Getting Older

By Kim Brandell

An unassuming man without ambition changes his small world with hard work and loyalty. Love and perserversance are rewarded as a man grows from young to old, innocent to wise, and alone to surrounded by those who care. A journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kim Brandell
• Release date: Apr 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223726869

Book preview

BEFORE WE BEGIN

The alarm clock had been set to roust me at 8:00, but the irritating small white box with bright green numbers didn’t make a sound. I didn’t need it. It was irrelevant, unnecessary. At 7:55, I turned from the center of the bed and my wife’s exposed and wrinkled back, reached for the clock, flipped a switch from ALARM to OFF, and looked at the piece of plastic with an irritating voice designed to disturb peacefulness, said, Fuck you, bastard.

If you’re offended by foul language, colorful profanity, dirty words, or cursing, I apologize and suggest you close this book and return it to the shelf. If you’re reading this on a computer screen, decline delivery or click the button that says, After reading the sample, I refuse to buy. Don’t waste your money. Don’t pay for what offends you. I wouldn’t. Profanity is who I am, and because this book is my story, it will be littered with offensive language. Sorry. Shit. Fuck. Son-of-a-bitch. Asshole. Prick. Goddamn it. Sorry, but I thought I’d get it out of the way. You’ve been warned, so if you’re easily offended by harsh words, Buzz off Fuck Face.

Sorry. I’m nearly 80 years old, born in 1940, and have been told I’m irascible. Maybe. Maybe not. I’d say, Not a chance. Warm. Easy-going. Kind. But I’m biased; I’m me; I judge myself positively. You’re not me; your neutrality is less compromised than mine; you are the judge. But if we disagree, if you conclude I’m an ass, understand, I’ll take five steps away, turn toward you and say, Asshole.

I remember V-J Day and V-E Day, but sometimes I can’t remember my next-door neighbor’s name. He’s lived next door to me for 43 years. I see him daily and wave, but I don’t use his name. I’m not sure what it is. A long time ago, when I was in my late sixties, we golfed together on Tuesday evenings. He wasn’t outstanding, but that didn’t bother me; I wasn’t excellent then, either. He grew up in Wisconsin, so he lauded the Packers, Brett Favre, and then Aaron Rodgers, and smiled when asking me how many Super Bowls the Vikings had won. My answer was always the same; I grinned, shook my head, and said, Fuck you. But, despite our long-standing lot line and personal history, I can’t always remember his name.

I asked my doctor, the second longest serving doc at Allina Clinic in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, whose name I can’t quite recall at the moment, if forgetting my neighbor’s name or the way home from a small restaurant I found only after GPS told me to turn nine times and make a U-turn, was a sign of Alzheimer’s. He laughed and said, Nah, sometimes I can’t remember the difference between Zoloft and Wellbutrin, but I prescribe both daily. It’s just older age. We have too many things to remember. Don’t worry—no big deal. I’m okay, you’re okay, it’s okay. No big deal.

I smiled. Later that afternoon, when I handed my pharmacist my prescription, and she said, Zoloft, my smile disappeared. Fuck.

The irrelevant clock with the muted but potentially irritating voice remained silent while I lay in bed and inventoried my body. Numb fingers? Check. Heel pain? Check. Tight and uncomfortable small-of-the-back? Check. Failing vision, unable to differentiate between a seven and a one on the clock? Check. Nauseous stomach? Check. Bright and cheery attitude? No fucking way. I’m nearly 80.

PROLOGUE 2

The timid, the easily offended, have left. It’s only us, and truth be told; I didn’t want them here, so I pointed my word sword at their very sensitive hearts and chased them away so we could have the book to ourselves. I’m not that bad. It was a rouse. My doctor’s name is Clarence Berg, I don’t take Zoloft or Wellbutrin, my neighbor’s name is either Chip or Lester, and my fingers aren’t that numb.

ONE

I was born on July 21, 1940, in Anoka, Minnesota, in what was constructed as the Charles Pratt home on the banks of the Rum River. The Pratt home had been converted into a hospital in 1938 by an Anoka doctor who determined the 17-mile commute from Anoka to Minneapolis and St. Barnabus Hospital was too far for him and his patients. After transforming the home into a hospital, Doc Hayes delivered children in what once was Charlie Pratt’s bedroom and removed tonsils in what once was Charlie’s daughter’s bedroom. I took my first breath in Charlie Pratt’s old bedroom, the Delivery Room of the Anoka Hospital, and four years later, in his daughter’s bedroom, I had my tonsils removed.

