Rascals Evicted

Like most Americans for much of the last six months my passive news feeds have flooded my retinas with political punditry.  Moreover, the algorithms that made the founders of FB and Google wealthy beyond all imagination, selected which ones came before me.  And I selected my favorites, two of them, in the guise of objective analysts, knowing that they had the same party affiliation as me with the same centrist position within it.  Those to the left of me almost never got opened, those much to the right rarely appeared as an option on my laptop or big-screen TV.   The algorithms predicted that I needed mostly to validate myself.  Partly true, but as our sage Ben Zoma noted, wise people learn from the spectrum of those in the ecosystem.  I still aspire to become wise, but FB and Google prefer the shield.

Some experiences immerse me outside my safe space.  I do the family grocery shopping roughly weekly.  While at Shop-Rite I don't pay attention to who else rolls their cart or what they buy.  Much more likely to see caps and t-shirts with local team insignia than political statements.  I don't have any concern over who puts cheap stuff in their cart, who goes for convenience food, and who, other than me, gravitates to the shelf of reduced baked goods near the registers.  I know for sure that the cost of what I purchase has risen.  While my financial position will not change from what I purchase at the supermarket, I forgo things that exceed what I am willing to pay.

I fill my gas tank.  Now that I no longer commute forty minutes each way, those fill-ups have greatly decreased in frequency.  As I move upward in my senior years, my desire for a 50-100 mile spontaeous day trip has plummeted.  Yet I maintain the ability to get where I want to go, which means a regular supply of gasoline.  Filling the tank costs more.  I will even now drive a little extra to save 10 cents a gallon, or just over a dollar per refuel.

Having invested regularly for my adult life, stock market appreciation has more than offset rising consumer prices for me, a judicious consumer.  That's probably not the case for people in early career who need food and fuel this week, but will not need their 401k to compound for many decades.

My daily email from eJPhil announces donors of millions to Jewish causes on a daily basis.  I get it.  As a high schooler, I had to present to the class a summary of Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth.  No question that a few people building public projects of a grand nature gives a better opportunity for those elsewhere on the wealth spectrum than giving everybody smaller subsidy.  But to build a middle class, which fuels economic activity, people need secure wages.  That's why American economic booms took place in the mid-20th century and why Asian consumers now see their purchasing power accelerating.  So I don't resent the megadonations to Jewish agencies or endowments to universities from grateful alumni who owe their success to the education they received at those campuses.

Those news feeds.  Polling presented as a horse race.  Just like race horses, there is some justification for anticipating results, though enough uncertainty to dismiss one bobtail nag or one candidate out of hand.  Predictions had a consistency, as my preferred YouTube channels presented them.  A preference of voters for Democrats in Congressional Districts and in States.  Trend lines of opinions shown frequently with widening gaps over time between the two parties in aggregate and to a large extent the individual candidates who carried the banners.  Partisans who preferred a different outcome either conducted their own surveys or criticized the validity of what mainstream media and sophisticated, objective sampling revealed.  By the final few days, I got tired of this clutter in my YouTube feed, opening the two I respected, then scrolling to other YouTube channels for Thanksgiving recipes or videos of some of my chronic health conditions.

Ultimately, people figured out that the three minutes each of us have in the privacy of a voting booth or mailbox would serve as a referendum on the sitting President, with his surrogates taking the brunt of the results.  Mostly a negative consensus was anticipated and realized when the overwhelming, unequivocal counts came in.

Punditry works in prediction and in retrospect.  The previous verdict of the voters had only been two years before , also with a very consistent though less dramatic result.  Majorities implement their preferences.  Minority views endure what they must but do not give up their chance to assess the outcome.

