Ten Advantages to Becoming an Old Coot

I have attained my grandfatherly years honestly. I will admit I had hoped for a few more grandchildren than I wound up with, but my children have stubbornly refused to reproduce in the quantities I had in mind. I gave up my armada of boats, my ton of fishing gear, my sporting goods bag (in case a ball game broke out among my 18 grandchildren that, sadly, never materialized), my scuba diving equipment, my train sets, most of my game collection and all but a few of my young people oriented book collection (even "Mike Mulligan & His Steam Shovel" was passed along to the one grandkid we've determined to spoil rotten).  I have two grandsons, one of whom is 2300 miles away is adopted and whom I love like one of my own children and visit weekly by Skype. My other grandson currently lives in Tennessee and moves around a lot, I've never met him and have only made tentative contact with him through Facebook recently so we don't know how that will go yet. 

 

So my dream gig as the fun grandpa has been abridged significantly. I had a fleet of canoes and equipment all ready to lead family floats down the mighty (and fairly safe) rivers of Texas. I even trained as a Red Cross swimming and canoeing instructor. Man I was ready. Oh well. "The best laid plans o' mice and men oft times gang agly" as Scottish poet Bobby Burns once opined.

Still there are some definite advantages to becoming an old geezer and a few disadvantages like arthritis to make you appreciate the good bits.  So let me list the good stuff that comes with being an old coot.

1. People don't expect you to dig ditches. It surprises them if you do pick up a shovel and they are appreciative since they didn't think you were going to help. AND they keep offering you drinks and asking you if you need to sit down for a minute.
2. Your children and their spouses ask you if you want to take a nap and think it's funny when you snore. You actually win points with your offspring, your spouse and your various descendants when you pile up in the recliner for an afternoon snooze.
3. You finally have accumulated an assortment of favorite things that don't get thrown out by your significant other because either they are ugly or you don't need them. By the time you are eligible for social security you own some things like mugs, recliners, fishing gear, Hawaiian shirts, and books that your wife tolerates and won't slip into the Goodwill donation box when you aren't looking. Figuring out what you can keep is a process of elimination.
4. Arthritis is a great excuse for avoiding unpleasant tasks. Conversely, when you actually get around to doing one of those honey-do projects, you get a brief respite from the admonishment to get-er-done!
5. You have a collection of favorite TV shows you really like. Better still, because you've previewed and selected the good stuff you enjoy, you don't have to wade through the depressing post-modernist crap your kids and grandkids think is relevant. 
6. You have a favorite music collection that is wonderfully eclectic. I've got more than 500 songs in my phone's mp3 list and a pile of CDs, cassettes and vinyl that I'm gradually converting to digital mp3s. I defy anyone to look at my digital collection and find a bad song or at least one I don't like. I've got every thing from Pearly Shells (Don Ho) to Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road, from Doris Day to The First Highlanders Pipe Band playing Amazing Grace, from I'm My Own Grandpa to Brown-Eyed Girl, from Monkees, Beach Boys and Beatles to Placido Domingo, John Denver, Earl Scruggs, Burl Ives and Audio Adrenalin. My personal radio station never plays a song I don't want to hear or interrupt the music with a commercial for Honest Bob Vanderhoort's Used Cars.
7. You can sit on the back porch in the sun for 4 hours and it feels like you had a productive afternoon.  It is no longer necessary to tick off a list of things you need to meet your life goals. Sitting on the back porch playing your guitar and feeding the squirrels in the sunshine WAS one of your life goals.
8. You know how to do stuff that makes you happy. You play the guitar, banjo, dulcimer or Irish bodhrain, You build model ships. You can make your own bookshelves. You have time to write that novel you always wanted to write. You can cook things you want to eat and you're pretty good at it because you have lots of practice.
9. People no longer ask you to help them move. You can go over if you want, but you are participating in more of a supervisory role because you have a lot of experience in how to move and pack having done so many many times in your life.
10. Little things give you immense satisfaction.  A favorite restaurant, a walk down a country lane, a grandkid coming to visit, birds coming to your bird feeder outside your window and you can watch them from your easy chair. You, in fact, have an easy chair and people save it for you. 

