Countdowns. Names etc.
I never realized how difficult counting backwards was going to be. The other day I called my mother and asked her if she was still 90. She turned 90 on July 14th. She answered “no, I am going backwards, I am 82.” She can be pretty funny sometimes. I told her I was going to change her name to Benjamin Button, but she did not catch the reference and skipped to a different topic. Benjamin, my father, that is who you are named for. “My Benyamin”, and she says it so endearingly I can actually feel the love over the phone.
Too bad I grew up hating my strange name. I would badger my mother when I was a child about this topic. Actually, I still do. Beth, Betsy, Beverly, Barbara. All perfectly good girl names starting with the letter B that would not have made me stand out like a sore thumb among the Marlas, Julies, Eileens, Michelles, Judys, Janices , Audreys, Helens and Lauras. I grew up when people did not want some unusual name . Now it is more acceptable, almost chic to be something other than one of the top ten most popular names. Now everyone strives to make their kid stand out from the get go and it all begins with a name. By time the kids are 3 or 4 then the parents can make them stand out in some other way, usually sports, sometimes academics or music. Just as long as they, “stand out” or is it really about standing “above”. The competition never ends. Was it always that way? My mother will regale me with stories of how they helped each other “back then” or slept on beach without fear because there were no air conditioners. Now she finds herself making new friends and being irritated by some of them. “Estelle wants me to save her a seat in Bingo, but she shows up late and I am not going to get in a fight with someone else because Estelle wants to sit across from me. Yesterday she got all angry and huffed out when she could not sit near me. I am in a wheel, I cannot move. It stay where my caretaker puts me. Is she wants to sit by me, then she will have to show up on time.” The story sounds a lot like the ones I hear from my 10 year old about recess and who wants to play with whom and why it is not her fault if there are not enough swings on the playground. My mother calls all the old people where she lives “recycled teen agers.” I guess it is all about going green, not gangrene of course, that would be bad. Just girls in depends squabbling over their place in the dining room/high school cafeteria or Bingo hall.
My mother lives in Lincolnwood Place. I imagine a monopoly game aimed at the elderly. Now they either play Bingo or cards. But what if we could customize the monopoly game. It is done for other markets like Pokemon lovers or Disney aficianodos. I think the Senior Citizen Edition would be fascinating:
Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect Social Security.
In stead of 4 train stations, we would have 4 Rest Stops with Bathrooms for those who need to make frequent stops (hell, that applies to my age group now!)
Go Directly to the Hospital (aka Jail) , do not pass go, even if you have to “go”, and do not collect Social Security.
Get out of Hospital Free Card.
FREE PARKING, shows a pictures of a walker or a wheel chairs instead of a car.
COMMUNITY CHEST: Possible cards include:
Mazel Tov, Your Son became a doctor, you collect $1,000 (okay, obviously I am Jewish)
Mazel Tov, Your Daughter Marries a doctor, you collect $300 (after all you are just an
In-law.
Congratulations, Your Daughter became a doctor, you collect $10,000. Now aren’t you glad you told your daughter girls could be doctors too!
You buy stock in Depends, collect $200
You held on to your family home just a little too long, pay the tax man $10,000
You get into the movies at a discount collect $3.
You can no longer use the bus, call a cab, pay $40.
CNANCE: Possible Cards include:
Chance? What chance? There is no such thing.
Chances Are…. That was my favorite song
Chance, I tell you what chance is. That neighbor I hated for 40 years and was so happy
to get rid of when I moved into this place, just moved in down the hall.
Any Chance there is a bathroom within 10 feet of here?
Possible property sites:
Ellis Island
The Fruit Stand
Maxwell Street (Chicago version)
Perhaps a restaurant ROW featuring: What’s Cooking (okay, Chicago version again), The Bagel (Sorry, you may be able to take the writer out of a Jew, but you cannot take the Jew out of the writer), McDonalds with a Senior Discount Card.
States with a lot of old people: Florida, Arizona, Las Vegas , ANY warm climate I guess.
The corner
The Bench
Park “Yourself” Place
Bored With Walkers Place
In order to account for inflation or simple as a nostalgic gesture of good will houses would only cost $10 and apartment buildings would be $30. Also, if you afford them, you just rented like the rest of the world. Better yet, for those who could not qualify for a mortgage you would borrow the money from your sister and your spouses sister (which is what my parents did) and pay them back monthly instead of finding some money scavenger to put you into debt with interest payments so far above your means you could not crawl out from under it with a bulldozer!
Those were the days my friend, we thought they would never end and most of us were not even alive yet. In 1950 my mother was 32, and an old maid living with her parents and her sister. My father had just arrived from Europe. If time was really traveling backwards for my mother who is now 90 I wonder if she would make the same choices during her game of Monopoly in Real Life? Would she buy the same properties? Would she take a Chance on marrying a charming foreigner and having kids? Would she have seen through the charm into the darkness of his past and stayed happily living with her parents and sister for her entire life? Oh, well, she may want to go backwards and we can all fantasize on the “what ifs”, but in reality my mother likes Bingo and Card games better. Yes, luck is involved in all these games, but at least Bingo and Card games let you finish and start a new game a lot quickly than Monopoly, which can seem to go on forever at times. I don’t like playing games that feel as if they never will end. I preferred Scrabble, it comes with a timer and it involves words. But life, hopefully, is a lot more like Monopoly, really long. Keep going forward Becky, 90, 91, 92, 93 because if you start going backward eventually you might just erase me (and my crappy name). Then who in this world would remember Benjamin Katz and all that love you had for him?
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