Financial burdens dominated the voters' minds.  Many, including me, also had to make an ethical decision.  James Madison in The Federalist Papers devoted many paragraphs to protecting people from getting overwhelmed by venal officeholders and the factions they could create.  He thought his Constitution would minimize that outcome.  What we experienced with the current majority are enablers of conduct that honorable parents teach their children to avoid.  Demeaning speech has been prohibited by Jewish sages for millennia.  Trampling vulnerable people has its prohibitions, though the Prophets recognize and express displeasure at its being violated.  We place Derech Eretz, civility leading to cordial relations, as a primary value.  The people we hold in highest esteem, other than parents, are those memorable teachers and mentors who extended generosity to us personally when we were nobodies.  All violated by the governing majority, with many victims.  Moreover, many rationalized this falsely as virtue:  Respecting understandable immigration statutes, assuring that funds directed to the needy don't support those who could be more independent,  Biblical mandates even as the churches decline in attendance and affiliation.  Too often, the illusion of virtue.  People can figure out that masked goons rounding up people who pose no threat belonged in another era.  We've had enough wars for citizens to realize that if you are not All In for a  cause, as WW2, it's better not to be in at all.  

The voters not only opted for lower prices, I think we made a statement supporting more respectable people to represent us.  The subtle racists did poorly.  People were more than willing to vote for candidates of color, sexual minorities, a fair number of physicians, and a few Islamists.  Seats at a table bring conflict, but they avoid tyrannies of the majority and minimize those more intent on manipulating or domineering.  It can be messy, result in stalemates, and generate future resentments.  A prudent risk.  And it doesn't avoid the trap of mingling virtue with the illusion of virtue.  But a decisive expression of voter dissatisfaction.  The validity of what replaces it remains on the table.

Distinguished Guest Speaker

As a college student, the University had an organization, student run, that arranged for people of national prominence to visit periodically and give a public lecture in our largest auditorium.  No admission charge.  I got to hear from famous authors, elected officials, a future Nobel Laureate, public activists in the daily headlines.  Seats approaching full each time.  I do not remember ever being turned away.  But with attendance in the thousands, opportunities for interaction rarely happened.

My attraction to and admiration for experts never subsided.  In my professional medical world, the greatest masters sometimes worked where I worked.  More often, they would assemble at the professional society's annual convention in a distant city.  The ballroom at the convention center would fill.  In the exhibition hall, they or their fellows would stand with posters of their work, chatting with nobodies like me as we moved from one poster to the next.

My Jewish world also brought me into the same room of highly accomplished people.  Rabbis sometimes, authors whose works I had read, visiting scholars, heads of legacy agencies, experts on Israel.  If it was reasonable to get there, sometimes requiring a babysitter, I made an effort to hear what they had to convey.  And often the moderators took my question.  On occasion, I even met with a few in a small group for more private verbal exchanges.  

This past week, one of our legacy Jewish organizations invited an individual of major accomplishment to address the local community.  The announcement came by email a year ago.  I registered, then received a notice that he had to cancel on short notice.  I put my name down for notification when will come, then largely forgot about the cancelled event.  Unexpectedly, and on short notice, an announcement of his visit appeared on my email.  An evening presentation, as the cancelled one had been.  I registered immediately, receiving a confirmation.  The event went onto the weekly whiteboard schedule which helps keep my wife an me in synch with our fixed appointments. 

I arrived with ample time to spare.  The registration table's sheet included my name on its computer printout.  Somebody put a check-mark next to it and I walked two short corridors to the building's main auditorium.  Looking around the room, I recognized the majority of those already there and probably the majority of those who would enter later.  Most by name, as well as by face.  A few quick greetings, no serious conversations.  I took an isolated seat towards the front near the wall farthest from the door, then put my cell phone on buzz.

When I go to events with a keynote speaker, whether professional or Jewish, I usualy seek a seat by myself.  Rarely, somebody will come over to me, though we are cordial when that happens.  Brief hello, never profound discussion of the subject we came to learn more about from the expert.  Sometimes I bring a pad for some jotting of notes or reviewing the day nearing its conclusion.  Mostly I look around at the audience.  Medical audiences usually strike me as diverse.  Young people in training, practitioners like me, senior professors who tend to know each other or serve on the committees that arrange the meetings.  People of many complexions, often in ethnic attire.  Security staff barely noticeable.

