25 August 2010
Midnight Rambler
(Dad posed at the wheel of his 1959 Rambler, August 2010. Photo Anook Socotra)
It was a professionally rewarding day under crappy skies, scatter showers and an unseaonal coolness that told me Fall was advancing around the corner. I got to be on a panel of old Spooks who got the opportunity to tell sea-stories to a bunch of young professionals who ranged from Second Class Petty Officers to Lieutenant Commanders, cryppies and intel folks alike.
They were bright and inquisitive young people. One of the Petty Officers announced he was going for his PhD. I was impressed, and the bonus was that I had a chance to sit with some professionals on my side of the coffee table I deeply admire.
In the confusion of travel over the weekend,I forgot the duration of the trip to get to Virginia Beach from Big Pink, since the body does not recollect pain that well. As I sat at the computer in the dawn’s early light, I walked the cat backwards through the expected time of arrival at Building 572 at Dam Neck, compared it with the expected time of arrival of the maids, and glanced at the face of the Rolex.
Shit!
I crashed around the place, throwing things in closets to clear the place for cleaning, tossed a couple things in a bag and crashed down the stairs to the garage, where the Hubrismobile gleamed in the dim light. Good day to get it covered with road crap, I thought, and roared off into the morning chaos of Washington.
I-95 cntained the predictable pain, though thank God I was headed the opposite direction from the rest of the good citizens of Your Nation’s Capital.
By the time things cleared out enough to check mail without crashing the car I was flickering through Fredericksburg. I then realized I had forgotten my personal phone and only had the Crackberry on the long road to Virginia Beach. I stayed current on the office as I piloted the Mercedes past the battlefields of yesteryear, and eventually veered off into the scrub pine of the Middle Neck of Virginia. Intermittant rain and idiots shared the interstate.
Nice ride, bad road.
The panel was enjoyable enough, though not having the phone made me nervous, and decided not to risk staying over at the beach. A three car wreck and tunnel traffic kept me on my toes, and exhausted, I walked back into the unit with just a precious hour to get in the pool and swim.
I looked at the phone and groaned. There was a long string of red flagged missed calls that cried out for attention, mostly from my sister, but a couple from Potemkin Village.
I need to digress for a second.
I am not writing this because I think this story is anything unique, though or course we all are. I do not think that it is a special trial for our little family, either. This is something we all confront to one degree or another, but the passing of the Greatest Generation, the advances in medical technology and gerontology all colliding with the expectation of the Boomers is something that has the elements of the perfect storm. Some pals have gone through the process, others are waiting nervously.
My sister Anook and I are trying to document what is happening to us just in case it is of use to anyone else.
I flipped through the messages to discover that Dad had made a jail-break from the assisted living the night before. The Village was adamant that we had to come up with a solution.
I was befuddled. Weren’t these people in the business of dealing with disoriented seniors? Apparently not. My sister was tasked with finding an alternative to having staff watch the door at $18 an hour. I was blissfully being buffeted on I-95 as she tried to cope.
This is going to suck, I thought.
My sister has dubbed the individual-who-used-to-be-Dad "Raven," due to his bright eyes and fascination with things that glitter. And the extent of his wandering has now been revealed, one of the little secrets that Mom concealed for the last few years.
Someone apparently saw Dad as The Midnight Rambler, a fitting moniker for a man who once designed them. He was ambling along the road, clutching the picture I took of him and Mom walking down the aisle when they renewed their vows at The Little Church Around the Corner 62 years ago next month.
Why he would have left his bride sleeping beside him to go seek her is beyond me- new environment, the fighting between my sister and Mom this week as the move was enforced?
A buddy just got back from just got back from a week in lower Alabama, visiting his Mom in her escape-proof assisted living Alzheimer’s-dementia home. He says that after a couple of weeks, they adapt. I hope so.
My sister has been dealing with the full impact of Mom’s towering rage over what we have done to her.
Here is a sample: "You're a liar. I can make all these decisions for myself. And I will. No one tells me what to do.”
My sister will go home after a full summer of dealing with this, right in her face, and she has managed with great skill the mountain of things left undone in the Great Decline.
The house has had years of maintenance deferred. The three of us agreed that necessary work be done to protect the roof, and the investment, if we have to sell to support what is coming.
I will try a week of in-residence occupancy starting next week. It will not be enough time to do anything of consequence, and in the absence of an aggravating and bossy child in residence.
Sweetie- that is the name Mom has for Raven- locked himself in the bathroom a few months ago. He could not get out, and long ago Mom forgot that the little hole on the knob to the bathroom was put there so you could insert a wire- the end of a closet hanger, unbent- and pop the lock.
Instead, she got a hammer and swung for what she said later was an hour or so to bludgeon the knob off the door.
It was thoroughly destroyed. She is a fiercely determined woman, did I mention that?
My buddy said that when he sits down next to his Mom, she says: "I know you but I don't know why." Mom still knows me, and as recently as a couple days ago, wanted her car keys.
Like us, my pal is fortunate that his family can afford sophisticated and advanced living care and are using her investments and pension income to pick up 95% of the tab.
He wonders how the other 90% of the population is going to cope with it.
I do, too. I saw one of the talking papers produced by the Administration about the new health care system. They have had to do some major rethinking about the approach to implementation. They believed, with the serenity of their beliefs that in time the public would get on board with the program and accept revealed wisdom. They are pointedly saying now not to expect any real savings in the expansion of benefits.
They have seriously misjudged the public response. According to the polling information, a significant percentage of the public does not even realize the legislation has been enacted. I guess it is not unexpected. A near plurality of our fellow citizens are not even sure of the President’s religion, for goodness sake.
Standing in the parking lot of Building 572 before driving back into the continuing crisis I was shooting the shit with Pete, who I met on duty in Hawaii almost thirty years ago. We had been discussing the different ways things could go. We had both also served in Korea, and the implications of China’s rise and the succession of the regime are scary.
“We are approaching the abyss,” said Pete. “It is out there, and we are creeping toward it but we can’t see it.”
“Oh, hell,” I said. “We drove off the cliff already.” I spread my arms in the air, tossing m wrists. “It is Thelma and Louise. We just haven’t impacted yet. What do you think is gong to happen when the entitlements start to really squeeze the discretionary budget. And we are the ones sucking hardest of the public tit with military pensions and social security and commissaries and all the rest. We are hosed.”
“You could be right, Vic,” said Pete solemnly.”I saw an article this week that took to task the military compensation plan, contrasting some out-of-context facts about the all-volunteer force over the past twenty years. They are going to come after us and the opening shots have been fired.”
I got in the shiny silver car, now dimmed by a film of the highway oil. When I got home I connected with my sister. "Mom is just waiting for me to go. She told the coterie she would be home no later than Christmas, probably much sooner. She told her pals at the weekly group that too much money had been spent and that she needed to take back control over her money.”
“I told Mom to embrace the Village or prepare to move out of state. I told her she would not be moving home.”
“So what do we do about Raven?” I asked.
“Management suggested crime scene tape and a big sign across the portal on the outside of the door saying “No exit.” They say they are not a lock-down facility, so apparently old men headed outside in their underwear are not their problem.”
“We can’t put a dead-bolt on the door and lock them in?”
"Nope. Fire code."
“Can we get an alarm for the door?”
“Possibly. Maybe an ankle bracelet, alarm and GPS locator.”
“Shit,” I said. When I do things like forget my phone I wonder about me, too....
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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