Aging, A Look Back

There was an often-repeated saying during my youth that went, “Live fast, Die young, and Leave a good looking corpse.”  Well, I didn’t live fast enough, didn’t die while I was young, so it would seem that leaving a good-looking corpse won’t be on my agenda either.  Since aging is the alternative to dying, I’m kind of a big fan of the former.

The “Live fast” quote prompted some quick research and I found it traces back to a Humphry Bogart movie, Knock on Any Door.  The movie debuted in 1949, but it wasn’t Bogie’s line.  That was left to John Derek.  Yeah, the same guy who later married Bo Derek.  I’m guessing that, if John Derek knew he would later be marrying Bo, he might not have been so eager to die young.  Bo wouldn’t even be born for another seven years.

Bo Derek

Bo Derek would be made famous in the movie, 10, which also loosely involved aging.  In that movie, a middle-aged composer/playwright (Dudley Moore) falls for the much younger beautiful newlywed (Bo Derek).  Cue Maurice Ravel’s Bolero here.  You can find an undercurrent of aging in many movies.  The Ron Howard film Cocoon comes to mind.

Groucho Marx

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
― Groucho Marx

Most of us don’t think about aging until it is too late.  Yes, it creeps up on you like a windshield on a bug.  There you are flying along through life and all of a sudden, splat, you are old.  As Will Rogers once said, “you know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.”

I knew I was getting old when I started making noises like my Espresso machine.  Little aches and pains creep in and you are forced to slow down a bit.  I find myself listening to my parent’s music and thinking that yes, there is something there.  Then I put on some Doors, Janice, or Stones and snap out of it.

Eat that garden salad.  Have that plate of fresh vegetables.  Then grab the phone and call Dominoes. Eat chicken and fish several times a week but, every once in a while, toss a steak on the fire.  All of life is a balancing act; just try keeping the scales tipped in your favor.  A man once went to a doctor to ask his chances of living to 100.  The doctor asked him, do you smoke, drink, or keep late hours with loose women?  When the man answered no to each of these the doctor then asked, why in the world do you want to live to be 100?

Throw a Steak on the Barbecue

You want to live a long life but not too long.  It is predicted that by 2100 the earth’s seas will rise about 6 feet.  That will put my hometown underwater.  I enjoy splashing around as much as the next person, but the traffic around here is bad enough without contending with people swimming while texting.

Texting While Swimming

When I walk, I sound like the advertised bowl of Rice Krispies after you add the milk.  I couldn’t creep up on a deaf blind man.  Muscles ache where I didn’t know I even had muscles.  If it doesn’t hurt, it’s broken.  I went through my entire life without needing glasses and now I need “cheaters” to know what’s on the menu.  I can step into an elevator and I know all the words to the music that’s playing.  

Snap, Crackle, and Pop

I now have a bit of arthritis in my hands and have to contend with childproof caps.  I would like to meet the idiot who invented these.  I’m guessing this is the same individual that decided to put the “lift while turning”, “push down while turning” or “align the arrows and push up here” instructions clearly written in small raised white letters against a white background.  Just make sure, when you make the introduction, that I am holding a Louisville Slugger.  I’ll bet I can still knock his butt up into the cheap seats.  I’ll also bet that a jury of my elderly peers would find me not guilty by reason of sanity at the trial.

Solution to Childproof Caps

One of the pleasures of aging is retirement.  They call these your golden years.  By that they mean, you better have saved enough gold or retirement is just another word for unemployed.  With cautious investment however, and a little help from Social Security, you can easily make ends meet.  This of course assumes you can still get your head down between your legs to get those ends together.

I’m joking of course.  Retirement is wonderful.  You can lie in bed in the morning and watch the traffic report knowing you aren’t doing 6 mph in a 60 mph zone.  You can get up, get out of bed, shower, and get dressed whenever you want.  Or, you can just put it all off until tomorrow.  Your choice.

Think back on the technological changes that have happened during your life.  If you are over 50, those changes have been immense.  We have seen the age of AM radio give way to television.  We watched small black and white picture tubes as they morphed into wide screen high resolution giants.  The kids today can’t appreciate what they have.  In my day, I had to walk across nine feet of shag carpet just to change the channel.  The card catalogue at the local library was my Google.  While sitting at a computer today feels natural,  I have to admit, having information coming to me from around the globe in an instant, feels a bit euphoric.  I will also admit, being required to scroll down and down and down to find my birth year, still upsets me.

Another advantage of aging is Senior Discounts.  I'm sure you remember getting into the movie at a discount when you were under 12.  In today’s world that might be nice but there aren’t any movies you can get into if you are that young.  It’s better to get the discount when you are old.  You can get senior discounts on meals, hotel rooms, and many different things, just ask.  You’ll find that, as you age, you just don’t get embarrassed as easily as when you were young.

Our views on aging change throughout our lives.  As children, we looked forward to being a year older and even counted half years as milestones.  We looked forward to being teenagers and, as teenagers; we really looked forward to turning 21.  You are now finally an adult.  Many of us eventually realize that turning 21 made us adults in a legal sense and had nothing to do with us having good sense.  Think back on your 20’s.  Did you do stupid things?  If you can honestly say you did nothing really stupid back then, I feel sorry for you.  You wasted a great opportunity.  My greatest stories come from that time in my life when I was too young and stupid to know the consequences of my actions.  I'm just lucky to have survived to be writing this today.

Do Something Stupid While You Are Young

If you survive the early years, life then happens in earnest.  You live through your 30’s and 40’s.  Aging is not part of your consciousness.  When 50 happens you start getting the “Over the Hill” cards and wonder, how can I be going over the hill when I never made it to the top?  You are now surrounded by “middle age.”  You start thinking about your future.  That magic number of 65 is no longer around the next bend; it is in sight just ahead.  Somewhere between 65 and 70 is when the windshield splat analogy takes you by surprise.

By now, you have gray hair or little or no hair left at all.  Your skin has wrinkles and begins to sag just a bit.  Weight loss is not as easy as it used to be.  You have lunch with friends and the conversation will generally involve health issues. 

Words also change their meaning as we age.  “Getting a little action,” means that the fiber is beginning to work.  “Getting lucky,” means you found your car in the mall parking lot.  "Happy hour," is now a nap.  An “all-nighter,” means you didn’t have to get up to pee.

Eskimos have many words for snow and the rest of us have a similar number of words for getting old.  Alphabetically we have ancient, antiquated, archaic, dated, decrepit, doddering, elderly, fossilized, geriatric, kaput, medieval, moribund, moth eaten, obsolete, outdated, over the hill, passe, prehistoric, quaint, rusty, senescent, senile, senior, tottery, and vintage.  Age, any age, is tempered by how you feel.  I happen to feel good at 70.  Youth is about how you feel, not when you were born.  You must also realize, the young cannot know how old age feels, but we have failed if we forget how it was to be young.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Sláinte