Snowbird

 

I’ve already written about “Daylight Savings Time” so I won’t do it again, even though I still find it irritating.

 

It is cold this morning. “Cold” being a relative term. It is probably about 50F, which would be warm at our house up in NY but down here seems like Winter. One quickly adjusts temperature expectations when one moves to Florida. The fifty in November is a “cold snap” and the pillow of super heated air that hits one when opening the door outside in July and sends one screaming for the pool or the A/C is the norm for “Summer”. I forget about such Florida things when I’m up north and conversely forget about snow, sludge, ice and frigged blasts of Arctic wind while in Florida. Such is the life of the “snowbird”.

 

Snowbird has become a derogatory term. It used to mean a person of privileged who has the capacity to enjoy both the blush days of northern spring and the relative warmth of the southern winter. Like the migrating flocks of birds there was, in the past, nothing untoward in wanting to enjoy both the temperate north and the near-tropical south. But that has changed and I am not sure why. Now it is more likely to hear the word “snowbird” trip off the lips with a sneer and a wink, like it is something to be ashamed of.

 

Yesterday, coming home from my afternoon walk in the mangroves of a local park I ran into a man I have known casually for a few years. His name is “Cal”. I slowed the car and pulled along side of him in the street. When he recognized me we had a clipped reorientation and greeting as befits half a year’s absence and then, searching for a topic, he commented on how nice the weather has been. A common “fall-back” conversation ensued. I bubbled over for a moment having just enjoyed my breezy walk with my dog near the water on one of the nicest days in memory and then he said something just a tad unwelcoming. “Yeah, that’s why all you Northerners come down here!” For a moment I was flustered. I was going to say something equally unpleasant but stopped myself. Instead I reminded myself that he was an old fart and probably had forgotten that we shared a very common background having grown up and lived for many many years in the exact same area of Miami. He was, and is, no more or less able to claim any sort of special resident status in Florida. Almost everyone in Florida is from some place else. Amend that to read “Everyone” except the tribes of natives who were dispossessed by the Spaniards, the English, the freed slaves, the Cubans who came over in rubber rafts escaping Castro, and Walt Disney.

 

Today another neighbor welcomed me back to H.S. and could not resist the temptation to ask me if I’d brought the cold weather down with me? I would gladly own up to the responsibility for the weather if the “Locals” will step up and own the destruction of the coral reefs and the Everglades. While they are at it how about claiming responsibility for their thieving/ignorant state government? I didn’t vote for a governor who thinks vaccines approved by the CDC and face coverings meant to insure the health of the public are a socialist plot to take away our rights and freedoms. But I am getting away from the main thrust of this journal entry.  Looking back as far and near as possible you will find that every person alive in the USA came from someplace else. We are all looking for better and greener pastures. We’re all of us “snowbirds” of the Earth. No matter what the bumper stickers may say there is no sucha thing as a “Local”.

 

Do You Want to Live Forever?

 

Do You Want to Live Forever?

 

The question was asked (I have heard the Rabbi mention it in a number of lessons/sermons) if one were to be given the option to live forever but, as a consequence of that election, there would be no future generations born, what would you choose? Infinite life for oneself but no new babies to be born. This is definitely the kind of question that only a rabbi could love as it has no foundation in reality nor does it have a logical answer. One can only conjecture what it would be like to live forever because at this time there is no possibility of living forever. “Forever” itself is an unknowable concept. It is like trying to understand “infinity”.

 

So, to start out I would probably not chose to live forever because it sounds damned scary. Would disease not kill me? Would injury not cause me to bleed to death? Obviously not, because I would keep on kicking “forever” according to the bargain. But would the wound heal? Or would it just gape and perhaps rot? One would look a sight, wouldn’t one, after a couple of centuries of wear and tear? Headaches would be a bummer. I’ve had a mildly persistent headache lately, and Oh! a very persistent backache for weeks. I can’t imagine living with those kinds of aches and pains on top of a gaping hole somewhere from, I don’t know, an accident with a hatchet. On those accounts alone I am not inclined to choose everlasting life.

 

Did you ever see the movie “The Picture of Dorian Gray”? It is about a man who makes the sort of bargain described above (though I don’t think there was an caveat in the movie plot about future generations). Dorian Gray is allowed to live , youthful forever, but the gruesome events and twisted mind-the diseases and mental deformities of Gray appear on a painting DG keeps hidden in a closet. So, he does not appear older but the painting ages horribly.  If I remember the film was shot in black and white and the picture is shot in Technicolor. The contrast is impressive. It is a horrible secret hidden away from his friends. Imagine living forever with the decomposing imprint of old age and illness progressing on ones own body! With no painting hidden away in a secret closet absorbing the changes. Not an attractive proposition. That prospect alone is enough to queer the deal for me. Just let me get old and wrinkly and die like a normal guy.

 

The “no future generations” clause is a whole separate issue. Again, a question from the mind of a rabbi. Why no future generations? Why not, you get to live forever but never get to ride a motorcycle again? Or eat Chinese food? Or you have to teach in Junior College? First of all, the weight of the possibility of living forever must be counterbalanced with the specter of something very significant being lost to make the question remotely valid . Chinese food is just not all that important. But the end of all future generations is like saying the future of civilization. Now that is a proposition equal to Life Forever. It is also another philosophical mind fart worthy of a Junior College philosophy class or a rabbi’s sermon, but just for grins let’s consider it.

 

While I’m living forever and driving my Austin Healey MK 3000 until my body decays or the painting in the closet appears to decompose a la Dorian Gray everyone else is doing what? School teachers have no one new to teach as there are no children being born. Who is going to serve me my fries at Mcdonald's? Who is going to come up to my table at the Olive Garden and say “Hello! My name is Malinda and I’ll be your server today.” Depending on how things are going body-wise and who gets to get in on the deal there just might not be any future for the human race at all as we all might just drop in our tracks and decompose. Or, if we don’t fall apart and life goes on with just the humans presently living on Earth doing all the stuff of the living and there are just no kids …that might work but I’m not sure it would be so great. I like Crosby Stills and Nash but I don’t want to listen to them for eternity. Who would create new music? Where would the future art come from ? Would I never hear the children’s laughter or tapping of a basketball in the street while I’m eating my supper? That is a sort of music I would miss. Would there never be discarded bubble gum wrappers blowing up on my lawn? No more Trick or Treating?

 

This has turned into a very sticky question. I am no rabbi or a philosopher. I am just an old guy getting older and I’ve spent enough time contemplating living forever. It is 7:45 am and I have to figure out what I am going to do with this one day that’s been served up to me right now. A few precious hours of breathing and eating and walking my dog and, perhaps, showing the children outside on the street my favorite basketball move, the“hook shot”.