There are other things I'm sure, but I just can't remember them now. In fact, people don't expect you to get ten things pulled from memory in the first place, so when you do, you get credit for being kind of old, but still sharp as a tack.

Time for my obligatory Sabbath afternoon nap.

© 2021 by Tom King

 

 

 

A Baker's Dozen Series I Have Binge Watched More Than Once

Early Edition (Marissa, Gary & Chuck)

Thanks to being just out of range of Seattle's network stations and me having the Internet and streaming services and downloadable movies (think Nord VPN - 'nuff said), I keep stumbling over TV series that I used to love or new ones that draw me in and suck up my weekends. I'll put on the ones I've run through once or twice while I'm fixing things around the house or doing chores.

This is a very personal and not an exhaustive list. I left out some of the more intense series like NCIS, NCIS New Orleans, Criminal Minds and such to keep it to a "Baker's Dozen" (13) shows. It's an arbitrary number, but the shows all have a similar tone. Not all are easily available. I found Early Edition on YouTube, and the others in various streaming services that I'm not boycotting like Netflix. 

Each of these series have a lighter tone for the most part. I left off the very well written Criminal Minds because it's too intense to binge. I have to take a break, in much the same way the actors had to given the subject matter. NCIS can be fun but when they lost Abbie, they kind of lost me.

So here are my 13 of my favorites in no particular order, although the last few are special favorites of mine. All of them are ones I've gone through a couple of times. Every year or so I'll line 'em up and run them again. I look forward to forgetting what episode comes next and as I age, I have become more adept at forgetting how each episode ends. 

AMERICAN BAKER'S DOZEN BINGEABLE SHOWS:

Falling Skies - Noah Wylie leads a ragtag group of human survivors of an alien invasion. This is one that I like mostly because of Wylie, but also because it introduces some really nice music that appeals to my eclectic tastes.

Numbers - Crime procedural with David Krumholz (Mr. Universe from Firefly/Serenity and The Santa Claus), Rob Morrow (from Northern Exposure) and Taxi's Judd Hirsch. Krumholz plays a math whiz who helps his FBI agent brother (Morrow) solve tricky cases with math. Fascinating premise.

Leverage - Timothy Hutton plays an insurance investigator who gathers up an assortment of con artists, grifters, hackers and thieves he's pursued and or busted over his career and goes about like Robin Hood getting justice for people who have been abused by the rich and powerful. Even though they canceled the series, it wouldn't die and is coming back this summer with Noah Wylie taking Hutton's place with the old team in Leverage: Redemption.  Can't wait.

Early Edition - Quirky series about a guy (Kyle Chandler from Friday Night Lights) who gets tomorrow's Chicago Sun-Times today. Poor guy winds up running around town trying to prevent murders, accidents and injustice. Fun series gone too soon.

The Librarian/Librarians - The Librarians is an extension of the TV movies with Noah Wylie. This series followed with a colorful cast that includes muscular and multi-talented Christian Kane from Leverage in which a group of people are drafted to be librarians and protect the world from troublesome problems with magic artifacts and persons up to no good. Fun romp through history with occasional help from Noah Wylie as the loner head librarian.

Warehouse 13
Claudia, Artie, Myka, Lena and Pete

Warehouse 13 - Sci-Fi Channel's series with a similar premise to the Librarians. Here Secret Service Agents working for Saul Rubinek and CC Pounder and a mysterious board of regents, collect artifacts that have been accidentally or deliberately imbued with dangerous magical powers and neutralize them. The stories are interesting, the characters likeable and fun to watch.

Castle - Firefly's inimitable Nathan Fillion (Captain Reynolds) stars as Rick Castle, a successful novelist who thanks to his friendship with the mayor gets to tag along on murder investigations with Stana Katic as leggy police detective Kate Becket. My favorite part of the series, however, is Castle's amazing relationship with his daughter, Alexis (Molly Quinn) and his prickly relationship with his diva actress Mom. 

  
Monk - Tony Shaloub heads a great cast of characters as widowed OCD police detective Adrian Monk whose incredible obsessive pursuit of villains and microscopic attention to detail makes him San Francisco's go-to consulting detective despite his being removed from the police force due to his obsessive behaviors. It's kind of a comedy, but my obsessive neat-freak wife (whom I adore) views it as more of a tragedy and often corrects the writers for allowing things like Natalie (his nurse/girl Friday) placing her germy purse on the counter and Monk not noticing. A P.I. with a full time nurse sets up a lot of unique situations for San Francisco's defective detective.

Stargate SG1 - MacGuiver's Richard Dean Anderson takes on the Kurt Russel role from the movie - Colonel Jack O'Neil. Benjamin Browder from Farscape took his place during the last seasons. Amanda Tapping plays Samantha Carter the team scientist and Michael Shanks takes the James Spader role as egghead historian/archaeologist Daniel Jackson. The team with an alien named Teal'c (Christopher Judge) travel through mysterious stargates connecting many different planets and fight interstellar parasites and assorted evil aliens in an effort to save the galaxy. A rare sci-fi series that doesn't take itself too seriously. Someone asks Col O'Neil in one episode why people on every planet seem to speak English. "Just go with it," advises Jack. It's that kind of fun. Dom Deluise's sons direct and take supporting roles over the years and even Dom shows up for a couple of episodes as an alien caretaker with a split personality. There were two spinoff series and a couple of movie sequels, the show was that popular - and it ran for more than a decade so there is lots to binge on.

.
The Last Ship - Grey's Anatomy's Dr. Dreamy (Eric Dane) and Adam Baldwin (Firefly and Chuck) star as Captain and First Officer of US destroyer Nathan James, the last surviving American ship after a virus takes out the crews of the US Navy. Cruising out of the way of the disaster in the arctic, the James's crew survives when the world is stricken by a devastating pandemic that destroys food and kills billions of people. Scientists on board attempt to create a vaccine while rogue militaries and warlords attempt to loot, pillage and conquer everyone who is left. The series really shows off the capabilities of a US destroyer. 

 

Chuck - Morgan, Ellie, Casey, Chuck, and Sarah

Chuck - Based on a comic book series, Zachary Levi (Shazam) and Yvonne Strahovski (Handmaid's Tale) are a nerd recruited by national security agencies and his beautiful CIA handler, Sarah. Chuck's scientist dad has created a program called the Intersect, tailor made for Chuck's brain. Chuck receives an email which downloads the program to his brain and finds himself able to do kung fu, pull up all kinds of data in his brain and generally becomes a superspy. Adam Baldwin is Colonel Casey, a no-nonsense NSA agent who is highly uncomfortable in his cover as a stock boy at a Buy-More electronics store where Chuck works as part of the store's Nerd Herd, computer fix-it guys. The show is all kinds of fun with some really weird nerd action and quirky characters for comic relief.

Eureka - The cast's faces are familiar from other SF and TV series. It's a fish out of water story. A US Marshall blunders into a secret scientific community and gets himself drafted as the town sheriff whose job is to contain the constant stream of disasters caused by the collection of dangerously smart geniuses that work for Global Dynamics, the Defense Department funded employer and center of pretty much everything about the town. Sheriff Carter and his daughter move into a bossy smart house and learn to deal with the insane disasters that threaten the town and sometimes all life on Earth.

 

Firefly - Jane, Malcolm and Zoe

 

Firefly - Best for last! Nathan Fillion heads a wonderful cast as Captain of the smuggling spaceship Serenity. Captain Reynolds is a survivor of the losing side of a war with the despotic corporate government of a system of terraformed planets where humanity took refuge after Earth became uninhabitable. The series posits American and Chinese cultures as a blended dominant culture. Everyone curses in Chinese which makes censors jobs easier. These being largely pioneer worlds, the series is kind of a space Western - cowboys in space so to speak. The series was canceled early, but it earned a fanatical following and spun off a feature length movie "Serenity" which gave closure to the series' militant fan base.

