Editor’s Note: The following column was written prior to 2012.
My Big “O” birthday is coming, and my high school class is having a reunion. Most of us are almost 60! We are now officially too old to die young. It is funny how we describe age. When you are a kid, you are so proud of your age that you talk about it in fractions. “I’m five and a half.” Well, I guess I’m 59 and a half.
I have turned 30, I reached 40, I made 50, and I guess some day I will hit 70. After that, it is day-to-day. You hit Wednesday. In your 80s, you hit dinner. Then it is really day-to-day. The insurance company sends your card weekly. I’m not going to live in denial. My wild oats have turned to shredded wheat, and my narrow waist and broad shoulders have switched places. It is the autumn of life, and all of my organs have headed south.
Let me give you a few signs that you may have too much sand in the bottom of the hourglass. It takes longer to rest than to get tired. Everything is starting to wear out, fall out, or spread out. Your knees buckle, and your belt won’t. You have too much room in the house and not enough in the medicine cabinet. You look forward to a dull evening. You drive with your hands in the 10 and 2 o’clock position, and by the time you get out of the car your grandkids are already in the house. You pull a muscle while applying Bengay.
Your favorite song is playing in the elevator. You finish entire novels in the bathroom. You were thinking about putting a revolving door in the bathroom. You choose cereal for the fiber instead of the toy. If you have ever wished for thermostat replacement therapy that would allow you to regulate your wife’s temperature, you are getting older.
If you have ever said “You call that music?” You would rather watch CSI Miami than go to Miami. You get excited over cheesecake-flavored yogurt. The kid you used to babysit is now running for Congress. One of your thrills in life is having heated car seats. You have to speed up in order to get over the speed bump, and the only thing you pass on the interstate is an Amish wagon. Your clothes have come back in style twice. The winter pants you hung in your closet last year have shrunk two sizes.
A way you can tell that you are getting older is by how much you remember. I can remember when kids rode in the back of the station wagon facing the cars behind them. I can remember who shot J.R. I can remember when Coke was something you drank, grass was what you mowed, and pot is what you cooked in. Closets were for clothes and not for “coming out.” Aides were helpers in the principal’s office. But I can also remember what Churchill said: “The farther back you can look, the further forward you can see.”
There are some benefits to getting older. You get to eat dinner at 4 o’clock. Your joints are more accurate than the local weather service. There is nothing left to learn the hard way. You can hide your own Easter eggs. You don’t have to worry about avoiding temptation; it avoids you. Also, there is less peer pressure because there are fewer peers.
Since there is no such thing as birthday control pills, I am going to my reunion. Most of the people there will probably be too old to recognize me. The punch will be spiked with prune juice, and we will play some ’60s music. Of course the words will be different. They will play songs like “There Ain’t No Burrito Mild Enough” or “Hair Potion Number 9.” Of course the classics — Herman’s Hermits’ “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Walker,” the Bee Gees’ “How Can You Mend a Broken Hip,” and Leslie Gore’s “It’s My Procedure and I’ll Cry If I Want To” — will all be playing on our eight-track.
Charles, you might say, this old-age stuff is funny, but where is the wisdom? That is what old geezers are supposed to have. Each Big “O” birthday comes with two presents. First, an extra dose of reality that one day we will all be like Jimmy Hoffa — gone. Second, it is a time to evaluate the quality of our lives to date.
For me, I’m not giving up on fun. Now I know fun is a lot like insurance: The older you get, the more it costs. I also know that I have to run twice as hard to get there half as fast. But I’m not ready to trade in my Nikes for some bunny-rabbit slippers. I’m not interested in any form of organized bingo, or putting clothes on a dog or any other animal that already has fur.
I’m a simple guy. Here’s my philosophy: Life is not about young and old, it’s about dead and alive — and I’m alive. So give me that bottle of Geritol, I mean the Battle of Jericho. I don’t know what an old geezer is, but I’m not one of them. Remember: You are only as old as you remember. So give me a fish pill, and how do the younger people say it? “Bring it on!”
— Charles Lowery is president and CEO of Lowery Institute for Excellence, Inc., a non-profit training and consulting organization. This article was adapted from his book, “Comic Belief 2.”