Rockin' a Hard Place - December!

Following is my "blog-talk" for December, which I performed this past weekend at the monthly "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show here in Coupeville, USA. Next month's shows are Jan. 15-16 at the historic Crockett Barn. Merry Christmas, everybody!

You know what I enjoy most about the holiday season on the Rock? Wherever I go, it’s as if the last 50 years never happened. I see hand-painted snowmen along Main Street in Coupeville made out of plain old plywood. They aren’t animatronic and they don’t sing “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” . . . over and over and over. I haven’t seen a single Jumbotron outside a church, scrolling the words to such forgettable modern carols as “Mommy Met Jesus Tonight.” I did not make that up! And, I’ve seen only a few outdoor light displays that require computer software and a digital sound board to perform their coordinated blinking and blaring.

Nope, that’s not how we do it on the Rock. We go in for just a few strings of lights . . . some even with colored bulbs, not all clear white . . . and they usually don’t twinkle. How refreshing is that! I actually saw somebody stringing tinsel on their tree – of course it was vinyl, not the aluminum kind I knew as a kid, and it was probably made in China from recycled TVs and cell phones. But it was still tinsel . . . and they were putting it on strand by strand. Next thing you know, Mommy will be kissing Santa Claus tonight!

A couple weeks ago we enjoyed a true holiday tradition here on the Rock. We attended the annual ladies’ luncheon and holiday bazaar at the Coupeville United Methodist Church. I doubt the menu and the merchandise have changed much since 1955.

We dined on chicken casserole with green beans mixed in and topped with buttery bread crumbs. And Jell-O salad with chopped cranberries and walnuts. And a soft dinner roll – distinctly unFrench and not the least bit crusty. Then choice of homemade pie . . . I chose mince and it tasted just like my Grandma Esther’s. Followed by a cup of hot tea poured from a pot covered by a hand-knit cozy. I closed my eyes for a moment and it felt as if Eisenhower was still in the White House and all I wanted for Christmas was my two front teeth.

Thanks to the delicious Methodist lunch, we were fortified for the difficult challenge ahead. Finding all those unique gifts “from Whidbey” that our mainland folks now expect from us. So, that afternoon we began our annual trek to the church bazaars, holiday markets, boutiques, galleries, wood carvers, potters, purveyors of local-grown food and rummage sales.

The first thing I bought was a loaf of pumpkin-cider bread baked by the Coupeville Methodist ladies. Let’s hope it didn’t spoil in the UPS truck on the trek to my sister-in-law in Syracuse. I also bought a hand-knit Methodist toaster cozy for my niece in Phoenix . . . but unfortunately she called to say it doesn’t fit her new, digital combination bread-browner and panini grill. I doubt the Methodist ladies make a cozy to fit that.

Then we headed for a host of other bazaars and came back with lots of uniquely Whidbey gifts. A wreath made out of bird seed . . . two jars of loganberry jam . . . a lavender sachet to keep your sock drawer from smelling . . . a half dozen pieces of lefse from the Lutheran ladies that I sent to my Texas friends, who mistook them for tortillas . . . a couple potholders made out of the Swedish flag . . . a table centerpiece of tastefully sprayed pine cones . . . a bee’s wax candle mounted in a holder made of mussel shells . . . a driftwood garden sign painted with a warning that trespassers will be composted . . . a barometer mounted on a hand-carved cedar branch that fell across a power line last winter. How Whidbey can you get?

Then, after shopping’s done, come those wonderful holiday occasions known as open houses. On the Rock, however, they come with a peculiar danger. I speak, of course, of re-gifting . . or, more precisely, accidentally giving the same useless object or cheap bottle of wine back to the person who gave it to you.

Re-gifting something to the person who palmed it off on you can create an awkward moment anywhere. But the risk is higher on the Rock because too many of us get invited to the same holiday gatherings. So, I invite you to imagine this scenario as yours truly arrives at a holiday open house in Freeland with a bottle of wine for my hosts. I grab the bottle as I run out the door, not paying too much attention. I can’t remember who gave it to me.

