The Problem With The Niners

Alex Smith

There is a bit of a drama unfolding quietly in the NFL.  Alex Smith, the much maligned quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, is having a good year. There were lots and lots of us who had thought that the 49ers had lost their minds when they didn't let Smith sail off into the sunset at the end of his contract last year. Instead, they resigned him, and planned the season around him as the starting QB. I still think he's not the right person for the job, even though the evidence would seem to be against me. The team is after all 4 and 1, and yesterday they trounced their opponent by a score of 48 to 3.

I have noticed that at my age, it is more and more irritating when people don't listen to me. I've been around the block a few times, and I can see people making mistakes. I know they are mistakes because I seen them or done them before, and it seems utterly pointless to keep doing the same things wrong.

Of course one of the mistakes I've seen is old people who get more and more strident in their criticism of others who are making mistakes that the old people can see. Talking to my mother in later years could be difficult because she would pass judgement on everything that was said, and it was not unusual for her to get worked up to a pitch about things. You had to be careful about what would "set her off." I've seen pastors as well who as they age preach less about love and invitation and move in the direction of legalism and exclusion. There is, for example, an undercurrent going through our community resurrecting the idea that pants on women is an evil and an affront to God.

I understand a bit of why this is going on. Those of us who are getting old are rapidly approaching marginalization. We are running out of time, and we haven't solved the world's problem. If people would just listen...but of course they don't. Worse yet, there's not enough time to lead them to make the right decisions on their own, and  it is necessary to impose as much order as possible -- the old "stop arguing and go to bed" approach.

Of course I could just be patient with people learning from their own mistakes, but patience is one more of those things I just don't have the patience for anymore, and I don't know if I have the time to work on that -- other people have too many faults that I need to correct first.

So 4 and 1 San Francisco 49ers, you can go on to win the Super Bowl for all I care. It won't be good enough, because I've already decided that you need a new quarterback, and if you don't want to listen to an old man, go ahead, see what it gets you. I don't care anymore. Just don't come asking me for money when it doesn't work out.

OMG!!!

OMG!!! by Bernie

So I was listening to my eight year old granddaughter having a conversation with her eight year old friend. The friend was talking about a third party who was not present.

"So she says to her," the friend said of the third party. "'Oh my God, I hate you."

"That wasn't nice," my granddaughter admonished. "She shouldn't have said that. It's one of the Commandments. She should have said 'Oh my gosh, I hate you.'"

The other girl agreed.

I was very proud of my daughter at that moment -- her efforts to instill a sense of right and wrong in her daughter are bearing fruit. And I was very proud of my granddaughter for having the courage to use this knowledge in her everyday life.

Life is a little complicated most of the time. It is difficult to get a firm grasp on all its elements. Just when you think you've got it under control the transmission in the car goes out, or you burn the dinner on the stove top, or you lose your job. Oh my God, what am I going to do?  Worse still are those times when you are in control, or so you think, and still you wind up doing or saying the exact wrong thing. Oh my God, I shouldn't have done that.

My granddaughter is appropriately myopic in her observations about the world. She's eight, she's allowed to be. Hopefully, some day soon, she will begin to realize there is another dynamic at work in the statement she heard and with equal courage question the appropriateness of hate.

When I look at myself in the mirror, the phrase that most often comes to mind nowadays is Oh my God, I am getting old. I am really trying to move past this being simply an expletive. I am trying to embrace this as a prayer, trying to be grateful and hopeful. Oh my God, thank you for getting me this far, thank you for allowing me to see the fruits of my labor, thank you giving me the sense to appreciate life in all its dimensions. But there are those days when I am most keenly aware of the aches and pains, when I feel particularly diminished by the things that don't work anymore, when resignation replaces anticipation, and on those days I am saying Oh my God, do you see what's happening to me?

Then again, sometimes looking in the mirror is not a spiritual experience at all -- you just look at the skid marks and the wreckage and wonder if drinking contributed to the accident or did you just fall asleep at the wheel. In this case, follow my granddaughter's advice and say Oh my gosh, look at that mess.

Getting It Right

I don't know this woman. I can't say what she's been through. I can't tell you if she had a good day or bad day, or how she felt about photographers.

What I can tell you is that she is old.

I've been dealing with family matters a lot in the last couple of weeks, and like most families, mine is getting older.


It seems to me that one of the biggest challenges we face as we get old is resisting bitterness. Life isn't easy even when you have a good life. Inevitably, there's hard work, pain and death. It can be difficult to keep a proper perspective about the unpleasantness in life.

When I am old and toothless, I want to be able to smile and laugh about the things I think I remember. And, I want to look back at this blog and let it remind me that there is a good possibility that what I remember didn't happen the way I remember it.

So, Bernie, if you're reading this and you're really, really old, do yourself a favor and remember that it was all good, you loved and were loved well, and that nothing else really matters all that much.