First chapter

To empty the bladder on a Greyhound bus

I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold.

I've been in my mind,

It's such a fine line

That keeps me searching for a heart of gold.

And I'm getting old.

Neil Young

The Greyhound bus from Washington to Nashville rumbles through the black southern night. The time is 11PM and I realize it's time for what I've been worried about – emptying the bladder on the bus. It's more dramatic than it sounds. Due to problems with the prostate, I have to empty the bladder twice a day by means of a disposable catheter.

For a few days in Washington, I have had a routine to arrange it at 9 AM and 11 PM. I have previously thought about choosing day time buses to avoid carrying out this routine on the bus, but on this rather long journey through the United States, there is a lot of time to save by going by night. The trip from Washington to Nashville takes 16 hours, so it was tempting to choose the night bus and hope for straight roads. In addition, I save the cost of one night at a hotel or air bnb by sleeping on the bus.

I'm going to the neat and gloomy toilet at the back of the bus. It is clean but worn. By the smell I guess someone has recently smoked marijuana here. Could it possibly be the well-packed and painted lady in her 60's who was here just half an hour ago?

Forget it and concentrate on what to do!

The bus goes straight and steady so it may work. I open the top of the catheter's plastic package and fill it with lukewarm bus water for maximum flexibility and minimal resistance. Once the catheter has spent a minute in a water bath, I insert it into the mouth of the urethra and feel the usual urethral swelling after a few centimeters and then a light breeze when the catheter hits the lower end of the bladder. It opens quickly and it begins to drain.

Normally, about a pint of urine comes out before I can pull out the catheter and throw it in the bin. Just when I'm going to throw the catheter in the trash, the bus breaks heavily. What luck I had it was not half a minute ago!

Now it turns out that the trash can is stuffy so I do not get the catheter down there. The toilet is missing windows so I cannot throw it out. I do not want to bring the catheter to my seat, so I simply put it on the floor next to the toilet. Afterwards I feel a little ashamed.

My urine therapist has asked me to write a urine diary, where I indicate the volume of urine I drop out with the catheter, how much I piss in a natural way and how it feels. When I'm back in my seat, I pick up my computer and fill in the facts in the urine book. Honestly, I have thrown the measuring glass I received from the urine therapist, so the volumes are estimates.

The first month of prostate and urinary tract infection I walked around with a solid catheter and a urine bag on the leg. When the staff at the hospital started telling me that I would put two catheters per day, I saw it as a threat of torture. After another week when the solid catheter tore the inside of the bladder and the bag of the leg was filled with blood, I accepted the single catheters and I'm happy now. It may take half a year before I get time to operate the prostate and it is therefore important to minimize the pain and try to live as normally as possible for a long period of time – despite the disability.

I remember the surprised customs officer at the Washington airport. The heavily overweight youngster in his big uniform wondered about what the strange snakes I had in the hand baggage. I explained how disposable catheters work and offered him one to test.

He got a little anxious expression on his face and let me through straight away. No, he really did not want to test it.

I stayed three days in Washington to see the White House, Congress, the restaurant where John and Jackie Kennedy got engaged, some museums and the place where Martin Luther King held his famous speech - "I have a dream."

Now I continue to listen to country music in Nashville, see Elvis's tomb in Memphis, experience the jazz scene in New Orleans and see the street where John Kennedy was murdered in Dallas.

The main reason for this trip is to map all possible aspects of aging. During a trip to Argentina and Chile last year, I met a number of cheerful seniors from the United States in connection with vineyard visits in both Mendoza and Santiago. We had such rewarding discussions about what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives that we almost forgot to feel what the wine tasted like. The more the wine we drank, the more uncertain we were, what is the optimal way to get old.

I have thrown away the business cards I received from the friends I met in South America, but I'm sure to meet other people with both wise and stupid ideas about aging here in the United States as well. My route to meet them will be via Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Joshua Tree, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Billings, Denver, Chicago and Detroit.

The journey is also something of a bucket list, American cities I want to experience "before I kick the bucket", taking down the sign, wedges around the corner. I have booked in some favorite cities from before for the trip.

I realize that I'm really aging mentally because I refrain from booking multiple stretches at a time on the buses and several accommodations in advance. The reason is that I think I can die at any time and it would be a bit of a disappointment for the heirs if I had paid for trips and overnight stays that I could not use because of sudden death.

My next big goal is a dream I've had since April 16, 1969. That's when I heard Neil Young for the first time on the Swedish radio. The song played was “Round & Round” from the album “Everybody knows this is nowhere”. The DJ Kjell Alinge said while the song was tinted down: "This was Round & Round with Neil Young. It's sad to have to tune down a song that's not at all in a hurry, but the world's old watches have its time. Now it's 4:00 PM and here’s the news."

