I’ve been watching presidential debates since the beginning of presidential debates: since Vice President Richard Nixon was out-cooled by Senator John F. Kennedy. Indeed, I don’t believe I have missed any of the 36, by my count, televised debates between or among the major presidential candidates in the United States.

       And, over lo these many decades, we have learned—and various and sundry presidential-debate coaches have learned—that certain basic demeanors and moves tend to be effective in these debates:  

•       Being “cool,” to begin with—cool in 77-Sunset-Strip terms: confident, reasonably attractive, comfortable-on-TV. Kennedy was that kind of cool. Pushy, stiff, unlovely Nixon was not. . . .

      It was at a dinner in Barcelona, less than a year after the 2016 elections.

      We were eating with an old colleague of my wife’s, relocated to southwestern France, and his twenty-something cousin. The young cousin didn’t have a university degree, but she spoke Catalan, Spanish, English, French and had thought deeply about politics.

      She asked us about Trump.

      She explained that there were equally reactionary government leaders throughout Europe. There were xenophobes and racists and pseudo-fascists with horrible ideas, people like France’s Marine Le Pen and Britain’s Nigel Farage.

      They were awful, she acknowledged, but they were also smart as hell. They were highly educated. They knew their stuff.

      How, she asked us, could Americans have elected someone so obviously, so completely … stupid? . . .

When you have agreed, under pressure, to go see something you had no interest in seeing: In this case Glen Hansard in concert, although, yeah, "Once" was fine. Mature, open-minded fellow that I am, I was kicking and screaming up until Hansard took the stage at the Beacon Theater in New York City. This video--less than a minute long--tries to capture the words and thoughts of the reluctant concertgoer.

Click here for the video and for links to other "idea videos" by Mitchell Stephens

      The last time there was a presidential debate, things didn’t go too well.

      You could tell from the first minute. At my house, we turned off the TV about 15 or 20 minutes in. It had just become too painful to watch.

      Maybe that’s why we’re so worried about Tuesday’s debate?

      So, much, it seems, is riding on it.

      Like only the future of our democracy. . . .

LIVING THE DREAM:

COUNTING INVENTORY AT A PIPE-RACK CLOTHING STORE

[Let us know what’s the worst job you have ever had. Something you suffered through while young? Or an adult drudgery? Or something good that turned bad? Write to us at writingaboutourgeneration@gmail.com.]

      I am maybe mid-way through high school in the Bronx in the early ‘60s and looking for summer work.

      Some kids might have signed on to their parent’s shops or businesses. (There were more mom and pop operations back then, or so it seemed.) But no such luck for me. Both my parents worked (pop was a note teller at a bank; my mother a bookkeeper) so it’s not as if I could have signed on as an apprentice.

      Somebody told me about New York State Youth Employment services. I contacted them and wound up at the worst job of my life: counting inventory at a low-end  pipe-rack clothing store in Manhattan (or was it Brooklyn?). . . .

      Will November 5 be the most consequential election of our lifetimes? It sure seems that way, right now, but every four years it can seem that way.

      So, we decided to look back and, with the perspective of time, consider how consequential each election in more or less our lifetimes turned out to have been for the United States and for the world.

      Our leanings are decidedly liberal, but consequential does not necessarily mean furthering peace, human rights or the lives of the poorest among us. Ronald Reagan’s first election proved, for example, quite consequential, though we were not fond of the consequences. 

      Your conclusions may vary.  Let us know where you think we went wrong. 

      The 20 elections since 1948, near the beginning of our generation, are listed here from least to most consequential . . . .

       Yawning through breakfast? Eyes closing during work? Nodding off while driving? Well, of course. We are at the napping age. But certain choices must be made.

       First, you have to decide when to nap.

       Deciding, for instance, to nap in the middle of the night while you are already sleeping is always a good choice, since it gives you a solid head start. . . .

      My husband and I created a cemetery on our Vermont property 10 years ago.

      His parents’ ashes are actually buried there. The headstone for my parents who were buried long ago in Pennsylvania is there, too, although they are not. These two headstones reside side by side and are a bold and beautiful reminder of the four people who created and raised us.

      This year we decided to add our own headstone, which will have both our names and be placed in front of our parents’ memorials.

      When I shared with my family that we were doing this my son said, “Mom, that is really morbid.” . . .

      Once around a midnight weary, with sleeplessness consequent of too much chocolate, I yet again resolve to abstain from all such too-muchness. Yes, I resolve, I shall adopt an abstemious, monk-like regimen.

       Thinking monkish thoughts ‘round midnight, I recall the Thelonious Monk signature tune of that name. And lying in the dark, I begin writing in my head, riffing on an encounter many long years ago….

[The first in a series. Let us know what’s the worst job you have ever had. Something you suffered through as a teen for just a couple of weeks? Or a longer-term drudgery that you took when nothing else was available? Write to us at writingaboutourgeneration@gmail.com so you can tell the world how you suffered.]

      Summer of ’61, maybe ’62. Orchard Beach, in the far northeast of the Bronx. Scorching heat. Sand blowing. People swimming. Others tanning on blankets.

