When you get to a certain age, and you realize you probably have limited time left to do all the things you want to do, the smart thing would be to start doing all the things you want to do.

      Instead, like many of us, I procrastinate. Thinking we still have endless time, when we don’t.

      To be honest, I’ve been putting off writing about this, but it’s probably time for me to say something about it. I would have said something about procrastinating last week, but, you know, I just could never get around to it.

      But first, before I get to it now, let me tell you about the time my wife and I were driving in Italy and it was snowing and we don’t speak Italian. Or that may have been when we were in France, where it was raining and we speak French.

      Let me check. I have that information right here, somewhere. …

Here are three anecdotes involving members of my sometimes-peripatetic family to illustrate the remarkable increase in medical knowledge around the world in the past three decades:

1. In 1994 we spent a few months in Rostov, Russia’s fourth largest city, and one of my sons came down with a sore throat. The Russian doctor my wife took him to looked down his throat, with one of a bunch of tongue depressors that had been sharing a jar and, using only the faint illumination provided by the room’s one window, diagnosed tonsilitis and said the boy had to stay still and might be better off in a hospital.

Meanwhile, the nurse warned my wife that the boy would get “very, very sick” if he did not wear a scarf . . .

Here’s some of what we have seen recently that might be of particular interest to our generation. (Apologies for any pay walls.) Send us what you have seen at WritingAboutOurGeneration@gmail.com.

• 'Humans need solitude': How being alone can make you happier, Flora Tsapovsky, BBC, June 10, 2025

• Bruce Springsteen: ‘Time Is Finite, and Your Performing Time Is Finite’, Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, June 19, 2025

• Many Older People Embrace Vaccines. Research Is Proving Them Right. Paula Span, New York Times, June 14, 2025

• Snake Venom, Urine, and a Quest to Live Forever, Will Bahr, Wired, June 25, 2025

• Extreme Heat Linked to Accelerated Aging in Older Adults, Study Finds, Mohana Ravindranath, New York Times, Feb. 26, 2025

• I Asked ChatGPT a Simple Question. It Literally May Have Saved My Life, Jason Aten, Inc., June 26, 2025.

Click for more

      Before 11 o’clock this morning, we:

• Did a careful, slow walk around the outside of our house, taking notes about where rotted siding had to be replaced so we could email the contractor to ask if and when he could start work.

• After two in-person visits, made three phone calls and was on hold for a total of 40 excruciating minutes while trying to contact the computer repair shop working on installing a new battery in the laptop.

• Drove over to the credit union that has our mortgage and asked them to explain the incomprehensible letter we got saying our house did not have hazard insurance although our house does have hazard insurance.

• Checked back again with Google flights to see if it’s easier to fly to Cincinnati in October or should we go to Columbus — but would it be cheaper if we flew on Tuesday and then returned on Friday rather than leaving on Thursday and coming back on Monday?

      Oh, and we also had time to wonder: how do people who are not retired do all this? . . .

      Admittedly, on the face of it, my husband and I are virtually polar opposites (or so he would have you believe), as he recently noted on the occasion of our 55th wedding anniversary.

      But on some things, we’re so alike our children would readily attest to how predictably tedious we can be.

When one of us is alone with either of them, we often ask the exact same questions and respond the same way—almost verbatim. When we’re together, we often respond in unison, in near-perfect pitch. We finish each other’s sentences. How obnoxious, eh?

      True, I can’t abide seeing a movie several times in a row the way he does, but I’ve seen most of those same beloved movies many, many times—just not in succession. (And when he suggests naming our fiber-optic cable Gort, I agree and respond knowingly “Klaatu barada nikto.” All you ‘50s movies mavens will get the reference, of course).

      Our hands-down all-time favorite movie is “Casablanca,” which we’ve both seen dozens of times. If either of us walks into a room while it’s on the screen and happens on the scene where Rick nods approval for the band to play the Marseillaise—and the French drown out the Nazis’ singing of the German national anthem—our Pavlovian response is instant tears . . .

