When I retired this past June, my wife wisely gave me a six-month hiatus to figure out what I wanted to do. She knew I cannot sit still without getting into trouble. We weathered the learning curve about living on a pension considerably lower than the working paycheck. I learned about being the person responsible for the household duties. Yes, men can swiffert! More importantly, I am learning to hush up, but not give up.
I have decided to become an artist and acquiesce to my wife’s suggestion that I write more. I know from experience and education that both are solitary arts. Practicing privately can emphasize one’s peculiar habits of dress and expression. Leaving this private practice unchecked can increase one’s obdurate nature. I figured that joining groups dedicated to these artistic purposes would be a good idea, sort of protective coloration.
More importantly, I learned that I am a tenderfoot. The news blithely announced that 2011 is the year that the first Boomers reached 65. Being an early Boomer, I get to see how the world deals with my age group getting to the end of the stroll. Boomers entered life during peace and plenty. We are the first television viewers, first personal computer users, our old songs; the ones that grip your heart have a rock beat. Few were war protesters yet it is in the Boomer culture to act the part. In my case, I chose to put act into my social activism.
My exploration into writing set me on the track of writing groups that meet during the day. One group lead by an earnest pair of women dedicated their group to cathartic writing. A box of Kleenex was a requirement for participation. A second exploration brought me to the senior center at the Cultural Center.
Sadly, the SC copier was being serviced, so we could not copy our one page writings for the group. This group is large and populated by a host of Chicagoans, that is to say, unique people with something on their minds and a Midwestern way of expression. As I entered my golden years, I learned that I have never met a toilet that I did not visit. Given the opportunity to bring the writings to the office for photocopying gave me the ideal opportunity to do just that.
The photocopier repairman just finished when I arrived and seeing no clerk in the office, I stacked the work in the tray and pushed the button. Being a Boomer, I have worked on all of the duplicating devices from mimeograph machines to wireless hubs daily for forty years. A clerk ran to the copier and admonished me for using it, because the default paper tray was set to legal paper. I did not know that, nor did the repairman standing next to me. Rather than respond in kind, perhaps by offering her a quarter for the copies, I hushed and modeled silent acquiescence.
Mollified, the clerk told me that for the writing group she only used waste paper that is printed on one side and haphazardly tossed in a box on the file cabinet. Interestingly, the clerk discarded the copies I began with the copier repairman present. She resorted, rejogged the originals again and placed them into the paper tray. She took a handful of fiesta colored waste paper and loaded the machine, instantly jamming the machine. At first she blamed the repairman for not adjusting the fourth tray, then she attempted to dismiss me, but like a wreck in slow motion I was transfixed by her frustration. She reloaded the machine and jammed it again. Exasperated at the fifth jamming, she went to her supervisor received a stack of discarded 24# bond city letterhead to use. We completed the copies in amiable silence. Mathematically there were seven original and fifteen people, one hundred and five copies about 20% of a ream of paper. The true cost of photocopy for a machine of this nature and volume is 1.3 cents per copy, or $1.356 for this adventure.
The advertisement for this group says the rule is to bring one page of writing and only one page. Seems to me that the fellow, who wrote a painful reminiscence of his relation with his father, thankfully resolved but greater than one page, made the right artistic choice to duplicate the beginning of the story, making the handout two pages (Oh my!). Ignoring, I hope, the repeated admonishments to keep it to one page. The evolving murder mystery and the journaling may be improved by being allowed to grow. The decision to make the writing one page is not artistic, but wrong-headed economics.
I wonder what will happen when the Aquarians take center senior stage. Will we challenge or yield?
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