Anyone who watched the debate last Thursday between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump surely has a variety of words to describe it. Mine are sad, pathetic, hopeless and frightening. And those are the highlight adjectives!
I didn’t see it. I had to do some writing and other work on my personal computer. Plus, my genitals needed some extra attention, and I just couldn’t ignore them to watch two cantankerous old men exchange pithy barbs. One good feature about the debate is that the microphone for whichever of the two candidates not speaking was muted. I know that was incorporated strictly after the fiasco of the first Trump-Biden debate in 2020 – the one where a frustrated Biden blurted to Trump, “Would you shut up, man!”
If only both men could be muted now, I think we’d all be better off. Americans – and people across the globe – pretty much know where they stand on particular issues. Or where they don’t stand.
I recall the questions surrounding the health of Ronald Reagan when he ran for president in 1980; he was 69 at the time, and the voting populace (along with the media) verbalized their concerns about his welfare. For the most part, seniority is respected and appreciated in certain fields. Politics isn’t necessarily one of them, but experience does hold a certain value. Reagan made the most of his age, even joking about it on occasion. He held the distinction of being the oldest president until Trump. In November of 2022, Biden crossed a new threshold when he became the nation’s first octogenarian Chief Executive. And here we are.
I’ve always said the Democratic Party’s biggest mistake in the 2020 election cycle was to let Biden and Bernie Sanders run for president. After leaving the White House as vice-president in 2017, I feel that Biden should have retired into the realm of a senior statesman; giving speeches, writing books and propagating democracy every reasonable chance he had. The Democrats began the 2020 campaign with the most diverse collection of candidates, including more women than had ever attempted to run for president at one time and an openly queer man in their ranks. Then they ended up just like the Republican Party – with two old White men at the top, Biden and Sanders. Of course, one of those Democratic candidates, Kamala Harris, has become the nation’s first female and non-White vice-president, and another, Pete Buttigieg, has become the first openly queer cabinet official.
Like many people, I’d often mock older individuals in my youth. Now I’m 60 and I know how that feels. I don’t consider myself “old” in the traditional sense; my body has definitely aged, but I won’t let my mind collapse into senility. But even I know this nation is in trouble with the likes of Biden and Trump as the primary presidential candidates. And yes, it is because of their age.
The U.S. is rapidly approaching the 250th anniversary of its official birth as a nation. Right now the future just doesn’t look too bright for us.
“Damn! You’re old as shit!” That’s what Dan*, a friend and former colleague, texted to me last year after I’d informed him that I’d just turned 60.
“And you’re so ugly you almost hurt my feelings!” I replied with a laughing emoji.
Dan and I have always had that kind of friendship – if one of us didn’t insult the other, we might think we were mad. It’s a man thing actually.
I’ve had those so-called “senior moments” where I walk into a room and wonder why. I find myself occasionally losing my balance and stumbling or literally bumping into something. A bruise just below my left knee hasn’t healed after several months. It’s like a dark, small-scale version of Jupiter’s “Great Red Spot”. A night light in my bedroom is one that I used to turn off at 10 p.m. because I generally have to sleep in total darkness. Now I keep it on 24/7.
Albeit a former gymnast and taekwondo practitioner, I can no longer do deep knee bends. My left knee in particular seems to get caught whenever I bend it. In March of 2021, a close friend posted a picture on Facebook of himself squatting beside a vintage vehicle. His wife and daughter had treated him to a vintage car show for his birthday. I congratulated him and then added, ‘BTW, how long did it take u to stand back up from that squatting position? LOL!’
Earlier this year I wrote how I moved my Uncle Wes* and his cat, Leo, into my home. Wes had just turned 84, and – after a hard life – his body is slowly giving out on him. I don’t know how much longer he has, but I’m glad I can provide him a safe home in these final days. And then I look in the mirror and think, ‘Damn! With any luck (if you can call it that) I’ll be his age.’
My father was 83 when he died in 2016, and my mother was 87 when shed passed away four years later. I have a few other relatives who have made it into their 80s. My paternal grandmother died in 2001 at 97. Aside from their longevity, all of them had one other thing in common: they had loved ones caring for them as they aged.
I did get some good news recently, though. I had visited a local urologist, mainly for general male-specific healthcare, but also because I’d noticed a significant decline in energy and focus over the past couple of years. I attributed the latter simply to age, but I wondered if I needed testosterone replacement therapy; a growing practice for older men. I had some blood drawn at the urologist’s office and then visited the doctor again to discuss the results.
And the results were phenomenal. I measured 534 ng/DL (nanograms per deciliter) of testosterone, which puts me in the 35-40 age range. Most men my age fall into the 300 spectrum. I won’t necessarily reclaim my lost title of “Stud Burger” (or maybe I will), but to say I’m as healthy as a 35-year-old feels pretty good. The urologist doesn’t want to put me on any kind of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) as that could eventually hurt me more than help.
