Growing Old Disgracefully 23

It was a Tuesday night meeting.
"The situation has become very critical," said Pastor David.  "We carried out a survey recently.  The average age of people in this church is 78.1.  If some young people don't come and join us very soon we are going to die like flies."
"We are dying like flies," said Beth.  "6 of us have died since new year.  I got into trouble with the boss at work.  He didn't believe I had so many friends who were elderly and infirm.  He didn't believe I was visiting so many people in hospital or going to so many funerals.  He thought I was making excuses so I could get more time off work."
"So what did you do?" asked Sarah.
"I gave him copies of the hymn sheets from all the funerals.  I asked him to phone the people who were in hospital."
"What is God saying through all this?" asked Pastor David.
"I think God might be telling us to get lost," said Mikey.
"Mikey, you're the only person in this room under 35.  What do you think?"
"You're always talking about how you sold your house and gave your money to the church.  Young people don't connect with you.  They won't ever be able to buy houses.  You live with your parents until you get a job.  Then, when you get a job it's hundreds of miles from home so you live in a room in a shared house.  Eventually your girlfriend moves in with you.  When she has a baby, you get a flat off the council.  So young people don't know what this kind of community is all about."

"I think Mikey has hit the nail on the head," said Stanley.  "The Lord has given me these verses from Isaiah 58.
'Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.'
"This is what we need to do.  If we spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry, our church will be built again.  Our community houses will start to grow again and new ones will be planted.  We must get out of our comfortable farm house, at Piddledon Farm, and go to visit our church members in Newport Newtown who are not so comfortable."

Mark and Mikey went to the hospital to visit Norman.  They went to the desk on the ward and asked one of the doctors where he was.
"I'm looking for a patient called Norman Strang-Edwards," said Mark.  The doctor pointed,
"In the side room, over there."  They opened the door.  Norman had a battered old ghetto blaster that was playing a tape by Queen.
"Another one bites the dust.  Another one bites the dust.  And another one's gone, and another one's gone, another one bites the dust, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" sang the ghetto blaster.
"I bet that song means that it's much too expensive for anyone to ever put this programme on DVD," said Mark.
"I don't think so," said Norman.  "That record was a hit more than 50 years ago.  The copyright holders won't mind."
"What do they think is wrong with you?" asked Mikey.
"I'm 85 years old," said Norman.  "That's what's wrong with me."
"Happy birthday," said Mark.  "I bought you a card and some chocolates."
"Thank you for your kind thoughts.  I'll put the chocolates on the table with all the others.  Can't eat any chocolates today, I feel sick.  My digestive system has stopped functioning."
"Oh well, you'll have finished eating them all by your next birthday," said Mikey.  Norman roared with laughter.
"Do you really think I'll be here by the time my next birthday comes?"
"All right, you'll have finished eating them by Christmas."
"Christmas, Mikey?  You expect me to live that long?  It's only July."
"You could carry on for years, you can't tell," said Mark.
"Mark, I can tell.  I used to be a nurse when I was in my twenties.  On a geriatric ward."
"What's one of those?" asked Mikey.
"It's what they used to call a place like this sixty years ago.  I've seen it Mikey.  I've seen old people die.  They're like I am now.  Mark, when I die and you phone the DWP to cancel my pension, tell them that I died that day.  Don't tell them that I actually died over the weekend and you didn't have time to ring them until Monday morning.  If you do that, they'll want my last week's pension back.  I used to be Common Purse Deacon.  I got sick of that happening all the time.  Someone's been dead since Saturday and they issued the pension on Monday.  They want the whole week's pension back."
"Isn't what you're suggesting dishonest?" asked Mark.
"Yes it is, but I'm writing a wrong.  The wrong is that you can't hold on to 5 days pension.  Isn't it paid in arrears?  Then you phone the undertakers and oh, some of the comments you get.  It's the Christians at that farmhouse again.  We'd be out of a job if it wasn't for them.  Any special requests?  Can we charge them £200 extra to deliver the body to national church headquarters for burial?"
"I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike," the ghetto blaster sang.  "I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like."
"Turn that thing off," said Norman.  "It's starting to remind me of things I can't do anymore."
"Bicycle races are coming your way, so forget -" the ghetto blaster sang but stopped mid-sentence.  A nurse came into the room.
"Hello, Mr. Strange-Edwards."
"Strang-Edwards, actually."
"How are you feeling?"
"Very ill, can't eat, can't sleep, can't breathe.  Oh, I feel as if I'm going to be dead by tomorrow morning."
"Well, I can't send you to intensive care yet, you don't look immenent to me."
"I must look quite ill, nurse, so why don't you send for the doctor and chase these visitors away?"
"Right.  I'll go and get Dr. Singh."
"Ooh, I really do feel bad.  You might like to get a second opinion on that life support machine."
"That's fine.  We were just leaving," said Mark.  Mark and Mikey left the ward and Dr. Singh returned with the nurse.
"I used to have a ventilator on my ward," said Norman.  "A funny thing it was.  A small oxygen cylinder on a metal base with all sorts of pipes coming out of it.  Plastic tubes you could shove down someone's throat that were called airways.  It wasn't as pretty as your ventilators are now.  No screens, just a few nobs."
"Mr. Strang-Edwards," the Indian doctor pronounced the name correctly first time. "Your breathing seems fine to me.  You don't need a ventilator.  How are you feeling?"
"I just can't stand this pain any longer.  I'm also very, very tired.  I want to go to sleep but I can't."
"I'll give you some diamorphine," said Dr. Singh.
"Some things haven't changed in sixty years," said Norman.  "That's what I used to do when I was a nurse."