Jewish gatherings strike me as very different, at least the local ones I attend, including this evening's.  Roughly an even distribution of men and women.  Few kippot.  Most strikingly, very homogeneous in age.  My age, Baby Boomes.  A few Gen X.  Millenials and Gen Z countable on my digits.  Not that different than on shabbos at any of the synagogues other than Chabad.  The people in that auditorium seemed liked minor variances of me.  Grandparents, professionals often retired.  Engaged in the Jewish community in multiple ways, often with enough commitment to earn a title or at least serve on a committee.

At Seder, we recite a lesson of the Four Sons, young people of different temperaments and levels of sophistication.  All present at the table.  We do not acknowledge those who should sit at the table but are absent.  That is what I saw that evening.  Kids, young adults, teens, parents of Hebrew School or Day School kids, men and women of early to mid-career barely present.  And when present, serving as designated driver for a parent or grandparent. A few worked for the sponsor.

The evening's distinguished speaker had served as US Ambassador to Israel under a Democratic President, worked on that administration's controversial Iran Nuclear Agreement, negotiated diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab nations for two Presidents, and held a senior appointment in the Pentagon coordinating Israel's protection as his most recent government assignment.  When administrations changed to the other party, his expertise shifted to Think Tanks that attempted to guide public opinion.  Those who came to hear him, presented as an interview by another highly accomplished political figure rather than a speech with questions later, had already established enduring loyalty to Israel as a place of Jewish sovereignty, though undoubtedly with a variety of perspectives on what the optimal recommendations of the American Jewish community should be.  

As Israel comes into the political crosshairs, particularly amid the speaker's political party, with disaffection among younger people, including Jewish ones, it seems the Jews not there were the ones who would have benefited most from the ambassador's perspectives.  But they were someplace else that evening.

And those same people seeem someplace else on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings when people of my generation assemble for worship.  My own congregation has devoted effort to membership recruitment with some success, though the age distribution of our members has not shifted downwards in a meaningful way.  With the public acceptance of American anti-Semitism moving from radical soapbox to people who get elected, with anti-Israel's legitimacy as its justification, those young Jews not present were also the ones relentlessly ridiculed by social media bots and harassed on campus, and sometimes even in the workplace.

Perhaps the absent Gen Z and Millennials take a private stance on their Jewish and Israel attachments with a low profile.  But identifying with personal presence has no meaningful back door.  In the era of those sitting in that auditorium, we lobbied for repressed Soviet Jews whose children now make Israel strong economically, scientifically, and militarily.  It's not that young people won't come.  They populate No Kings Rallies and other forms of public protest.  Maybe their Hillels gather for Israel Independence Day each spring.  But they did not come out to partake of an expert the way Baby Boomers have been seeking out for our adult lifetimes.

This generational divide has been evolving over time, with esteemed leadership in place every minute of that half-century.  Like our synagogues, we find ourselves at a branch point.  Some congregations will run out of money and fade.  Others will fall to the Kaplan-Meier plots of people dying off.  Our legacy agencies, the Federations and long-standing advocacy groups, have plenty of money. JFNA funded that evening's program.  People whose participation is not only valued but expected seem less of a sure thing, despite Young Leadership initiatives.  I did not see carpools or minivans from Hillel.  I did not see the last two classes of Federation's Young Leadership alumni in that auditorium.  The leadership in place needs to enhance this and maybe keep score, to replace my anecdotal observations with genuine, actionable data.

Did Poorly

Work week nearing its shabbos closure.  Sunday began, as most do, with optimism.  Things on a long list mostly with a purpose.  Some appointments.  OLLI, a lecture with a special guest, the first installment of a weekly class.  If I need to be someplace, I am, unless some valid reason for skipping it arises.  Appointments with myself have a more mixed outcome.  I wrote two responses to things I read.  My stretching exercises, given a designated time with some flexibility, mostly got done.  Every Monday I take some anthropomorphic measurements and record them.  I make a YouTube Video every Monday afternoon.  All done.  

