Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down?

My wife and I are 76 & 77, respectively. We have three grown (married) children who begot a total of 15-grandchildren of which two are married and one who has two of our great-grandchildren. They will all be at our Decatur home Christmas Day. This Christmas gathering has been a normal family-tradition for many years-running. It is indeed a wonderful celebration and one, which Nana and Boompa cherish....But....
With grandkids getting married and other grandkids entering into relationships it is obvious that on the horizons are extended families with expectations of their 'own' Christmas-gathering together! Why not?

My wife and I note the pressure is mounting on our children to juggle their 'gathering' wishes while cooperating with their children's' in-laws and hopefully not hurting Nana and Boompa's feelings with any family-tradition-change. Well, time to change, say I. I suggested to my wife that 'next year,' we (Nana & Boompa) hold our Christmas gathering on the Saturday before Christmas Day. This would avoid family conflicts on December 25 and permit school age grandkids the return home Sunday to take care of school attendance the following day.

My wife was warm to the suggestion although she did ask, "What are WE going to do on Christmas Day; we will be by ourselves?"  I did not respond but thought: 'We once went out on New Year's Eve and got home at 2AM...the last several years, we are both in bed by 9PM and asleep for two hours before that mid-night ball drops...Things change...I'm good with it! Besides, I always did want Christmas to come earlier.

Any better solutions?

Times-Styles and New Normals

I am not a prude when it comes to matters of sexuality. I understand that those adolescent years brought with them the awareness of male female differences and the accompanying 'feelings.' I suppose that's why all my junior high friends fought over the National Geographic Magazines when we went to the library to do 'research' papers. Of course, that magazine became blase' once a buddy brought his Dad's Playboy Magazine to the sandlot.

You can label it as you wish; call it discarding Puritanical ways, 'openness,' loss of innocence or 'smut;' whatever, we must admit things have changed across the American 'sexuality' landscape. As a 'passenger' on this journey, I have observed fashion changes and entertainment 'subject-matter' that has caused wide ranging debates, which eventually lead to movie-ratings and public school administrators using various methods to measure the length of a female student's skirt. Crazy trans-formative times, indeed. I would think most blog readers would agree that their deceased grandmother would 'roll-over' in her resting place should she 'see' her great-granddaughter's Friday night date apparel.

Never to miss the golden opportunity to make a buck off the female body, America's television network competition has an on-going war to get a 'leg' up on the other guy! Pun intended.
The fast food giant, McDonald's has told America, "I'm Lovin' It!" Hardee's countered with a sensuous 'boob-baring,' leggy chick sitting on a front-stoop taking a bite from an oversized sandwich causing ketchup to drip onto her legs as she seductively looks into the camera. Evidently, more fella's are Lovin' that!

Fox News' marketing philosophy is expanding to the Headline News Network...it's a simple marketing philosophy>>>have long-legged ladies' limbs bared as high as permitted...then watch those ratings soar.

I find those attempts to be somewhat shallow....although I would likely watch a weather channel with a female meteorologist wearing Victoria Secret's nighties.

I'm Just Sayin

A few nights ago, my wife and I watched the movie, "A Christmas Carol" staring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. That movie was released in 1984. Of course, you know that Charles Dickens wrote the novel 'A Christmas Carol,' in 1843. Dickens was disturbed and moved by England's poverty and its profound impact on children.

Oh, likely as you, I've read the novel and seen various movie depictions of the 'mean' Ebenezer Scrooge but this time my wife and I watched carefully with a focus on the homeless and poverty stricken we see in some streets of Decatur. We also noted some similarities of 1843 attitudes towards poor homeless people, of which Dickens wrote and those same harsh condescending attitudes that exists today.

I will leave it at that and thus stop short of politicizing the movie's message. I will share this: My son and daughter-in law have apparently taken it upon themselves to keep a vigil on a homeless couple across the river from their Granite City home. This homeless couple sleeps near the St. Louis Arch on blankets spread upon the frozen ground under a plastic canopy. He is a Iraq War Veteran who struggles with emotional trauma issues. He is also a non-believer while his wife asked my son and daughter-in law to bring her a bible should they return.

Daughter-in law Kathy was most upset about another nearby couple who held a two-year old child in their arms in the frigid nighttime temperatures.

Well, Steve and Kathy have returned several times. They have been there with an East St. Louis minister and another educator-coach. They have returned with blankets, gloves, fire wood, portable propane heaters and also with the loving message of Jesus Christ.

My wife and I sent some money to our kids to help with the cause and I also sent a warning. I told them, "Be careful those situations of street people can pose great dangers." The answer coming back from them came in the form of a question: "How do you ignore the voice of Christ?"

And to 'think' we argue in this great nation about the solutions to this problem or worse, dismiss it because "it's their own fault."

A Significant Staple

I enjoy music. I often spend hours embracing my recording equipment, which permits me to copy tunes/songs from my collection of LP albums or 'burn' 45's and CD's onto composite discs for friends and family. My stockpile of LP's, 45's and CD's is extensive to say the least. It affords me my mid-night hour retreat.

I am certain that my love of music finds its embryo stages in the Methodist Church. In my youth, Sunday School, Sunday Service and periodic Church Revivals were staples with the Bennett-Roustio clans. Perhaps it was in those church pews where I began testing my vocal chords unabashedly due to the Methodist congregations' historic loud singing. I took my singing voice self-assurance into the elementary and middle school choirs where I could enjoy the music more.

There are many fascinating aspects regarding the evolution of songs. The 'pop' tune culture always heightened my attention. Studies show strong connections between our music and societal moods and issues of the time. While young love and romance stimulates much song writing, we note historically in times of civil strife and war, we hear attitudes, fears and hopes expressed in our music. Some of my generation will recall those World War II triumphant songs, i.e., "Over There," "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and also those protest songs of the 1960's. All songs provide avenues of expression and feelings. I particularly like Sam Cooke's song, "Change Gonna Come."

