Two Post-Millennials & One Baby Boomer in a Car Getting Coffee

   

   Passing a billboard that read "Cafe Risque: We Bare All," a Toyota Corolla headed north on Florida's Highway 75 toward Gainesville. The driver and the front-seat passenger were twenty-somethings. The passenger in the backseat was a sixty-something: me.

      Anyone peering inside our car might have assumed that I was a grandmother traveling with my grandchildren. In fact, I had only met the two young women an hour before in a classroom on a college campus in St. Petersburg. All of us were taking a class entitled Florida Springs. My road trip companions were undergraduates seeking degrees in environmental science. I was a senior auditor in the class (which means I wouldn't be doing any of the homework). Taught by USFSP Professor Christopher Meindl, the summer session consisted of only four meetings, on four Saturdays in May, June and July, each time visiting springs in a different part of Florida. This first field trip was to springs in Northern Florida.

      Back on the St. Petersburg campus that morning, the driver, a woman, with long, blonde hair tied back in a bun, had announced that she had room in her backseat for anyone who wanted to join her and her friend for the trip north. I jumped at the chance to be chauffeured to the sites rather than try to drive on my own. "We're off like a dirty shirt," I announced when we took off. That, I had explained, was what my mom always said when our family started on a trip together. "That's funny," one of my road trip companions said. "My dad used to say, 'We're off like a prom dress.'"

      Ah, the first hint of a generational shift.

     As soon as we cleared Tampa traffic and began to see signs for Ocala, the two twenty-somethings decided that they needed a jolt of java. Consulting their electronic devices, they located a Starbucks in a nearby mall. We took the next exit off in search of coffee.

     After our Starbucks stop, we got back on the interstate. Passing a billboard illustrated with babies that read "Pregnant? 18 Days After Conception Are Hearts Are Beating," we headed for our first springs in a state park cryptically called Devil's Millhopper. It was near Gainesville. We had several hours of road ahead.

     The two women in the front seat had met each other and bonded in a class the semester before and now were fast friends. All the way to Gainesville, they chatted non-stop. They talked about the environment (both care deeply about the natural world); college internships (both are doing internships this summer; one will be studying sharks); politics (both are faithful followers of John Oliver and loved Jon Stewart), and the value of exercise. "You are my hero," the driver told her friend, a rosy-cheeked brunette who looked like a marathon runner, "because you get up every day and work out for an hour." The brunette talked about her husband whom, she pointed out, was "much older" than she.
He was 28, she told me, when I asked. The blonde talked about how excited she was to be moving into a house near campus. She was contemplating furnishing her tiny bedroom with a hammock and a futon. She would sleep in the hammock and use the futon when she needed a bed for two.

     The ride clearly was going to be as much of an education as the class.

     Being able to observe the generation now entering and attending college has been one of the perks of auditing classes at USFSP.  I never had children and I live far from my siblings and their offsprings, so these encounters have been rare occasions for me to meet Gen-Zers (or Post-Millennials, as some call them) up close and personal. It has been an eye-opener.

     These young men and women live in a world that is far more diverse than the one I knew growing up. They appear to me far more comfortable in their own skins, far more tolerant of each other's differences than many of us were. They treat each other with more equality and respect than I remember men and women doing in my classroom settings.

     I will never get used to their speech patterns, however, especially the way they make the end of declarative sentences sound like a question. (Kevin McGeever, a former St. Petersburg Times colleague, complains that they use the word "super" as a modifier for everything.) They often make me feel old, not because they are ageist, but because they are so deferential to me. But they also are more polite to each other than my contemporaries were. Their slavish devotion to their cellphones at first makes me think they are as empty-headed as Valley Girls, but when I listen to what they are saying, I am often impressed. They generally are thoughtful and, as they might say, super aware of what is going on in the world, thanks to those handheld devices.

     Many of them are fierce environmentalists. They are going to have to live with the consequence of climate change and they know it.

    When we reached Devil's Millhopper, again thanks to those ever-faithful handheld devices, we entered the park through a hauntingly beautiful pine forest. We were at the park to see a 120-feet deep sinkhole, fed by 12 springs. Tourists usually are able to hike all the way down to the bottom of this bowl-shaped cavity, but last fall Hurricane Irma washed away all the wooden staircases that provided access. The more hearty among us were disappointed by that, but I for one was content to merely peer down into the hole from afar and imagine those bones of animals in its depths that give the park its satanic moniker. The hopper part of the name is a nod to the area's grist mills.

     Our next stop was O'Leno State Park. That name is a contraction of Old Leno, a town that became a ghost town when the railroads came to Florida. Once in the park, we staggered across a suspension bridge built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the Thirties and picked our way along the river bank through a forest of downed trees and clusters of cedar knees, finally arriving at an expanse of water where the Santa Fe River, literally disappears underground. The "natural sink" takes the waters of the river down through a network of caverns, only to resurface again three miles away in River Rise Preserve State Park.