In the car I notice what it is. Somebody must have bought it at Trader Joe’s. It’s that brand known politely as a “pretty good cheap wine.” But most of us know it by its price tag – Two Buck Chuck. I hope the pretty wine gift carrier it’s in will hide the label on the bottle. My hosts greet me warmly at the door.

“Sarah and Dave, thanks so much for inviting me! Happy holidays!” I say, handing them the bottle. “Here’s a little holiday cheer . . . I hope you enjoy it!”

I am horrified as Sarah pulls the wine out of gift bag and looks at it. Isn’t that against the rules here on the Rock? Isn’t she supposed to wait until later, when everybody’s gone and she can’t remember who brought it?

“Oh,” Sarah says. “It’s Charles Shaw cabernet . . . Fresno, 2009.” She pauses. “Um. We’ve had this, I think,” she says, faking a smile. “Somebody got us several bottles at Trader Joe’s in Seattle. But I think we gave away our last one. What a beautiful wine gift bag! It looks just like one I bought. We, uh, do have similar tastes, don’t we!”

Then somebody else comes in behind me and briefly interrupts this awkward moment. I see Sarah lean over to Dave and mutter a few words I can distinctly make out. “He brought us back the Two Buck Chuck in the same gift bag. Can you believe it?”
My eyes meet Sarah and Dave’s. Busted. I feel the blood rushing to my forehead and my palms start to sweat. How do I get out of this re-gifting nightmare?

“Well, I hope you enjoy the wine. Looks like you have quite a crowd coming, so I’ll head on in,” I say.

“We’ll catch up later in the evening,” Dave says. Then he adds, “Um. Would you mind putting the Two Buck Chuck over there on the table with the other wine?”

I nod sheepishly and slink away. I set the bottle next to the expensive vintages on the table and quickly move to another part of the room before anybody sees me. I engage in idle chatter with somebody I don’t know. Then I make a mental note to myself. Next year bring Swedish flag potholders or a barometer on a cedar branch!

That’s what I mean about the terrible dangers of re-gifting on the Rock. Too much cheap wine, too few people! Let’s be careful out there!

Anyway . . . Merry Christmas, everybody!

Here is my "blogtalk" for November that I performed this weekend at the monthly "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show here in Coupeville, USA:

Welcome to November on Whidbey Island. Don’t you love it? So delightfully cold and damp and dark. That unique, squishy sound I hear when I walk across the grass. All those brown leaves I didn’t bother to rake . . . just lying there, taunting me, daring me to get out in rain and do something about them.

Yes, indeed. This is one of those months they don’t talk about in the tourist brochures you pick up on the Mukilteo Ferry. They skip right from Oktoberfest to MusselFest. Nary a word about some of those Fests in between . . . like the All-Whidbey Moss ‘n’ Mold Expo. That’s a big one. Or the Island-wide Rat & Mouse In-Fest. So many of us never miss that one. I’m just glad the eat-local movement doesn’t participate in those.

But we love it here in November, don’t we? It’s that time of year when we ransack the closet to find something, anything to keep our feet warm. When we finally scrape last November’s mud off the waterproof shoes we haven’t worn for months …. you know, the ones you quickly discover aren’t really waterproof when you step into the puddle in the driveway.

It’s time to drag all the sweaters out of the drawer and hope others won’t notice the musty odor when you sit down next to them. And, it’s time to check the propane tank and discover the meter’s been on “zero” since April . . . then make a panicky call to the supplier and hope the truck arrives before they find you frozen in your Snuggie.

Ah yes, November . . . such a great month. We have several wonderful holidays during the month. We just had Veterans’ Day, and we really appreciate our vets here on Whidbey. How many veterans here tonight? Great! Thank you! I’m a veteran, too…..Uncle Sam gave me an all-expenses-paid trip to Vietnam in 1969. Thankfully, it was a roundtrip! Let’s see, Vietnam….I think that was about four wars ago, wasn’t it? I can’t remember . . . there’ve been so many.

