Rollin’ On

     YES! This piece shall forever be categorized as Uncategorized! The reasons you, Gentle Reader, will surely know, sooner or later.

     It’s not because I have nothing to rant about. Rather the reverse.

     I’d venture to guess that the readers of Liberty’s Torch average a mite older than most Web addicts. I’m a mite older myself – 73, if you must know – so I can assure you all that we’re mutually in good company.

     Older men congregate as we do for the same reasons that younger folks do the same… and that whites congregate with whites, and Negroes with Negroes, and Christians with Christians, and Jews with Jews, and brain-damaged Leftists with… oh, never mind. We have compatible histories. We’ve lived through the same events and have drawn (largely) the same lessons from them.

     Mind you, they might have been the wrong lessons. Anyone can be wrong about anything at all. Indeed, large numbers of people have been wrong in the same way at the same time, many times throughout history. That doesn’t vitiate the underlying mechanism: we see things largely the same way. That enables us to converse intelligibly with one another.

     There’s been a lot of talk about the “loneliness problem,” especially as it afflicts middle-aged and older men. It’s a real problem; many of our kind are unwillingly alone. Remedies are hard to come by, unless congregating around the digital potbelly stove here and at similar sites should qualify. Most of the attractants that still draw Americans together are skewed toward younger folks and women. We must make do with what we’ve got.

     Which is a giant part of my feeling of obligation for running this site and doing my best to put up fresh material every day.

     I had occasion, just a little while ago, to replay an old favorite:

     At first blush, that grand old song sounds fatalistic, even futile. But it’s not so:

     We old farts know that, mostly. Yes, there are setbacks. Yes, there are periods where all our efforts seem to do no more than keep us in place:

     The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, “You may rest a little now.”
     Alice looked round her in great surprise. “Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!”
     “Of course it is,” said the Queen, “what would you have it?”
     “Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else— if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”
     “A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

     [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson a.k.a. “Lewis Carroll,” Through The Looking-Glass]

     …but in the main, we do make progress, even if only slowly. We learn. We accumulate. We gain at least a wider perspective, if nothing else.

     Much of what flows from that perspective is the inclination to leave well enough alone.

     The desire to interfere in others’ lives is irregularly distributed. It’s found copiously in certain identifiable demographics – politicians, cult leaders, and mothers-in-law come to mind at once – but I’m reasonably sure that we all feel the urge now and then. Fortunately, in most cases it doesn’t last very long. (In most cases, I said. How else would we explain Cause People?)

     As we age, even the most intervention-minded of us tend to lose that urge, or learn to suppress it. That’s another fortunate thing. As our lives lengthen and our futures shorten, the sense that what time we have is not to be wasted doing pointless things becomes very strong. Trying to improve others is almost always pointless.

     That insight is coupled to an increasing irritation with others who try to improve us. Their ubiquity can easily lead us to prefer our own company… after which we congregate here.

     I want something back. It was once commonplace. No doubt a few still exist, but along the coasts it’s hard to find one. It’s the neighborhood tavern.

     Call it what you will: the corner bar, the pub, the local watering hole. Men could go there at the end of a working day for a beer or two and some conversation with the like-minded. There were always plenty of like-minded there; those who didn’t fit the mores of the crowd swiftly found other places to shoot the breeze and wet their beaks. It was particularly unfriendly to the well-meaning sort who want to improve you.

     But I can no longer find one. I know where a few were, and in a few cases when and why they closed. I miss them; they were an important part of the older man’s support system.

     When Cheers was popular, it might have been because neighborhood taverns were already dying and we yearned for them to come back. Friends had a little of that feeling, but the romantic motifs and tensions worked against it. The last thing a neighborhood-tavern devotee wanted when he visited it was romance.

     Is there any chance those taverns might be revived? I have a feeling they’d be good for at least some of what ails us.

     I know I’ve been rambling. It’s my privilege as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer. But I also know a ramble must end before it becomes tiresome, so I shall strive forthwith to close this one.

     Item: I’m glad to have you here. I hope you’ll be back often. I’d miss you were your patronage to cease.

     Item: The longer you’ve frequented this dump, the more likely it is that you don’t “need” anything you find here, except for the sense of a kindred spirit or two. I need that too. So even on days when I don’t feel inspired, or especially insightful, I’ll keep putting stuff up here. I want you to have a prima facie reason to stop by. After all, you have to have something to tell your Significant Other, don’t you?

     Item: If you feel isolated, or even just a little alone, drop me a line. The email address is in the sidebar. If you do, I’ll email you back, and who knows? Maybe we can get a little fire going. I made the acquaintance of my all-time best friend that way, God rest his soul.

     You may feel isolated, out of step with “what’s happening.” Your neighborhood may not have a warm and welcoming gathering place for such as you. You may feel that you have nowhere to go that would be worth your time. But you’re welcome here. You always will be. Please know that.

     All my best,
     Fran