I immediately went to buy the disc. After that I bought all the discs with Neil Young. Almost every time he has come to Sweden I have stood in the audience. On one occasion I went to Mountain View south of San Francisco to see him play near his home.

For many, many years I have dreamed of meeting him. Now I hope that dream will come true. I will try to interview him in San Francisco, something I know is difficult even for a journalist and probably even harder for a forest worker like me. The prerequisite is that the interview should be about the age of rock star and that I will rewrite it in this book.

Another of my youth's rock idols is Ray Davies in the Kinks. On the You Tube clip from later years, he has got a strangely outdated face. He faces a giant audience at the Glastonbury festival. Everybody sings in his old songs. He smiles and moves his lips, but his face looks stiff. Has he experienced a neurological disease or has he undergone a surgical attempt to become younger?

With Neil Young it's the other way round. For many years he has become increasingly gray-haired and the hairline creeps slowly upwards. The face has grown more and more ridged. The waistline seems to increase. It does not seem to worry him.

Ever since the first time I saw him, he has seemed much more interested in his music than his appearance. He has in later years, often been wearing a hat when he plays. I do not know if he is cold or if he wants to hide a baldness.

On the You tube clip from his latest tour, I see that he has let the guitarist in the young band he played with in recent years play several guitar solos. Lack of prestige is in my opinion a healthy age sign.

At the same time, he seems full of ideas, now as before. He is passionate about environmental issues and fights against genetically modified food. When people who also fight against the food giant Monsanto need money, he donates an appropriate sum.

Therefore, I want to interview him now more than ever, both about the environment and old age. Before I think more about it, I'll be able to cope with a further blowout with catheter help before the bus arrives in Nashville. Before I arrive in California, I'll add maybe 50 catheters. It would certainly have been a lot more fun to come to San Francisco 50 years ago and experience "the summer of love" than coming here as an old man with catheters instead of condoms in the gasket.

There is a lot else to be done before I come to California, but using the catheters meets my awareness more than anything else.

My name is Kurt Andersson and I'm 72 years old. When I started to suffer from a variety of disorders at the age of 65, it became a shock to me. Suddenly, I realized that I am not immortal and, even worse, that I am old. As reasonably normal, I should have realized that earlier, but that was nothing I would think of then.

For the greater part of my life, I have worked as a farmer. When I was young and studied journalism at the university, I had the opportunity to buy a family farm in the Swedish county Småland at a good price. Large forests belonged the farm. Early I finished with cows and pigs and spent most of my time and my energy on developing my forests. I had a big bunch of sheep to keep the landscape open.

Even though I have always had long working weeks, working in the forest has had the advantage that the trees do not need to be milked every morning and evening as the cows. I like to be out in the fresh air. I feel greater freedom in the forest than among the cows and the pigs. In addition, the forest is better for the climate than the cows. For the last few years, for climatic reasons, I have even stopped eating meat of cow, pig and chicken.

The last years I have worked less in the forrests and hired staff, who have been more specialists on what needs to be done than me. I have also had to realize that they are much younger and stronger than me. Often they have come from Poland.

In recent years, I have been thinking of engaging in politics as a result of my environmental commitment. However, I have had a hard time finding a party to channel my opinions. The Swedish Center Party is too much fossil hugger and the Green Party has been too close to the concrete hugging social democrats, so I have instead worked for non-profit organizations. I'm in associations such as the Red Cross, People's Cinema, Nature Conservation Association and many more. A total of 14 associations, I think.

That my wife is not on this United States trip is because she is still working. She is not 67 years yet and likes her job as a doctor so she continues as long as she may and can. I have promised to send her a fairly detailed report of my trip every day. All my friends get shorter reports via facebook.

Next to me on the Greyhound bus is a dark woman with red hair and gray scalp. It's hard to judge her age, but my guess is that she's between 55 and 60 years old. She has a lot of hand luggage, food for a long journey, a blanket to mitigate the effect of the air conditioning on the bus and a bundle of fashion magazines she reads when she does not speak in her old-age cell phone.

She looks impressed when I facebook on my MacBookAir and she looks curious at the pictures of my grandchildren and wondering if it's my grandchildren. I tell you about the sweeties and that they are probably already awake because the clock in Sweden is six hours before or maybe seven hours before now when we approach Nashville. It would be a bit fun to skype with any of them on the bus, but I'm afraid that they should interfere with those who sleep in front of and behind. The bus's wifi is also not so stable so it could be a very short call.

I guess it could be very wrong if I was going to start talking with my bus neighbor about appearance aspects of aging. Instead, I ask if she has any grandchildren. Yes, she has five grandchildren in different states in southern United States. The children who live closest get a lot of help from the woman, called Aretha.

