Tales from Rhapsody Home: Or What They Don't Tell You About Senior Living - Hardcover

Gould, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1565122801 ISBN 13: 9781565122802

Verlag: Algonquin Books, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

Down East Yankee John Gould, age ninety-two, has spent most of the last century observing and writing about the human condition. Now he presents a whole new perspective on life as he leads us into the brave new world of the assisted-living facility. Charming, sarcastic, despairing, flip, taciturn, erudite, and altogether wonderful--with a razor sharp wit and a knack for turning a phrase--Mr. Gould is an American original and a perfect tour guide. Whether he's complaining to management about his apartment windows that don't open or socializing with the other "inmates" at happy hour; whether wondering why they put a napkin over the stone-cold bread at dinner or taking comfort in the memories ("making do with the reruns") of his loving and eccentric collection of old friends and colleagues from Maine, Mr. Gould proves that you can write a funny book about a serious subject, namely, how we treat our elderly.

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ONCE UPON a long-ago time, I was a fine-looking young man with fire in my eye, zeal in my heart, and a haircut that cost twenty-five cents." So begins Tales from Rhapsody Home, ninety-two-years-old John Gould's entertaining look at how he arrived, quite suddenly, at old age and found himself living in a retirement community. With razor-sharp wit and comic sensibility, Mr. Gould offers advice and guidance to those of us ready or not quite ready for the "comforts" of assisted living.

Rhapsody Home is a mythical name, but the place is real-John Gould and his wife, Dorothy, have been living there for the past four and a half years. Mr. Gould, the author of dozens of books about life in small-town Maine, turns his critical eye toward a different kind of small town. And he captures perfectly the absurd rules and quaint idiosyncrasies of this brave new world. Whether he's complaining to management about his windows that don't open or swapping tales at happy hour with Mr. Reynolds about his gas and her hernia, whether he's wondering why they put a napkin over the stone-cold bread at dinner or taking comfort from memories of his loving and eccentric collection of old friends and colleagues, Mr. Gould is by turns sarcastic, charming, taciturn, erudite, hilarious, and wicked-but he is always altogether wonderful. John Gould is an American original. The rest of us can only hope that when it's our turn to check into a Rhapsody Home, we're lucky enough to have a neighbor like him.

Rhapsody Home is a mythical name, but the place is real-John Gould and his wife, Dorothy, have been living there for the past four and a half years. Mr. Gould, the author of dozens of books about life in small-town Maine, turns his critical eye toward a different kind of small town. And he captures perfectly the absurd rules and quaint idiosyncrasies of this brave new world. Whether he's complaining to management about his windows that don't open or swapping tales at happy hour with Mr. Reynolds about his gas and her hernia, whether he's wondering why they put a napkin over the stone-cold bread at dinner or taking comfort from memories of his loving and eccentric collection of old friends and colleagues, Mr. Gould is by turns sarcastic, charming, taciturn, erudite, hilarious, and wicked-but he is always altogether wonderful. John Gould is an American original. The rest of us can only hope that when it's our turn to check into a Rhapsody Home, we're lucky enough to have a neighbor like him.

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In the Beginning

Once upon a long-ago time, I was a fine-looking young man with fire in my eye, zeal in my heart, and a haircut that cost twenty-five cents.

The years passed.

As some can say, I never had a sick day in my life. I spent a good deal of time along the brooks in the contemplative man's recreation, and I did a little shooting, like Venator. I married the perfect woman who mostly fed me things I liked, but other times things that were good for me. Our two youngsters were delivered in Dr. Richardson's front chamber, thirty-five dollars for everything. They grew up without embarrassment to anybody and we are glad and we are pleased. They gave us a full house: queens over kings. The three granddaughters by our daughter, the two grandsons by our boy. All five are good-looking, all are smart, all went through college, all have found work. It seemed to us we had only one thing more to do.

Grow old.

I believe this did not happen all at once, but came gradually over a period of maybe eighty years; and then things sped up.

Edward W. Wheeler, who was counsel for the Maine Central Railroad, moderator for Brunswick Town Meeting, and Grand Master of the Grand Masonic Lodge of Maine, told me once to pay attention to the four signs of advancing age. They are, he said, in this order:

You can't remember a name.

You can't remember a face.

You can't remember to close your pants.

4. You can't remember to open them.

I have not yet experienced any of these. My memory is keen in all respects, and when I had my little shock that began to erode my eyesight, all my friends told me to rejoice that it hadn't affected my able mind and rendered me foolish. I'll leave that for others to debate, but I guess I had begun to totter some, and found a cane useful, at least at times. My wife, Dorothy, still blessed with 20-20, had had a lube job on her hip and got some cleats on a knee, and that slowed her down, so we curtailed our weekly skydiving sessions. And that winter, when I'd gone for my annual ?u shot, Dr. David Bradeen had suggested in an offhand way that it might be well for Dorothy and me to consider a place where we could have care if needed. Dr. David was more than just our family quack and I felt disposed to hear him.