BRITISH/CANADIAN/AUSTRALIAN BAKER'S DOZEN:

Foyle's War - DI Christopher Foyle and Samantha Stewart

 

Foyle's War -  British detective inspector solves crimes in WWII southern England. Absorbing look at England's law enforcement during the war. 

Sherlock - Benedict Cummerbach (Dr. Strange) and Martin Freeman (The Hobbit) are Holmes and Watson in one of the best versions of Conan-Doyle's ground-breaking detective.

All Creatures Great and Small - Wonderful series based on the James Herriot novels about his life as a country vet in the Yorkshire Dales. Stars Christopher Timothy and Robert Hardy.

Father Brown (both iterations) - There are two versions of GK Chesterton's priest/detective Father Brown. The earliest starred veteran British actor Kenneth More and the second with Mark Williams (Mr. Weasley in Harry Potter). Local detectives resent his meddling in their cases, especially because he always solves them.

Rosemary & Thyme - Felicity Kendall and Pam Ferris star as gardeners who every time they take a landscaping job, somebody gets murdered. Lots of fun.

Good Neighbors/The Good Life - Tom and Barbara Good (Richard Briers and Felicity Kendall) abandon corporate life to pursue self-sufficiency in their suburban home in Surbiton, London to the dismay of their high toned neighbors (Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington)
 
Miss Fischer's Murder Mysteries - Phryney Fischer, an independent, thoroughly modern lady sleuth cuts a swath across Melbourne's society in the late 1920s, fighting injustice, armed with a pearl-handled pistol, keen eye and razor-sharp wit.

Murdoch Mysteries - Yannick Bisson stars as the handsome Toronto detective William Murdoch in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Very Canadian as the series takes credit for having invented key American technologies and police procedures well ahead of their American cousins. Murdoch, a devout Catholic raised by nuns, brings his rigid sense of right and wrong to the messy business of law enforcement.

Horatio Hornblower

Horatio Hornblower - A series of A&E movies about CS Forester's British Sea Captain. They never finished the series although the 1950s Gregory Peck version does take up where A&E left off. Welch actor Ioan Gruffud stars and takes us from green seasick ensign to inventive captain who is based on famed British Captain Thomas Cochran, considered by many to be the most brilliant tactician in the British Navy during the age of sail. Hornblower notably never fights Americans directly which saves him for American audiences.

 

Fawlty Towers - John Cleese and Prunella Scales star as Torquay inn-keepers. Cleese delivers his frenetic style to the role as Basil Fawlty. Scales plays the perfect foil for the over-stuffed Basil as his wife, Sybil. The series didn't last nearly long enough but worth every second. "Basil the Rat" is my favorite episode.

Dr Who - The new series with new Dr. Who's rises above it's campy roots, although the Daleks do retain their toilet plunger appendages. I understand the new season trots out a female Dr. Who. Well why not? The series is hardly to be taken seriously. If you can't loosen up enough to enjoy it, the Dalek's will happily  "EXTERMINATE!"

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables (not Anne with an E) - This is the 1985 series, not the dismal "woke" Netflix version that I stopped watching when every other character turned out to be gay. The PBS Wonderworks mini-series about Lucy Maud Montgomery's heroine was faithful to the original and Megan Follows as Anne is the perfect Anne. Colleen Dewhurst as Marilla and Richard Farnsworth as Matthew were inspired casting. Montgomery was a preacher's wife and likely would have been horrified with what Netflix has done to her Anne. My kids and I used to binge watch Anne on weekends and get all misty and dampen some hankies. I listed it here because it was filmed on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

NOTE:

I started out with the first 13 American series, then added another dozen from our fellow English-speaking countries, because I like the often-lovely stuff they put out. There are a couple of shows that are an acquired taste on either list, but for the most part these on this list are easy to like. You may have to hunt them down online, but they're well worth a nice binge. I'd pack a lunch. Nachos would be perfect.