With the passage of Trump's death bill, we face the prospect of many great harms, including an archipelago of concentration camps across the United States.

      Concentration camps are sites of tempting slave labor. Among many other aims, the Soviets used concentration camp labor to build canals and work mines. The Nazi German concentration camp system followed a capitalist version of the same logic: it drew in businesses with the prospect of inexpensive labor.

      We know this and have no excuse not to act.

      What happens next in the U.S.? Workers who are presented as "undocumented" will be taken to the camps. Perhaps they will work in the camps themselves, as slaves to government projects. But more likely they will be offered to American companies on special terms: a one-time payment to the government, for example, with no need for wages or benefits. ,,,

(This is an excerpt from historian Timothy Snyder’s excellent Substack.)

      We are the rock and roll generation. We grew up with Johnny B. Goode and doo-wop. We mourned the Vegasization of Elvis, we welcomed the British invasion and grooved to soul. We suffered through disco, were fascinated by punk and grunge, were sometimes confused by rap.

      Rock has been the soundtrack of our lives. And so I started, the other day, to make a list of the best songs of our rock and roll era. It’s something Rolling Stone Magazine has done, several times. Entertainment Weekly did it, too, as have a slew of other publications. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has done it, but perhaps nobody has done it as well or as comprehensively as rock critic Dave Marsh in his book, “The Heart of Rock & Soul—The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.”

      So, what could I—not a rock critic, not an expert, just another older white guy—possibly have to add? I freely acknowledge, after all, I’m not fully familiar with contemporary hip-hop, the music that has dominated popular culture for the last 25 years or so. I don’t know Young Thug from Lil Uzi Vert. Like many of us, I can’t tell House music from EDM.

      But then I realized in addition to the great and memorable songs everyone loves, the Hey Judes and Jumping Jack Flashes, each of us has a secret mental playlist of songs that have, somehow, stayed with us forever. . . .

The first in a series

Send us your “ultimate playlist” at WritingAboutOurGeneraton@gmail.com

      On virtually the eve of our nation’s 249^th Independence Day, the U.S. Congress descended to a level of travesty and tragedy I’ve rarely, if ever, witnessed.

      Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski cast the deciding vote for a bill that will cripple health care, devastate the poor, pour tens of billions into rapidly increasing, draconian immigration enforcement and balloon the national debt to dangerous levels

    She then announced she hoped the House will change the bill she voted for. It didn’t.

      “My sincere hope is that this is not the final product,” she told Axios. “The bill needs more work across chambers and is not ready for the President’s desk. We need to work together to get this right.”

      Only The New York Times noted that after the chaotic noon vote “most senators have quickly fled the Capitol. Their cars were idling on the plaza to ferry them to the airport” . . .

(This is an excerpt from Jerry Lanson’s excellent substack.)

      I’m a bike guy:

      But recently this lifelong bike guy, this guy whose identity was connected to pedaling if not hither and yon at least to the pool on 137^th Street, had the sad realization I was becoming increasingly wary of bicycles. Wary with cause.

      And that was before I had a little accident.

      I’ve fallen off my bike a bunch of times. However. never had I bumped into a pedestrian while on a bicycle or been hit by a bicycle while a pedestrian . . . until a few weeks ago.

      I was the victim. Knocked down by a bike while walking across a street. In Paris. …

      Folksinger Janis Ian was propelled onto the national stage at the age of 15 when Leonard Bernstein featured her in a 1967 television special, “Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution,” along with songwriters Lennon, McCarthy, Jagger, Dylan and others. Her controversial song “Society’s Child” about interracial dating had been banned on many radio stations, but Bernstein’s advocacy turned it into a Top 20 hit. 

      In 1975, Ian returned to the pop charts with her achingly beautiful ballad of teenage angst, “At Seventeen.” which became her signature song. Since then, major artists across genres, such as Nina Simone, Roberta Flack, Cher, Bette Midler, John Mellencamp, Barbara Cook, Nanci Griffith and Joan Baez have covered her songs. Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Mel Tormé recorded duets with her. Charles Aznavour and Shirley Bassey championed her work in Europe. Celine Dion included “At Seventeen” in her Vegas shows. 

