Thinking ahead to Christmas

I went to Macy’s on 34th Street last week, my first visit to a classic old-fashioned department store in many years, and took my daughter along so she could see what it is, like taking her to see a ranch with cowboys or a printing plant with Linotype machines or dirt-track racing or Amish harvesting oats with scythes. The store was bustling, all eleven floors, and what struck me was the friendly alertness of the employees and how smartly they could direct us to what we were looking for. This was two days after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade down Fifth Avenue and many of them had likely marched in it with the giant balloons and here they were bright and eager, directing us to Men’s Dress Shirts on five and socks on four and pens on nine.

And then there was the thrill of riding on one of the store’s century-old wooden escalators — some of the very few still in use in the world.

My Thanksgiving visitors

I am thankful that Thanksgiving is over and the stupor of carbohydrates and tryptophan and I think back and ask myself, “Why? Why in heaven’s name did I walk over to the buffet and help myself to seconds?” As Socrates said, the secret of happiness lies in learning to enjoy less. So next year I plan to celebrate the day with a bowl of chicken soup and a few saltines.

In 2026 I intend to eat moderately, resume regular exercise, speak kindly, patch up old hostilities, and clean up the stacks of trash that obscure my desk so that I am now writing this on the kitchen table.

On the road looking for history

I paid a visit to the magnificent state of Colorado last week to commune with the spirit of my great-great-grandfather David Powell who spent some time there in the mid-19th century. He was a Pennsylvania farmer who married his sweetheart Martha Ann Cox and dreamed of getting off the farm and seeing the West, but they had triplets and then more babies, one after another.

His erotic enthusiasm was defeating his spirit of adventure until, in a fit of resolution, he packed the family in a wagon with a milk cow tied to the rear and in a series of hops, to Michigan, then Illinois, Iowa, made it to Missouri where Martha Ann informed him that she was done traveling. She would not take small children into Indian territory. And so he kissed her goodbye and headed for Colorado with a wagon and team. I rode up the highway in the twisting Colorado River canyon under the monumental snow-capped peaks and could imagine how awestruck a farmer must’ve been at so much grandeur. He made it to Fort Collins and found no gold there and then got to Denver where all the available land had been claimed so he gave up on the idea of getting rich and went into politics instead. Back then it was not easy to do both at the same time.

A Prairie Home Companion Christmas Program

A Prairie Home Companion 50th Anniversary Tour Program – Nashville, TN and Manhattan, KS

On the road in Old Montrose

I was brought up to make myself useful and for a few years I did that with an early morning radio show, waking people up with jazzy jug band tunes and limericks and Ole and Lena jokes and now, at 83, I’ve become an advance scout, assuring the young that old age has many benefits — there’s no need to be cool anymore, in fact it’s well beyond reach, I don’t know who is famous anymore or why, so I just enjoy life day by day and spend as much time as possible with people who make me happy.

Personal identity becomes a closed book. You know that you know who you are. So you just work with it and don’t think about morphing into a genius or a giant insect or a prophet of doom.

The storyteller hits the road

Old age is the age of gratitude, when I come to appreciate the beautiful details in life such as Lenny our doorman in New York who says, “Taxi?” as I come across the lobby pushing a suitcase and when I say, “Please,” he hustles out into the street and lets fly with a classic two-finger whistle like the shriek of a predator and a taxi makes a swift U-turn and pulls up and Lenny grabs the bag and throws it in the trunk.

It’s a moment you see in classic New York movies but not much in New York except for Lenny who is from Brazil. Other doormen, I think, are history majors who dropped out of Columbia and they just raise an arm to hail a cab which I can do perfectly well myself. It’s the shriek that gives a sense of New York urgency. We had to go to Brazil to find the right man.

One more thing to think about

I don’t like to read about new medical discoveries for fear I may learn the wrong things, such as the news that childhood virus may be a factor in old-age dementia, which strikes me as brutally unfair, my having grown up one of six kids who passed viruses around like we shared beds and towels and hardly ever covered our mouths when we coughed. Mother said, “You’re going to get sick anyway, might as well hurry up and get it over with.” Little did she know it would lead to becoming a moron and nincompoop at the age of 83.

Not saying I am one, understand, only that I’m running a risk I didn’t know was there. I am still pursuing my goal of becoming the Country’s Oldest Successful Stand-Up Comic.

A happy old man looks over his shoulder

Watching Zohran Mamdani campaigning before Election Day, smiling, full front teeth visible continuously with only a momentary closure of lips for long periods of time, the friendly expression looking genuine while walking through crowds shaking one hand after another, turning up the charm, offsetting the word “Socialist” around his neck, maintaining his nonstop grin, a physical feat as amazing as the Dodger outfielder who leaped against the wall and snagged the Blue Jay triple and broke the hearts of millions of Canadians. As amazing as when my friend Bob Douglas would set down the mandolin and pick up a pair of spoons and play them against the outstretched fingers of his left hand, playing snazzy ragtime percussion, like your church choir dropping their gowns and becoming the Rockettes.

The wonders of this world never cease to amaze. I took the 8th Avenue subway to midtown Manhattan a couple weeks ago in the heaviest downpour in memory — the train stopped at Columbus Circle, the track flooded ahead, so I climbed up to catch a cab and waded in a river where Columbus’s statue stands and got drenched in the typhoon. Even in the mass metropolis, Nature exercising command when it chose, office workers ducking down into the subway, soaking wet.

The game, the Holy Spirit, the long line of hope

Poor Canada, losing the Series the way they did, two straight losses in front of 40,000 rabid fans — and who knew Canadians could be rabid? Canadians, for heaven’s sake, but there they were, putting their Canadianness aside and screaming, praying, demanding justice be done, the Blue Jays ahead three games to two, all they needed was One Win, but no.

Before our eyes, one rally after another was snuffed out and then that tremendous triple in Game 7 and the impossible leap of the Dodger center fielder, his glove stabbing high in the air even while colliding with a teammate to snatch the ball and then the DP in the 12th and thirty Dodgers jumped up and down hugging each other while the 40,000 sat stunned in silence at the cruelty of it — the crappiest Prez in U.S. history had slapped a tariff on Canada out of pure spite at a TV commercial, God in Heaven owed the Series to the North, but no. And I sat stunned at midnight in New York, realizing that baseball is not about justice. That’s why it’s called a Game. And I guess life is a game too.

Enough about you, let’s talk about me

I spent last week in St. Paul, seven days, five of them gorgeous and sunny with bright fall colors preceded by two wretched cold rainy days, serving as contrast, just as Muzak makes you appreciate Mozart, and it put me into a mood of wild unreasonable optimism, the very thing our country was founded on, if you ask me. Conceived in hope and dedicated to the proposition that tomorrow may bring something truly astonishing.

The Midwest I grew up in didn’t encourage wild hopes. “Ikke tro at du er noen,” said the Norwegians and you could tell from the tone of voice what it meant: don’t think you’re somebody, mister. Don’t get your hopes up. Look out you don’t trip on your shoelaces.