This was written for a Medium publication in honor of National Pickle Day.
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Humans are always screwing up.
When that happens, who do they call? Me, of course, as in
‘I’m in a pickle, this’; ‘I’m in a pickle that.’ It’s better than being ignored like an eggplant. And it ain’t easy being in brine. The idiom fits.
Lately, I’ve heard even the President of the United States muttering my name over and over again. And it’s not only because he likes me sliced up on his Big Macs.
You know it. I know you know it. All together now. Don’t be shy.
Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun.
And they say Americans are divided.
Why, I’ve heard a rumor that soon they’ll be Golden Arches in the White House made of the real thing. The President may erect a sculpture of me in front of the new Trump ballroom.
Photo by the author of hole # 6 at South Winn Country Club in northeast Iowa
My tee shot, a duck hook, caromed off one of the pine trees just beyond the gate and bounced back into the fairway. Mike’s was a pop-up, just beyond the entry road, but down the middle.
When we holed out, both with bogeys, around 11:00 AM, I called Wanda, the clubhouse manager. “We’re starting number seven. Could you put two hot dogs on? Thank you.”
Some days are magic, especially for two old duffers in a gas-fueled cart — cloudless, windless, and 60°.
Even the weiners were perfect.
We each had a few pars and a shot or two we could recollect on a snowy February morning. For Mike, two fifteen-foot putts; for me, a six iron at the pin on number four.
On the last hole, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed two young guys carrying their bags.
Next fall, I plan to teach a Lifelong Learning course on the 2026 midterm elections in America. It will be my 10th class, with Donald Trump sitting in the back row, wearing his red hat.
In January, I’m doing a two-day seminar on James Baldwin in San Miguel, Mexico, where Iowa snowbirds Rebecca and I spend the early winter. The spirit of Baldwin, who died in 1987, understands perfectly Mr. Trump’s vise-like grip on us.
2026 will be my 54th year teaching.
My students have ranged from 12-year-old Steve Dehring, who, in 1973, threw a chair at me, to centenarian Harland Nelson, who, fifty years later, hurled metaphors. Both became friends.
Strangely, I was a mediocre student in high school and college. However, I loved learning, and from my father, I inherited the curiosity gene. And, again, mysteriously, I always liked my students.
Please linger a moment with this line, especially the ‘allowed to be free,’ written for the song Blowin’ in the Wind, by Bob Dylan in 1962.
How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?
Ironic, isn’t it? That’s poet Dylan’s point.
Allow means to give permission. By whom? Who gives permission to be free? More to the point, who needs permission to be free?
This language suggests the source of the problem and reminds me of something James Baldwin said in the film I am Not Your Negro.
“I remember, for example, when the ex-Attorney General, Mr. Robert Kennedy, said that it was conceivable that in forty years in America we might have a Negro president. And that sounded like a very emancipated statement, I suppose, to white people. They were not in Harlem when this statement was first heard. They did not hear (and possibly will never hear) the laughter and the bitterness and the scorn with which this statement was greeted.
From the point of view of the man in the Harlem barbershop, Bobby Kennedy only got here yesterday and now he’s already on his way to the presidency. We’ve been here for four hundred years and now he tells us that maybe in forty years, if you’re good, we may let you become president.”
I’m a white man born in America in 1949. I’ve never thought my rights — to speak, to vote, to own property, to walk down the street without fear — have been given to me by anyone.
Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, tells me my rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, are self evident and endowed by a Creator, for ALL MEN, meaning everyone. (source)
No person ought need permission.
But, of course, in America, the land of the free, they have. The list is long, and includes a litany of out-groups.
Two years before I was born, Jackie Robinson broke American baseball’s color barrier. In other words, he was allowed by those who controlled the game to join the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In the first sentence in the above paragraph, he acts, but only after he was acted upon.
That, in a nutshell, gives the lie to the myth of America as ‘the land of the free.’
Oh, to be 60 again and pleading with our 90-year-old mother to consider assisted living. The ‘our’ references my two brothers and me. Pat died two months ago of liver cancer; Peter is in palliative care.
Nothing stays the same. Nothing.
Except, well, except the desire by aging persons to stay in their own home. Thus, the title and image. Put another way, history often repeats itself.
There are two senior complexes in our northeast Iowa community. This is one.
Photo by the author
And the other.
Photo by the author
I waited for a cloudy day to take the pictures.
Foreshadowing.
Both offer the full range of services, from independent living to memory care. We have friends who are from a half to a full decade older than us in both places. One just moved from independent to assisted living. Another into nursing care, after giving up driving last year. He had lost his peripheral vision.
I’m 76, and my partner, Rebecca, is 74.
This is our senior redoubt. It has everything we need on the ground floor.
Photo by the author
You can see the garage in the back, with one slot for each of our cars.
Photo by the author
We know our body and mind clocks are ticking. Three days ago, we raked the leaves from our eight trees. Two days ago, we trimmed back the garden growth you see around the front porch. Yesterday, we put away the porch furniture.
We used to do all three tasks one after the other.
Now, we work on one in the morning and nap after lunch.
