What a Pleasure Life is at 75

When I lived in Boston, one of the venerable old blue bloods and an aunt of one of my friends authored a book called To Be Young was Very Heaven, an idea I found abhorrent. Being young was painful. Being old is great. I simply love being old.
Of course I am fortunate. I have few aches and pains and when they come I go swimming, and they go away. I have a few internal problems but nothing that Pepto Bismal or Tylanol won't cure (read mask) and I have a wonderful husband (number 3) and wonderful children and step children. The latter are as attentive and interested in us as the fomer. We have tons of grandchildren, as I stated in my blog introduction, and they are all being raised right. We have outlived our savings but we limp along on social security and tighten our belts when we need to and really have few economic problems. True, we don't spend our Winters in Rio but they don't like us much there anyhow. Besides, Winters in Southern California are very agreeable. We haul out the blankets.
We have many projects to keep us interested; we live in a lively place; the train to San Diego costs $5 for Seniors, we have a bus at the corner which (eventually) gets us to the train, and life is good. If we want to work we can, as we demonstrated for a time last year and this. Gray hair is suddenly an employment plus.
We both have churches which sustain and even please us: his and mine which we frequent, and I hang out mornings at a 2-step group with sound people I love. It jump-starts my day to do that. We have a coffee date with neighbors in the mid-morn, and we usually go out to lunch on a newspaper which pays us to do reviews by reimbursing the food. What could be better.
John has an office and I have an office and just between you and me I think we spur each other on.
I really am tickled with the way life is going. Seventy-five is a good age.

The real villian: the Harvard business schoool

The late, great columnist Art Buchwald once analyzed the 70's oil crisis this way; Since all the sheiks send their sons to the Harvard Business school, that place is the real repository of blame for our problems with oil.

So what has changed? Just that still another gedneration has graduated, and they are using the 700 billion in yearly oil revenues to not only control oil but also to buy up U.S. c ompanies and real estate. The Chrysler Building, for heaven's sake. Do you need another example?

While Shrub (Molly Ivan's name for George W) fiddled with ethanol for the farm lobby, the country fell further and further behind even Brazil, for heaven's sake. Do you need another example?

I am just flabbergasted at Shrub's incompetence. I don't know why I should be, as a C student at Yale who was a cheerleader, a draft dodger, and a business man who failed at every company he even started and who used his daddy's influence to get into business school. Ye Gods, what did we expect?

I'm signing up for WEcansolveit.org and urge all my readers to do the same.

Going Green for Earth Day

Yesterday, we did our part. We drove to Oceanside (11 miles) , parked our car, and joined the train headed for San Diego, thus reducing our carbon footprint. We had to be on 5th street by 10:30, which meant leaving Oceanside on the last early commuter train which left at 10 till 8 a.m.

There were many other green people on the coaster, figuratively speaking. The most admirable were our seatmate and one other gentlemen who strapped their bikes into the place reserved for them. They cited expanding girth as well as enviornmental consciousness as their reasons, but whatever it takes, I guess. They had ridden their bikes to Oceanside, parked them on the Coaster, then rode them to their separate destinations as they disembarked. Our caps were tipped to them.

One elderly gent who got on at Carlsbad (A toney suburb) exclaimed as we moved along that "this whole thing is un American." When we looked puzzled, he extrapolated "people getting on the train, then getting off to busses; it's socialistic." He was joshing, but right.

The ride took us along Highway 101, the original 1 also known as the Pacific Highway with its whitecaps and fancy houses and restaurants; my dear hubby who always drives and therefore can never rubberneck marvelled at the sights he had never seen. A small enclave in Solana Beach which featured cedar shake houses particularly delighted him. "I couldn't see this from the road," he exclaimed.
We spent $11 for two senior round trip tickets and learned we could have spent $2 more and taken the Sprinter to the Coaster (alas, there is an ad man in every organization!) and only driven .35 of a mile. The Coaster tickets were good for the trolley, so we got within two blocks of our destination, a 46 mile trip.
And best of all, was the relaxation. John (hubby) kept saying "this is like being on vacation."
He was right.

Up There With the Big Boys

Sent this to a friend in Orlando who used to be in the business.
"Hi, toots. In exchange for my freebies, toss off a personal experience story. Wyndham hired me and when I gave them my misgivings about the industry they talked integrity and honor , hired me conditionally, and I begin training tomorrow. (Betcha they don't have any idea that I'm pushing 76!!!) We'll see if its really different.
Meanwhile, I'm collecting horror stories and theorizing its the difference between used car lots and Lexus dealers. We'll see if I'm right. The tab here is $22,000 (dropped) with 6% commission. At Welk down the road its $700 a sale, but its a great resort. The juices are flowing again. Fun. Add your 2 cents.
Love
LLC (that's a limited liability corporation, doncha know)"

It's Obvious, but I don't read it anywhere.....

