Kierkegaard et al

Søren Kierkegaard in his 20s.

—Many years ago, probably 1961, when I was in 11th grade………
…….One of my mother’s sisters, an aunt, was committed to an insane-asylum after her husband bled to death in a bathroom accident.
So what to do with their children. A gigantic family pow-wow was held at an uncle’s abode in Lansdowne PA outside Philadelphia.
Quite a few aunts and uncles attended. My mother came from a large family.
The pow-wow was held in my uncle’s kitchen, and since that uncle was first born he tried to preside.
Much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. And bellicose bickering by all-and-sundry. My mother's family was loud and assertive.
I remember that uncle pounding the kitchen table with a pot. Also my mother crying.
The last of that uncle’s children still lived with him, one being my cousin ****, same age as me.
**** and I sat in the living room quietly discussing existential philosophy, especially Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre.
“I wanna marry somebody like my cousin ****,” I said to myself as we motored home. “Somebody I can talk to!”
Fortunately I did, although I stumbled into her, and my wife wasn’t like cousin **** at first.
I was very lucky, since I woulda driven cousin **** to divorce in no time.
Like me, my wife also had a difficult childhood. Mainly it was her mother, hyper-judgmental.
I probably had it worse, but could cook, iron, etc. better than my wife because her mother sanctimoniously destroyed my wife’s confidence.
In not long my wife began talking with me much like cousin ****. She could discern figures-of-speech, obscure concepts, philosophy; “I was just thinking the same thing!”
Most of my fabulous lady friends have no interest in “the meaning of life,” but still are great fun to talk to.
Primarily because they’re females. They counter my hoary childhood, whereby no girl would ever have anything to do with me!
Of the many females I befriended over the past few months, I can think of only one who might know of Søren Kierkegaard.
That would be my pretty lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming pool.
She’s 65 years old — doesn’t look it — and might have a philosophical bent similar to mine.
Talking with my other lady friends is great fun, but it seems to be at a lower level than what my lifeguard friend and I attain.
That lifeguard retired from professional employ; her lifeguarding is only a retirement gig. I’m also pretty sure she’s college educated.
With most of my lady friends it’s “hi, how are ya?
I think your name is ******; I know another girl named ******.
Happy to see ya! Glad I said something!”
The other day I threw something at my lifeguard friend similar to what I’d say to my wife.
Hooray-hooray; she looked a bit befuddled, but it didn’t turn her off.
Someone I can talk to, mayhap?
And that’s all I ever do: she’s married, and so am I sorta. Although my beloved wife died almost nine years ago.
Kierkegaard is long ago. Professors at my college wanted me to become a scholar, but I decided that was navel picking.