Then I have tasks that do not have an allotted time, but a designated day.  Torah portion reviewed on Thursday, with permission to extend to Friday.  NEJM articles read every Sunday for a life as a doctor perspective, then every Thursday and Friday for clinical articles to challenge my post-retirement knowledge.  I'm reliable.  Every morning and evening I take prescribed medicines.  Nearly fully compliant.  I read an article in The Atlantic and two in The Forward during the early afternoon each weekday.  Rarely omit this.  And I try to comment on one or two a week, either directly to the author if an email is accessible or to The Atlantic's posting site which it provides for each article.

For personal care, I arise at a fixed time, return to bed at a fixed time, lights out at a fixed time unless my wife needs our bedroom lit to read.  Dental care first thing in the morning.  Then I wash dishes while making coffee and retrieve the newspaper.  After supper, I reliably plan the following day and fill out my two ongoing logs: list three accomplishments and list a Daily Annoyance.  Defined activities go to completion.

Those without a clear end point, or at least series of steps, often flounder.  I know I want to engage in expressing myself, usually a blend of paper and keyboard.  I do some, but rarely go smoothly from idea to composition to editing to submission.  The steps are too amorphous as tasks to accomplish in a specified hour.  Home upgrades take a similar path to never quite done.  I know the steps to having a less cluttered room or replacing an appliance.  I could even compose a checklist.  Many depend on other people, from my wife who I try not to disrupt to installers whose estimates and proposals leave me with indecision.  I know I need to do my laundry periodically, as I have been doing this for myself since entering college.  Gather and sort I usually do in advance, but some clothing gets left in various places to retrieve, particularly items washed warm.  I know I should practice my violin each day but don't.  And I'd like to have more guests join me for dinner but make excuses for limiting invitations.  Perhaps I don't define the writing activities or social aspirations as explicitly as I do the more habitual items.  Or perhaps I could do better at linking them to activities that are already time defined, or even habitual.

With two months remaining in my semi-annual projects cycle, it's a mixed report.  Some failures, like my exercise program got curtailed due to an injury beyond my control.  I do not have a good rationalization for performing poorly on some of my home upgrades, consistent advocacy for Israel, or entertaining more.  Nothing beyond remedy.

Free Time

Sometimes unexpected, sometimes created.  Task free.  It may last only minutes, sometimes hours.  That Me Time that enables reversal of languishing.  

An unanticipated chunk came my way this morning.  Once weekly, my OLLI enrollment keeps me on-site most of the day.  Leave house at 8:35 to get settled in the classroom by 9AM.  The session goes for 75 minutes.  Then a half-hour interval between morning classes.  I allocate that mostly to socializing, another means of repelling Languishing if done in a purposeful way. Class until noon.  Then lunch, which I pack before I leave home.  This takes minutes.  A two hour break follows, anticipated work time, not always as productive as I had hoped.  I've learned to leave my laptop at home.  Final class 2:30-3:45, then a drive home.  It makes for a long day.  This morning the professor's illness cancelled the first session.  Not only Me Time, but prime time.  

My Daily Task List, assembled the previous evening, omitted items that I could not realistically perform away from home.  Nearly two hours at home to do the things I anticipated as unrealistic.  I have priorities, but my list also includes things I'd like to do, even should do, but are not priorities.  Some I would never do, even though doing them has a high reward.  After looking over my list, I allotted twenty minutes to making my desk maximally functional, that is dealing with papers.  

Papers kept within arm's reach are not placed randomly, though often not where I can get the ones I need most when I need them.  To my right, I keep blank paper, mostly pads received from non-profits to entice a donation.  Atop that sit papers with writing, partially pursued projects.  To my left, the daily and weekly tasks.  In a leather zippered portfolio sit projects in progress.  In a cloth basket on the floor to my left I keep folders, the most important containing outlines or pre-submission manuscripts.  How much can I organize in 20 minutes?  It turns out, quite a lot.  All papers came out.  Those I need today went to my left.  An outline of topics already composed and topics I still want to transform for other readers went into the portfolio, along with ample blank paper.  That becomes my working foundation.  At hand in My Space, portable for the long afternoons of unoccupied OLLI time. Outlines and partially written manuscripts in a separate folder kept behind the portfolio in the cloth basket.  All in twenty minutes, leaving me primarily to sort the manuscripts and outlines already in progress with paper clips, or perhaps new folders.  And stray or completed papers now have a temporary home in a recycling box.