Any way, I still feel goose bumps when the Navy guys march down Main Street in Coupeville on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. And I’m happy to be living someplace where I can attend an Interfaith Peace Vigil one moment and watch a precision military drill team the next. I love this mixed-up, diverse, military-respecting, peace-loving Rock we live on!

Of course, Thanksgiving is coming up next Thursday. A lot of us take the opportunity to fly away to some dryer, warmer place . . . but many of us are descended-upon by mainland folks eager to say they ate a drumstick on an island. As for me, I give thanks for that enzyme in turkey that puts you to sleep. Otherwise I’d have to spend the afternoon listening to our relatives complain about life on the mainland.

We’ll also be dining on the most expensive turkey we’ve every cooked. How expensive, you ask? Well, let me explain. Last spring while I was off-island, my partner Terry went with some friends to the annual Lions Club auction here at the Crockett Barn. Now don’t get me wrong. I know the Lions do a lot of good work, and their auction raises a lot of money every year for scholarships for local students.

But those Lions have been doing this auction for a long time and they know all the tricks to make sure the bidding goes through the roof. It starts with lots of wine before dinner. Then lots of good food. Then lots more wine. And then the auction begins.

When I got home, I discovered we were the winning bidders of a beautiful Narragansett turkey from a local farm. Live or dressed. Free butchering lesson included, if desired . . . it wasn’t.

Not until I googled Narragansett turkey did I discover that it’s a breed that may be descended from the wild New England birds the Pilgrims ate. Which offers me at least some comfort. Considering that Terry, after several glasses of Lions Club wine, had made the winning bid of 200 dollars. Two…..HUNDRED….dollars.

So, stop by our house next Thursday and see Old Tom if you’d like. At that price, we ought to use him as a table lamp or something. But I’m sure we will savor every costly bite of that bird.

There was a third big holiday here on Whidbey this month, although it only comes around every couple of years. This time it was Wednesday November Third. Freedom from Political Signs and Negative Ads Day! Maybe the best holiday of all, don’t you agree? It was such a relief watching people tear down all that wasted cardboard and plywood along our two-lane state highway. And finally getting back to ads for Preparation H and Polident on TV . . . instead of that annoying woman whining that the healthy snacks she makes were being taxed like candy. And imagine my delight when the recorded 800-number call we got on the evening of November Third was actually somebody pitching a credit card . . . and not Sarah Palin pitching Dino Rossi.

Of course, the downside of Freedom from Political Signs and Negative Ads Day is that now we don’t have nearly as much to complain about while kibitzing over a latte. Before November Third, I think every ear on the island was burning from all the scorched talk about politics. You’d have thought that world would end on Election Day. But didn’t. We’re all still here … a little worse for wear, perhaps, but not dead or owned by the Chinese. Yet.

And, if we’re going to argue about the hand basket to hell we’re in, is there a better place to do it than here on this beautiful Rock . . .where not much really changes? Where the tide still turns twice a day . . . and the sun still follows the rain . . . and the trees still grow oh-so tall . . . and Mount Baker still looms majestically over us . . . and in November the leaves still turn a glorious red and yellow before falling to the ground and daring us to do something about them?

We do have a lot to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Rockin' a Hard Place

This is a "blogtalk" I gave during performances last weekend of "Postcards From Whidbey Island," a new, live monthly variety show we've started here in Coupeville, Washington, USA.

I live on Whidbey Island . . . and that, my friends, takes a little explaining. We have a different slant on life here on the Rock, as we call it, versus those who live in America. That’s what we call any place you can get to from here by ferry, bridge, bicycle, kayak or hiking boot.

