must have a code,

that you can live by.”

-          Crosby, Stills & Nash

When I listen to the impassioned pleas by celebrities to members of Congress for dramatic increases in Alzheimer’s research funding, I often try to imagine a world where not only have we defeated  Alzheimer’s, but also Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, stroke and lung disease. In other words, a world in which we have managed to eliminate the major causes of death for human beings.

And when I allow myself to visualize such a scenario – a world in which mankind lives to the age of three or four hundred years . . . I end up with a vision that rivals any horror film I’ve ever seen.

Let’s be honest: would you like to spend the next three-hundred years in an assisted living facility? Neither would I.

And imagine caregiving your 345-year-old mother-in-law. Or working to the age of 230 to qualify for Soc. Sec. benefits.

In short, try to imagine a world of 40 billion human beings, where 80% of them are over the age of 200!

So what’s missing in this incredible fantasy? Why is it so wrong?

Because if seven billion of us can’t get along, at 40 billion we’ll eat our young!

Because, as it says in the song, we need a code to live by.

And because today, 2014, ten thousand years into the game, we still don’t have one . . .

A Letter To Sarah Ann Landis

Mother,

It is 5:00AM on a cold, March morning. My mind paces back and forth like a wounded animal, trapped in a cage of grief, while a single thought:  I will never hear your voice again – burns a hole in my heart.

It’s been almost three weeks since we said our final goodbyes; you, lying in a hospital bed, drifting in and out of consciousness; me, sitting next to you, my hand resting lightly on yours – the skin nearly translucent after 86 years of life and the elements.

“I never truly  experienced love,” you once told me, “until the day you, my first-born, entered this world.”

You also said the years I spent as a monastic novitiate, nearly 3,000 miles from each other, were some of the loneliest you could remember – on more than one occasion referring to that period of time as “the dark years.”

“It was almost a miracle,” you once told me, “when one afternoon, as I vacuumed my bedroom, I looked out a window at the sky, and it struck me that you might be looking at the same sky. Imagine that. Sure, you were still 3,000 miles away, but I had discovered a ‘bridge’ that brought us closer together and it gave me a great sense of peace and joy.”

And Mom, surely you remember the “birthday candy boondoggle?” For nearly 20 years, and regardless of where I was, you sent a box of chocolate-covered cherries to me on my birthday. One day, as the family sat together on my sister and brother-in-law’s deck, with tall glasses of ice tea and freshly-baked cookies, I confessed how much I disliked chocolate-covered cherries, but never had the heart to tell you because of how much it meant to you to make that connection. We all had a good laugh, and on my next birthday I received another box of chocolate-covered cherries. Old habits die hard.

And finally there was Christmas Eve. As a young boy, you and dad would spend the entire evening assembling toys, bicycles, and chemistry sets for me and six younger siblings. If, by 6:00AM you had finished most of the heavy lifting, you’d whisper for me to come down and open one present. As an adult, Mom, you extended the tradition by attending Christmas Eve mass with your first-born. After mass, we would walk home together and celebrate Christ’s birthday with glasses of egg-nog and rum.

I’m going to miss you Mom. God knows, I’m going to miss you.

Martin

Alright! Let’s throw caution to the wind and be completely honest with each other. No, I mean completely honest.

The  subject at hand?  Time efficiency. In other words, what we do with all the time we’re able to save during the course of a day.

And how do we generate time saving? We do what any capitalist-compliant-consumer does. We buy something new, naturally. A new Ferrari, iPad or bundled mortgage securities. Something designed – as the ads say – to give us our lives back, spend time with the family, or do something meaningful that we deserve.

But the clever fellows who wrote the ad copy know exactly what we’re REALLY going to do with the luxury of all this newly-discovered, time — we’re going to play The Angry Birds, Grouchy Chickens or whatever the latest multimedia app is.

That’s why I don’t own a smart phone. I find I accomplish much more when I’m perceived – not as a consumer who strives for knowledge and wisdom – but rather one content on remaining as ignorant  as a bag of  hair.

 

     February 23, 2014

      Today, Amazon.com President and CEO Jeff Bezos announced the first FDA-approved digital reader for those afflicted with ADD, Macular Degeneration, and postpartum depression.

       ”The Kindle Nine is revolutionary,” said Bezos, munching on a bag of fried pork rinds, “and the technology is bleeding edge. We knew we needed a reader with a more substantial interface, and I think we found it,” he said, pointing to the Kindle’s hydraulic “cranium crusher.”

       Bezos illustrated the concept by inserting the head of a small boy snugly under the bar — which, in turn, exerted  87  psi pressure. on the cranial cavity, ultimately causing the eye and the optic nerve to fuse with the book. “When the optic nerves fuses with the book, genuine molecular osmosis takes place,” Bezos explained, “information is squeezed from the book, through the fractured eye socket, and directly to the frontal lobes.”

        “We’ve discovered that this technology virtually eliminates ADD, Furghower-Shane Disorder, Multiple Melanoma and – in rare cases – stage 3 Halitosis.”

SALLY ANN BAYNE

1926 – 2014

 February 17, 2014

This morning, my mother – born Sarah Ann Landis on Dec. 30, 1926 in Binghamton, New York – returned Home, embraced by the Lord and His dominion of Angels.

 She is survived by her husband, Howard Kenneth Bayne, four children and four grandchildren.

 Even as a child, Sally demonstrated the faith, love and persistence necessary to achieve what she felt were the most difficult, yet rewarding jobs that exist: mother and wife.

 And as the eldest of her seven children, I can say without hesitation, she succeeded.

 Martin (I will write a more comprehensive biography when I sort through the grief that has transformed my heart into a block of wood.)

There are no perfect long-term care communities.

There may, however, be a number of long-term care communities perfect for you.

 We’d all like to meet aging on the grass courts of Wimbledon, not the claustrophobic hallways of a skilled nursing facility.

But it’s not always up to us.

In the later example, accessible and assistive technology can both play an important roll in the emotional, physical and financial well-being of those receiving long-term care.

Remember the Whole Earth Catalog?

We’d like to see Organic Aging fill a similar void for those in need of accessible and assistive technology, and we’re going to set aside column space for that purpose every week.

Martin

PS Got an itch to help publish the journal? Contact me at 610-625-3330