When I was young. . .

When I was young . . .
     Curmudgeon culture is pretty popular these days.  You know it when you hear it.  In fact, there is a near perfect correlation between a comment that begins "when I was young " and curmudgeonliness. A curmudgeonly Facebook posting often features this sort of thing, "I was spanked.  I turned out alright [evidence generally not provided]. Today's kids are bad.  We need to bash them some, and then they'd be like me: alright."  More genial, but just as curmudgeonly,  "We came in when the streetlights came on [yes, kids, we actually were supposed too]."  "We played outside."  "We said 'Yes sir.' and 'No ma'am.'"  We did thus and so.  The logic is always the same:
1) a bit of self-congratulation,  "We, and our ways, are good."
2) a bit of analysis often based on scanty anecdotal evidence, "Today they [and you know who 'they' are--'they' are decidedly not 'us'] don't do that stuff."
3) and now the acid to the face,   "And just look, anyone can see, they are bad."

There is even a political version of curmudgeonliness: The golden age [for 'us' at least] is gone. 'They' took it. Give me power.  I will get it back for 'us'.  Yuck.  Dangerous and often deadly, yuck.

     One of the things I vowed to leave behind on my 2012 pilgrimage through Spain was my creeping case of the curmudgeons.  You know when you have that first reaction to something or someone and it's negative.  Well, I vowed to try to choke that off for at least a moment and let openness have a chance.  What is so maddening about a curmudgeonly character is that it is simply a closed off heart.  It is to look at a fellow human being and to shout "No, you can't do that!  No, you can't be that!  There is no room in this big earth for you.  It is for me and my ways.  Not for you and your ways."

     I must admit I failed. I'm still all too quick to pass judgement, to criticize, and if maybe, in my own defense, I don't toss acid to the face, I do all too often toss chilling waters.
 
     Yesterday, I got a simple but clear reminder of what I learned in Spain.  My north of 85 mother-in-law has been having trouble with one of her ear piercings.  Anya suggested that she go to a tattoo parlor and they could help.  So off went the family to Pangea Piercing in downtown Ann Arbor.  "When I was young" only "weirdos" had tattoos.  You never saw one of your school teachers with a tattoo (well maybe the shop guy).  Your doctor never had tattoos.  Nope not a one.  Neither your pastor, your politicians, your friends nor your neighbors (unless they were a sailor in their youth!).  I'll admit it.  I'm a tattoo curmudgeon.

     Well, this fella, was competent to a fault.  He solved her problem.  More important, my mother-in-law suffers from dementia and is often anxious and confused in all but the most familiar of situations.  As you can imagine, sitting in a tattoo parlor qualifies as an unfamiliar situation for her.  He was not only competent, he was compassionate.  He calmed her and did not start working until she was ready. Then to put a hilarious punchline onto the whole adventure, he said she needed some lubricant to use if the problem returned. He directed her next door.  So the whole family trooped next door to shop called "Bongs and Thongs" to purchase lubricant. Just wonderfully hilarious: three generations of Freedmans crowding into a place that sold glassware for smoking dope and "toys" for, well I'm so square I probably can't imagine, leave it at 'for intimate moments'.  I'll bet that made a picture that went home from work as a story that night.
   
     "When I was young",  the world  was really a smaller, meaner place in some pretty important ways.  I learned small and mean lessons about what to think about 'them' and how they differed from 'us'.  God spare me the curmudgeon.  Yesterday, was a reminder to me of how simple it really is.  We are all peregrino, each and every one of us. We are pilgrims and wanderers, not yet home.  Let your first impulse be always to 'love God', and your next impulse let it always be to, 'love your neighbor'.  And Rabbi Hillel is right, the rest is just commentary.   Buen Camino.  Thanks guy with so many tattoos.