"Old People Die,"

she said, shrugging her shoulders.

We got back from Puerto Vallarta exactly one week ago.  We've been there at least a dozen times and never get tired of the experience.  The weather is always beautiful (It actually rained one  morning as we were walking out of the gym.  I think that's the first time I've ever been rained on in PV.).  The food is always terrific.  The staff at Villa del Palmar treat us like we're family.  I got lots of reading in and even lost weight while doing it.  I also have an awesome tan.  Well, had an awesome tan would be more accurate.  I'm getting paler by the day.

However, the visit this time had the cloud of the shutdown hanging over it.  I kept worrying about the TSA lady at DIA who couldn't afford to take her sick cat to a vet.  I kept worrying if airports would still be functioning when we were scheduled to return to Denver.  I watched CNN in the morning!  I've never watched the news on vacation.  That's not true.  I watched a little bit of the election returns while in Belize two years ago and look what happened.  And to top it off, Ignacio, the wonderful guy at the breakfast buffet who makes Katherine's eggs every morning, can't get back to his welding job in Charlotte because his visa expired and he can't get a new one.  Katherine and Ignacio exchange hugs when we first show up at the buffet and they hug on our last day.  He doesn't make enough at Villa del Palmar to support his family.  The welding job was key to his survival.  And to make matters worse, asshole Americans on an all-inclusive plan don't tip the poor guy.  They even look askance at Katherine when she gives him 20 pesos every morning.  Stuff like that put a damper on my vacation spirit.

The other cloud that hovered over me was the fact that I was surrounded by old people.  Let's face it.  Villa del Palmar was never a destination spot for spring breakers or well-heeled millennials (is that an oxymoron?).  If you want that you have to go to Nueva Vallarta or downtown on the malicon where young people abound.  It's just that I've never noticed the aging clientele at the place until this year.  The fact that so many of us recognize each other from years past and that I, in fact, am seventy years old, should probably have alerted me to the whole age thing.

There was a stooped shouldered gray haired man (they are all stoop shouldered) who always got to the gym before we did and commandeered the running machine I liked to use.  That was okay.  There were others available, but he used the thing at a snail's pace while reading an aviation magazine.  Like, oh sure, he has an airplane.  I don't know.  It just pissed me off.  And there was the overweight couple a few years younger (!) than me.  The man just sat on the quadriceps machine while his wife lay prone on the hamstring machine.  I mean they just sat there.  Occasionally the man would kick one of his legs up against the pad and I did see the lady attempt to flex her knees.

During breakfast we liked to sit at one of the tables close to the pool area.  There is a little step up to the restaurant proper that one has to negotiate in order to get to the buffet.  Next year I want them to make a sign that disallows old people from eating at those tables.  The number of old folks who could barely scale that step was depressing.  One old guy almost lost his balance going down the step due to the extra weight he was carrying on his newly loaded plate.  I was so happy I knew CPR.

You can bet your life that the same guy who almost didn't make it over the step would  later that day put on a Tommy Bahama shirt, some long khaki shorts, white tennis shoes, all of it complemented by knee high black socks.  He and his wife would then take the bus marked Centro and walk up and down the malicon munching on skewered shrimp and drinking aqua fresca.  The scene down there was always quite festive.

Kathie and I looked at all this differently.  My response was, "Oh God, that's me without the black socks!"  She would say, "Isn't it wonderful how great we look compared to some of those people."  She has always been a glass is half full kind of person, but I've managed to love her in spite of that.

We stayed there for two weeks and as far as I know, no one suffered a heart attack or broke a neck climbing the step up to the buffet.  I think we got on the plane just in time.

But then I got home and immediately felt terrible.  Jet lag.  Not as much fruit.  No fish.  Snow to shovel.  A house to clean.  Cooking to clean up after.  It's hard to face all that when you relate to all the old geezers slumping around the pool in terry cloth lined jackets and yellowing toes.

And then yesterday I had a Facebook confrontation with a (shudder) angry young man.  One of my friends commented that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's feelings about income disparity and the ways to solve it were more in line with the founding fathers' ideas than most of the current old white men sitting in Congress.  I wrote a response saying that, for the most part, I agreed with him, but I wished that she would be more careful about  some of the misstatements she has a tendency to make.

You would think I just told a woman to smile!  My FB friend clicked like on my comment, but others challenged me to list some examples.  Another person told me to pay closer attention.

