Late Middle Age Angst

The Ant...  From Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg

Before I give this book back to my friend, who now tells me she is going to read it again thanks to my review the last time, I wanted to copy the chapter that really caused me to identify with the book.  

This describes the world as seen through Macky's eyes after he and Norma leave Elmwood Springs MO to move to a gated retirement community in Vero Beach Fla.  While Macky's wife, Norma and her elderly Aunt Elnir settle in just fine,  he misses his old life, and finds that nobody understands or even cares.  He goes into a slump, and his wife advises counseling but Macky seeks counsel of his own.  

I am reminded of the Proverb that says to go to the ant, consider her ways and be wise.  While Macky does not say so in exactly these words.  It is what he did.

"Macky wandered over to Ocean Park, sat on a concrete bench and stared out at the blue water.  The world he had known was gone.  Not only was he living in an alien place, but while he had been busy all these years making a living, someone had changed all the rules.  For all he knew, he might as well have gone to sleep and awakened on the moon.  

When he'd grown up, everybody had more or less agreed to a certain way of living.  A certain standard.  You didn't lie, you didn't cheat or steal, you honored your parents, your word was your bond.  You didn't try to weasel your way out of things.  You married the girl.  You paid your bills.  You took care of your children.  You didn't cuss around girls.  You didn't hit women.  You played by the rules and it was expected that you would be a good sport if you lost.  You kept your house, yard, and yourself clean.

Norma said you have to just swing with it and try not to let it bother you so much.  He wished he could but somehow it seemed this new world was easier for the women to accept and adjust to.  What bothered him and other men his age and older was that the things they had been willing to die for were no longer appreciated.  Everything he had believed in was now the butt of jokes made by a bunch of smarty-assed late-night TV so-called comedians making a salary you could support a small country with.  All he heard was people saying how bad we were, how corrupt we had been, and how terrible white men were.  He had not felt like a bad person.  But just the fact that he was a white man of a certain age, a lot of people he did not know hated him.  He had never knowingly been mean or unfair to another human being in his life.  Now it seems he was the oppressor, responsible for every bad thing that had ever happened in the history of the world.  War, slavery, racism, sexism--he was the enemy and all he had tried to do was live a good and decent life.  History was being rewritten by the minute.  All of his childhood heroes were now being viewed as villains, their lives judged in hindsight by the current fad of political correctness.  Hell, now they were even taking Huckleberry Finn out of libraries, for God's sake.  It was all too confusing.

You never saw people anymore, everything was self-service, everybody behind glass windows.  And you could not get a real person on the phone.  Everywhere you called, a recorded message connected you to another recorded message and then hung up on you.  And everybody was mad and screaming about something.  He did not know which was worse, the radical right or the radical left.  It seemed nobody was in the middle anymore.  We used to be on the right track and then we took a wrong turn but he did not know where.  Was it the dope or television?  Was it having too much that did it?  He had tried to read what the experts thought but they did not know any more than he did.  All he knew for sure was that after the 40's and '50's , when he had been raised the world had flipped over like a giant pancake and everything was backward.  When he was a kid everyone had wanted to be Tarzan; now they all wanted to be the natives.  People were sticking rings in their noses-- even pretty little girls were running around with green hair, their bodies pierced everywhere.

And nobody answered a direct question anymore with a simple yes or no.  Everything was answered with some kind of rhetoric.  And he knew far more than he wanted to know about perfect strangers.  Things people used to be ashamed to talk about now sold books and got them on television.  Murderers were being asked for their autographs and turned inot celebrities. Football, basketball, and baseball player could beat up their wives, take drugs, go to jail, and still stay on the team and make millions. It didn't matter what kind of person you were anymore.  He remembered when a professional athlete was someone to look up to; now the sports page read more like a police blotter.  

And never in a million years would he have dreamed that one day baseball players would be wearing earrings.  Or that some girl would be singing on television in her brassiere.  Life was all so different, with this one having two mommies, and another one two daddies.  

He did not know what to think anymore.  The way it looked to him, the world was not getting better' it was getting worse.  He sat there for about an hour and gazed out at the water, wondering where and when it was all going to end.  

He leaned forward and rested his elows on his knees and stared down at the sandy ground, as if looking for an answer.  After a few minutes he noticed a tiny ant that walked underneath him, struggling to carry what looked like a large piece of potato chip.  It was much too big for him to eat, but he was headed somewhere with it anyhow.  He watched the ant as it kept going and banged into another concrete bench, went around it, crawling over rocks and other obstacles, determined to get back home with his treasure.  It was much too big for him to carry but he did not seem to know it.  

Macky sat there and watched the ant struggle along until it was out of sight and he smiled for the first time in weeks. "Who knows?" he thought. "If he keeps on going, the little son of a bitch might just make it."

This chapter was in a section called The Nineties.  That was the decade of OJ Simpson, and Madonna.  Things have changed a little, and it is the conservatives of whatever race who are being blamed for all of the troubles of the world these days.  But there is a certain identity here.  

I will say that after this chapter, Macky discovered the internet and started interacting with other men who had similar interests.  He became more enjoyable himself, and began to be the doting grandfather and accepted and enjoyed entertaining his family in Florida.  

Another interesting character in the book is Tot Wooten, a woman with a difficult life.  At one point she had a nervous breakdown and withdraws from people.  While people were afraid for her, the time was well used as she evaluated what was really important to her and she was able to move on.  

This is a happy book, but does not mince on life's problems.  Written by the woman who brought us "Fried Green Tomatoes" and "Red Bird in Winter" it gives marvelous insight into everyday life with its problems and resolutions.