Stanley had come to visit Tony.  He parked next to a sign that said, "This is a high car crime area" and knocked on the door of a post war council house.  Tony opened the front door.
"Hello Stanley," said Tony.  "Come inside."  Tony led Stanley into a small room that had been converted into a kitchen.  The room was almost filled by a large dining table that had a whole family of 12 people sitting around it.  In the corner was a small portable television.  "Stanley, this is my father, this is my grandfather, these are my sister and brother in law and these are my great grandparents."
"Hello," said a man who was obviously so old and withered that he must be Tony's great grandfather.  "I'm Fred and this is Etta."
"Fred bought this house off the council when he retired," said Etta.
"Yes, I spent my retirement savings on it," said Fred.  "A fraction of what you'd normally pay for a house."
"Then when my granddaughter got married the family got some money together to make some alterations to the house so that we could have a bedroom and a bathroom downstairs," Etta explained.  
"Sit down, Stanley," said Tony.  Stanley sat at the table.  They were watching a programme on the television.  A child walked into a sweet shop.
"Four ounces of sweets," she said.
"One ounce of sweets in those days," said Etta.  "It was just after the war.  Sweets were rationed.  In our sweet shop, you used to ask for half a dozen sweets, and the lady used to count them out for you, one, two, three, four, five, six."
"It still cost you threpence," said Fred.
"Tony, your surname is Fish," said Stanley, "so if you're great grandmother is called Etta."
"Lovely name," said Etta, "if you happen to have been born in 1940.  Just a pity I married a bloke called Fish."
"Not a pity at all that you married me," said Fred.  "We've been together for 75 years and they don't seem a day to me."
"Dinner's ready," said Tony.  A woman entered the room carrying a big pressure cooker full of stinking black soup.  "This is my mother, Stanley."
"Hello," said Tony's mother.  "And this is my grandmother."  Another woman appeared behind her carrying a big bread bin that was full of rather weak looking bread that looked as if it should never have been sliced because the slices were falling apart.  In her other hand she had a pile of soup bowls.  "Black bean soup," Tony announced, as if it was the most exciting meal in the world.  A teenage girl got up from the table and began to pour soup from the pressure cooker into the bowls with a huge spoon.
"Where do you get the black beans from?" asked Stanley.  Everyone began laughing.
"It isn't the beans that are black," said Tony, "they're ordinary beans.  We get cheap baked beans from the supermarket and cheap loaves of bread that rip if you put margarine on them, so we only use them for soup.  We buy a cheap jar of coffee, the kind that looks like gravy when you don't put any milk in.  The soup is made of black coffee and baked beans, therefore it is black bean soup."
"Tony says you've come to experience inner city poverty," said Etta.
"Well yes, I have," said Stanley.
"These people wouldn't know the meaning of the word poverty.  Let me tell you about my childhood."
"Shut up, Etta," said Tony's mother.  "I'm trying to listen to the TV.  It's more interesting than you talking about that."
"You know when my family is really happy?" asked Tony.  "Friday night is the night we have fish soup."

