James Eichenlaub

Posted on: Aug 06, 2022 at 7:36 AM

Do you recall the first time you said, “Well, back in the day.” Or worse, “Back in my day, we…”?

Personally, I call it existential whiplash (maybe I heard that somewhere, I don’t remember). Regardless, it amounts to the time when we were an up-and-comer, full of ambition, ideas, and knees we could use when climbing stairs, running, jumping, and maybe even dancing.

Then suddenly, without realizing it, you become someone who talks about how things used to be, i.e., that slow erosion of “what is to come,” giving way to “my path is set for me.”

Next, you feel numbness in your feet, and swelling in your ankles. Your belly begins to creep out over your beltline and you find yourself forgetting names, missing appointments, anniversaries, birthdays, etc. This happens about the same time you begin to notice a joint aches longer than it should.

Then the family begins to fade
Eventually, you begin to notice how invisible you’ve become in rooms where you were once sought after. The tragedy isn’t just in the physical decline — though that’s real enough. It’s in the slow disconnection from relevance, as if your lived wisdom now sits in a language the present no longer reads.

And yet, there’s no bitterness here — not if you’ve learned the right lessons. The stoic sees aging not as a punishment, but as an inevitable tax for time well-lived. A fee exacted by nature for the privilege of being here, thinking, breathing, choosing.

https://medium.com/@madboomer52/the-last-enemy-death-23be8f9907ef?sk=542f1600654e254e4e6a095fade57a87

Posted on: Aug 06, 2022 at 6:36 AM

Posted on: Jan 23, 2020 at 10:10 AM

Posted on: Jul 08, 2019 at 10:50 AM

Having lived through Don McLean's, American Pie, we are a generation the likes of which will never be seen again, as they say. Our school years were, without doubt, our 'formative' years, and for myself...as one who does NOT recall those year with fondness, I say to all those who belittled, punched, slapped, ignored, laughed at, and ridiculed me: I thank you!

To those few whom I do fondly remember (Randy, Ralph, and Will) I say thank you as well, you made those last few year tolerable enough, and there were so many others I knew only in passing; those to whom I was just another kid in school and who generally ignored me; I thank you for not being unkind.

A special thanks to Ted P., who tried to bring me up in stature and style but was unable to rescue me from my darkness. To Fred C., who was a giant among students and who often kept the bullies off of me, and to Amy D. (with whom I had a torrid love affair, but she never knew about it because we never spoke to one another), and to whom I looked forward to passing in the hall and would walk as near to her as I possibly could, and scurried away when she looked in my direction.

We can attribute our successes and failures, to some degree, on those years we spent together. To some, the happiest years of their lives, to others, just a passing mirage of friendships where hearts and minds connected with one another to form this succession of timeless acquaintances. To some few of us, however; it was a time when we were convinced that we lived outside the norm and standard; the small, the inept, the presumed indolent whose lives sprung from poverty and lacked erudition.

Finally, to Mr. Butler who, during orientation, convinced me that high school was not for me when he said, “Eichenlaub…another dropout like the rest of your lazy family,” setting the tone with which I would attend to the next few years of my ‘learning’. But, as it turns out, those words echoed in my mind through all these years and actually became a proponent of my success. Thank you Mr. Butler.