I commented again, this time listing a few of her statements that, according to Polifact and The Washington Post Fact Checker, were false.  The Fact Checker gave her (insert Gasp) Three Pinnochios.  I also repeated that I was a fan of AOC.  I thought she was a breath of fresh air.  I would have voted for her had I been able, but I just thought she would be even more effective if she was a little more circumspect.

One of the outraged types responded that ALL politicians say things that aren't true.  What I needed to do, he counseled me, was look at the big picture.  Stop nit-picking.  He went on to say that old Democrats like me were destroying the party because by picking on poor AOC we were suborning the evil collusion between deep pocketed lobbyists who had already "filled the pockets" of every member of congress.  He was really pissed and all I said was I really like AOC and wished that she would be more careful.  I guess that is what a millennial calls nit picking.  I told him that I knew as a 70 year old, my opinion was by definition worthless, but I wasn't going to apologize for my age.

I wanted to tell my granddaughter Jaydee that same thing a few months ago when she looked at me and said, "Gramps, you're old!"  I protested that I wasn't all that old, but her sister Willa assured me that I was.  Jaydee looked at me once more and said with confidence, "You're gonna die soon."  Die!  I told her that I was not going to die and asked her what made her think of such a thing.  "Old people die," she said, shrugging her shoulders.

That angry little Facebook type should take umbrage in that.

THESE TRUTHS

Jill Lepore

Political equality.  Natural rights.  Sovereignty of the people.  These are the truths our country is based on.  Thomas Jefferson said these truths were "sacred and undeniable."  Benjamin Franklin changed that to "self-evident." In THESE TRUTHS, Jill Lepore sets out to discover how those three truths have weathered the evolution of this country in the last 250 years.  She uses those truths as a lens to look at the American Experiment.

It is not a particularly pretty picture, but it is a thrilling book not least because Lepore writes with such beauty and power.  Starting with the rather surprising discovery of America by Europeans rather than some other group, she then begins to show how a systemic pattern of conquest fueled by bigotry and the rationalizations to excuse that bigotry enabled our founders to justify their conquest of the continent.

It is a 250 year long story (so far) of rulers and the ruled.  It is, to put it mildly, disturbing.  Lepore calls it the  "American book of genesis: liberty and slavery became the American Abel and Cain."  This seeming contradiction is evidenced in a country whose founding documents proclaim that "all men are created equal" while that very country grew rich on the scarred backs of Africans ripped from their homes and Indians forced down a "trail of tears."  And this is not just a southern phenomenon.  Half of colonial New England's wealth came from sugar grown by West Indian slaves.

Lepore's modern history shows in glaring detail that without exception every effort to emancipate whoever or whatever needed emancipating--blacks, women, indians, homosexuals, immigrants of color--was shot down by those powers profiting from the subjugation of those groups and those "sympathetic" to their cause by their cowardly acquiescence.  George Washington could have sent a powerful message by freeing his slaves (the most indelible image of Mount Vernon to this visitor was the slave quarters out back), but he didn't until after he died.  Jefferson behaved identically.  The list of founding fathers who hypocritically held slaves is too long to mention here.

The subjugation of The Ruled grew more sophisticated as we became technically savvy.  Public opinion pollsters, propagandists, public relation offices, political consultants:  They all manufactured lies in their spin factories to keep The Ruled under their thumbs, to promote the candidacy of racists and opportunists.  They lambasted the coastal elites for looking down their collective noses at blue collar voters in the heartland and calling them stupid, but they all counted on that heartland stupidity to buy into their contrived messages, their outright lies.

This all brings us to the current state of affairs, to Donald Trump and his profiteering minions.  I don't know if this is true, but it is hard to imagine that Lepore didn't have Trump in her sights from the very moment she started researching this book.  "A nation that toppled a hierarchy of birth only to erect a hierarchy of wealth will never know tranquility," Lepore states in her epilogue.  "A nation of immigrants cannot close its borders."

The main thing I take away from this book is an insight about myself.  I was an indifferent history student in high school and college.  I took pride in getting a B in classes without putting in the appropriate work, without really reading the books.  I kinda sorta knew everything in THESE TRUTHS, but I never fully understood until I read it.  I will always be thankful to Jill Lepore for that.

Postpone all further activities and read this book.  At the very least, it will piss off the folks at FoxNews.

Bound for PV

We leave for Puerto Vallarta bright and early tomorrow.  You have to understand that I hate to travel.  The instant I get off the plane, I start counting down the days until I can get back home.  Jenny Lake Lodge in the Tetons is the only place I never want to leave, but I'm happy to report that PV is moving into that echelon.  Let's talk about the reasons I'm looking forward to this trip.

