Considering the golden years of Veronica and Franklin
Rep. Stefanik should be holding party colleagues accountable
The Front Page
Evening Update
Thursday, May 27, 2021
By Ken Tingley
From the porch of our rental, I waved at the elderly woman in her yard. She waved back and then asked if we wanted to come over for a glass of wine.
Where we live in Queensbury, we don’t really have neighbors, at least not any within yelling distance. This was the type of neighborly offering foreign to us.
Franklin and Veronica are in their 80s. We were renting their guest house on the outskirts of San Antonio while we visited our son the past week. We had spent the first part of our trip in a hotel downtown, so we were looking forward to the quiet and relaxation offered by the guest house in the suburbs.
Veronica had startled us earlier when she walked over to our fence to welcome us. Instead of a Texas drawl, she spoke with a strong British accent. She told us she had lived in Canada, Vermont and West Africa before making San Antonio home. She said after her time in Africa, the heat of South Texas was temperate. She announced she had lived in 35 different houses in her lifetime, and that her first husband, a big executive in Canada, had died when he fell off the roof of one of them on his 55th birthday.
She had our attention.
So when, I got the invitation from across the yard for a class of wine, I went inside and told my wife we were going to meet the neighbors.
Franklin clumsily extended his hand when he arrived at their porch, but then exclaimed he still couldn’t see us. We kind of bumped fists, but it was clear he must be nearly blind. He then got my wife a glass of wine, a really tall glass of wine.
As we talked, it was apparent to me this was a regular routine for Franklin and Veronica. They were 25 years our senior and from a different generation where interacting with friends and neighbors was daily. I sensed they were renting the guest house not so much for the money, but for the company.
Over the next hour or so we learned a lot about them both.
They were newlyweds. They had wed just four years earlier and a local bridal magazine did a feature on Veronica as a rare octogenarian bride.
They had met in church, but Franklin had been an engineer and traveled all over South and Central America. He never mentioned how many houses he had. He was Veronica’s fourth husband.
“The others were much older,” she said.
We told them we loved their house and the property was beautiful, but we wondered who the well-dressed people wandering the grounds were earlier in the day.
One young woman asked me how long I had lived there.
“About an hour,” I responded. But she didn’t seem to understand.
Veronica explained they had put the property on the market that day. It was a difficult decision they had been grappling with for some time. They admitted the property was getting a little too difficult to take care of for a couple in their late 80s.
She regaled us with Franklin’s escapades on the ride-around mower, especially when he was heading straight for the built-in swimming pool before finally veering off at the last minute.
They talked about downsizing and all the things they had to do to dispose of in the storage shed next to the guest house. They had looked at one retirement community that was ultimately vetoed after Veronica excused herself for a minute, only to find to find Franklin surrounded by a half-dozen widows when she returned. That was the end of that place, although Franklin smiled that he didn’t mind the attention.
They said they had another place in mind, but were hoping to spend the summer there.
Before long, they were talking about their final resting places. It was a source of some contention. Veronica said she wanted to send her ashes floating down the San Antonio River and she was demanding that at least half of Franklin’s ashes come with her.
Franklin explained his daughter was adamant that Franklin should be along side his first wife and his daughter’s mother. It was clear the matter was not yet settled.
None of us wore masks as the sun slowly set on a warm spring evening. The pandemic and virus seemed far away as we considered what the future might look like this summer.
Both my wife and I recently retired, but seeing Franklin and Veronica reminded us we might also someday have to give up our own beloved homestead. It also reminded me that we weren’t quite in our golden years yet.
My grandfather Tingley had an old adage tacked on the wall of his kitchen: “Where ever you wander, where ever your roam, be happy and healthy and glad to come home.”
That rang true after this trip.
Our meeting with Franklin and Veronica was brief, but I’m still thinking about them. Veronica is Franklin’s eyes and Franklin is Veronica’s ears. They must now prepare for a final chapter in their time together.
I hope it works out for them.
I hope they are happy.
I suspect it won’t be long before they are inviting the neighbors over for a glass of wine and story-telling as Veronica announces tells her neighbors this is her 36th house.
Post-Star editorial
I think people have changed.
Where once morality and ethics were sacrosanct when it came to evaluating a political candidate, too many of us are able to overlook a lie or ethical miscue if our leaders say the right thing politically.
We can be better than that.
We must hold our elected officials to a higher standard. I’ve always believed that and continue to believe that.
So I applaud this morning’s editorial from The Post-Star editorial board asking that Rep. Stefanik - now as a member of the Republican leadership - to hold fellow Republicans accountable for what they say.
The problem is that many voters don’t believe newspapers should be the ones accountable. But if not them, who?
“But taking the No. 3 Republican leadership position in the House, as Stefanik recently did, has not brought with it the ability to stand up for what is right,” the editorial states. It goes on to say that countering the lies and rhetoric so rampant in Washington needs to be done. “Countering this danger is more important than winning any election.”
Unfortunately, Rep. Stefanik appears to believe the opposite.
I hope her constituents don’t feel the same way and demand that she hold her colleagues accountable.
