Looking ahead from the banks of the St. Johns River

I made this picture on a recent visit to Jacksonville, Fla. It was early in the morning. The humidity was already thick. The St. Johns River was still. From the Southbank side, I could easily see the Main Street Bridge and the downtown. I could tell that traffic was surprisingly light for the morning commute. Of course, living as I do, in the suburbs of Washington D.C., the traffic would appear relatively light almost anywhere else in the country.

Jacksonville is a cool little Southern city with appealing tree-lined neighborhoods, good eats and friendly people. Yes, there is a gritty side to the city, too. But even that tends to enhance the authenticity of the town. This is not Orlando or Miami.

The river winds through the city with a kind of elegance that you don't see in most other metro areas. On occasion, dolphins can be spotted swimming up and down the river, searching for dinner. Cars meander into town along streets with robust palm trees and Spanish moss. Office workers walk slowly from intersection to intersection dressed in polo shirts and khakis. The pace is calm but not stunted. It's a casual city with a slight inferiority complex but also a good sense of itself. Having a professional football team in town has certainly helped put Jacksonville on the map.

The sailor in this photo probably has other things on his mind that don't involve traffic or football. He has the look of a single purpose. The look of a man about to take a journey from Jacksonville with all of his worldly possessions in a single bag. I wondered what it would be like to be so focused on one thing -- to remove all the white noise that surrounds our daily thoughts.

People in Jacksonville seem to like where they live, which would make it more difficult to leave, of course. But I get the impression that this sailor, despite the uncertainly of what lies ahead, will be back.

HBO show about post-Katrina is timely and profound

The HBO series, Treme, wrapped up its debut season last week. The series is about post-Katrina New Orleans, particularly the Treme section of the city, and has been renewed for a second season. That's good news for people who appreciate quality television dramas with something smart and meaningful to say about life, death and everything in between.

The series had a lot of texture. Producers cast known and not-so-known musicians for various roles. Treme is almost as much about music as it is the struggles of New Orleans. But make no mistake about it, Treme gets up close and personal in developing all characters and story lines. It goes well beyond the music. While some folks triumph over the odds, others face a more tragic end. The character played by John Goodman, a writer who couldn't cope with losing the essence of his beloved city, was particularly profound.

In the middle are all the people with uncertain futures. They tend to deal with their lives one day at a time. Some leave the city, some stay. A few regain some sense of normalcy, while others don't. The fictionalized stories are both moving and educational. There are aspects of post-Katrina life in New Orleans that I had never thought about until watching Treme. And I'm a guy who read a lot of news accounts of the real-life events before, during and after the hurricane while I was working at USA Today.

It wouldn't surprise me if in five or 10 years, HBO does a post-BP oil spill series. There are certain stories that can't quite be told through the national news media. Journalists are good at getting the daily news and sometimes digging deeper and presenting well-formed analysis or human interest pieces. But events on the scale of Katrina, and now the BP oil spill, are rich with numerous angles and ripe story-telling perspectives -- positives, negatives and everything in between. Sometimes "creative non-fiction" is the best vehicle to convey certain hardships and challenges.

Treme was the right show at the right time. With the oil still flowing, and more lives being destroyed so soon after Katrina, one can't help but wonder how people along the Gulf Coast can endure this latest onslaught. While one disaster was man-made and the other was caused by a force of nature, in the end, it doesn't really matter why or how the catastrophes arrived if you're a resident of that part of the world.

A better pursuit than raising the retirement age

Retirement age should be a personal decision based on one's finances and health, among other things, of course. Yet, governments around the world have a lot to do with that decision. As the economic crisis continues, many countries are considering raising the age for retirement with full benefits.

That would be tragic and wouldn't necessarily accomplish its goal.

Those who have saved enough money for retirement don't need to worry too much about the U.S. or any other country raising the retirement age. But for the majority of us who haven't saved enough or were wiped out by the current recession, retirement is beginning to seem like an impossibility. That is not good for the human spirit that longs for some down time. Raising the age would only make matters worse for older individuals already struggling to stay on the job.

People retiring is one of the ways jobs become available to folks who are looking for work. Fewer retirements means more people in need of unemployment benefits and other assistance. That in turn increases nations' deficits. So I don't see the logic in forcing senior citizens to remain in the workforce. I understand that paying into Social Security is better for the government than people collecting their benefits, but countries shouldn't fatten up their federal budgets on the labor of senior citizens. What next? Reduce the legal age of when minors can work so that they can pay taxes?

The irony is that while some people are willing and capable of working into their golden years, age discrimination laws aren't enforced enough to prevent some companies from forcing older workers out the door. So while governments may raise the retirement age to cope with economic concerns, they should also take a long look at how older employees are treated in the workforce and job market. Tightening up age-discrimination laws will do far more to keep able seniors working than raising the retirement age.