Now you take what I’m wearing this evening, for instance. Baseball cap…fleece vest….T-shirt….shorts…flip-flops. For those of you who don’t recognize it, this happens to be the Whidbey male’s uniform for fall weather. Now you might ask why a grown man would wear this get-up when it’s forty degrees outside. Simple. Maybe it’s forty right now, but it may be sixty in a hour or so. On the Rock, you gotta be prepared for the temperature to change. And when you’re sipping a nice warm latte someplace like William Bell’s hangout at the end of the Wharf, you don’t want to swelter in all that bundled-up stuff. On the Rock, we avoid bundling and unbundling whenever possible. Bundling is for January, not October.

Folks on Whidbey are modest, for the most part. We don’t go in for bragging...even though we do live in the best place on the planet and we know it. But we don’t brag about it because we don’t want America to move here. Of course, we love it that so many tourists visit the Rock in the summertime, and gush about how beautiful it is, how historic and quaint and friendly, how amazing the scenery is, and how lucky we are to live here. We just smile, say yeah, and take their money. And then we heave a sigh of relief when they’re gone after Labor Day. Finally, we have a place to park again!

We aren’t loud talkers here, either. You don’t hear us raise our voices much on the Rock... except when the Navy jets fly over. No...we like nice, quiet talk. Think it’s gonna rain? Had any luck with your tomatoes this year? Stuff like that. And when anybody brings up politics, we just nod and pretend to agree with them. Then ask ‘em how their kids are.

Another thing is, not much really changes here. No matter what anybody says, everything’s like it always was. For instance, some folks like to think hardly anything happened before Captain Vancouver sailed in a couple hundred years ago and sent his first mate Joe Whidbey on a couple-day cruise around the Rock.

Truth is, native people lived here for at least five thousand years before Old Joe ever set eyes on the place. In fact, several different nations shared the Rock. There were the Snohomish in the South, the Skagits in the North and a few Clallams growing food on the prairie. They were separate nations and spoke their own dialects.

It’s the same today. We still have different tribes sharing the Rock and speaking their own dialects. We have the Clint-ish, the Langl-ish and the Freel-ish in the South, the Coupe-ish and the Greenb-ish in the middle, and the Oak-ish in the North. Now sometimes the uppity Clint-ish, Langl-ish and Freelish poke fun at the Oak-ish and callthem Oakies. That’s certainly not nice-talk.

When Old Joe Whidbey took his cruise, he wrote that everything appeared ever so peaceful and nice on the Rock...even though the various tribes bad-mouthed each other and fought a lot. That hasn’t changed, has it? The Snohomish were basically mainlanders and they canoed back and forth a lot. The only difference today is that the Clint-ish and the Langl-ish use park-and-ride lots and take the ferry. Clallams were claim jumpers from the Olympic Peninsula who horned in on the Skagit farmers on the Prairie. Today, the Coupe-ish try to even that score by going over to the Peninsula to buy cheap stuff. When the ferry’s running, that is.

And, in the old days, the Skagits on the north end were always fretting about raids by the fierce Haida warriors from Canada. That’s certainly no different today. You know how pushy those Canadian tourists can be.

The original people on the Rock used to put aside their differences once or twice a year for this thing called a potlatch. Kind of a picnic on steroids. One tribe would host the others for several days of eating barbecued salmon and local concoctions with unknown ingredients, drinking homemade liquor and cavorting in a big cedar hall called a long house. No back-biting or fighting was permitted. Only nice-talk about kids, fishing and other pleasant stuff. And when the visitors left, they all got nice gifts from the local chief. Then, in a few days, they went back to fighting each other.

Today, it’s still the same. Only we call our gatherings potlucks. We do them in big cedar halls like the Crockett Barn or the Rec Hall. We eat salmon and local concoctions with unknown ingredients. We call them casseroles. We drink liquor, cavort and talk. No insults or fights are allowed. And when we leave, everybody gets a chance to win nice presents called door prizes. Then we go back to bad-mouthing each other.

Now let me give you an example of how all this works here on the Rock. A couple days ago, I had a phone call from my friend Carl in Langley. This is how it went:

"Hello? Oh, hi Carl. How ya doin’? Oh, I forgot. I’ll bring back that weed whacker I borrowed next time I see you. What? Oh, I just got back from Home Depot in Oak Harbor. They had a sale on the gutter screens I need to keep the pine needles out."