She asks me what I'm doing here in the United States and I tell her that I've recently stopped working completely and am out to find the meaning of life as an old man. Aretha does not seem to really understand the meaning of life as old. For her it's all about survival. For her ending work would mean the same as starving.

I myself think that a meaningful task for me as an old man might be to fight for such as Aretha to get a more decent old age without worry about getting food for the day.

The more I speak with Aretha, the more privileged I feel. She seems to work hard, but gets very little out of her struggle. I ask her what she is working with and she tells her that she has no permanent job. She has never had that. She hopes for cleaning jobs in families, or dish washing at restaurants. Sometimes she is driving a bus. Now she is on her way to Nashville to work in a private nursing home for two weeks. What she's gonna do, she does not really know, but she thinks it's about carriage of food.

How long do you think you can keep on like this, I wonder. She answers that she does not have a choice. Her only chance is working until she dies.

I ask if Aretha is on facebook. She is not. She says she is fully committed to coping with reality. I object that Facebook is a part of reality, but Aretha is mistrustful. We live in different worlds.

If you would have a lot of money, what would you do then? I wonder stupidly. It turns out to be so far from Aretha's reality that she has almost never thought of those paths. Her dreams concern children and grandchildren. She wants them to live carefree lives. She herself is so worried that she thinks it would be strange to live carefree, almost so that she would think she is dead if she would wake up one morning without worries.

As I get off the bus, I first think Nashville seems to be a weird city. The Greyhound station is quite central, yet somehow isolated. Soon I realize that it is because they are building new houses all around. After leaving my old worn suitcase in the storage room, I walk towards the city center and soon come to the Country Music Hall of Fame, where I immediately enter.

Here is a lot of fun to see, but also some strange things. Here is a car that belongs to a musician unknown to me. All handles and levers have been replaced by guns. What an idot!

There are clothes belonging to musicians, including Gram Parson's dress with embroidered marijuana leaves.

A lot of musical instruments belonging to the stars are probably the most fun to see.

By the time of mid-afternoon, I go back to the Greyhound station and pick up my suitcase, then I pass by a large cemetery and through a large villa area before I finally arrive at my air bnb, an elegant villa that is also very pleasant. I ask my host if there is any restaurant nearby and he points out a direction where there is a bar and a dining area, just two blocks away.

It does not turn out to be a highlight. The vegetarian bean burger is finished, so I have to be content with cheese buns and beer. Worse is that the other guests are guys of my age who are smoking and mocking Hillary Clinton.

I hurry home and fall asleep in the comfortable bed, much more comfortable than last night's chair on the bus. I forget to empty the bladder.

The next day I'm sitting in a Honky Tonk, a live music bar, on Lower Broadway, the heart of Nashville. Beside me is a man who truly lives a carefree life, according to his own statement. We start talking to each other when the musicians have a pause for a leak and continue to talk when it's time to change bands on stage. He has driven the 600 miles from Kansas City to Nashville to attend a concert with the singer and guitarist Gabriel Kelley, who I have seen the Swedish television program Jill's porch. The neighbor in the bar was looking forward to spending some extra days hanging on Nashville's heart, the Lower Broadway music venues.

Today he chose Whiskey Bent Saloon just like me, Two fat and bearded brothers with acoustic guitars are playing the lunch pass. They sound more like singer songwriters than the dance-band-like music that many Swedes think of when I mention the word country. I like their storytelling way of singing and playing guitar solos. I'd love to buy one of their CDs available for sale at the bar, but I refrain. The suitcase may not get heavier and I will not consume more. I can search them on spotify.

My neighbor in the bar is called Robert and he retired this summer from his job as principal of a high school. His wife is working for a few more years, and Robert is dedicated to traveling around the US and going to concerts. It turns out we have almost the same music taste. Robert will go to Los Angeles in a week and visit the Dessert Trip with Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters and the Who. He realizes that in a few years many of them are dead – and maybe he himself too. So he thinks it's worth the trip and the expensive ticket to see and listen to these guys, maybe one last time.

When he hears how I'm going to continue my journey to listening to blues in Memphis, New Orleans jazz and Motown music in Detroit, he'll be interested in traveling around Europe and discovering new music. What can I recommend?

It's not simpel, I conclude.

I suggest that he start by going to a concert with Christiano de André in Italy. In Switzerland he would be able to look for a punk joddler, whom I have forgotten the name of, but I offer to find out. In Austria, it may be a bit exciting to go to a concert with Conchita Wurst, who won the European song contest this year or maybe last year. In Germany, I recommend Peter Fox, Seeed and Einstürzenden Neubauten. In Sweden I suggest Thåström, Håkan Hellström, Peps Persson, Annika Norlin and Owe Thörnqvist.