-Getting to DIA early and having breakfast at Elway's on concourse B before boarding.  Janet and Bud usually show up halfway through my breakfast burrito and we have bloody marys together.

-The flight to PV is relatively short and painless.  If we can manage to score a seat in the emergency exit aisle, it is even comfortable.

-It is quick and easy to get through the airport at PV and I like having a car waiting to take us to Villa del Palmar.

-Getting into our adjoining (usually) rooms and changing into shorts, teeshirts, and flip flops and meeting at El Patron, the mexican restaurant on property.  As of this moment, I am promising myself to drink only cokes on that first night.  I don't react as well to long trips as I used to.  I remember two years ago Bud and I were a little too celebratory and Bud somehow ended up fully dressed in his bathtub.  I still don't know how Janet extricated him.

-Going to bed early on that first night and not having to worry about being party  poopers.  The four of us allow each other a lot of elbow room.  I can't imagine better travel companions than Bud and Janet Simmons.

-Waking up early.  Getting to the gym by 7, out by 8:30, walking on the beach by 9, amazing breakfast buffet by 10 and spending the rest of the day reading by the pool.  I'm bringing Jill Lepore's new history of the United States.  Not exactly a poolside read, but I love Jill Lepore.

-Walking on the Malicon and checking out all the street entertainers.  I especially like the sand guys playing chess by the big Bustamante sculpture.

-Sitting on Bud and Janet's porch and bullshitting our way through an afternoon.

-Meeting Eric and Terry for dinner and talking and laughing for hours.  I want to go back to Daquiri Dick's this time.

-Speaking of.  Fish on a stick at Daquiri Dick's, the simplest and best snapper you will ever find.  In fact, everything at Daquiri Dick's.  It is a horrible name, but a great restaurant and on weekends they have really good jazz.

-As long as we're talking about food, the breakfasts at La Palapa.  I think it is the most perfect place for breakfast we know.  I think it is even better than the breakfasts at Meadowood in Napa.  We always go here on our last morning.

-Layla.  This is my favorite restaurant in town, run by this warm and wonderful lady who remembers us and always stands ready to give hugs.  Layla has the best oyster preparation I have ever had.

-Vallarta Eats.  The best food in town is on the street and Vallarta Eats is the best way to discover this.  It is impossible for me to recommend the food tours, especially the morning taco tour, highly enough.

-Rhythms of the Night.  We don't do this anymore, but when we did we loved it.  You take a great power boat ride with the stars flooding the sky and end up at an outdoor theater and buffet dinner.  The show celebrating the indian ancestry of the place and the sumptuous dinner that follows are surprisingly wonderful.

-Tino's at the lagoon.  Great fish place.  Janet absolutely loves the place.  So do we all.  If you manage to sit at a table overlooking the lagoon, you might luck out and see a crocodile or two slithering by.

-Catching a game at the sports bar on property.  We used to have to go all the way downtown, but now a playoff game is only a short walk on property away.  They have good burgers and fries.  There aren't a lot of places in PV you can say that about.

-Wednesday night art walks.  The art scene in PV is terrific and the art walk easily fills up an evening with a surprising variety of things.  Bring money.

-Detoxifying.  I don't smoke any dope down there, although I have been offered.  I also don't drink much unless we are at a restaurant.  On the other hand, I drink an alarming amount of water and eat all the fruit and fish I can get my hands on.  And since we manage to work out every morning, we come home healthier and (a little) thinner than when we left.

-Fasting from the news.  I don't read any papers.  I am never on Facebook unless I am posting photographs designed to provoke envy among my FB friends.  I try really hard not to engage in anything resembling a political conversation.  I recommend it.

-I am so happy that the four of us are not All-Inclusive Types.  The thought of going to a place as varied, vibrant, and wonderful as PV and never leaving the hotel is unbearably depressing.

-I also like getting back home and having one of my kids pick us up.

-I like opening our front door and finding that the floor hasn't been flooded, that the furnace has not exploded, the pipes haven't burst, the roof is intact, and the television turns on at a flick of a switch.

Life is good.

#MeThree

I've had three encounters with youngish women in the past month that have made me worry a little about my white male privilege and how it plays in the world of #MeToo.  Let me be quick to add here that I don't think I deserve anyone's sympathy.  All I have to do is read my Facebook feed every day to realize how the world is overwhelmingly stacked in the favor of people like me.  Furthermore, I have learned to avoid any interaction with angry young women.  I'm on their side.  I really am, but for some reason I am not able to communicate that position convincingly.