Dealing with a one-time opportunity differs from recurrent captured time.  Once a week I attend a course that uses up the entire morning.  The benefit of being there does not justify the preparaton and drive.  That's more than two hours every morning, prime time.  It is scheduled:  dress, drive, play guitar, clean up, drive.  I made a decision to drop the class at mid-semester.  As tempting as it seems to leave it unscheduled for the remaining six weeks of the term, I think it better to replace one obligation with another dedicated to that particular schedule allotment.  What might I do once a week every week for six weeks in lieu of strumming aimlessly on a guitar?  It takes place in my mental prime, so best replaced by some type of challenging Deep Work. Not laundry or dishes.

Unscheduled time offers an opportunity.  Removal of previous scheduling discloses its value, always assessed by what I could be doing instead.  Important things that get me ahead.  My mind.  Maybe my health.  When occupied by a class or coping with traffic, what I could be doing instead stays in the background.  When released from a scheduled obligation, the possibilities expand, but still need purposeful effort.  That Friday morning guitar lesson and related transit reposition as an appointment with myself.  Deep Work to replace strumming chords that I didn't understand.  Free Time sometimes yields more when it is made less free.

Solving Languishing

Nothing seems especially wrong.  The expected annoyances.  Some age related hints from the lab that I need to keep current with health maintenance.  I got top prize in the spouse lottery.  Living prudently allowed ample wealth in late life.  Kids as independent adults bring us nachas, worth some of the travails of getting them there.  Late life gets all the important boxes checked.

I don't feel sad or apprehensive.  The world has not left me behind.  My mind continues to work pretty much as it should.  No major problems with temperament.  Social relationships above threshold, though never abundant.

Despite ample good things and little distress, I work within a cloud with a few desired parts missing.  An emptiness waiting for worthwhile activities to enter that blank space.  The psychologists have termed this Languishing.  Not ill, but not energetic.  A recognition of incomplete but lacking the motivation to put myself at risk or leave my accumulated comfort zones to seek a remedy.

This condition was apparently termed by a sociology professor at Emory in the early 2000s.  The pandemic exposed its prevalence.  A number of advice forums from books, to articles in widely read publications, to YouTube presentations, offer consistent guidance on acquiring a better self-image on well-being.  None seem exceptionally difficult, all within my grasp.  Since motivation deficit defines the condition, some of the interventions may need to ignore motivation.  Just define a task and start. And all activities that experts recommend introducing have finite ways of determining their achievement.  Complete something that won't reappear on tomorrow's To Do List.

My social framework seems OK.  I attend shul, classes at OLLI, and selectively at synagogue, which I often judge as excessive.  I try to have people for dinner, though my wife is less than receptive to this sometimes.  I have a tendency to keep to myself.  Interestingly, for my long career I met people previously unknown to me daily, usually in the capacity of an expert who other people sought out.  I liked interacting with strangers, amusing them sometimes, listening intently to what they tried to convey to me most of the time.  Maybe I can focus on relating to strangers again.  My conversations with acquaintences at my usual gathering points center more on superficial greetings than exchange of challenging ideas.  I seem at my best, even most energetic, when verbally dueling, something not often as welcome  by my mental partner.  The Jewish approach to learning, called Chevruta, centers on a process between two thinking partners with opposing views of a common framework.  I find myself too often politely deflected by somebody who learned to do that at Corporate Charm School than mentally engaged, as was the norm and expectation of my training years.  

My daily, weekly, and semi-annual projects have their share of difficult things.  Most of the professional guidance on Languishing centers around the personal challenges.  It's too easy to look at my lists, accomplish easy tasks, which then get a slash through the words.  The big stuff takes some thought, sometimes physical effort, but also yields the most gratifying experience.  Commenting to an author on her work, then getting a response takes me out of Languishing, even if only transiently.  Even with no response to a major effort, just knowing that I did something not easily duplicated allows a sense of accomplishment, if not yet flourishing.  I have those initiatives but don't complete them as consistently as I should.  That's probably the best escape from Languishing.  Difficult project, work time without distraction, finite end point.

