All About Tom Rubenoff - Well, Almost

I am over sixty-five years old and am well into the third stage of life on this lovely planet. This is my story. Well, part of it, anyway.

Oh, the three stages?

1. Infancy
2. Youth
3. You're lookin' real good.

I am a husband, father and grandfather. I love my wife. My wife is the best. I love my kids and my grandchildren, but I love my wife more.

It's fun when the kids stay with us for a few days: fun to compare them now with how they were in years gone by. They really illustrate the precious, wild and unpredictable nature of life.

I cringe a little to call myself this, but as I get older (and older) I am becoming more and more philosophical. I believe I have come to know certain truths about life in my short time here, but you are free to judge. My philosophy goes something like this:

God (or Universal Energy, The Creator, Allah, Jesus, Hashem, etc.) is beyond comprehension. God is infinite and eternal; we are finite and temporary. We do not have a frame of reference wherein we could understand God. People who think they understand God scare me. I think people who question the nature of God are on the right track. I believe in God because when I reach out for God in my thoughts, I find God. I do not judge anyone who does not believe in God, and I do not judge how a person's belief in God manifests itself, as long as that manifestation does not harm others. I do believe that a large part of the reason we are put here is to help each other. The main reason we are here, however, I think, is because we live out a reality of chance and surprise for the pleasure of a God who does not change.

Nothing is completely possible without its opposite. Life would not have the same meaning without death. Happiness would be lessened if there were no sadness. Peace exists because there is violence, war, and inner turmoil, for without these, peace would just be life. Our universe is a construct of opposites, and life is a process of picking our hazardous way between them.

No matter where you go. there you are. You can never escape yourself, therefore you must accept yourself. The greater love you have for yourself, the more love you can spare for others. Don't waste your time worrying about what people think. You will never really know what people think anyway. In fact, try not to worry about anything that is out of your control, because that is a waste of time, and time is life's most valuable commodity.

I was a locksmith for seventeen years, eleven of those years in my own business. My, my, how time flies when you're having fun. After that I went to a place that hires retired locksmiths, where I sit at a desk in a cubicle in front of a computer all day. It's like locksmith heaven. All day long I look up part numbers and help people figure out if this part goes with that part. I explain the difference between fail safe and fail secure, and why a stairwell door must be fire rated. Now time just zips by, let me tell you. Zip, zip, zip. I am very very lucky to have a job and I am very very grateful for it. Thank you very much.

I love to ride my bicycle, I love to ride my bike. I love to ride my bicycle. I love to ride it where I like.

I do a lot of things because I like to ride my bike. Every bit of exercise I do because it will help me ride better. Most of my clothing purchases are for biking clothes. Almost all of my toys are cycling-related.

I try to commute the 15 miles to and from work as much as I can, and usually log at least 90 miles a week, April through half of November. After the weather turns nasty I put away my good bike and take out an old beater bike. Whereas my summer bike is all about momentum, my winter bike is all about inertia. My commuting time goes from three quarters of an hour to an hour and a half, and as the weather gets meaner, my mileage declines. As I've gotten older, biking with traffic in the dark in the freezing rain has gotten less and less attractive, and cross-training with activities like snowshoeing, running or resistance training has become more enjoyable.

This summer will be my sixth time participating in the cycling fundraiser now called the Cape Cod Getaway on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The event benefits the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Cyclists raise funds and then bike 150 or 200 miles over two days from Quincy to Provincetown. If you are interested in learning about this event please visit my National MS Society page.

Next year, summer after this one, God willing, I hope to participate in a week-long, 550-mile biking fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association called The New England Classic.

Poetry is something it seems that I must do. Whatever I do, there always seems to be a phrase or an idea or a concept that demands a poem. One of my poems was published in a collection of poems about September 11.

I have read publicly at an open poetry reading, but not recently. I hope to do so again someday. There are some venues in my area.

Here's a poem:

Goose

I am holding a goose

she beats me with

her powerful wings

webbed feet flailing

I fill a pillow

with her feathers

sometimes in the night

she honks my name

I eat her

again and again

Elsewhere I wrote a hub about the role music played in my life, so here I'll just mention that I went to college for 3 years for music and I have played the trombone for about 55 years.

Music is like poetry in that it lets us feel and express things that we otherwise could not. Music is like visual art because it can communicate without words.