Encounter #One

When I work out at the Y, more often than not I notice a woman in her late twenties, early thirties, who spends her entire time shooting baskets.  Of course, I've been going to the Y at a later time so as to avoid all the FoxNews Republicans there.  When I used to get to the Y by 5, there was always a full court basketball game going on.  That is presumably what athletic Republicans do in the mornings when they are not looking over their shoulders for Muslims and illegal immigrants.  The games are middle-aged and white with a few old fogies thrown in trying to relive their high school glory back in the days when America was great, men were men and women ate their young.  At that time in the morning there would be no place for the girl to shoot her hoops and I guarantee you she would not be welcome in the game.

The basketball lady is fairly tall, maybe 5'8", has a slim body with powerful legs, and long brown hair in a pony tail.  She looks like she played college basketball, high school basketball at the very least.  I say that because SHE NEVER MISSES!  She rotates around the three point arc and swishes one jumper after another.  I'm waiting to see her dunk.  I know why those morning cagers wouldn't invite her to play.  She would kick their collective asses.

I walked by her the other day on my way to the weight room.  She drained four three pointers in the time it took me to walk across the gym.  I caught her eye and said "You're amazing!  Don't you ever miss?"  She barely acknowledged my existence, turned back toward the basket and drained another three.  She reminded me of Jimmy, the hot shot in HOOSIERS who refused to answer anything Gene Hackman asked him.

I was immediately sorry I said anything.  She probably thought I was just mansplaining stuff to her and being a condescending asshole like all men.  I wish I had had the confidence to tell her that her sex had nothing to do with my admiration.  I would have told her the same thing if she had been a man.  The thing is I've never seen a man shoot like that in the flesh.

Encounter #Two

I'm pretty good friends, I'm a little sorry to say, with the folks at our local liquor store.  We always make lame jokes about the Broncos and Rockies, discuss new beers, single malt scotches, the usual.  There are two young guys, a good old boy, and one twenty something girl who manages to hold her own in this all male bastion.  I went in the other day to restock and the girl was alone behind the counter.  Where she usually looks happy and smiles when she keys in my club number, this day she looked sad.  Her eyes were a little moist and she didn't act like she knew me.

There was obviously something wrong, but I didn't say anything.  I didn't ask her if anything was wrong.  I didn't  tell her to smile.  I've learned my lesson about telling women to smile!  Never again! The thing is, I felt kind of bad about my reaction.  I felt like I let her down.  I'm happy to report that I was at the store just yesterday (stocking up again) and she seemed fine.

Encounter #Three

I went to ACE Hardware yesterday to have some keys made.  It was a devastating experience.

First of all, it was a bitterly cold morning and before I went to ACE, I had to take our tree to a park in Littleton to have it mulched.  Therefore, I was wearing an old pair of wool lined warm-up pants that were a little too short.  I had an old pair of hiking boots on that were a little too ratty and to top it off I was wearing a bumpy wool sweater and one of those hats you see Inuits wearing while driving sled dogs.  In short, I looked like an old person who can't cope with extremes in weather any more.

When I walked into ACE, I got immediately confused.  They've changed the place since the last time I was there.  I mentioned that to the sweet teen-aged girl at the counter after I negotiated the maze of shelving units and candy displays leading to the register.

"It's been this way for three years, sir," the girl explained to me with an increasingly warm smile spreading across her face.

"Oh, don't mind me," I said.  "I guess I'm just getting delusional."  I noticed the girl nod at that information.

She made the keys and asked me if I needed them to be separated in plastic bags so I wouldn't get confused.

"No need.  I'll remember."  I carefully put the keys in separate pockets and patted the pockets several times to make sure they were still there.

She rang up the bill and I handed her my card.

"Sir," she gently explained, "just run it through the machine over there."  Her smile was growing warmer.

"Oh, I'm sorry.  I just didn't see it."  I ran my card and noticed the relieved look on the girl's face when I remembered my code.

I picked up my stuff and started back through the maze.

"Sir," her smile beaming now, "just use the door over there.  The one that says EXIT."

I wanted to tell her that ordinarily I am a really cool person.  She just caught me on a bad day.

It's the first time someone looked at me as if they were mentally going through the steps for CPR,  just in case.  I toddled home determined never to set foot in that store or talk to that smart ass little girl again.