Finally, the experts recommend some form of Me Time.  I do this pretty consistently.  Technically, time alone in my car may qualify, but I think the advice requires a chunk of time to my mind to wander, maybe with a pen and paper to record the ideas that flow through when nobody else can interrupt them.

None of these elements pose significant barriers.  My greatest challenge may be working on something close to my capacity regularly, with an end point, and a reward. Some tangible outline of what I will do in an undistracted way, and how I will know when it is completed.  If you try all elements at once, Social, Me Time, Completion, and Effort, the mind registers it as programming.  I think I'll start with diligent but challenging effort for two weeks, then reassess.

Challenging Night

Sleep has run into a few snags.  Consecutive nights of deficit, difficult compensation the following day.  These challenge my commitment to follow professional sleep hygiene recommendations to set the bed as off-limits for all but designated sleep hours.

My first glance at the clock registered as 12:15AM or so.  Then periodic assessments of my watch most subsequent hours through the night.  Seconds each time, though never arising from bed.  Shifting my pillow a lot. Not changing position that much but redirecting my down cover, sometimes to enhance warmth, other times to increase exposure.  The room had not achieved its customary darkness.  Door to bedroom left open, with a dim light in the upper hall.  Bathroom door left open, though with curtain obscuring ambient light in the backyard.  I've been wearing a Casio 168 most nights.  To make the numerals visible,  I tap a button that makes the window transiently robin egg blue to highlight the black numbers.  Each tap and reading takes seconds.  This watch does not track sleep.  I have a Tozo 3 that does, though not worn for a few months.  While the accuracy of its sleep estimates falls well short of a sleep lab, a few nights with this on my wrist may enable some corrections.  I do not know how much sleep I got from my usual lights-out time to arising, but the frequent clock checks suggest a deficit.

Despite some deprivation, I arose from bed at my usual time.  I had scheduled a fasting lab draw for 8AM. Technically, coffee with no additives does not affect Fasting Glucose or Lipid results, but I stayed at my keyboard without my usual morning stimulant.  I swallowed the morning pills dry.  I knew the day would expose some impairment, but getting to the lab on time, maintaining good cheer while there, and driving attentively in each direction did not impose any difficulty.  Often on fasting lab days, since I am coffee-deprived, I follow the venepuncture with a breakfast outing or a stop at a coffee shop.  I did not bring any pen or paper with me, nor could I think optimally if I had, so I just went home.  By then I felt tired, though light chores remained within my capacity.  Deep Work, those challenging mental tasks which usually dominate my mornings, got postponed to later in the day, though not entirely eliminated.  Instead, now feeling some energy impairment, though not a desire for sleep, I substituted a few easy items.  Crosswords done with reasonable proficiency.  Snafu from lab reported to my doctor to try to avoid a fasting redraw.  Arranged an important phone call with my financial advisor.  While I avoid Social Media on Wednesdays, r/judaism still seemed within my mental capacity to participate.  I even wrote a thoughtful response to one of the posters.  

Finally, a k-cup of coffee.  Then I set a timer for 45 minutes.  Glasses off, into my recliner at full recline.  I never fell asleep, but felt my energy had been sufficiently uplifted at about 40 minutes.  More easy tasks, or at least those not requiring mental prowess.  I followed my MWF Stretching video.  A little later, I completed my assigned physical therapy program to allow a medial meniscal injury its best chance to heal. By then that mug of coffee had provided a boost to alertness.

Late afternoon has arrived.  I still don't feel sleepy.  Getting back to fixed sleep times, which has been successful over a year or two, seems within reach.  I'd still like to tackle one or two challenging cognitive tasks before the day ends.  I probably can.  Priority after supper. Not expecting my best work, but above threshold.  Some reading, some evening chores.  Address a few neglected initiatives.