Mark and Mikey had called to have an evening meal with Carl.  Carl lived in a bedroom that had a microwave oven on top of a cupboard and a plastic garden table with half a dozen plastic chairs around it.  On the opposite side of the room there was a camp bed with a sleeping bag on the top.
"Come in," said Carl.  "Come in to the diner.  Have a seat."
"Doesn't this house have a huge kitchen?" asked Mikey.
"Not anymore," said Carl.  "Not since the landlord made it into two bedrooms.  I feed other people here because I have a huge bedroom.  You know how frustrating it is when you see a tin of mushy peas for 15p in the supermarket but you can't buy it.  You live on your own, you don't have a fridge, half of it would be wasted.  Well, I have other people to share my tin of mushy peas with."  Two other men arrived at the door.  "Hello Kyle," said Carl.  "Meet my friends Mark and Mikey."
"Hello.  Carl, this is my mate Ken, hope you don't mind.  Is there enough food for him as well?"
"Certainly.  The more the merrier."  The two men came in and joined Mark and Mikey at the table.  Carl began opening a tin of mushy peas and taking some dried rice out of a packet.  Having loaded the rice into the microwave oven to boil in a suitable container, he began peeling some carrots and potatoes.
"I feel really tired," said Ken.
"What have you been eating?" asked Kyle.
"Crisps, cakes and biscuits.  My room is too small for a microwave oven.  I've a kettle on the sideboard, that's all.  I haven't got anywhere to prepare any food.  I couldn't even make a sandwich."
"You should try eating nuts," said Kyle.  "That's where I used to get my energy."
"Nuts are expensive," said Ken.
"You don't need to eat many.  A kilogram of them a week, that would be enough.  Eat lots of fruit as well.  Apples and oranges are cheap.  Drink plenty of milkshakes."
"You're in luck tonight," said Carl, "I'm making the dinner."  He took the rice from the microwave oven to let it cool.  He loaded the potatoes, still in their jackets, and put the chopped carrots in a jug of water which also went into the microwave.
"Are you unemployed?" Mark asked Ken.
"I've got a job.  I earn just over £100 a week and my bus pass is £15 a week."
"Can't you claim benefits?"
"I claim them.  They give me an extra £30 a week," said Ken.
"Couldn't you live with your parents?"
"That's difficult.  They live in Newcastle.  It takes a whole day to get there by public transport.  Don't see them very often."
"You'll get a full time job one day," said Kyle.  "Just hang on in there.  I've got a full time job."  Carl took the potatoes and carrots out of the microwave oven to cool and started warming up the mushy peas.  He also opened some tins of pilchards.  "I like pilchards," he said.  "They're a poor man's tuna."
"What do you do, Carl?" asked Mikey.
"I'm an Architectural Technician.  All those years at university and I have a job with a salary.  I can afford this place, after I've finished paying back my overdraft and my student loan."
"I saw a sign that said To Let, or did it say Toilet," said Ken.
"Perhaps it said both," said Kyle.  "Toilet To Let."
"Ken, I think you're living in the room that used to be the toilet," said Carl.  "The landlord replaced the door with one that opened outwards, and knocked down the wall to make it a bit longer so he could get a bed inside."  The dinner was ready.  Carl served it to his guests.  "I like rice with cold fish," he said.  "This is like sushi."