We have a friend, Jon, who is a little younger and in good health, as far as we know, who sold his house and moved into a condo unit on one of the senior campuses. He didn’t want to be a bother to his brothers when he could no longer care for himself, so he’s taken the first step into the assembly line of services.
For almost two decades, I’ve told myself I will not be like my mother, who, psychologically, chained herself to her home until her sons had no choice, as she had started wandering outside at night.
As I sit here writing this story, in the comfort of my home, I worry that I will be just as vulnerable as she was to not accepting that my aging body and mind have placed me in a region where I need help.
My kindergarten teacher said we shouldn’t lie, even to ourselves, especially when it’s so easy to do.
Photo of the Tuesday morning crew by Food Pantry Director Matt Tapscott
After the sermon, Jesus said, “Give them something to eat,” and then turned a few loaves of bread and two fish into food for thousands.
For our community in northeast Iowa, the miracle of providing sustenance to those in need comes from volunteers.
Meet the Tuesday morning crew. It includes nurses, an optometrist, a dentist, a basketball coach, a college president, a farmer, several small business owners, a banker, and, I’m guessing, a candlestick maker.
When a pantry client fills out a registration form, they put their name, address, and the number of people they live with, period, as in nothing else is asked.
Yesterday, we handled 1200 pounds of food donated by grocery stores and 2000 pounds from a regional government distribution center.
In 2025, the pantry will distribute 330,000 pounds to 2,000 families.
Above all, Jesus and other spiritual guides need someone on earth to stock the shelves.
When I got home, I realized it was open — had been down for two hours — while I stocked shelves at the food pantry, on a step ladder, with ten others, men and women. Perhaps, at our age, no one noticed or cared.
My barn door, in mixed company, such quaint language, exposing my age.
It ain’t easy being 76. At least I’m no longer in front of a classroom. Unless it’s a Life Long Learning class, with other — what’s the current correct term — older Americans. But in my last class, someone offered, “Aren’t we North Americans?” and another, “What about Canada?”
Next time, I’ll stay behind the podium.
In the safety of my bathroom, as I stood in repose, I thought, This is my chance to begin a meditation routine. One of my favorite Medium writers, Gary Buzzard, provides ‘One minute can change your life.’
Fifteen miles into my three-hour road trip to the Okoboji Writers and Songwriters Retreat, I turned my Subaru Forester around. Adjusting the rearview mirror, I had noticed a tiny hair sticking out of my right nostril. Or was it my left? Mirrors are confusing.
But not the image of my grooming kit sitting on the kitchen table, and not in my suitcase. Anticipating a new experience makes me nervous. I blame my mother for sending me to kindergarten at 4. Since then, any new playground seems overwhelming.
Throughout my 76 years, I’ve had many security blankets. Ever since my nose and ear hairs started sprouting at an ever-accelerating rate, three decades ago, it’s been my personal care utensils.
What would my writer workshop cohort think of me, with a log sticking out of my nose? It’s easy for real writers not to care about insignificant matters such as personal grooming. They have books that sit as sentries, mocking the pretenders as they wait in line to register and be assigned their rooms.
Photo by the author
You understand the problem, don’t you? Perhaps you, too, in similar circumstances, have felt like an imposter, even when surrounded by a gaggle of charming, ordinary-looking people, some of whom, truth be told, could use a trim here, a snip there, or a tuck somewhere.
Photo by the author
“And all,” as one of our presenters reminded us, “are writers with unique stories to tell.”
Even trimmed, snipped, and tucked me.
The Middle
Iowa, believe it or not, is a writer’s paradise. It has the famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop located on the campus of the University of Iowa. And now, planted five years ago, this annual late September three-day conference is rooted in a beautiful piece of land surrounded by five interconnected lakes in north central Iowa. It has grown from 50 participants in the first year to 300 this year.
Every morning, we would gather early in this tent to hear a little music and short introductions by the day’s workshop speakers.
Photo by the author
We would then scatter across the wooded Lakeside Laboratory campus to one of fifteen options, with two 75-minute sessions each morning and afternoon. The intention is to have each workshop small enough for conversation and tutoring. The number of participants in the ten classes I attended ranged from ten to twenty-five.
The speakers were uniformly gregarious, professional, and insightful.
Photo by the author
To give you a sense of the smorgasbord of choices, here were mine over two and a half days.
Storytelling Basics
The Art of Brevity
How to get others to care about your memoir
How to find and grow your original idea
Opinion writing: Finding your voice
Lazy Use of Language and Rethinking Words
Investigative Journalism and Democracy
Songwriting as Storytelling
Poetry as a coping tool
Making Broccoli Delicious (about how to make a dull story interesting)
And here are my favorite quotes from presenters.
I have to write to live.
Find the angle that nobody else sees.
You are the only one who sees things as you do. That is your power.
A story (memoir) is a vehicle for transcendence.
I moved back to Iowa from Florida because I noticed that in Florida, I saw no bookshelves and very large shoe closets.
One secret to writing is to create momentum. Always leave something unfinished for tomorrow.
