I have a pretty good fix on those concerns already.

I am still interested in;

• President Trump’s financial entanglements with Russia and Vladimir Putin.
• The extent and effectiveness of Russia’s attempts to affect our elections – Presidential and Senate and House of Representatives.
• The evisceration of the State Department, Education, and our Environmental Protections.
• The current apparent effort to suffocate Planned Parenthood, the CDC, the Postal Service, and the EPA.
• Keeping our roads and bridges functional.
• The whereabouts and intentions of OUR warships and tomahawk missiles and who is directing their movements and intentions…whatever flavor the cake is.

…and surviving this plague, personally and as a nation.

Unfortunately for my Lenten possibilities, I won’t be giving those interests up. They’re too important.

I will NOT “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

That would be stupid. I may not be brilliant, but I resist being stupid.

Ivanka’s jewelry line……give me a break.

Chocolate cake? Oh yeah…I’ll give that up in a heartbeat.

Caught by surprise last November, I withdrew into stunned silence; afraid and ashamed and angry.

The anger faded. It will do no me no good. I will resist every unfair, greedy, and unwise effort I can identify, but I have always done that – it’s a reflexive urge taught to me by my Southern Baptist Sunday School childhood – nothing’s changed as far as that’s concerned.

I was afraid of what the results’ results would be.

I was ashamed of my own surprise and fear of my neighbors’ choice.

Why didn’t I know?

What have I missed?

What should I have done?

I must do better.

I must listen harder.

I must seek a better and more useful understanding.

I must act on what I learn.

I must…because I want to be a good neighbor.

But, (isn’t there always a “but”?) …so must others.

I have no answers, but I have glimmers of a suggestion.

If I have lost connection with my neighbors, so have my political representatives…and how could they have not? They must solicit campaign funds 24/7/365. They must run campaigns to retain their offices for six to twenty-four months (President Trump has already declared his re-election campaign’s beginning for 2020). They serve in legislative sessions for months at a time every year. They have homes in Washington and regular living quarters in Frankfort. They are full-time governors and lawmakers elsewhere, away from me, all while they’re supposed to be representing me and Janie on Providence Road.

That was not what was intended by our founding fathers.

George Washington was president, but he also went home to run his farm. He had to listen to and represent his neighbors. The same was essentially true for all elective officials.

I would suggest considering a move back to those conditions.

Rather than point fingers at how little time the Senate and the House of Representatives spend in session in Washington, perhaps we should reduce the length of campaigns and legislative sessions (and the participants’ pay).

Send them home to local concerns.

Perhaps we should rescind the expansion of the Kentucky legislature from bi-yearly sessions to yearly sessions. Have we really been improved by having the legislature meet every year?

Send them home to local concerns.

Make all of them part-time lawmakers and full-time neighbors.

Just a thought…

Multitasking – I’m thinking of giving it up.

Oh, it’s been fun to pretend to be smarter and more productive now than 30 years ago when I was doing a mere one thing at a time. But it’s not true…and I think I’ve always known it was not true. I think the myth of the miracle of multitasking stems from a phrase I heard so often when I was younger; “Humans only really use about 10%/20%/whatever percent of their brain’s capacity.” I’ve never seen any research to back up that statement. Perhaps the research exists, but in these days of fake news on the internet I’ll wait till I hear Stephen Colbert say it.

But suppose it is true… So what?

Maybe we need to have some empty space in our heads in order to manipulate the knowledge and ideas and experiences and memories that we acquire in living. Everybody knows that to build something cool with Lego pieces, you have to spread them out to see what you’ve got to work with. I think that might also be true of our brain’s inventory. Maybe we need unused brain capacity as an uncluttered space from which we can survey our stock of thoughts and ideas and perhaps we need some uncluttered time and attention to conduct that survey.

Or maybe we just need to stop and smell the roses.

I used to play a bit of chess. I wasn’t very good but I enjoyed the hell out of it and I believe it made me a better and more useful person. I have not played a complete game of chess since about 1986… 30 years… What happened?

Multitasking happened. To even play chess badly, you have to play chess totally, un-distractedly. You can’t study the board, remember the openings, juggle with time/position/power, and calculate an endgame; while checking your email, checking your voicemail, returning a phone call, updating your Facebook page, and watching a baseball game. It doesn’t work that way.

Chess demands your complete, undivided attention. Interestingly enough, your cat does too. Of course your cat can be appeased as long as part of your multitasking involves taking the cat’s picture and putting it on your Facebook page. Chess does not offer that option. Maybe that’s why we see far more pictures of kittens than chess games on our screens. To play chess is to do one thing… one… one thing… at a time.

How embarrassing.

How shameful.

How unproductive.

This has been buggin’ me for years, but what could you do about it? Extreme multitasking has become something to which we all aspire and something on which we grade each other. Yet, even in the blizzard of multitasking I have found myself carving out uncluttered space and time in odd places.

When I was working in various parts of the state I had a lot of windshield time. Yes, it was a curse, especially on the interstate between Elizabethtown and Bowling Green, being pummeled by semi’s. (I’m convinced that if you built a windmill farm in the median of I-65 you could power the entire state from the turbulence of those trucks.) But it was also a blessing in the form of un-distracted time to consider the whence, the wither, and the why of your days. Where are you coming from? Where are you going? Why are you making the trip? I don’t miss the driving. I do miss the cogitation.

My newest oasis in the multitasking sirocco is being provided courtesy of Chloe, my wonder pup.

We walk………..a lot.

We ramble all over our neighborhood and in our meanderings we have now met and visited about a dozen canine and human neighbors. Sometimes we deliver the mail, strolling along with Joanna, our carrier, who is a god to Chloe. Chloe is a social addict. She loves to visit her acquaintances. I fear her social hunger is fueled by being stuck with a boring white-haired guy all day.

Sigh.

Whatever.

We walk every day. When we commence we walk briskly, with purpose, with dispatch. We walk several blocks to see if Bailey, or Stupie, or Izzie, or Maddie are out. We pause in front of the houses of Chuck and Joe. We keep a sharp eye out for joggers and walkers we recognize and Rusty, our Herald-Leader delivery champion.

When we have reached the apogee of our walk and turned for home (having accomplished biological missions as well), we embark on Chloe’s Homeward Three-Step. Urgency has now evaporated.

We take three steps, stop, and turn to admire the sun on the magnolia tree at the Greek lady’s house.

Three more steps and certify the new fence at Chuck’s house.

Three more steps and explore the intriguing leaf and pine-straw pile on Berry Lane. Chloe is convinced there’s a dead body beneath the pile – I think it’s a carcass formerly known as squirrel.

Three more steps and we pause to discuss whether Dino Risi’s delightful film Il Sorpasso might have influenced the creators of American Graffiti.

Three more steps and we sit for a spell to consider the possibility that old hootenanny folk music from the early 60’s might have new relevance and usefulness during a Trump presidency.

You get the idea.

Un-distracted time. No multitasking.

Woof.