More Life

 Wednesday night, we attended a costume party/murder mystery at a restaurant in downtown Morgantown.  Kathy, the guest of honor, was turning seventy-five. She is a friend from temple, although only her husband is Jewish. She's been active in Democratic Party politics here, and helped me with my first political campaign. We were to dress in gangster outfits from the 1920s. We had roles to play: I was the butler to the head gangster and it was suggested I wear a tuxedo. Instead, I came in a black shirt, black pants, a loud jacket- and saddle shoes. The costumes ranged from very successful to not so much. The game was moderately interesting. What I realized was that the guests at the party were mostly people I know and like very much, and that seventy-five is only ten months away for me. My sister and I offered to make our mother a seventy-fifth birthday party in 2003, but Mom insisted on planning her own party at an Italian restaurant in Pikesville, Maryland, inviting only family. She died thirty-nine  days later, so the idea of being that age is scary.

They pulled my cancerous thyroid gland out in early November, and, as predicted, it wasn't too bad. I'm still sleeping a lot, but less, and I'm back at the gym, and went out for a run today. I'll see the doctor in February, and he'll decide what, if anything, needs to be done next. So I guess I'm doing well for seventy-four. I can feel my joints freezing up, especially the knee that was bad over the summer. 

Joe and I were back at my sister's house in Greenbelt, Maryland last week. I didn't throw up, and no one from the temple died, two events which have messed up our vacations in the past. We ate at a Jewish deli in Fulton, a Howard County suburb, and my sister Robin treated me and Joe to some new clothes. I hear a lot about how awful the economy is, but the stores were mobbed with people, so someone has money. We ate the traditionally Jewish Christmas meal: Chinese food, at a storefront restaurant in Beltsville, just north of Greenbelt. The portions were huge, and everything was yummy. Robin has all the streaming services Joe and I don't subscribe to, so we watched "Maestro" and "Oppenheimer." The commonality is that both are about chain-smoking Jewish men who are unfaithful to their wives. I thought "Oppenheimer" was a better movie. "Maestro" didn't cover a lot I would have liked, about the man Bernstein left his wife for, who later died of AIDS, or about the party for the Black Panthers at the Bernstein's, which was organized by his wife, Felicia. In The Forward, a critic pointed out that they downplayed Bernstein's commitment to Israel and to Judaism generally. It might have been interesting to see how both men died from their smoking habit, Bernstein of a heart attack when he was hospitalized unable to breathe, and Oppenheimer of cancer of the larynx. 

A young man at the party last night, a friend of one of  Kathy's grown daughters, asked me about staying in Morgantown. He was raised here by adoptive parents and now lives in Virginia, near Washington. The people at the party, mostly about my age, are our friends, and although Joe would like to live elsewhere when he retires in two years, preferably somewhere with warmer winters where we know people and he wouldn't have to be "The Rabbi" all the time, I'm not sure I have enough life expectancy to start over someplace else. We've been here more than eleven years, and we're invited to a party with gay fiends on the 30th, and a party with temple people on the 31st, so we do have different crowds we can hang with. I also have political friends, some of whom were there last night. 

I can say now that I'm doing okay. My health problems are all typical of someone my age, and I think I'm in better shape than most. That's no guarantee that I'll make another year, but I'm doing my best to stick around. Joe and I agree that we have good lives, even as the country and the world fall apart. But that's a whole different essay.