While sleep deprivation feels uncomfortable and it detracts from performance, I have enough valuable activities that do not require maximum mental or physical attention.  These today.  Reset to the most challenging tomorrow.

Visiting Grandchildren

We live in the best of times, despite public turmoil.  Those same technological advancements that now enable Conflict Entrepreneurs to motivate tribes to stomp upon other tribes, also allow more gratifying connections.  My father never met his grandparents, my mother only her paternal grandfather, after whom I am named.  My grandparents sailed across an ocean, never expecting to return, and they didn't, except for my maternal grandmother who travelled with a measure of hardship to the new sovereign State of Israel not long after its Independence to see a few surviving relatives of the Holocaust.  She left my grandfather alone for weeks to do this.

I knew all four of my grandparents.  They survived to my mid-childhood, lived a drive away, not so far as to require significant planning, and connected by a new superhighway that my father traveled daily as he commuted to work.  We saw them often.

My children also knew their grandparents,  though under much easier circumstances.  Their maternal grandmother died before their birth, but my father had remarried, leaving them with four grandparents.  We lived an easy drive from one set, and eventually a flight from another.  We enjoyed ample income and enough protected time to enable travel.  And despite accessibility, we visited them far more often than they made a trip to come to us.

Our children made my wife and me new grandparents in 2025.  We navigate a different world, mostly better.  College and advanced degrees, which our two children each earned, essentially train them to secure employment.  There were no family businesses, though they each entered professions that distribute employment to all parts of America, unlike government, entertainment, and financial employment, which have regional centers.  They settled in suitable situations, one a five-hour drive, the other a five-hour flight.  American demographics now have people marrying later and starting families later.  My father became a grandfather at age 61, not quite retired, nor as well off as his sons.  My turn did not arrive until age 74, long retired with ample funds and discretionary time.  Yet, health and local commitments limit our ability to spontaneously get in the car or arrange a five-day cross-country visit

Communications have advanced beneficially. In lieu of travel, we can watch our infants progress to toddler on WhatsApp or Zoom.  It's hardly the same as holding them, but this form of remote contact remains available almost any time.  As a result, my grandchildren see us with more frequency than I saw my grandparents in the 1950s, despite more distant geographic access.  

My children, and now their children, have less reservation about air travel or even long road trips than my wife and I do.  Each infant has flown cross-country.  A five-hour drive from my son's house to mine, extended another two hours to visit his wife's sister and her family, needs some planning, but not a lot.  Getting to the other set of grandparents takes nine hours by car each way.  They've done it.  My senior citizen view of travel has lost some of the spontaneity of my youth.  Occasionally I will offer my wife an unexpected out for dinner or treat myself to a slice of pizza without planning, but most travel, even errands, imposes some preparation.  Distance visiting also eliminates day trips, the most frequent format for seeing my grandparents and my children's maternal grandparents.  No matter who travels, us or them, it becomes an expedition.  Mostly we accommodate each other in our homes, reasonable comfort for visiting my son, more spartan in my daughter's apartment on the opposite coast, and definitely improvised when they come to us.  In their cities, though, my wife and I also travel with an element of tourism, selecting a few sites we've not visited previously.

This season I had intended to travel to each of them.  The car trip should have been straightforward.  Pick a long weekend and go.  We did.  But they have activities of their own.  Son with work obligations, daughter-in-law with professional obligations.  The following weekend, they make the nine-hour round trip to the other grandparents.  Then two more weekends when my wife has commitments.  They will share Thanksgiving with us instead.

I had intended to a transcontinental trip after OLLI concludes, and still might.  A few days with descendants, a few days of tourism.  My own medical care needs do not yet have the predictability to make air reservations with a week's hiatus from different elements of care that folks on Medicare anticipate.  So again, daughter and granddaughter come to us.

There seems a measure of justice built into our situation.  When my wife and I selected an optimal place to settle and begin our family, we included parental visits in our preferences.  Easier for us to get to them than for them to get to us.  And that is how it played out.  The distances of my kids' generation are much larger, but it still seems easier for them to visit us when they want than for us to travel to them when we want.  Probably how it was always meant to be.