Saturday, June 23, 2012

Did they use Brylcreem in the Old West?



In the middle of the morning I took the rental car to the airport. I was reluctant to turn it in. The Elantra was smooth and easy and I’d driven 450 miles and spent only $35 on gas. The van certainly has its advantages, but it is neither smooth nor economical.
I could’ve called my aunt or uncle to pick me up, but I walked a couple hours back to Grandpa’s house instead. I crossed the freeway and wove my way through a neighborhood of ramblers built in the 50s and 60s, comfortable houses, I suppose, but non-descript and without charm. Eventually I had to take to a main road, and I passed banks and fast food franchises, a movie theater complex of stucco grandiosity, strip malls, a Walmart … and the cars rushed past at too high speeds, and I had been one of them, a driver, but now I wasn’t, and they got the wide road and I got the narrow sidewalk, and I had to take great care at all crossings…. A key way of distinguishing any outdoor experience is whether one is in a car or one is not.
Back at the house, the afternoon stretched awkwardly before me…. I watched sports, a bit of the film Casino…. I spread maps out on the living room floor and considered where I might go on an overnight backpacking trip. A tentative plan: rest, send home for some different equipment, do an overnighter test, drive back down to Bishop, take to the trail again.... But I don’t know.
At three I drove in the van to the Rehab Center. Grandpa was sitting in the same easy chair by the window, watching the tv. He was surprised to see me. He looked better, a little less tired. But when I asked about when he might leave he seemed in no hurry. “I don’t know,” he said, “those steps.” He was referring to the two steps at the house, from the garage into the kitchen. I thought a ramp might be arranged, but I didn’t say so. It’s not like he hasn’t thought about his options.
I pulled up a chair next to his and gave him a brief account of my medical adventure, and he told me how his physical therapy was going. And then we fell into silence and gave our attention to the television, which was tuned to a station called MeTv. An episode of Big Valley was showing, and Barbara Stanwyck was overwrought, trying to protect her daughter and jumping off boulders. Next was The Wild, Wild West, with Robert Conrad, then consecutive episodes of The Rifleman with Chuck Connor.  In the second of the latter, Connor temporarily loses his memory, is mistaken for a ruthless, murdering outlaw, and almost lynched (none of which significantly affected his well-producted hair).
I wouldn’t have thought I could sit still for so much terrible television, but I had nowhere else to be , and so why not sit and take it…. But Green Acres followed and I began to get restless….
I had planned to leave at dinner, but when a young attendant came by Grandpa told her to bring two meals to the room. She looked at me, to see if I wanted to override him. I hesitated, trying to decide whether to resist, but then waved my hand and said, sure. The entree was advertised as a club sandwich, but turned out to be half a grilled cheese and ham. Also, a few sweet potato fries on the side, a small helping of spinach and pasta salad, and shallow bowl of melted chocolate ice cream. Grandpa tried to give me his pasta salad. “I didn’t touch it,” he said.
I left halfway through the second episode of Green Acres, in which Zsa Zsa Gabor was flashing back to her work in the Hungarian Resistance in World War II (she would step out into the road, scantily clad, the German tank drivers would open their hatch for a better look, make brief appreciative and laugh track-inducing remarks, and Zsa Zsa's compatriots would blow them up. Ha Ha).
Back at the house I put on the tv to programming more to my own taste—a baseball game, a documentary on Title IX.... All the advertising on MeTv had been for the elderly—emergency response devices, health insurance one can obtain without a prior examination (Alex Trebek, do you really need the money?)—and I wondered, what is it about 60s and 70s network programming that is so compelling for the over-80 set?  Is it connected somehow to nostalgia for the comforts of middle-age?
When I am an octogenarian will I be drawn to episodes of Seinfeld, Law and Order, ER? I’d argue that each of those shows are better than what was on in the 60s, but still, such repetition doesn’t sound like a very engaging story experience….

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