Wednesday, June 25, 2025

One of the Heroes of this Country...

I think of myself as essentially optimistic.  Life is good, and I have accomplished a lot.  But sometimes you also have to be realistic.  Reality sneaks up in your peripheral vision.  Maybe its because both my wife and I have one remaining parent, who in each case is fading/failing.  Maybe its just going to the doctor.  Hey, even retired MDs do this once in a while.  On paper I'm in great shape.  But.....70 is not far off, and they seemed most insistent on giving me the paperwork for Directives of Care.  This is a nice way of saying they want to know what to do when, and by implication not if, I turn up in a bad way.  I get it, but it is sobering nonetheless.  

It got me to thinking.  How are we "remembered"?

It won't be in flowery obituaries.  Print Media is in approximately the same state of health as my 102 year old father in law.

I doubt it will be via the things we write and do in the nebulous world of the internet.   Everything on line is ephemeral, and on the day when I have the same physical substance as my alter ego Badger Trowelsworthy I'll be approximately as relevant.

I suppose how our spouses and children remember us counts for something, but they of course know all.  The good, the bad, the moments of both victory and disappointment.  No, I think the only satisfactory way to be remembered is by your grand children.


I've been fortunate.  All the grandkids are geographically close.  And regards the older two, the one positive of Covid lockdown was we spent lots of time with them.  Their world contained a handful of people and I was one of them.

Sometimes a song from your youth takes on new meaning at the other end of your years.  Back in the mid 1970's I had more hair, drank more beer, and had lots of years ahead of me.  I was a fan of Jerry Jeff Walker, a genuine talent.  

"Desperados waiting for a Train" is a song actually written by someone else, but Jerry Jeff did it best.  He said it was just how he'd gotten on with his grandpa.....

"Soon as I could walk he'd take me with him"
"To a place called the Green Frog Cafe."
"There was old men with beer guts n' dominoes"
"Lyin' 'bout their lives while they played."
"Yeh I was just a kid, they all called me side kick..."

The story of course goes on, finishing on "The Day before he died...."

Worth a listen, link below.

Jerry Jeff caught that train in 2020, dying of throat cancer.  Probably his hard living days did him in.  He was 78 years old.  That's how old I'll - presumably - be in ten years, when the oldest grandson will be the age at which "Viva Terlingua" was the soundtrack of my college days. 

"One day I looked up, he's pushin' 80"
"Got brown tobacco stains all down his chin"
"To me he's one of the heroes of this country,"
"So why's he all dressed up like them old men?"





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