The other day my wife Kathy and I were watching the 10 o’clock news with our adult daughter in residence Maureen and coverage of police breaking up stop the war on Gaza student protests when she noted that if we were younger, we would have been there. Indeed we would have. But the infirmities of the Old Man have rendered me useless for the streets and probably a hazard to everyone if I did show up.
That brought to mind a poem, as they say in a breathless movie trailer, inspired by true events three years ago.
The Old Radical
Mid May 2021
Once the somewhat ragged beau ideal
of the Red and Black menace,
leather lung soapboxer,
master of the streets,
marcher of marchers,
dodger of tear gas and billy clubs.
Now a wreck and relic
half hearing aid deaf,
spasming afib ticker,
bad back, tricky ankle,
and pre-replacement knee.
On a sunny, breezy day in a park
was asked just to lay down,
cover with shiny Mylar
to pretend to be a border babe detainee,
could not get back up,
struggled and pitched forward
on the good knee.
Comrades a third his age and less
rushed to steady him
as he reeled on his feet,
held him by both elbows
to a seat where he dropped
gasping and panting
they asking with grave concern
if the paramedics should be called,
waved off in shame and embarrassment.
And he realized that if called at last
to the barricades
he was now only good
as the barricade.
—Patrick Murfin
The Old Man not long after his gallbladder tried to kill him.
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