I was walking Jake this morning,a clear cool beginning, and musing on the choice for this blog. Why prudent? And I thought of past lives in this go around. I have not always aspired to being prudent . Until adolescence I was just not aware of aiming for anything. I was just a boy among boys and girls except when Dawn and I were Horses cantering over the plains(school-yard) and various other animals. I like many children just were.
Adolescence, among other influences, introduced Otherhood, and the competitive drive to aspire to a word, an abstraction such as Popular or loser, or Greaser, or nerd. Some illusion located outside my self, my own knowledge..For the first time I was not content with being just as I was. Laughed at for liking classical music and reading. Taunted for being smart….news to me and for wearing button down shirts and cotton slacks..taunted by whom? The guys I wanted to like me. They wore Brando black cycle jackets ,had duck tails rode motorcycles. True they were headed for the army, and parole officers, and jobs in gas stations and I was slated for college but they had a style that outshone my peers. They were cool and we were ordinary. So my first aimed for persona was Rebel Without a Clue. There were obstacles. I had an Ivy League Haircut (a buzz cut in back longer over the forehead) the only haircut accepted by my parents…Also a dearth of Black leather jackets in my closet and no hope of being gifted one. My parents saw jeans as an item of clothing worn after school or on Saturdays. AND their view of white tee-shirts was that they were underwear. You see the problem. The other great obstacle? I was an obedient son. Others solved the problem by running away from home ala On the Road. Not an option …One can’t take one’s lps and books on the road and there was the problem of food and shelter that loomed ….Golly I am like Proust going on about falling asleep. I will return to this later
The Prudent Pensioner 