       Our last stop was Silver Springs State Park in Ocala, the site of one the largest artesian springs ever discovered. Once privately owned, the spring was Florida's first tourist attraction. Famed for its Glass-Bottom boat tours, visitors have been coming to the park to marvel at the clear, turquoise waters since the 19th century.

     Now the tourists share the space with feral rhesus monkeys. Signs warned us to beware of them: State officials consider them a health hazard (they have tested positive for Herpes B). Most likely the monkeys were introduced into the park in 1938 by a boat operator who wanted to add flavor to his Jungle Cruise ride (and not, as it is sometimes reported, by movie producers who filmed a Tarzan movie in the area in 1939).

     Most of the students in the class went on a hike in search of those monkeys, but a few of us -- post-millennials and baby boomers alike -- stayed behind to stare at the eerie reflections of the glass-bottom boats and tree trunks in the park's clear, turquoise waters and try out the white rocking chairs thoughtfully set along the water's edge. No generational bias here.

     When I returned home, I looked up the series on Florida Springs written by Craig Pittman that our teacher had recommended. Pittman, another St. Petersburg Times colleague of mine, had written it in 2012 for the Tampa Bay Times. In his introductory piece, entitled "Vanishing Springs," Pittman raised the alarm:

     The springs in Florida are dying. All the places we were scheduled to see in our class were in danger.

     "The water in many springs no longer boils up like a fountain, the way they have for centuries," Pittman wrote six years ago.  "The flow has slowed. In some places it has even stopped or begun flowing backward."

     The water that was coming out was polluted by nitrates, a pollution that fuels the growth of toxic algae blooms. Those blooms not only were choking the springs, Pittman warned. They were a health hazard. Even worse, the fresh water coming out of the springs was showing signs of a growing saltiness which meant the limestone on which the state's fresh water supply lies was being breached, putting the whole of Florida's fresh water supply at risk.

     "We don't care. We say we care. We give it lip service. But we don't care," David Still, an engineer specializing in hydrology, told Pittman.

     Still, who was a former director of the Suwannee River Water Management District, blamed the over pumping by utilities for the springs' decline. "The laws have allowed the degradation of those springs, and I don't think we as a society are going to get it changed."

     Now, six years later, the situation is even worse. Is there still no one around to "get it changed"?
 
     On my next road trip with the Post-Millennials in June I plan to tell them I am counting on them, counting on them to be the generation to save Florida's sharks, to save Florida's springs, to save Florida's fresh water supply.

     "Okay," I can hear them reply, their voices going up into a question. "No pressure."

   

    










   



   





   

   






   









 

 

   

Define Grownup

     

    This week AARP invited me and other members to watch an advanced screening of Book Club (due out May 18) as part of their Movies for Grownups program, which actually gives out awards for such films (last year they gave Helen Mirren a well-deserved lifetime achievement award). The screening was held at the Regal Park Place Stadium 16 in Pinellas Park. Let me say in advance that I am grateful to the AARP for offering the free showing at a theater with plushy seats complete with leg raises at the push of a button.

  

     Sadly, however, the movie made me feel embarrassed for the four veteran stars who starred in it. Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenbergen were, alas, not given grown-up roles and certainly not grown-up dialogue.

     Could the blame lie in the fact that the movie, touted to be one about women bonding over books, was co-written by a man and directed by him? No, I am not one of those women who believe that men cannot write fully textured women characters with realistic dialogue. What about Jorge Amado in Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands or Ian McEwan in Atonement?  Or Steven Rogers, whose previous work included the forgettable Stepmom, penning two unforgettable female characters in I, Tonya?  

     By contrast, Book Club never gets into the psyches of its main characters. The four women merely are pawns in a madcap series of improbable scenes. Slapstick trumps insight.

     The movie opens with the four main female characters getting together for their regular book club meeting. They have been discussing books together since college. Each is presented with a background that is entirely believable. Diane (Diane Keaton) is a recent widow whose two grown children treat her like an invalid. Vivian (Jane Fonda) is a hotel owner who seeks men for pleasure not intimacy and not, god forbid, for marriage. Carol (Mary Steenbergen)'s once steamy marriage has cooled since her husband's retirement. Sharon is a divorced federal judge whose bumbling ex-husband (played by Ed Begley, Jr.) is dating an airhead bombshell who could be his daughter (played by . 

     Well, the last bit is a bit of a stretch, but it could happen.

     Instead of exploring the very different pathways taken by these four friends, however, the movie plays their circumstances for laughs. In fact, Book Club seems to go out of its way to present these women in situations that strain credibility. The buttoned-up Sharon is shown staggering out of the back seat of her car at the end of her Bumble date. Vivian's husband (played by Craig T. Nelson) is also shown staggering around. He has a permanent boner. Vivian has secretly given him Viagra to spice up their sex life. 