A few years ago, I read a study conducted by a 'relationship psychologist,' who purported that couples growing up and dating in the 1940's and 1950's were less likely to divorce than couples of subsequent decades. The author concluded 'their' music had much to do with the facts.

Don't tell my grown children and grandkids but I often send the CD composites of those 'wonderful' Fifties love songs we call 'oldies' as a subliminal message.

Looks like a nasty weather-day,I believe I'll go to my office (downstairs) today and 'burn' a CD composite of Bobby Darin, Connie Francis, Jackie Wilson and Etta James. After that, I sit back and just listen to my favorite poet: Chuck Berry.

Several years ago, a family member asked me if I had a morning coffee group. I said no. Then I thought, why would I. I have my music, my high school sweetheart, my Poodle Pup and a great backyard swing. I suppose that's a Grandpa E.V. Bennett thing....Whata you think, brother Tom?

Just One Look, That's All It Took

I suppose I am much like others during the Holiday Season. I find myself filled with joy as I embrace family and loved ones in a wonderful festive celebration of the birth our Savior, Jesus Christ. However, there will be moments of heart-tugging melancholy as thoughts and visions of Yesteryear flash through my head bringing back precious memories of family now gone from this journey. Those 'Christmas gatherings' at my grand-parents and later years at my parents shall always remain staples of who we were and what I am.

As a young boy, I recall the anticipation-excitement of my mother's sister, Aunt Kate coming home for the Christmas Holidays. Kate was my mother's elder by seven years and always hovered over her baby sister and her three sons. Kate herself was childless and widowed by her military husband who died young. Kate had left her East St. Louis home and discarded the 'down-home' Kentucky traits exhibited by her parents. She was a handsome well-shaped lady displaying the fashionable flare of that Washington D.C. career woman. Kate was a secretary to the United States Senator from Illinois, Senator Paul Douglas. Aunt Kate brought great Christmas gifts and lectures to young boys about proper dress and manicured finger nails.

Kate did not ask questions without pursuing the particulars in your answers. In Kate's later years (she lived to be 99) my wife and I assumed care of Kate. She could at times be a Jekyll & Hyde but a firm hand brought her Calmness.

I guess it was a year before Kate's death that Gerry and I took our youngest daughter, Pam and her children Caleb (a college student) and Erica (a high school student) to visit Kate at her Assisted Living Home in Belleville, Illinois. As always, with company, Kate was exuberant and giddy with delight. At one point she noticed Caleb's Eastern Illinois T-Shirt with words of admiration, which meant, can I have that T-Shirt? Pam sensed Kate's desires and gave Kate another Eastern Illinois T-Shirt. Kate was thrilled to the extent that she immediately took off her top exposing her 98-year old boobs (old women enjoy bra-less). Often, I still wonder if my grandkids, Caleb and Erica have flashbacks of that visionary trauma. She sure did like that T-Shirt! Precious memories....fly across the lonely years.

Ho Ho Ho

In a 1976 Playboy Magazine interview with soon to be President Jimmy Carter, he stated that he had many times committed adultery as defined by Jesus Christ when Christ said, "If a man lusts in his heart he has already committed adultery." Carter was simply placing himself in that group of all who are 'weak in the flesh.' Let's see now, who would that be? Oh, I know, that would be YOU & ME!

Well, you know that the shit hit the fan. Republicans were all over Carter and his 'vulgar' suggestion. Yes sir it's same holier-than-thou Evangelical-Party that today gives Donald Trump a 'pass' when he says, "I can grab a woman's p#**y because I'm famous."Actually, they go beyond pass-giving but defend Trump's vulgarity as 'boys will be boys' locker room talk.

And yet the important issue of the day is those evil-dancing-with-the-devil-liberals who won't let you good-heaven-bound Evangelical Christians say, "Merry Christmas." I'll tell you folks, we need to 'Make America Great Again!' Yes sir Bubba...bring back no Union protection, slavery, abuse of women and Mint Juleps.

Please spare me any rebuttal. Just swallow for you and I both know that we'd prefer standing in Jimmy Carter's moccasins on judgment day rather than those of Donald Trump's.

Little Things Matter

I wish not to overgeneralize or exaggerate and you blog readers certainly know how often I am WRONG, therefore I offer the following opinion with a degree of restraint if not an "excuse me."

I believe that the automatic dishwasher lead to a higher American divorce rate. Okay, hear my reasoning. First, my apologies to automatic dishwasher inventor, Josephine Cochran of Shelbyville, Illinois who applied for her USA patent in 1886.

I am not going to suggest that the following observed married couple (post evening dinner) behavior was common practice for all American couples who did NOT own an automatic dishwasher...but it was the daily routine at my youthful home.  BTW, we never called it dinner; it's always been supper to this old boy.

Okay, shocking as it may sound to the mellinials, once-upon-a-time we seniors (family members) all gathered together for the supper hour...there's a novel concept for family bonding. After supper, I recall my mother and father co-opting dish cleanup duties. Yep, mom washed and dad dried. I never paid much attention to their conversation during that time but I do remember once in a while seeing a playful kiss and even a pat on the behind, which sent a clear message to young eyes that these two people truly cared for each other and I was fortunate to be living in such a loving safe place.

Today, I see more and more young married couples eating out at restaurants. As they wait for food they are usually independently engaged in their personal cell phones. No dishes to do and no reason for chit-chat.

These days at our crib, I usually cook supper and my wife and I share cleanup duty but she insists putting the dishes into that damn automatic dishwasher. Therefore, I pat her on the butt and take the dog outside.