"What?" Carl says, "You went where? WHY did you go THERE?" he cries.

"They have good stuff," I say.

"Way too corporate for me," he says. "I only support local businesses. "Like Ace Hardware in Freeland," he says.

"You ought to give Home Depot a chance," I say.

"But it’s in Oak Harbor," he says. "Do you realize how many quarts of gasoline my Prius would burn to drive up there? And it’s Oak Harbor, for cryin’ out loud. Taco Bell . . . Burger King . . . Starbuck’s . . . Wal-Mart!! I moved to Whidbey to get away from all that," he says. "And those people live there." he says.

"Well, Carl," I say, "The Republicans have to live someplace. Be nice. You’re being very un-Whidbey-like."

"Yeah, well," he says, "You can burn fossil fuels going up there to ship your dollars off-island into the greedy palms of corporations if you want. I choose not to."

"OK, Carl," I say. "Whatever. Want to see a movie at the Clyde later in the week? I hear they’re finally playing Avatar."

"Great," he says. "Love to. Text me with the time. Gotta run. I’m catching the 1:30 ferry."

"Where you going?" I ask.

"Gotta pick up a roll of weed-blocker and some organic slug bait at Lowe’s in Lynnwood," he says. "Bye!"

Anyway, that’s how it goes here on the Rock. The new ferry’ll be running by the time we meet again. I can hardly wait to feel the big rattle they can’t seem to fix. I’ll blog about it next month. See ya then!

A Hill of Beans

I have decided to start posting on my blog again, after a six-month hiatus. What prompted this fit of ego-journaling? The political season, in part. The cacophony of negative ads is starting to hurt my tender ears and it's impossible to avoid them. The turning of the season, in part. The leaves are becoming red and yellow, and the temperature is brisk in the mornings. The looming start of my Social Security benefit, in part. I am officially old. Note to Tea Party candidates: Keep your grubby government paws off my Social Security! And Medicare, too, while we're at it! And, also, the Twitter-ization of modern life. My thoughts don't stop at 140 characters. So blog again I shall. Whether you like or not!

Time for Pie

I haven't posted recently. I've been too busy teaching a seminar in Dallas, mowing our three acres on Whidbey Island (way, way too early -- thanks to the warm winter), and generally pursuing retiree activities. It's amazing how the hours fill up when you're not working!

But, of course, I have not been immune from the nasty palaver going on about health care reform. It's not possible to escape it in newspapers and on television, radio and the Internet. It almost sounds like we're headed for a second Civil War. The rhetoric is merciless and beyond hateful. Are we really citizens of the same country? Doesn't sound like it when we hurl epithets worse than we used to hurl at (real) Nazis, toss bricks through political office windows and sever propane lines into homes of relatives of those who voted for The Bill We Wanted To Kill.

Maybe we should let Texas secede. And throw in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee while we're at it. Let 'em pay for their own health care, their own military and their own Social Security. Or maybe we should let states opt out of the mandate that all of us should have to pay something for health care. As I remember my U.S. history, that's called state nullification -- a concept that was first refused by Andrew Jackson in 1832 and finally killed (I thought) by the Civil War.

Or maybe we should all just have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and talk this over. If we are who we say we are -- peaceful citizens living in a democracy, abiding by the law and accepting majority rule and minority rights -- then we ought to be able to talk with each other, not at each other. If Democrats are Socialists, Communists and Fascists (all at the same time), and Republicans are Corporate Fat Cats and Gun-Toting Loonies Who Wear Teabag Earrings, then we can't enjoy each others' company, can we?

But, as I see it, we're all in this together, weathering tough times, anxious about our country, fed up with selfishness and greed, watching our standard of living decline, worried about the future. So maybe we can still figure out where our common ground is. Remember that our parents did, as did their parents and their parents' parents.