© 2021 by Tom King

A Dozen Songs for Fathers & Sons

Me and My Boy

Disparagingly called songs about "Daddy Issues", as it turns out songs about fathers and sons are pretty common among singer-songwriters. Country, bluegrass, rap, gospel and rock musicians all do them.  Father and son relationships are powerful in our lives, so it's not unsurprising that singers write about them. Songs cover everything from fathers who die to soon, wonderful dads, fathers who are missing in action, and fathers who are not understood by their sons and sons not understood by their fathers.  Here is a very personal collection of songs about Dad, from several genres. Hope you enjoy them

1.  Pearl Jam - The Man of the Hour:  As one critic snarked, Eddie Vedder was still coming to terms with his "daddy issues" at the time this song was written. What this cold soul seems not to understand is that father-son relationships are confusing, deeply impact our lives, and are powerful themes for music, poetry, film and art. Eddie wrote this song for the movie "Big Fish" and it captures the theme perfectly.

1.  
    
    
   2. Harry Chapin - The Cat's in the Cradle: Harry Chapin's poignant ballad about a Dad who inadvertently taught his son to be just like himself struck a chord with a lot of young fathers in the wake of the social upheavals of the 60s. Us hippie children were becoming fathers and Harry reminded us all not to repeat the mistakes of our own Dads. Apparently, not all of us listened too closely. I did, though.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

3. Cat Stevens - Father & Son:  Cat Stevens aka Jusef Islam, was another popular singe-songwriter who took a shot at guiding my generation of skulls full of mush as to the dangers of poor communication between Dads and sons. Here he sings both sides of a familiar argument between Dads and their male offspring. He also had a lot to say to children while he was at it. He did some very engaging music over his career.

 

 

4. Dan Fogelberg - Leader of the Band:  Dan Fogelberg was one who loved and appreciated his father it appears. He also seems to realize that his father gave up his dreams to raise his family and that his Dad was responsible for his being able to achieve his own dreams. This one always makes me misty. Fogelberg talks about the song and what it meant for him and his father. This song never fails to make me get all misty.

5. Will Smith - Just the Two of Us:  Not all Dad/son songs are gentle folksy ballads. Will Smith manages to make a sweet rap song about being a father. I love the words of this song. I know exactly how Will felt when they put that baby boy in his arms.

6. James Blunt - Monsters:  This poignant song is about saying goodbye to a father and making peace at the end of a long life. If this song doesn't make you blubber, you have no heart. James couldn't even get through the song without weeping.

7. Peter Gabriel - Father, Son:  Another song about wrapping it all up with your father and saying goodbye. The video with this one is particularly poignant.

 

 

8.  Rodney Atkins - Watchin' You:  This sweet song is a cautionary tale about being a good father by example. I love this song. It's a reminder that as a Dad, you gotta remember you are being watched 24/7 by that little guy of yours.

9. Cliff Eberhardt - My Father's Shoes:  This song is more my experience of my father. My Dad was an alcoholic. He was by all accounts abusive, an ex-convict and something of a racist. He left my Mom with 3 kids when I was five years old to run off with a girl he met in a night club and made pregnant. Said he had to give the child his "name", as though that were a thing when he had 3 kids who already had his name. A lot of men think like that. His example determined me to not grow up to be him. This father in this song was kind of a more traditional father as seen by a restless hippie child, but much of the sentiment describes my own determination to not walk in my father's shoes.

10. Vince Gill - Key to Life:  This song is about the sort of father you don't want to introduce your girlfriend to. He's a chain-smoking, hard talking, wears over-alls without a shirt teenage boy's nightmare, but even then, he's your Dad and you better come to terms with that if you don't want to be just like him, because some of him is lurking there inside you.

11. Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, Ricky Skaggs - Go Rest on High on That Mountain: This song is about losing a loved one and is frequently one sung by sons about their fathers when they pass on. Very nice trio.

12. Anthem Lights - You Will Always Be My Son:  Anthem Lights Band sings another song about holding on and letting go of your sons. You want them to fly on their own, but you also want them to know the nest is there if they lose some feathers along the way.

If you have any more songs, drop the name of the song and the artist in the comments box below. I know there are some other ones out there that are as good as this bunch, I just can't remember them now.  I'll add them to the post.  Thanks.

© 2021 by Tom King
* Links are to songs posted on Youtube. I don't own any of this music.