In Finland, I do remember anyone other than MA Numinen and in Norway, not any single artist worth travelling to.

Robert notes diligently.

I suggest that he waits for spring with his European music trip if he is not ascetic and likes cool wheather.

Without me saying a word about it, Robert says Neil Young is the artist he thinks has been aging with the most dignity. He has been playing several new songs at some concerts in the summer and autumn and there are rumors of a new record before New Year.

How do you mean that Neil Young is aging with the greatest dignity? I wonder. We are well aware that his guitar solos is rather similar, as is his commuting between acoustic country-influenced music and sluggish electric rock.

Robert agrees. But he thinks that Neil Young's new songs almost always have new messages, even though they are now most often in the environmental field.

A year or two ago we both saw Roger Daltry of the Who singing "My Generation" at David Letterman’s late night show. The line "Hope I die before get old" sounds a little strange when it's sung by a man in his 70's. Robert thinks we talk too much about old men´s rock in the sense of singing and playing old men. He would think it would be interesting if the old guys wrote and sang songs about our generation today and our problems of being old.

How fun would it be if Mick Jagger wrote a song about what it's like to be a father of babies at the age of 73. We would think it would be exciting if Roger Waters made a song, where he dreams of getting well from prostate problems with accompanying urinary tract infections.

It would be interesting to see a concert, in which Pete Townshend demonstrates how he practices in order to wield the guitar rhythm, despite his osteoarthritis.

Or imagine Bob Dylan writing a surreal text about his difficulties in getting erection as a 75-year-old and longing for life when there were groupies on the run after the concerts. Such a song might possibly lead to the fact that life as an old man can be worthwhile.

This discussion begins to be a little too male, we notice. There are also female rock heroes who have become old. We are fantasizing about a video, where Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane demonstrates how she became a good friend with her walking stick. We would like to see an interview with Tina Turner, where she tells us that life can be more than bearable as gray-haired and overweight, almost 80-year-old lady. Madonna could make a song about the longing for grandchildren.

That idea makes Robert and I start to yearn for our grandchildren. At our age, our little sweet children are much more important than the rock'n roll.

Before we move on, we exchange phone numbers and decide to make friends on Facebook.

Now I really like Nashville. Unlike Washington, I do not see any beggars and hobos. The reason is not that it's forbidden to beg, but that most people do not need to beg. Someone tells me there is hardly any unemployment here. People have jobs. There are lots of homes in different sizes, so housing shortage has almost been erased.

Music dominates the city. Here's so many honky tonks, where we can drink beer and listen to music, like Whiskey Bent Saloon, where I met Robert. In addition, there is a whole neighborhood, Music Row, with recording studios, music lawyers, music villas, music hotels, musical choirs, and everything about music.

I find out that the concert with Gabriel Kelley that my new friend Robert has talked about takes place at a small cellar, the Basement, near where I stay. When I get there half an hour before the concert starts, Gabriel Kelly is picking up his instruments from his car. I go there and talk a little with him. I am astonished that he speaks fluent Swedish. The reason is that he has studied one year in Gothenburg. There was nothing that he showed at Jill's porch.

No more than 30 people have come to the little club to listen to Gabriel and his band. When I come in,  a band with both young and old musicians plays pure country. The young singer has a voice, which, although darker in some way, reminds me of Klara Söderberg of First Aid Kit. Their voices sound somehow elastic.

When Gabriel Kelley has played some songs along with his electric band, he gets an indictment. He sends his band from the stage and calls the singer of the previous band. Then the two sing a series of songs, playing their acoustic guitar.

It is a happy evening at the Basement. In a break I meet Robert and we deal with the topic of staying healthy with the help of exercise. We both know that every day without exercise is a lost day, but recognizes that now and then, there will be many lost days. Especially when we travel. At home, we try to keep up the old age struggles by taking long walks, long bike rides and going to the gym.

The day after I leave Nashville, but I want to come back. Here are so many bands I have not heard yet.

From Kurt Andersson's Facebook

Robert Nelson, Kansas City

Hi Kurt! The show with Gabriel Kelley was great. I am staying in Nashville two more days.

How is life in Memphis?

I am really looking forward to coming to Europe next spring.

Facts about Nashville

• Nashville is the capital of the state of Tennessee.

• The city had 678 889 inhabitants in 2015.

• The major university is called Vanderbilt University, which has over 13,000 students. Belmont University has over 8,000 students. Tennessee State University has over 9,000 students.

• Nashville has also been a 21-episode TV series that plays in the music industry.

• Health care is said to be the city's largest industry. The music industry characterizes the city to a greater extent.

Read more at www.nashville.com

Music Row in Nashville