So come on over, the coffee's on and the pie just came out of the oven. Here are some lyrics written by Irving Berlin in 1930 that say it well:

Just around the corner
There's a rainbow in the sky.
So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece of pie.

Trouble's like a bubble,
And the clouds will soon roll by
So let's have another cup of coffee
And let's have another piece of pie.

Let a smile be your umbrella
For it's just an April shower,
Even John D. Rockefeller
is looking for the silver lining!

Mr. Herbert Hoover
Says that now's the time to buy.
So let's have another cup of coffee.
And let's have another piece of pie!

Declaring My Independence

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one [individual human being] to dissolve the [financial] bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that [he] should declare the causes which impel [him] to the separation.

I am announcing today my Declaration of Independence from Financial Institutions To-Big-To-Fail. Henceforth, I shall have no further dealings with J.P. Morgan Chase, Citicorp and the others that have betrayed my trust and nearly destroyed my country.

I have no vote in Congress to raise their taxes or limit their bonuses. And it seems as if Congress has no courage to do so either. So, therefore, I shall use the only power I have available as one individual: I will stop doing business with these people.

Goodbye, Chase Bank (successor to that other pillar of integrity, Washington Mutual). I am closing my account and transferring it to my community bank, which actually funds mortgages and makes loans in my community. Imagine that!

And goodbye, Citibank MasterCard. You're toast. No more 21 percent APR and threats of 29 percent if I'm one minute late on a payment. And who cares about the Frequent Flyer miles that you can't use because the airlines have limited the seats to an occasional red-eye to Dubuque. Your card just went through my shredder. From now on, I'm using my Visa from a local bank.

Farewell, you gluttonous, self-interested porkers. All your fancy derivatives and credit swaps have only served to make you rich. You have done nothing to create wealth for the rest of us.

My Happy Heart

I was in the hospital last week for a procedure to help stop my heart from racing. Every so often it would take off and act like I was running a sprint or climbing twelve flights of stairs -- as if! This procedure is an amazing technological feat in which a laser-fitted wire is inserted through your groin into your heart and then the naughty nerves that are misfiring are zapped. And, if all goes according to the medical textbook, my heart starts taking it easier so I don't have to. So far, so good.

I have to think that decades of intense deadline pressure in the newspaper business followed by decades of intense pressure in the corporate world made my heart a little cranky, just like it did the rest of me. Like Howard Beale in the movie "Network," I think my cardiac chamber decided it was mad as hell and not going to take it any more. So it staged a protest and I don't blame it. Fortunately, the protest was short-lived.

Since I retired, my heart has been quite happy. It loves beating on Whidbey Island, where the air is clean and the climate is mild and everybody's nice as can be and only a few folks try to shove their disagreeable opinions down your throat. Washingtonians are an interesting breed. Quite progressive on political and economic issues and quite libertarian on social issues. An electrician who worked on our house wore a baseball cap that was embroidered with the words "Leave Me Alone," which sums up a lot of attitudes here. Having been away for more than 40 years, I had forgotten all that.

I left Washington in the late 1960s to find my fortune and figure out who I was. My wanderings took me to Vietnam, California and Texas, with sojourns in Japan, New York, Philadelphia, London, Paris, Venice and other fabulous spots. Now I'm back where I began. Hopefully wiser, definitely older, comfortable, but still feeling an urge for adventure.

When you hear your doctor tell you that you have a "heart ailment" that "needs attention," it does give you pause. And anytime you spend a day or two in a hospital, you get an in-your-face reminder of how fragile and temporary our physical lives are. "Start by admitting, from cradle to tomb, it isn't that long a stay," as the lyrics of the song "Cabaret" sum it up. The other thing that a diagnosis and heart ablation procedure do is make clear an irony of life: Just when you get pretty good at this job, your machine wears out.

I've never been afraid of what comes after all this. In fact, I await it with a journalist's curiosity and a believer's confidence. But, as I sit here on this beautiful morning looking out at Penn Cove while the clouds lift off Mount Baker in the distance, I'm especially enjoying the gentle beat of my heart.