     The most incredible scene, however, involves Diane: She literally stumbles over a man on her flight out to Arizona to see her kids. Played by Andy Garcia looking like "The Most Interesting Man in the World" from the Dos Equis commercials, he turns out to be a pilot and, of course, fabulously wealthy. But just when she slips away for a tryst at his desert spread, her kids track her down with the help of a policeman and cart her away. There is so much wrong with that scenario, it's hard to know where to begin. Where in the world did those kids find a cop who would track down a mom whose phone has gone to voicemail? What woman leaves The Most Interesting Man in the World to go live in her children's basement?

    And Vivian? You might at first mistake her for Grace, the character Fonda plays in the TV series Grace and Frankie. Like Grace, she is a successful businesswoman with issues. But the screenwriters of Book Club should have examined more closely why that TV series work: Yes, we laugh at Grace and Frankie, but we also are moved to tears as we witness their often difficult female bonding and their struggles with aging.  

      

   Rarely in Book Club is there a moment when I felt like I was looking at real people instead of  cardboard characters invented for wacko plot lines. One true moment is during that Bumble date when George (played by Richard Dreyfuss) awkwardly asks Sharon for a kiss. Another is the line uttered by The Most Interesting Man in the World as the kids are hauling their mom off:  "You have a right to be happy, Diane." And there are genuine moments between Vivian and her ex-boyfriend Arthur (played by Don Johnson who thankfully has lost his slick and is actually appealing). Here, the screenwriters offer up some quirky details (Vivian confesses, for example, that what she loves best is not sex but having her arm tickled) that flesh these characters out.

     These moments, however, are fleeting. Who are these women? We never really find out. The screenwriters insist on defining them primarily by their relationships with men. Whatever happened to Gloria Steinem's "Women need men like a fish needs a bicycle"? 

     For their Book Club, by the way, Vivian, Sharon, Diane and Carol are reading E.L. James' erotic s&m three-part series Fifty Shades of Grey -- an awesome product placement for any author.  Alas, alas, alas, they might have made a better choice.

A Brief Comeback: Am Too

   
     The last time I wrote on Creative Late Bloomers, dated 10/10/16, I entitled the post "The Last Book, The Last Lecture, The Last Chapter: Lessons in How to Live." I talked about three books: Oliver Sacks' last book called "On the Move: A Life," "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch, based on the final lecture given by a 47-year-old computer science professor who had metastatic pancreatic cancer and the then 98-year-old Diana Athill, author of "Somewhere Near the End," who miraculously had written another yet another book delightfully entitled "Alive, Alive Oh!" The authors of those first two books already had died when their books were published. Athill turned 100 last December.

     That last post was prompted by the fact that my eldest sister Joan had recently received her own diagnosis of matastatic pancreatic cancer, so lessons of life and death were very much on my mind.

     Just after my "last book, last lecture" post, I visited Joan in Milwaukee. I returned to visit her again in January, 2017. She died at the end of February, 2017.

    During my Christmas visit, Joan was lively and hopeful. With my two other sisters, we helped trim her Christmas tree, pawed through the final boxes left after my mother's death that Joan had stored in her attic, went to see "La Cage aux Folles," accompanied Joan to her chemo treatment, enjoyed an evening of cabaret music, had several dinners on the town and spent an afternoon pampering ourselves at a day spa at the Pfister Hotel. In between all this frenetic activity, I drove Joan to Marquette University where she was still work at the College of Education. She was the oldest of us four sisters, but the only one who hadn't retired. There she is, at right with the jazzy scarf, surrounded by her family, getting an award as a Marquette University Faculty All-Star in November, 2016.

     So why am I returning to this blog now?

     No one else has died (yet) or is dying (although, of course, we all are). I'm back because I've read another book about life and death that I want to recommend. It made me sad to think that Joan never made it into the category that author John Leland addresses -- the oldest old (people over 85) -- but that during her illness, she acted very much like the people Leland followed around for a year. They had nothing in common with the over-achievers I have heralded on this blog -- people, as Leland puts it, like the "remarkable old lady who seems to defy aging altogether, drinking martinis and running marathons in her nineties" nor do they dwell on the declines of their bodies and minds. They merely savor the little moments that are left in their lives, the days they can get out of bed despite their aches and pains, the days they win at mahjong, the days they hear once again a favorite opera recording.

     These elders that Leland, a reporter for the New York Times, spent time with, like the vast majority of older people, didn't fit the stereotypical story lines of the elderly as victim or the elderly as super hero. Like Joan did, they were living life as fully as they could, no matter what their circumstances.

    "They lived with loss and disability but did not define themselves by it," he writes of these oldest old, "and got up each morning with wants and needs, no less so because their knees hurt or they couldn't do the crossword puzzle like they used to. Old age wasn't something that hit them one day when they weren't careful. It also wasn't a problem to be fixed. It was a state of life like any other, one in which they were still making decisions about how they wanted to live, still learning about themselves and the world."

      I may still be inspired to post about an octogenarian marathon runner, but for now, I'm going with being happy I can finish the New York Times Saturday crossword puzzle.

      The title of this post, BTW,  is inspired by a clue I solved from the November 25, 2017 New York Times puzzle. Clue: Brief comeback. Answer: Are not.