      Throughout a kaleidoscopic career, Ian continued writing laments and affirmative anthems through bankruptcies, health emergencies, failed relationships and the vagaries of the recording industry. The artist in Ian always prevailed as she sang of perseverance and resiliency for legions of fans worldwide. And she is an accomplished writer of essays, science fiction and an acclaimed autobiography. …

      Lately I have been wondering what my life today would be like if I knew back then what I know now.

      One would suspect that if I had the wisdom and knowledge of a 75-year-old when I was young I would have hit the jackpot. Right?

      Well, not so fast.

      Imagine my life without dangerous fats. No ice cream with fudge sauce or whipped cream on my apple pie. Forget the butter on those pancakes, and don’t even think about cream cheese on a bagel.

      Imagine if I knew back in my youth that smoking would kill me. …

Illustration by Justin Atherton

      Every year, in the small, progressive southern town in which I live, there’s a big celebration on the fourth of July. It takes place on the Town Commons, which is normally where organic kale and gluten-free empanadas are part of the farmer’s market held every Saturday morning.

      It’s a celebration full of water balloon tossing, a pie-eating contest, bubble blowing, face painting, live blues and rock performances, info tables set up by the local library and the local homeless shelter, a bunch of food trucks and—until Covid—a watermelon seed spitting contest. With the exception of a few people dressed in red, white and blue, there are generally no signs of in-your-face patriotism to be found.

     Of which, I have to admit, I have been very glad. …

I want a squire. Not an AI personal assistant. A squire.

      AI assistants schedule meetings. They manage calendars. They answer emails and phone calls. They share slides. They transcribe your conversations. They are AI but also check with AI.

      Squires are different. Squires have history. They have romance. They carry shields. AI checks with them.

      Consider my days. I rise. I look at my devices. I write and write to a lot of people. I have meetings. I dine. I watch prestige television. I sleep. An AI assistant would add efficiency to this cycle. A squire would add meaning. …

[This is an excerpt of a column by Hollis Robbins, former dean of humanities at the University of Utah, in the Substack Anecdotal Value.]

      After law school, I went to work for a large corporation that provided office equipment worldwide. I worked out of New York City and I dealt with the sales branches of the company in the southern and eastern part of the United States.

      I hadn’t previously travelled in the south at all, but one day I got a call sometime in the late ‘70s from our branch office in Jackson, MS, It was from the guy in charge of sales to state and local governments in Mississippi. Apparently, we had submitted our normal form contract for annual approval to some bureaucratic office at the state level, as Mississippi law required, but had verbally been told the state attorney general’s office had “problems” with the contract and it was not yet approved for use. In the interim no sales could be made to state agencies.

      As this was a very large percentage of the local branch’s revenue, this was a very big problem for them. Would I please come down to Jackson as soon as possible and clear this up with the lawyers for the state …

*

This is the second work of fiction we have published on WritingAboutOurGeneration.com. We’re open to publishing more—if they shed light on what it means to have grown up over the last 75 years or so.

      It’s the age of surgeries—knee replacements, cataract repairs, artificial hips, inserted stents. But it’s not just the surgery itself, of course. At a certain age, it’s just as much about the recovery from the surgery.

      A little more than a month ago, I had surgery for an inguinal hernia. It was elective, which meant that it was my choice to do it at that moment—no doctor was pushing it, no medical necessity required it. But the hernia had been bothering me, off and on, for some time, and I just wanted to be done with it.

      I had forgotten, however, that you’re not done with it when you leave the operating room. You are not done with it until some time well after the surgeon puts away the scalpel. …

       . . . Those who live on the other Andaman Islands are engaged in modern life or are beginning to participate in modern life or are at least are aware of modern life. (Though, when I was on one of the other Andaman Islands, also a long time ago, one wild-haired, scantily-clad fellow did aim a bow and arrow at me—in jest, I assumed.)