The reader looks for any reason to stop reading. Don’t give them that reason. Never start a sentence with THE and do not overuse commas. And put your hook in the first sentence. Eliminate spare wording. Hemingway never wrote a sentence of more than 12 words.
Begin your story with a scene (action, dialogue, character, and setting).
The End
It turns out I wasn’t the only imposter.
I met many who questioned their writerly credentials.
John has self-published two mysteries, but “don’t real writers find real publishers?”
Dennis, a retired Navy officer and attorney, has stories inside him that have started to come out, with the help of last year’s workshop, so his wife sent him back for another dose. He’s taking baby steps.
Kathy, whose husband died four years ago, has just finished a book that has been accepted by a New York publisher for a “memoir of mourning” that she started writing after the first Okoboji workshop.
Ernest, a self-described blue-collar worker, has kept a journal for years, and now “it’s time to give it form and structure.”
Hi, I’m Paul, with a few scholarly articles in a fifty-year academic career. In the spring of 2018, I wrote weekly stories for friends and relatives about a four-month experience with college students on the island nation of Malta. After retiring in that same year, I started a blog on WordPress, paulmuses.com. A few years later, I joined Medium. Now, 700+ stories later, I guess,
It figures Pastor Jay would shepherd my first convertible ride. And that he purchased this high-mileage 1999 Chrysler Sebring from his next-door neighbor.
On the passenger side floor was a sledgehammer that Jay uses to tap the ignition key six times if it refuses to turn, advice he received from his mechanic brother.
Earlier in the day, a high school homecoming queen preened from my spot.
On the way to pick up a large House Special Pizza, I tried the Regal Wave and lightly brushed my right index finger knuckle against the edge of the windshield. The counter lady found a Band-Aid for my crepey finger.
Her pizza-king husband built a mansion-style house across from the high school as a middle-finger gesture many understand.
Fifty-five years ago, I mounted a friend’s motorcycle and dodged another soft-top into a telephone pole.
Photo by the author of Valentin de Boulogne’s Four Ages of Man, from The Courtauld Gallery in London
What three things do we want to do in the final quarter of our lives? asks Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle. A sensible question from an octogenarian, says this spring chicken septuagenarian.
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The enviable thing about being Ronald and my age is that we know it’s October in the calendar of life. Time is too precious to waste; leave Facebook to the callow sixty-year-olds.
Like Ronald, I am the reflective man in the middle of the painting. If that’s my only glass of wine today, and ‘tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,’ an insurance longevity calculator gives me a 75% chance of living another 13 years from my current 76. Of course, it wants me to buy an annuity.
Old people today are different from those depicted in 17th-century Italy by de Boulogne. They’re doing more than contemplating and receding into the background. They’re playing pickleball.
And traveling, first on my list. This is my partner Rebecca (74) and me in Namibia last summer.
Photo by Brian Hesse
In two days, we’ll board Amtrak’s Empire Builder in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, for a five-hour ride to Chicago and three days of sightseeing. One of our goals is to see more of America, particularly the America within a few hours of our home in northeast Iowa. On the horizon are half-week trips to Minneapolis, Kansas City, and, stretching it a bit, Salt Lake City.
This approach is partly a concession to age. Our journey back from the summer safari in Namibia, itself a final quarter goal, was a 32-hour travel day, including 22 hours in the air and 10 hours in airports.
Each time I twist a lid, whether for a pickle or a pill, I hear my doctor’s words, ‘Paul, we lose 1% of our gripping power every year after 50.’ Surely, the same is true for stamina, thus our shorter jaunts. And a more relaxing form of transportation, like
2.
The Empire Builder, from Chicago to Seattle. What an American name! And so true. On our two train stints, I will have these two books in my backpack.
Photo by the author
And pull them out in the double-decker lounge car with the panoramic view. I’m reading these volumes by historian Grandin because I believe he might help me understand how the country without the acute accent over the E has taken two steps back on its trek toward a “More Perfect Union,” with the re-election of Donald Trump.
Ronald, that’s thing #2, understanding my country. I’m a retired academic, so this comes naturally. Here’s a quote from Myth (p. 270) that I hope also tantalizes you.
After centuries of fleeing forward across the blood meridian [America’s westward expansion], all the things that expansion was supposed to preserve have been destroyed, and all the things it was meant to destroy have been preserved. Instead of peace, there’s endless war. Instead of a critical, resilient, and progressive citizenry, a conspiratorial nihilism, rejecting reason and dreading change has taken hold. Factionalism congealed and won a national election.
In the margin, next to this quote, I’ve etched WOW.
3.
For a concluding moment, let’s return to de Boulogne’s Four Ages of Man painting and look again at the older man. He’s played, caroused, fought, and, now, perhaps, he’s at peace, ready to let go. There will be others who will take up his burdens.
Ronald, like you, I’m not quite ready for this stage. I’m still in the doing mode, with my lists. But relinquishing my grip on the world, I think, will not be as hard as I once thought.
My 3rd goal is to hold this loosening idea in my imagination, not to fear it.
It’s not as far away as it once was.
Besides, when I release my grip on the world, Donald Trump loses his stranglehold.
