{"id":8561,"date":"2007-11-23T11:41:25","date_gmt":"2007-11-23T16:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2007\/11\/23\/pity-the-baby-boomer-raconteur\/"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:53:37","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:53:37","slug":"pity-the-baby-boomer-raconteur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2007\/11\/23\/pity-the-baby-boomer-raconteur\/","title":{"rendered":"pity the baby-boomer raconteur"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"questionDude\" H<\/em><\/strong>e’s always styled himself the family’s raconteur<\/a>. Around the holiday table, where food, weather and health reports tend to be the primary topics of the elder generation, he would spice the conversation with odd tales from the internet, barbs for politicians and celebrities in the news, and opinions on new movies and recently-read books.<\/p>\n

\n

the pretty one?
\nnot even
\non the tip of my tongue<\/p>\n

……………………… by dagosan<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This year, though, he’s driving to Thanksgiving Dinner with a suitcase overstuffed with self-doubt. After years of joking about his “peri-dementia<\/a>,” the joke is getting stale and the reality far from funny.\u00a0 That damn tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon<\/a> seems to happen all day, every day. And, frankly, the lost name or word sometimes is nowhere near the tip of his tongue.<\/p>\n

\"erasingF\" “All the wrong synapses seem to be broken,” he said a few weeks ago, after flawlessly singing all the words to “Off My Cloud<\/a>” and “Angie<\/a>” on a Halloween party dance floor, but forgetting the name of the lovely, recently-divorced judge who convincingly exchanged her black robe for a cheerleader costume that night.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Heading down the Thruway, he can’t seem to recall the title (nor the plot) of either of those films he watched on dvd and really<\/em> enjoyed earlier this week — much less the names of their Generation X leading men.\u00a0 And, he can only picture the face of that annoying Senator from, um, that Rocky Mountain Red State, who wants to round up all the aliens at the meat-packing plants in one of those primary states.\u00a0 He wonders if he’ll get a chance to see that new movie while home; the one based on the novel<\/a> he praised so much a year or two ago, by — you know — that guy who wrote that trilogy and won the Pulitzer (or was it a Nobel)?<\/p>\n

Uncle Vito’s scratchy voice returns from four decades ago, saying the pudgy 10-year-old “tells jokes like a girl” — restarting twice and forgetting the punchline. He wonders whether Vito’s widow will be bringing her infamous jello salad concoction, and if her hip operation was a success.<\/p>\n

the octagenarian
\nfills in my blank ………….
\nagain<\/p>\n

………………………………. by dagosan<\/em>, a\/k\/a<\/em> david giacalone<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“The Joy of a Peanuts Christmas<\/a><\/em>” by Charles Schulz (Hallmark Books, 2000; cartoon originally published, Nov. 21, 1990)<\/p>\n

\n

mountain village\u2013
\nthe old man doesn\u2019t know
\nthe dance<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

cuckoo
\nwhat did you forget?
\nretracing steps<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 by Kobayashi Issa<\/a>, translated by David G. Lanoue \"don't<\/p>\n

\n

early Alzheimer\u2019s
\nshe says she\u2019ll have . . .
\nthe usual<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026 by John Stevenson from Quiet Enough<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

mid-argument
\nthe senior partner
\nhas a senior minute<\/p>\n

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by dagosan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He’s always styled himself the family’s raconteur. Around the holiday table, where food, weather and health reports tend to be the primary topics of the elder generation, he would spice the conversation with odd tales from the internet, barbs for politicians and celebrities in the news, and opinions on new movies and recently-read books. the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3298,555,900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haiga-or-haibun","category-haiku-or-senryu","category-viewpoint"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-2e5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12402,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions\/12402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}