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.

Drawing The (Land)Line

Cell Phone

If you are anything like me, then you have something that looks pretty much exactly like the image to the left. The cell phone has become for me the latest focus of this whole retirement/end-of-life drama I find myself in.

I have had and dearly loved my cell phone for many years now. Sand and I would use it to talk during my hour long commute to work, and I would call her on my break or lunch times. It was a way to deal with the 12 or 14 hours a day we spent apart. The phone also represented security during those long trips home in the middle of the night, or on those occasions when Sand and I would head out on road trips. Then of course there was the convenience of the contact list, the time (here or anywhere around the world), the tip calculator, the multiple alarms, the calendar, the messaging, etc., etc., etc.. Darn handy, dandy tools these cell phones.

And expensive. The four adults in our family each have a phone, and the monthly bill is over $100.00. Since we are all pretty conservative in our use of the phones, I'm sure that's a pretty modest cost for a family of four, but the reality is that Sand and I need to be very critical of how we spend our money now, and the bottom line is that there really is no need anymore for the two of us to have cell phones. There is an inexpensive landline to the house that is sufficient for all of our needs.

But trying to get rid of the cell phone is like trying to get a booger off your finger. I lived most of my life without a cell phone, so I know it's possible to live without them, but they have become so ingrained into our psyche that the thought of turning in your phone seems almost akin to amputation of a limb.

Any day now, if you call me, it will have to be on the house phone. It's gonna happen. After that, I have to take a hard look at the cable TV bill to see if the Food Network and NFL football is worth a hundred bucks a month. Then Sand and I have to figure out why we two cars.

I will need to save as much as I can so that there are sufficient funds available for the internet connection in my coffin. I'm just saying.