Anoka, proclaimed by Congress as the Halloween Capital of the World, was largely independent of Minneapolis in the 1940’s. It had its own train depot, department stores, car dealerships, top-end restaurants, town-team baseball club, golf course, courthouse, electricity generating dam, high school, and in 1938, its own hospital. Anoka was quiet, safe, and in the forties, a great place to be a child.

My sister Karen was born in 1938, and my brother Todd was born in late 1955. Karen spent most of 1955 visiting my grandmother in Texas. My mom showed little sign of pregnancy before Todd was born, but regardless of what the evidence suggested, Todd called my mom Mom. When Karen, my sister, tried to discipline or teach him and anoint him with the tools needed to get by, he ignored her in the same way I ignored her. Huh? Get lost.

Dad was a lawyer who detested the law, courtrooms, judges, opposing counsel, and his clients. He wore a suit to the office daily. He drank himself to sleep each night, grumbling about account receivables, intractable opposing lawyers, stupid judges, and naïve clients who refused to pay their bills on time. When I was nine, on a night, it stormed, and Legion Post 103 was closed. Dad tucked me in bed and, using slurred speech, asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I told him, A lawyer like you, the slur in the words he spoke disappeared, and, sounding as sober as a stupid judge, he said, Don’t you dare! God damnit! Fuck!

I was an impressionable child—no wonder I use the words I use.

It was the only time I had heard Dad say Fuck. I knew it was a bad word, a really bad word, so I knew he was serious when he used it. And drunk. I was nine. Law school could wait. I could decide against attendance. But Fuck? I asked my dad what the word meant as he sat on the end of my bed with rounded shoulders. What’s fuck? Afraid to offend the God I prayed to each night in the bed I lay, I whispered the last four letters. Fuck. What’s fuck.

Before Dad answered, he tipped a glass filled with ice and a brown, smelly liquid to his mouth and drank. He contemplated his answer to my question, What’s fuck? He looked at me, then at the ceiling, took another drink, stood, and left my bedroom without answering my question. Seconds after disappearing down the hall, he returned, grabbed the bedroom door frame to prevent a fall, and whispered, Good night.

When I was 12 and walking from Leeds Drug Store to North Street Park to play baseball, Chuck Dahl answered the question I had asked my dad three years earlier. I’d love to fuck Grace Mason. When I looked at Chuck and asked with my eyes what he meant when he said fuck Grace Mason, unlike Dad, he answered quickly, succinctly and proudly. Put my dick in her pee-hole.

So, I knew law school wasn’t an option.

*****

I considered medical school, but Doctor Hayes, who converted the Pratt mansion into the hospital where I was born, had convinced me to reconsider. Doc Hayes drank with my dad. When I was 13 and the two men were drunk at our kitchen table, I snuck from my bedroom and listened to them talk and right then and there, decided against medical school. Doctor Hayes was drunk, his words slurred, but his thoughts articulate. "Can’t win as a doctor. Treat ‘em; they bitch about the bill and ignore the lump to save them a little money and learn too late, it’s cancer, they die, and their kids, who were too occupied with other things to bring them to the clinic or pay the bill, sue and you’re fucked. You can’t win. Earn a buck, you’re fucked. Try to save them a buck, you’re fucked. Fuck."

So, I knew medical school wasn’t an option. And assumed Fuck meant more than Chuck had said.

I wanted to be a professional baseball player and play center field for the Yankees, but I had no talent. I watched snowy pictures on our television and decided it would be wonderful to be Ed Sullivan, Milton Berle, or Jack Benny. However, I had no talent or connections; my face was too long, and my eyes were too small for television cameras. I knew and liked Paul Moore, who fixed car engines, lived in a comfortable house, and raised seven children who appeared well-fed and clothed but didn’t like grease under my nails or the smell of gasoline. My tenth-grade guidance counselor thought I’d make a good teacher, but I didn’t like clingy, runny-nosed elementary school kids or smart-mouthed high schoolers, so when she made her suggestion, I nodded, but the nod was insincere. No way. No fucking way.

I didn’t know. My future was murky and unclear.

When I graduated high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be. I explored my professional options as a college graduate. Education? Medicine? Sociology? Law? Accounting? Business? I attended college for three years, looking for a calling, and when I couldn’t choose a major because I continued to be uncertain and ambivalent, I enlisted in the Navy. Sir, yes, Sir.