       North Sentinel Island is different from the rest of the Andamans Islands.

       It is estimated that somewhere between 50 and 200 people now live there . . . And they will fight to keep others out.

      They want no intercourse with modern life—whatsoever. They have no understanding of modern life. They do not play nicely with others—modern or otherwise. . . .

And many anthropologists believe the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island have a remarkable distinction: they are the last surviving hunter-gatherers on earth.

It’s 3 a.m. and I’m wide awake. Given that we both have sleep problems, we try extra hard not to wake the other, knowing how difficult it is for either of us to fall back to sleep. But having to consider my every move naturally makes sleeping all the more difficult.

      What to do with the wet tissue in my right hand? I’m lying on my right side as usual, facing the outside of the bed. Slowly and awkwardly, I thrust my right arm out from under the covers and fling the tissue. It’s likely to miss the wastebasket in the darkness, but wherever it lands should be soundless on the carpet.

      The sneezes have passed, but that nagging allergic tickle at the back of my throat is threatening the serenity, not to mention my ability to breathe. The only thing that works in these situations is a throat lozenge. Fortunately, I’ve presciently positioned one within reach on the nightstand. It’s right next to the tissue box and plastic cup.

      Or at least it was. …

It’s been ten years since Trump came down the golden escalator and announced his 2016 bid for president. It would take me three months to bring myself to blog about Trump in any concentrated way—the main political science view was that the party would eventually decide, or the voters would move on, and Trump would go the way of Herman Cain, Ross Perot (who did have some staying power, I guess) or other outsider candidates who seemed fascinating initially but held little lasting appeal. I assured friends who were alarmed by Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants that his candidacy wouldn’t get very far.

      And a decade later, here we are. Not only is Trump serving his second term as president, he’s been the focal point of our politics for most of that decade. This is pretty astounding for a politician who has never been very popular or represented a lot of popular issue positions….

[This is an excerpt of a column by the Marquette University political science professor Julia Azari in the Substack GoodPolitics/BadPolitics.]

      So, here’s the question, really the essential question: How could our fellow Americans have done this? How could they have elected this man? This conniving psychopath?

      Because, they knew, didn’t they? They absolutely had to know. It was inescapable, wasn’t it?

      There was, after all:

      The botched pandemic response and the bleach recommendation. The outright bribing of foreign officials. The violent coup he provoked and watched placidly on TV. There were, of course, the endless obvious lies and then the photos of classified documents tossed around the toilet. And the felony convictions and the accumulation of other legal accusations.

      And so much, so much more.

      And yet 77 million of my fellow Americans voted him in, voted to install a seriously disturbed man, a sociopath, a psychopath, to the most powerful job in the world.

      I’ve heard and read a number of explanations. …

      I spent four summers right before and during college working either in or right outside the entrances of our national parks. At 18, a new high school graduate, I pumped gas at Flagg Ranch, located a few miles south of Yellowstone National Park and just north of the Grand Tetons. At 19 and 21, I worked as a bellhop and desk clerk at Grand Lake Lodge, on the western slope of Rocky Mountain National Park. And at 20, I worked at Many Glacier Hotel in the heart of Glacier National Park, rotating between day and night shifts as a desk clerk and night watchman.

      These were life-shaping experiences.

      For one thing, in 1968 in Colorado, I met the girl who would become my wife of nearly 54 years. During these summers I also climbed the Grand Teton and rafted on the Snake River in Wyoming, climbed Longs Peak and Snowmass Mountain in the high Colorado range and hiked miles of trails on multi-day treks in Glacier, making noise in wooded areas to let the bear know we were coming. There were steak rides, mini-golf soirees, poker games and trips to Frontier Days and the Calgary Stampede, rodeos where cowboys would hone their craft and show their skills.

      But what has stayed with me most so many decades later is the natural beauty of the parks, their lakes, forests, pristine streams and snow-covered mountains, all under big western skies that seem to stretch forever.

      Sadly, America’s National Parks are endangered these days…