      Me, 15, maybe 16 years old, trudging along the shoreline with an impossibly heavy mini refrigerated backpack strapped to my spine. Everybody’s wearing swim wear, I’m clothed in a camo uniform, long sleeves, long pants, sweat pouring down, trying to sell slowly melting Eskimo Pies. 

      When the discussion turns to “worst job you’ve ever had”—which, at a certain age, happens more often than you might think—Orchard Beach in that hellacious summers immediately comes to mind. . . .

Life, death and aging—in a minute and a half video.

Click here for video

• Being able to see the Milky Way

• Greeting someone at the airport gate

• Not locking your car

• The day when a presidential candidate would be embarrassed to be caught in a lie . . .

And Even More Things We Don't Miss

• Watches we have to wind

• Only three channels

• Stick shifts

• Virginity . . .

            Fifty years ago this summer, the country was in the throes of dramatic change.

            While I was raising a log cabin in an alternate lifestyle community, all heck was breaking loose in the nation's capital. Do you remember where you were on Aug. 9, 1974, when you heard the news that President Richard Nixon was resigning in disgrace?

            I sure do. Along with a  long-haired homesteader buddy,  Charlie, I was nailing down cedar shake shingles, up on the roof of a log barn we were restoring—as far from DC as we could get. My first wife and I were in "Deep Western North Carolina, " in a remote mountain valley building an intentional community that we Back-to-the-Landers called "Hogwild." . . .

      I’ve always thought about tying our living room decor together someday by adding a set of small matching couches. We can afford to do it and were finally ready to start looking recently when it hit us. Not tomorrow, but probably in just a few years, we’ll be moving to a smaller place and no doubt needing to ditch much of our current furniture.

      We surely won’t have a family room then so we’ll already have one extra couch. Do we really want to have three extra sofas?

     My back hurts.

     Not the lower back, which hurt last month, but more the upper back, sort of behind the chest. It started hurting the other day. Not a big deal, really, more like discomfort or maybe just stiffness than actual pain. The good thing was, it took my mind off the ache I’ve been feeling in my left hip. Which helped me move on from the soreness in my left knee.

     Of course, and I know it, I shouldn’t complain. I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve recovered very well from a heart attack at the beginning of the year. I run four or five times a week, albeit slowly, but I’m running. I lift weights. I do pushups. I can hold a plank for a couple of minutes.

     I don’t need surgery for anything and I haven’t replaced a knee or a hip or needed PT to recover from replacing a knee or a hip. 

     And yet, almost every day, something hurts. . . .

Maybe, at first you don't even notice it.

      Your attention is drawn primarily to other items in the frame: the 1936 black-and-white portrait of grandfather Charlie Rush, the pot of flowers, the '60s era Polaroid camera, the splash of afternoon sunlight on log walls—and then maybe you notice, there in the background, the old guitar.

      If I told you it's "the James Taylor guitar," that would certainly get your attention—for the '40s era musical instrument has a tale to tell.

      When James and I were kids, 10 and 12, respectively, we were buds . . . .

      OK, look, I may be 74 years old but that does not mean that I am no longer a passionate woman. Passion fills my being often and I am not slowing down. In many ways, I am even more passionate now than when I was younger. 

      As a matter of fact, it is often easier to be passionate at my age than when I was younger . . . .

     I’ve seen Springsteen several times, including a couple of shows before he became “the Boss.” Saw Joplin in San Francisco and Simon and Garfunkel in Forest Hills. Saw The Doors as an opening act

     Was there for Creedence, the Mamas and the Papas, Itzhak Perlman, Queen. I’ve seen Dylan live at least several times.

     And when I was younger, saw Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and a lot of others at Murray the K’s shows at the Brooklyn Fox. The Drifters, Ben E. King, the Shirelles, Jackie Wilson, saw them all.

     So, yeah, I’ve seen a reasonable amount of live music, been there to hear the unmediated sound, to feel that pulse of in-person excitement, to share that frisson only live music can offer. ...

      To be clear: the offending term wasn’t uttered by a dirty old man—or a dirty middle-aged one, for that matter. No, the speaker was a 30-something woman at a hospital information desk.

      I wasn’t necessarily expecting “ma’am.”  I’ve been called “sweetie” or “darlin’” most of my life by diner waitresses. That’s not so bad. But in a hospital setting, it always bothered me when nurses would address my then 80-something dad that way.

      Barely being covered by a hospital gown is indignity enough at any age, but the false familiarity always seemed disrespectful. I’m sure they meant only to express warmth and compassion, but the widespread practice always struck me as patronizing….

Our generation, at least those of us living in this still functioning republic, was mostly denied full exposure to full-on "two-plus-two-makes-five" dissembling...until 2016.

A Video

This video proved particularly difficult to cobble together. It discusses five compulsive and remarkably shameless and destructive liars—two of whom were also among history’s most bloodthirsty dictators. These five men, therefore, displayed different varieties and degrees of malevolence but a remarkably similar—and similarly untiring, pervasive and unconscionable—mendacity. I hope I was able to make that clear.

Click here for the video, as well as links to some of my my other video efforts.