*****

When I drove home after raising my right hand at the recruiter’s office and proudly told my dad what I had done, he took a long draw from his glass filled with ice and booze, shook his head, and said, Fuck.

The Navy trained me to be an Air Controller. I attended school in Pensacola, Florida, for 32 weeks and was transferred to Norfolk, Virginia, to help control the sky over the Navy’s largest base. Before I was able to tell any pilot he was cleared for landing, I was given a flight physical to determine if I was physically able to act as an Air Controller. When I was told I had no depth perception and, as a result, could not act as an Air Controller, I appealed the decision to the Base Commander, asking him to overrule the decision and allow me to do what my Navy education had taught me to do.

My appeal was in writing. I wrote it. Three days after I filed it, I was ordered to appear before the Base Commander.

I walked into the Commander’s office, saluted, said Sir, Yes sir, three times, and was ordered to sit in a leather chair that faced the Commander’s desk. When I did, he spoke.

Quist, did you write the appeal? I’m Robert Quist. My friends call me Bobby. My Navy superiors called me Quist.

Yes, sir, I did.

He smiled. "What did you mean when you said depth perception is as indispensable to an air controlman as bark to a flag pole?"

That I could do the job adequately and safely without depth perception, Sir.

He smiled. Even wider than he had before. "And when you described a plane waiting to land as similar to a mother-to-be in labor, crying for the relief delivered by birth, you meant?"

That the plane needs to land and a pregnant woman needs to give birth and the needs scream for attention and fast action.

The Commander shook his head, laughed, looked at the Appeal on the desk before him, and ended the Appeal’s inquiry. Sorry, Quist. Your Appeal will be denied. No depth perception, no Air Controlman. It’s Naval regulations pronounced by the Chief of Naval Operations. There’s nothing I can do about it. The modern Navy would have tested your depth perception before sending you to a 32-week-long school, but that’s the modern Navy, and we belong to the Navy, which concluded so few have depth perception issues that we’ll educate them first and test them later. The Navy. He smiled again. Nearly 200 years of tradition, unspoiled by progress. Sorry.

He waited for my reaction, but when I gave none, he answered the question I had silently asked myself. Then and for the five years earlier. Question is, what do we do with you now? He looked out the window, watched an F-4 land, and shook his head. He returned to me. And I have a suggestion. I loved your Appeal. I read it three times and laughed out loud six times. You injected humor into your requests and arguments and did a damn good job.

I blushed and reacted. Thank you, Sir.

I liked what I read. Persuasive, fun, and insightful. You’re a writer.

I’d never considered myself a writer. In high school, my aptitude tests suggested my brain was manufactured for math and science, so in college, I took Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics, not Creative Writing. Mathematician? Maybe. Physicist? Perhaps. Air Controller? Hopefully. Writer. No way. Thank you, Sir. I never thought of myself as a writer. Never took classes in writing.

He stood, leaned against his desk, and, grinning three feet from where I sat, said, If you’re that good without training, it’s all-natural, and I’m impressed.

Wow! That good?

Impressed with myself and what I had written, emboldened by his praise but still hungry, I almost piled on. I had impressed him. It showed. I had more. Should I give more and magnify the applause? Do it again? I almost asked, As impressed as the doctor who delivers twins, one black and one white? I almost asked, As impressed as the controller who watches a pilot land a fighter jet on a flight deck without an arresting hook? I almost preened and begged for more, but understanding a slight blush was more impressive than an obvious burn; I said nothing.  

The Commander offered his hand, and when I took it and shook it, he revealed his plan with the corners of his mouth reaching for his ear lobes. We’re starting a newspaper here at the base. It’ll be a once-a-week publication for the sailors who are stationed here. Special interest stories, news stories, and editorials consistent with the President’s politics and the Navy’s traditions. A fun read. I’ve found an editor and a printer and need three writers. You’re my third writer. He winked. Congratulations. Have fun.

––––––––

The die was cast. Lawyer? No. Doctor. Nope. Ballplayer, air controlman, mechanic, television personality, mathematician, physicist, teacher? No, not a chance, according to the Navy, no, no, no, no, and no. A writer, a newspaperman? Yes. Perfect.

TWO

World War II ended 15 years before I joined the Navy. Korean hostilities permanently recessed five years before I met with a Commander and learned I’d be a newspaperman. French armies occupied Vietnam, and American involvement in Southeast Asia was on the distant horizon while I wore a Navy cap on my head and saluted gold bars. I was lucky. I served my Country’s military during the few years my country wasn’t at war. I was lucky, very lucky. Well, kinda.