So the only possible cause of my fatigue is the result of another blood test by my regular doctor more than a month ago: low sodium levels. I grew up in the 1970s and 80s, when high cholesterol and too much salt in one’s diet became alarm bells of concern. I remember talk in the early 80s of actually trying to ban salt in processed foods. It was met with the same response Ronald Reagan got when he tried to get the state of California to label ketchup as a vegetable.
A couple of months ago I was discussing age with a close friend who’s a few years younger than me. I highlighted my concerns about my own aging; that I have no siblings (and therefore no nieces or nephews) and no children. Going back to what I stated above: I’m getting older alone.
“I hear you, brother,” he responded. He’s mostly in the same position, although he has a sister.
Regardless I have to say that I’d rather get to be this age – and experience the myriad agonies that come with it – than to die as a very young man. I lost a close friend to AIDS in 1993; he was almost 32. During my tenure working at a retail store in the 1980s, two of my teenage colleagues were killed in auto wrecks. I look at photos of young military men and women who died in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and recollect what I was doing at their age.
So I’m doing okay. Gray hair or not – I’m at a good place in life.
“It took abolitionists, Quakers, all kinds of folks to help and lobby to get the slaves freed. I truly believe we can do so much more together than apart.”
“If there is any immortality to be had among us human beings, it is certainly only in the love that we leave behind. Fathers like mine don’t ever die.”
Late last month a jury in New York City convicted former President Donald Trump of financial fraud. It’s an ignominious verdict. For the first time in U.S. history, a former president has been found guilty of a criminal offense. Many liberals are happy, since they view it as vindication for Trump’s disastrous one term in the White House. Conservatives are outraged, as they consider the entire affair nothing but political shenanigans at the hands of hateful Democrats.
And, just when everyone thought it couldn’t get any worse (or weirder), a jury in Delaware has found Hunter Biden, President Biden’s youngest son, guilty of purchasing a gun while hooked on illegal narcotics. He apparently lied about it, when completing the form – a felony. The younger Biden has long admitted his battle with drug addiction. His ex-wife and former girlfriend testified about his drug use. I’m not surprised that gun-rights advocates aren’t running to his defense. They oppose any limits to gun rights, even remaining silent when people with a clear case of lunacy obtains firearms, and dismiss the severity of every mass shooting with their usual “thoughts and prayers” bullshit. Regardless, it is the first time that a child of a sitting U.S. president has been convicted of a crime – another dubious moment in the annals of American politics.
Now that Trump and Hunter Biden have been successfully convicted, each awaits their respective sentencing. They could face jail time, but I doubt either man will be incarcerated. A former president and the son of a current president qualify as scions of the political elite – and they always seem to get away with even the most egregious of antics. Remember, Richard Nixon didn’t go to jail.
I view this mess with absolute disdain and even sadness. This is not a good thing for the United States – the self-appointed beacon of global democracy. In many ways the Trump fiasco resembles the sham impeachment of Bill Clinton a quarter century ago. Back then Republicans tried everything possible to undermine Clinton’s presidency – only to land on a rather minor issue: lying about a sexual tryst with a White House intern; in other words, sex!
With Trump, Democrats tried two impeachments, amid a bevy of other tactics; ultimately arriving at one thing: paying off a former adult film star to keep quiet about an alleged sexual tryst; in other words, sex!
I’m old enough to remember Watergate and Iran-Contra, as well as many contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings. But Clinton’s impeachment fiasco was a new low for the U.S.
Until now.
In the morass that is the American political diaspora, many things have changed. But so much else has remained immobile. Conservatives keep pushing the myth that more guns make society safe, and liberals keep pushing the myth that merely throwing wads of cash at a problem will solve it or just make it go away. Both groups are wrong.
We have so many problems in the U.S., the wealthiest country in the world. A recent study by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed something extremely disturbing: food and clean water security for American children has dropped significantly since the turn of the century. I’d heard of food insecurity, but clean water insecurity is a new dilemma for me. As with many other things, such as education and health care, racial disparities are particularly acute.
Throughout the previous century, food and water security had improved, as the nation’s overall health infrastructure advanced. But in 2005, 4.6% of all children in the United States experienced both water and food insecurity. By 2020, researchers found that the percentage of children nationwide who faced both problems rose to 10.3%.
That should make everyone with any sort of conscience understand the nation’s true priorities. But in the halls of our elected representatives, the primary concern seems to be the next campaign and what they can do for themselves. I don’t really care that Donald Trump fucked a porn star or that Hunter Biden bought a gun while high on crack. Their problems aren’t mine and neither are their visions of reality. Whether it’s food insecurity or jobs, Americans need to focus on the issues that affect them directly and personally. So do politicians. But I don’t hold out hope for the latter.
Chief Writing Wolf 