Thus the search began for a place to harden our arteries and enjoy the blessings of senility. Dorothy and I left finding shelter to our daughter and her able husband, and they picked the Rhapsody Home we chose. It was an excellent choice, and we moved in just in time to be notified that the rent would increase.

***

The Window Saga Part I: What I Tell You Three Times Is True

Having made the decision to live in a Rhapsody Home, we moved into this commodious complex, this happy haven for hapless has-beens, this paradise for previously important people, on the fourth day of January 1996. I was eighty-seven and my wife Dorothy was not. We had the blessing of our family, the cheers of some neighbors, the approval of others, and had consulted our postmaster about change of address. We had drained the pipes, terminated our constant bickering with the Central Maine Power Company, and had dealt with a real estate agent about the sale of our lovely little home with fruit trees and a view of the ocean.

This was it. There was no turning back. Henceforth we would be supremely happy in the cozy care of professional cozy career people, those dedicated to loving the old folks and who, in so many artfully chosen words, had promised all our little hearts might desire. Our rent, while steep, was affordable, and it included even a gentleman with the proper tools who would come monthly to shorten our toenails. We never had it so good. Weary from moving, we bade good evening to those who helped us lift and carry, and we retired to our snug bedroom, content.

On the fifth day of January 1996, we entered our first complaint and threw ourselves upon the mercy of the truly fine people who had told us to contact them at once if displeasure irked us in the least. We had slept our first night in the opulence of our new life in a bedroom that could not be ventilated. The only window, I found upon wrenching my back to open it, would not open. It could not be opened. It was not a window made to be opened, but was hung on a slant and fastened to remain so.

Extreme youth was still heavy upon me when I first figured out why we slept in a room with open windows. In Maine you begin to understand a great many things when you are big enough to split firewood. Fresh air was promoted as being good for us, and to insure longevity, the child must learn to endure the rigors of nighttime winter. Chimneys were not built into bedrooms, and the Happy-Times Knit & Sew Club was ever ready to show the young girls how to tack a quilt. I grew up with it and so did my darling wife, whose mother was from New Brunswick. Heating a bedroom was both hard on woodpiles and bad for the lungs. As I recall, my bride wore earmuffs on our wedding night, which was well Down East on a normal October 22. Our hotel room was not heated, but still we opened the window onto the sea to hear the breakers and get a breath.

So I naturally applied myself to the young lady at the reception desk in our new retreat for the elderly, and I said merely that we couldn't open the window in our bedroom.

"Yes," she said. "It can't be opened."

Bear in mind, please, that I was new around here, and had not learned to do without the basic simplicity of previous experiences in the outside world. I was, if you will, a victim of that society that believes in fresh air and expects a bedroom window will be obliging. So the young lady's words seemed askew, and I felt were perpendicular to what I was talking about, so I suppose this led me to some small degree of irritation, which I voiced.

Poised and unruffled, the young lady merely said, "There is nothing to be done about it."

Next, I made the rounds of this illustrious institution, where I had been enjoined to speak at once to anybody about any trifle, and soon decided that "There is nothing that can be done about it" was the standard aphorism to be given to anybody who had a problem. Since my bedroom window had been closed forever when the residence was built, I understood that previous tenants in our apartment had been satisfied with this explanation. I could see that all who gave me this answer were well rehearsed, and they all inflected each word in the same way.

My wife said, "Give up; you can't win!"

My only wife is remarkable, and over the years, I've become attached to her and admire her talents and pay good attention to her precepts. Still I persisted.

I repeated to the management and slaves that custom and tradition, habit and the American Medical Society, every schoolmarm and every P.T. authority insisted on fresh air during slumber. What did they think electric blankets are for? I got the same answer over and over: that's the way the place was built and that's the way it has to be. There's nothing we can do about it.

Do you remember in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, "What I tell you three times is true?"

On several occasions I looked up at the window, mostly puzzled as to why that kind of a window should be installed in a bedroom, agreeing with myself that architects must be a silly lot. It didn't take long for an alert, if aged, farm boy to see that there was, indeed, a jolly-good way to do something about that window. It would not be difficult. Unfortunately, I had sold my woodworking tools before we moved; but I was not about to give up yet.

***

Who Had More Fun?

This business of adjusting, after a scrupulous lifetime of decent living, to the vagaries and double talk of Rhapsody Home, is a matter of degree, of course. About whether man or woman adjusts the sooner, the better, and the more graciously, I have a story.

On sacred Mount Olympus, this...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Algonquin Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2000
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1565122801
• ISBN 13: 9781565122802
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 182
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar