Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

I think that I've fallen victim to a strange sort of malady. So strange is this affliction indeed that I went running to the Internet to find a name for the syndrome. Google, Web MD and everything else I could think of, came up blank. But being a persistent wordsmith (if nothing else) I took it upon myself to coin a term for what ails me. I call it: precognitive-hiatus dementia and here is how it works: A few years ago when I resumed playing tennis after my rotator-cuff surgery, I joined a group of guys about my age who played five days a week - Monday through Friday - usually at 10:00 AM.

One of the chaps I met, I'll call him Frankie (NOT his real name) seemed to be matched up with me more often that not. We never really socialized even though we did see one another on the courts two or three times a week. The only break from the steady tattoo of tennis came when he and his wife and Marilyn and I were invited to a mutual friend's house for an evening of bridge.

So it went along for perhaps a couple of years until he stopped coming down for tennis. I thought nothing of it, assuming he followed the natural progression to golf or had moved. But one day after a few months of not seeing "Frankie" on the courts he shows up at the gym with a walker and assisted by a physical therapist. He looked ghastly. Probably a stroke or some serious surgery I thought. "How you doing?" I asked.

"Not bad, " he said. "Things are moving along."

And that's the way it went for months on end: he wheels into the gym with his aid; he says hello and I say hello and I leave him alone to his workout routine. Next he disappears for a year, maybe more; so he's out of sight and out of mind. Then last month he pops up again looking better, still with his walker, but minus the aid.

"Well, Frankie," I say. "You seem to be doing okay. Bet you'll be back on the courts soon."

"Yeah, I am better, but I don't know about tennis, golf maybe."

"Ah, c'mon," I say. "You and I are too young - ha,ha - for golf."

"Maybe you're right, ha - ha," he tells me. "I'll think about it."

This inane banter: tennis - golf - ha,ha - between me and Frankie goes on for the next few weeks. But just the other day while I was giving a neighbor a lift to the airport he asked me if I knew that Frankie's wife had died.

"Wow, no," I said. "How's Frankie taking it?" I asked.

"I guess that means that you didn't know that Frankie died, too."

"Gee, no," I said. "When did he pass?"

"Oh - gee, two years at least," he said. "You must have forgotten."

"Yeah, I remember now," I lied through my teeth, and sat the rest of the way in stunned silence, wondering what the hell was going on with that guy in the gym all this time. Luckily for me, my yearly physical is coming up next month and I intend relating this story to my doctor. What I want to know from the doctor is who he thinks has a worse case of precognitive-hiatus dementia, me or that putz in the gym who kept answering all my questions. I'll keep you posted.

The best time to learn what's happening in this country is right after the president's State of the Union address. Both the Republicans and the Democrats spell out what they believe to be the most worrisome problems facing our great nation. Every TV news' show and newspapers from coast to coast comment on what they heard - offering both opinion and (hopefully) fact.

Eager to learn what might put us in harm's way, I perused, thanks to the Internet, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. And thanks to Tivo, CBS, CNN and Fox News, here is what I learned.

According to President Bush and his fellow Republicans there are three major problems facing us:

1.          The War on Terrorism
2.          The threat of nuclear bombs from both Iran and North Korea
3.          The spike in costs to Social Security and Medicare flowing from the coming of age of 70 million baby-boomers.

But according to a contingent of Democrats - Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore (to name a few) - these are the three major problems facing us:

1.          George W. Bush
2.          Tax breaks for the rich (tied with any kind of tax break for anyone)
3.          Exploring for oil in Alaska (tied with the threat Wal Mart poses to the economy)

So if you are a Democrat you can sleep easy. All we need do to blow our problems out of the water is simply get rid of Bush; repeal all the tax breaks; let Alaska secede from the Union; and stop shopping at Wal Mart. Seems simple enough to me. How about you?