Lieutenant Commander George Thistle was the newly appointed editor of The Norfolk News, the newspaper to which I had been assigned. The paper’s first issue was ten days away, and Thistle had never before edited a newspaper. He read a newspaper almost daily, had been a newspaper delivery boy in the thirties, and was affable and willing to be an editor. So, with minimal experience in newspapers, he was appointed Editor.

Thistle was a World War II veteran. He survived the hostilities without hostility. He whistled, tapped his left toe when on the telephone, and sang with the radio when driving. He rarely knew the lyrics but always knew the melody and could carry a tune, so he did. When Thistle was drunk, which was often, he often remembered riding in the backseat of The Enola Gay behind Paul Tibbets. When really drunk, which was as often as when he was drunk, he remembered flipping a switch and watching a bomb, Little Boy, fall, tumble, and land on Hiroshima, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians.

His involvement in the bombing of Hiroshima spawned guilt and the need to forget or at least muffle the memory and led him to whistle, tap, drink, and sing. Haunted and often drunk, Thistle found solace in music and booze.

We met on May 13, 1962. I stood at attention, saluted his gold bars, and said, Seaman Robert Quist reporting for duty. Sir.

Commander Thistle smiled, hummed a recognizable tune, returned my salute, and said, That’s the last time you salute me or call me Sir. We’re newspapermen. Just a couple of newspapermen. Forget about the uniform, the bars, stripes, or differences in pay; we’re just newspapermen. Colleagues. Friends. Newspapermen.

I identified the tune he hummed as Tom Dooley, and when I did, coincidentally, the music ended, and he smiled again. He motioned for me to sit. I sat, and after I did, I acknowledged his belief that our rank was unimportant, that we were just newspapermen. Understood. Rank’s not important. Understood Commander.

He laughed at the ambiguity in my statement. George. George Thistle. That’s me. Rank means nothing. Just George. He blew his nose, inspected the contents of his Kleenex, wrinkled his nose in disgust, balled his tissue, threw it and whatever had been in his nose in the wastebasket, and continued. He grinned. "Or Boss. That’s better. Like Perry White, Editor of Clark Kent’s newspaper. It recognizes our roles in the newspaper without putting me on an unearned pedestal. Boss. It’s a euphemism for a small step up, a tiny step. Perfect. Call me Boss, and when we share a drink, then call me George. Okay?"

I was a quick learner, and the Navy’s structure and formalities were alien to my nature, so I quickly and easily implemented what the Lieutenant Commander had said. "Got it, Boss."

Boss rifled through a short stack of papers on his desk, and while he did, The Kinston Trio’s Tom Dooley died while Boss breathed life into Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. When he found what he was looking for, Boss read, hummed, and said, Your personnel file. Like me, you’re a neophyte. It looks like we’re gonna learn this newspaper business together. It’ll be fun. And we’ve got a couple of experienced guys in the back. They can teach, and we can learn. He blew his nose again, looked, frowned in disgust, mumbled Gross, and asked, Questions?

I had many. Write about what? Work hours? Limits on content? Pulitzer ambitions? A Sports Section? I didn’t ask. No. We’ll figure it out as we learn. Together.

Boss stood, put his hands on his hips, scanned his office looking for direction, a hint as to what he was to do next, and when he found it, said, Let’s go meet the other guys.

Boss smiled and opened a door that connected his office with a larger one with four desks and a small printing press. Two men, White and Black, dressed in civilian clothes, sat at desks in the office adjacent to Boss’ office. The White man’s feet were on top of his desk, and when he saw Lieutenant Commander Thistle, they remained on top of his desk. He smiled.

I followed Boss. He stepped around a mound of propellers and over a tray on wheels filled with wrenches and screwdrivers and, looking at what had been left behind, said, Former tenants.

Boss stopped when he stood between the two occupied desks and introduced me to Petty Officer Paul Prentiss, a Black, 24-year-old college graduate from North Georgia, and Fred Dehn, a White Ensign who graduated college one year before we met. Enlisted man Prentiss earned a Masters’ Degree in Journalism from the University of North Georgia, and Officer Dehn matriculated with a Bachelors’ Degree in Political Science from Providence College. The modern Navy. Logic? Fuck logic.

