Ralph Latham
A Personal Journal Reflecting On Aging
June 19 | June 21

	Reflections of Ralph Latham June 9: How's Retirement? Great! June 10: Thinking About Health June 11: I Miss My Wife June 12: Donating Blood June 13: Comparing Notes June 14: This Process Called Aging June 15: A Down Friday June 16: Indoors, but Productive June 17: Ambivalence Is a Good Word June 18: Eye Appointment in Duluth June 19: Bike Ride June 21: Happiness from Within

June 19: Bike Ride
This evening I've been hearing the TV reports of the terrible storm that hit Siren, Wisconsin, and vicinity. Last night about midnight, I was fascinated by the rapid-fire flashes of bright, widespread lightning, and some big thunder booms. Can't help feeling a connection between those two observations.

Also, I feel a great admiration for that police chief who went all over his town as the storm was building up to warn the people and give them a chance to take cover. He gives real meaning to the common law enforcement department slogan, "To Protect and to Serve."

It was a good and productive day today—nothing spectacular accomplished, but excellent dialogue with a Health Care Foundation friend and colleague about the next issue of our newsletter. Then, inspired by his friendship, I made some phone calls to set up an interview for the major newsletter item I'm responsible for. And I checked in with the higher education office to apologize for having to miss the board meeting yesterday. It always feels right and good to keep in touch with the dedicated souls who run the worthy enterprises of this community. They're the people who enrich it and keep it flourishing, and I'm gratified to be associated with them.

Practiced the sax again early this afternoon, and at rehearsal tonight I was really glad I had done some "woodshedding" on parts during the past week. For once I felt pretty well prepared for rehearsal, and more confident about my playing. So rehearsal was fun tonight.

And thanks to the people from the Twin Cities who helped me out by giving me and my bike a lift home this afternoon. Good neighbors—they saw me wheeling my slightly crippled bike along the shoulder of the highway, turned around, came back and offered to help. They'd stayed on in the Northland after Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, to do some hiking in the woods, and were generous and wonderful helping me home.

I rode east from home, up as far as the Brule River bridge, and about halfway back. I accidentally dropped my front wheel into a jagged crack in the paved shoulder of the road. It gave a little lurch, but I didn't think much about it. But within a half mile or so, my front tire exploded like a pistol shot, and that was the end of today's ride. It's quite unpleasant walking very far in biking shoes—they're just not designed for walking. I suppose I walked a couple of miles, then those nice people came and helped me.

We compared notes about being retired schoolteachers, and found that we're both acquainted with long-time Minnesota marathoner (especially Grandma's Marathon) Dr. Alex Ratelle. They reinforced my faith in humanity, and gave me pleasant moments as well as a ride home. I'd been trying to talk myself into looking on the bright side of a flat tire by saying, "Well, it's easier walking against a headwind than it was riding." And other such whistling in the dark stuff.

Tomorrow I'll make a trip to Superior North Outdoor Center, visit with Mark & Melinda for a while, and buy a new tire and tube. Sure hope they've got the right size in stock. After enjoying my new comfortable recumbent bike last year and this year so far, I'd kinda hate to go back to my trusty, sturdy old upright bike with its skinny hard saddle and dropped handlebars. But maybe I just needed a good lesson in how to steer more carefully and avoid those jagged cracks and fissures in the road.

June 21: Happines from Within
I think I skipped a day; in fact, I know I did. The omission wasn't intentional; I just found myself quite tired yesterday, so instead of making sense, I overate late in the day and as a result didn't sleep soundly, and—you get the picture. Like Thoreau confessing that in 8 months he'd eaten $7.47 worth of purchased food, I would feel much more guilty if I didn't know that others were equally guilty.

Still, I've had some good clean fun today. Went to the North Shore Care Center this morning and spent an hour reading to a group of about half a dozen residents. The first lady to arrive in the center's activity room offered me coffee. When I declined, she said, "You're not Norwegian, then." I chose some Robert Frost poems and a fable by James Thurber, along with The Mountain Whippoorwill by S. V. Benet.

The Benet didn't seem to strike a responsive chord, but I felt that they enjoyed the Frost and were familiar with some of it. When I asked them if they remembered Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" one charming lady said, "I'm 92; I don't have to remember anything."

Another complimented me on my reading, and the center's wonderful activity director loved the Thurber fable. I guess one could say that a good time was had by all. I certainly enjoyed it a lot.

My little misadventure Tuesday blowing out my front bike tire cost me $27 and change. But I now have the new tire and tube, and first thing in the morning I'll put it on the wheel, pump it up to about 80 psi, and be ready to ride again.

Today's mail delivery brought more information from Medicare, which is OK, and sometimes their messages are even useful in keeping us informed of our situation. But the rest of the mail was just more of the standard junk. We get a lot of that—offers from new magazines of supposedly irresistible subscription deals, cut-rate car insurance sales pitches, more AARP appeals to cash in on all the vast benefits of membership, yet another 0% APR platinum plus credit card absolutely guaranteed to make me happy and secure, and five pounds of catalogs from outfits I never heard of before. And every catalog chock-full of irritating gadgets, widgets, wickets, trinkets, and overpriced gewgaws to clutter people's lives. Who in the world would be tempted to buy any of that damnable crap?

For a shocking contrast with the advertising glut in my mailbox, I heard this evening at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais a moving presentation by one of our local family physicians. She's a courageous young woman who recently spent six months working in Afghanistan. The abject poverty she described, the harsh and oppressive government that allows the people no freedom and no opportunity and no hope makes me shudder. And yet her slides showed adults and children smiling, beautiful genuine smiles. Where do they get their indomitable spirit and the strength to endure? Not from credit cards, catalogs, and marketing come-ons, that's for sure.

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