Dearest Ones: Emma has a music scholarship and the two graduates this year are honor grads. What could make a grandma happier?
To turn to the meat of this blog (unlike the latest candidates debate which was pure milk), it seems to have escaped everybody that Obama has run a truly amazing campaign. Grandma Letty was observing some months ago that he didn't seem to be afraid of excellence (unlike Hilary who dotes on cronies) and that trait has certainly paid off. So he fraternized with a Weatherman? Grandma Letty fraternized with a Weatherman and took their newsletter in the 70's and harbored notions that while they might be revolutionaries, they were slightly justified revolutionaries. After all, if J Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon were running the country, why not blow them up? Temping, but really not a sound idea in the long run.
But I digress. I get daily updates for the candidate, courtesy of a man called David Plouffe whom I hope will be Chief of Staff. I am seduced into donating once again and having dinner with Barack and four other afficianados. I formed the original gray haired ladies for Obama in Vista, CA, and I phone banked at the labor hall. The quality of callers would make a boiler room head dizzy with delight. This has been a primer for political campaigns, at least the part of it I've seen. The riposte by the candidate that "attacks are the old politics" is resonating. Hilary's negatives climb and climb. If he can get away with this one, we'll be done with swiftboating and 3 a.m. phone calls and get down to brass tacks for a change.
Kids, you're viewing a sea change. Let's hope it holds.

So proud of the evangelicals (it's true)

Last night's compassion forum on CNN with Barack and Hilary proved something I've been claiming for four years, when I parked my Kerry sticker in the parking lot at North Coast Church. To wit: gone are the nutcases. The ministers, one of the my old pastor Joel, asked questions of the candidates about climate change, Darfur, poverty, etc.etc. etc. It fell to the editor of Newsweek to ask about life beginning at conceptions. (The last was adroitly and reasonably answered by the two, quite in line with my convictions.)
In short, evangelicals aren't the lunatic fringe today. I think they used to be, but as more and more thinking people join large churches with large agendas, the questions about homosexuality and gay marriage and abortion are no longer the sole focus. It is true, they are still concerns, but they don't overshadow world-wide concerns of vastly more importance to our planet. God, after all, charges us to have dominion, but not to rape and pillage.

I am tickled pink that the stigma attached to me for seven years of laboring in the evangelical vineyards is beginning to fade, if not disappear. God is having the last word after all.

Here's how it was, kids

Back before all of you were born, grandma Letty was relieved of her duties at the Orlando (FL) Sentinel when the paper was purchased by a Chicago company; since she had to support herself somehow, she began to teach part time at several colleges and sell something called "Timeshare."

In Orlando, all she had to do was get a real estate license and look presentable and be upright. A lot has changed, but what else is new?

In 1978, the industry was recovering from being like the wild west. Felons and drunks and disbarred lawyers and used car salesmen were grandma Letty's fellows. We'd often get paid (or not paid) more or less depending on whim, and the contests were legendary. Grandma Letty got a "spiff" (reward) of $5000 once for selling the most timeshare weeks in a month. She didn't believe it until the check cleared the bank.

Eventually, order was more or less restored. The earliest Timeshare resorts were staffed by veterans of the Florida land sales of the 1920's and 30's, and when a developer pulled into town to recruit workers, he hired car salesmen; so the terms "spiff" for bonus, "T.O." for Take Over by the Sales Manager. and other arcane language is familiar to every ex car salesman. In those days, when we got paid (if we did) we got from $500 to $700 a sale. We "hauled" "ups" or took clients on a tour, had a "love line" where the salesmen got preferential treatment if they were very, very friendly with the sales manager. (Especailly females.)

Grandma Letty worked her way into a real estate firm which specialized in timeshare and which had so many that when we sold out one, we had another to go to. That was a breakthrough. Our manager used to laugh at the family ownership and when a new baby was born in the family the manager would announce "he was just appointed vice president of sales" which was about what it was like.

In Orlando, eventually some 40 timeshare resorts sprouted up, so we could always work. I stayed with Island One, my group, and more or less respected the firm. In fact, I even sold them T-shirts to wear as uniforms. In 1983, we were sent to Freeport, Virgin Islands for selling $600000 in one month, and because I led the line, Dan, my husband, was included, too. This was a line of some 20 ragtag souls who really had a good time. I won the ping pong tournament, and my TO had bet on me and made a fortune. Good days.

Just about then I was asked to be editor of a paper and did that for 17 years. After all, that's what I was trained for. I had a great time doing that, too, and when I retired, moved to California, and flirted with timeshare sales again, I found that big boys were in the game. Wyndham granted me an interview after I aced their personality test, and so did Lawrence Welk resort. Since the latter was 8 miles from home, I was hoping it would work out. Needless to say, I got my real estate license.

I'll let you know

Work hard and have fun and be like Jennika, Magna Cum Laude. (That's a good thing.)

Love,

Grandma Letty