Paul dropped his feet from the desktop to the floor and stood. I shook the hands of my co-workers. After we exchanged names and silence embarrassed us all, Boss spoke. "Quist and I decided that from now on, I’m Boss. Just Boss. Not Commander, not Sir, just Boss. He looked at Prentiss and Dehn, grinned, and asked, Understood?"

While my fellow newspapermen nodded, an older man, likely in his mid-twenties, walked from the back of the large room, wiping his ink-covered hands with an ink-stained navy blue rag. He stopped ten feet from where Boss, Prentiss, Dehn, and I had formed a circle and said, "Press is working. For how long, I don’t know, but it’s working now and can print 10,000 copies of The Norfolk News as soon as you guys write it."

The man with dirty hands and a rag walked closer to where we stood and offered his right hand. I hesitated a bit, but not long enough for him to notice. I took hold of his right hand, shook it, and said, Bobby Quist.

Doug Peltier.

When we finished our handshake, Peltier inspected his right hand, then mine, and handed me his rag. From Minnesota?

Yup. Anoka.

Peltier reached for his rag, and when I returned it, he tried to clean his dirty hands with dirty cotton and added, I’m from Fridley. Just down the road.

I was about to tell Peltier that I ate pizza in Fridley almost every Friday night during my high school years and dated a girl who graduated from Fridley High School, but before I could ask him if he knew the girl or had eaten the pizza, Boss asked him to call him Boss. When Peltier responded with Okay, Boss, Boss pointed at an empty desk near the printer and, looking at me, said, "That’s yours, Bobby."

I sat at my desk and grinned. Boss smiled and said, Put your feet up; you’re a newspaperman.

As the blood began to drain from my elevated feet, Boss asked Prentiss and Dehn what occupied their time and returned to Tom Dooley as they told him they were selling advertising and writing about the Nautilus’ trip beneath the North Pole and the Saratoga, a relatively new aircraft carrier. Boss nodded approval, hummed Lonesome Town, smiled broadly, and said, Well done. Newspapermen doing the work of a newspaper. Good.

As I listened to the four experienced newspapermen talk about the news, the four W’s and the H’s, mastheads, bylines, editorials, cartoons, folio, banners, column inches, and proofs, as I sensed their excitement and joy, I marveled at my luck. I failed my flight physical because I had no depth perception and was rewarded for my infirmity with an assignment that had fueled Hemmingway and Cronkite. So lucky. So fortunate. Like the others, I smiled. Broadly.

After praising his newspapermen and completing Tom Dooley, Boss clapped his hands and assigned me my first story. "Bobby, here’s one for you. Meets your writing style. Vice President Nixon was in Venezuela before becoming a candidate to succeed his boss. He was there as America’s number two, fighting the cold war. His motorcade was attacked by Communists who don’t like the United States, with rocks. Imagine that, a man a heartbeat from the Presidency of the United States of America, a man who likely knows the nuclear codes, attacked by people with sticks, rocks and bottles. Amazing. Now, no one was hurt, or at least the Vice President wasn’t hurt, but the attack was frightening and defined America’s role in the Cold War, the war we’re fighting. When I was your age, we fought the Japanese and the Nazis, armies that attacked us with guns and bombs. Now, we fight an unknown enemy gripping rocks and an alien philosophy, and we fight them with words, foreign aid, and campaign contributions. It was black and white; now, it’s gray and confusing. Thousands of sailors on this base enlisted to fight a traditional war or keep the peace by brandishing aircraft carriers, fighter jets, ships’ guns, torpedoes, submarines, and bombs. Things have changed. Have they? Have the sailors? Do they accept their more complicated role as a Cold War sailor? Are they happy or satisfied as a cold warrior?"

*****

Before my introduction to Boss, I thought I’d write stories about the cost of cigarettes at the Naval Exchange, the shine on decks made by wax and buffers, or use the Base newspaper to announce the planned wedding of a wing commander and a Captain in charge of the Navy’s Secretarial Pool. I assumed I’d write drivel, not a story about the complicated reaction of sailors with a forties mentality to the political realities of the 1960s. The assigned task was challenging, thoughtful, and complex. Writing the assigned story would require research, interviews, and descriptive words, my kind of words. The assignment was more than yesterday’s dream, much more than my expectations. Perfect.

When do I start Boss?

Boss looked at his watch, which he wore on his right wrist, laughed, and said, You’re late.

.....and I was a reporter, a newspaperman, a happy sailor.

THREE

I’d never written a story for a newspaper. I didn’t know how. I was a newspaperman without newspaper experience. I read the comics and sports pages as a kid, and in