Vic Socotra

13 November 2008

Life Must Go On

I got off on a tangent the other day about the establishment of the Veteran’s Day holiday, and then I took an emotional hit that still has me reeling a bit. A bittersweet week, all in all, and not done yet.

I was going to write a tale about the Bonus Army, a bunch of solid Americans who were ridden down by American troops and ejected from their capital while conducting a non-violent protest. I have a lot of material that you will see, presently, but life had to go on this week on its own terms and I will get to it whenever.

As to the real business of life and death, I have done all I can and there is no point in wallowing in it. The urn has been ordered, the inscription has been etched and that is that.

I’ll pack it up and put it away with other dreams for private contemplation. Life must go on, as poet Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote in her Lament, even if sometimes it is hard to remember why. It is not like the one who left us was a person, after all, though perhaps that is what makes the sorrow all the more intimate and pure.

Time to pick up the rucksack and cast the eyes to the horizon. Professionally, word is that the Mikes are going to lose their jobs, Mike McConnell and Mike Hayden, directors of national intelligence and the CIA, respectively, though I am not worried for their comfort in the transition. They will do just fine. There may even be some opportunity there, and I will follow up discretely. Life must go on.

People are hurting, which is the connection to my Grandfather’s Bonus Army, and the link to the events of today.20The markets got slammed again, and Germany has slid into recession, according to this morning’s numbers. The papers had some human-interest stories about the effect of the market collapse on retirees in their gated communities down in Florida. Some are reportedly going to be forced to sell their houses Up North, and cancel cruises.

Shoot.

Really close to home, there was a near riot at the Condo Annual Meeting held at the Unitarian-Universalist Hall across Route 50.
We used to meet in the Fitness Center of the Arlington Oaks complex, but it was too small, considering the emotions of the moment., which are focused on the great window replacement crisis.

I finished the paperwork of the day in the den and poured a Happy Hour cocktail, looking down at the parking lot. I traced the route that the dog liked to walk, down to the corner and across Pershing to sniff at the Dumpsters in back of the Assembly of God soup kitchen.

I shook my head. Don’t go there, I told myself, even as I followed the course of the Last Big Walk just a few weeks ago. Shoot.

The Annual Meeting beckoned, and I put the drink on the counter and shrugged into a jacket and locked up the place and headed for the elevator.

Crisp and cold was the darkness, and it met my mood. The Unitarians are prim and sanctimonious about their parking lot. There are big signs telling the National Guardsmen from across the street that there is “No Parking for Guard,” even if they are not using it during the week, and the double-doors leading to fellowship hall are broken and posted as “out of order.”

I don’t know if the Unitarians are on hard times or not, but the fact that they rented Fellowship Hall to us and permitted wine to be served might be an indication.

I was early enough not to be20fashionably late, and Jigs and Mrs. Hitler waved for me to come over and sit near them in the back. Most of the seats were full, and it was a bigger turn-out than usual. I was issued my two ballots at the check-in table and dragged a folding chair out of the neat line and camped with them. There were some finger foods and free wine, and the meeting was gaveled to order by the President only a few minutes past time.

The agenda was short. Election of Officers was first up, and then a vote on the authorization of $20 grand to put out a Request for Proposal on the windows. The President was a little cross with the owners in the audience, since the crowd was restive and on the verge of disorder. I sensed that finger food might be arcing out of the audience at the podium if order was not enforced. i looked around for ammunition, but the Early Birds had eaten most of it. The Brie was too soft to make an accurate missile.

The Elections Committee asked for nominations from the floor, and the Black Helicopter Party put forward their write-in candidate. There were a few minutes allocated to a discussion of the conspiracy by the Board to ignore legitimate petitions, collusion with unscrupulous contractors and other high crimes and misdemeanors.

I liked the platform, and would gladly have voted for the Lunatic Fringe Party if I thought there was a chance in the world that it would invert the process of entropy. But that is how the State of Minnesota elected a professional wrestler the Governor a couple years ago, so comic relief aside, I settled in to listen to my fellow owners complain bitterly about the Brave New World.

One woman said she had paid off the large Special Assessment that was just levied, and the audience stirred in envy. Others propos ed schemes to permit the hodge-podge installation of windows at the owners individual preference, and we heard from the different climates of Big Pink, the Desert exposure that is too hot, and the Deep Freeze zone where the sun never shines.

We had several back-and-forths from the Restoration Party, who held that the laws of physics might be repealed and the ancient existing windows renewed, and the Luddites, who maintained that the double pane gas-filled windows that were the subject of the proposal would fail within a decade of installation at a cost of millions. The New Esthetics Faction pointed out that new window frames would reduce the casement dimensions, and some residents would have to alter existing window treatments.

Jigs jabbed me with an elbow and told me to say something. He had his three minutes and he wanted company. He had helpfully pointed out that the Board’s credi bility had been strained by the recent repainting of white lines on the parking lot that were about to be ripped up in the quarter million dollar paving project, with the clear implication that, from a fiduciary perspective, they didn’t know they asses from a hole in the ground.

The ground rules were that each resident could only vent once on any given topic, and when the Floor seemed to be running out of steam, I raised my hand to participate in democracy. I was duly recognized, and lurched to my feet.

“Hi! I’m Vic Socotra, and I own units 107 and 405. I came here, as some of the Board did in 2001. I rented, initially, and then bought because this is a great place to live. I thought I had survived divorce, thought sadly, that does not appear to be the case. In any event, I want to commend Leo, the Engineer, for his maste ry of the aging plant facility, and Mayor Fred’s fine staff of porters. I further wish to thank the Board for their volunteer service under difficult circumstances. I want to thank the new owners, who got great prices on a fine building, and commiserate with those who bought when I did. I spent $375,000 for my two bedroom unit-“ I paused for drama as the audience gasped at my stupidity- “and I am out about a hundred grand on the transaction.”

Dick, the Realtor on the Board, fiddled nervously with his moustache.

“Since I will never get that money back, it appears that I have a life sentence here at Big Pink. Accordingly, I suggest that we abandon acrimony, and strive to be kind to one another. Under the current circumstances, it appears that no one is getting out of here alive, and we should do out best to maintain our historic quality of life .” I ended with a flourish, and sat down.

The crowd seemed nonplussed by the address, and a motion to cloture was moved and seconded. The ballot box started to come around.

Jiggs leaned over and said, “Who are you, Rodney King? Are you in favor of the windows, or what?”

“I don’t give a great goddamn,” I said. “I live in the Temperate Zone. I keep the windows open all year round.”

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