The Fraught Aughts

I am so happy that the first decade of the 21st Century -- the Aught Years -- is over. Aren't you? It would be better if we just not talk about it and let the historians chew for awhile. But before we shove it in a file and forget about it, let's wallow for just a minute, shall we? It won't cost much -- just a few tears.

I've read the macro versions of what happened: Median family income is below what it was in 1999. There was no job growth -- nothing, nada, zip -- from 2000 to 2010. The average net worth of the American family is less than it was 10 years ago. Two wars launched, more than 4,000 Americans dead so far -- not counting almost 3,000 on 9-11-01. The national debt has more than quadrupled in the past decade, and the Chinese could foreclose and take possession of us if we fall behind on the mortgage.

Add it all up and I'll have say this out loud: The American standard of living has declined. We can't really brag about the world's strongest economy right now. The free enterprise system gaveth but now hath taken away. Sorry, Glen Beck, but I don't feel very much like waving the flag of Capitalism at the moment. If fact, I wish some of those Capitalists were behind bars making flags.

Yes, the Aughts were fraught, and my own fortunes testify to that. During the Aughts I made more money than I ever had before, but I paid more income tax just for 2007 than I made from 1985 to 1990 -- combined! My retirement nest egg is smaller today than it was in 2003 and the bank basically now charges me to keep my savings because interest rates are below the inflation rate. We sold our house in 2005 and made a killing; but the house we have now is worth less than we paid for it.

And, adding insult to injury, I have more than 200,000 frequent flier miles from all those business trips I took during the Aughts, but I can't really use them because the airlines don't give away many seats any more. Or else they want you to take a trip around the world and change planes to get from Point A to Point B. So much for all that free travel I expected during my retirement. But who wants to travel any way with people putting explosives in their underpants?

Did anything good happen during the Aughts? Well, yes. There were the IPhone and Kindle and texting and Twitter and Facebook. And they started letting us use our cellphones as soon as the plane lands, so we call people to tell them we just landed and we're waiting to get off the plane and we'll see them in an hour or so depending on traffic and we love them. We added at least 40 more channels to our cable menu, so we always have lots more infomercials and shopping networks and reruns of "Law and Order" to numb our brains. And we got to see and hear Beyonce and Rihanna and Kanye and 50 Cent . . . everywhere, all the time. Meantime, both Rosemary Clooney and Perry Como passed from our midsts during the Aughts, leaving me musically bereft.

All in all, the Aughts were a lost decade -- sound and fury signifying nothing, to quote The Bard. We all enjoyed the orgy of house refinancing while it lasted. Who didn't like seeing the value of their home going up $1,000 a day? Don't be left out! Refi today! Do it online! Buy two more houses with your equity! You'll be rich and you won't have to work for it!

But it was a fluff decade, based on borrowed money without enough ingenuity and innovation. We got fat both physically and intellectually. We had a President who had trouble putting words together, yet too many of us actually admired his inability to be articulate. The entire decade was built on a false expectation: What goes up can't come down. That canard is at least as old as Tulip Mania in Holland 400 years ago and as new as the Tech Bubble that burst as the Aughts began. Where have all the flowers gone? When will they ever learn?

The last Aughts -- from 1900 to 1910 -- were a different story. We had a President, Teddy Roosevelt, who used his bully pulpit to bust trusts, spread the wealth and articulate an optimistic vision of our country. He ended wars (the Russo-Japanese conflict) instead of starting them. He formed the national park systems, which is why Yellowstone and the Everglades and so many others aren't condo developments today. Meantime, entrepreneurs like Henry Ford were starting companies that changed how we live, and innovators like the Wright Brothers were lifting us into the sky. Ragtime was blending Anglo settlers' music with the rhythms of former African slaves; an original American culture was forming. It was a magnificent time, full of hope and change.

I think I'll take my Teddy bear and go to bed.