“Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services.” ―Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

Remembrance of things past: 
1963 to 2013

Fifty years is not a lifetime but when they span the peaks
from virility to pre-senility they’re most of the good times.
I got married in one of those years
Alas, it was not to be.
Things were stirring in Vietnam and I knew there was more to be.
Two tours there with Korea tossed in between
and the marriage that was was no more.
Down in Dallas a young Marxist shot our President.
It’s the city that will be remembered by two innocuous places—
the bookstore and the grassy knoll;
We were stripped of our youth and our innocence.
And the war dragged on.
OPEC and oil have driven our cars more than we have for 40 years.
And we have not learned how to deal with the death
of oil, the depleting resource.
Our technology also died as mediocrity swamped us and
the Far East surpassed us.
Then came the great divide—
Neoconservatism raised its
ugly head and pulled off a coup—
Our rich got richer while our poor got poorer.
Controlled by plutocrats and their puppets with not enough brain power
to blow their noses.
I came to dislike the expression “we are a country of laws.”
Now these little damned body annoyances that come with aging are
starting to drive me nuts.
But at least in my twilight years I have the freedom to be able to
always tell the truth.
Yet no one knows it but me.  Still,
where senility is bliss tis folly to be quiet.