We Can Work It Out

September 22, 2018
   One of the problems of getting older is that every extra day you are alive, is another day that more and more people do not get your cultural references. If you are over fifty, chances are you understand the title of today's blog. If you are under fifty, it is probably a bit iffy, and if you are under thirty, good luck, and, under twenty, not a chance.

Sunrise over Ratcliff Ridge,

September 22, 2018

   Back in 1984, I experienced this from the other end of the equation, with my Grandmother Minnie Hauan Bell. That summer, I took Kathy and our kids, ages 4 and one, to see their Iowa kin. My grandfather, Carl Bell, had passed recently, so Minnie, 94, was all alone. On one of the last nights at her home in Thompson, we decided to drive over to Osage where her daughter lived.  Minnie sat up front with me in our 1984 Ford Econoline Van, and, at her suggestion, we decided to sing our favorite songs, and one of the songs I chose was the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out." 

   Kathy backed me up loudly and enthusiastically and even Deena knew some the lyrics (Tommy was one and didn't know where he was or what we were doing), "Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing or fighting, my friend. . ." Minnie was a good sport and ended up humming along with a smile that said, I have no idea what you kids are singing about. She then offered a couple tunes, but, of course, none of us had even heard of them (as I remember, these were tunes somewhere out beyond the turkey and the straw). I remember she made a couple jokes on this trip with cultural references that we knew nothing about. I gave her a courtesy laugh because she is my grandmother, but I had no idea what the set up meant or the joke referred to.

   That, my friends is just one of the many curses of old age: nobody gets your jokes!

And in the end, the love you take

is equal to the love you make.

"The love we give away is the only love we keep."
—Elbert Hubbard, 1927, well now we know where John and Paul stole that concept