![\"hang-ups\"](\"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/hang-ups.png\")
For years and years I fought the fact I was getting old. I\u2019d protest loudly is someone even hinted that I was getting to be an old coot. I\u2019d skip down the street, jump up in the air like the guy from the Teeter-Hang Ups commercial who is 74 (probably 80 by now) and jumps around like he\u2019s 35 merely because he hangs upside down like a bat in a cave, on some odd looking thing he invented called Teeter Hang Ups but looks more like a basket on a stick.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nMany of you never saw this commercial so you\u2019re thinking I\u2019m just making this up, but I swear it\u2019s true. Look up Teeter Hangup.\u00a0\u00a0I think the guy snorts something or gets drunk before he jumps \u2013 there is just no way in the world that hanging upside down is going to make you younger. It may make you stronger as anything which does not kill you makes you stronger so they say, but where is the evidence of that?<\/p>\n
I live a very boring life. Getting older adds to the boredom since I\u2019m not old enough to have lost my short term memory, my mind, nor am I young enough to care \u2013 I\u2019m a tween. You know that they call kids between 10 and 12 \u201ctweens\u201d? Right? Well sort-of old people like me are tweens too. We are tween lots of things. We are tween sanity and dementia, Alzheimer\u2019s, and that old pine box \u2013 the great equalizer. Whether you\u2019re filthy rich or dirt poor, you can be sure when they shove your embalmed carcass into the cold hard ground, we\u2019re all equal \u2013 don\u2019t matter what kind of grave stone you have. Yes, Grammar Police, I said \u201cDon\u2019t\u201d, not \u201cDoesn\u2019t\u201d because I\u2019m too old to care what you think of my grammar.<\/p>\n
I try to find things to do when I\u2019m not fixing computers or writing newsletters or short stories \u2013 which end up unfinished and stored in obscure files buried on a USB drives tossed in a drawer. One thing I do a lot of is read, but that\u2019s becoming harder because I fall asleep after five or six pages. It\u2019s really a long ride to read a 600-page novel like that. Darn good book, I say to myself as I drift off to the absolute absolution of sleep. Of course, two hours later I have to get up and go to he bathroom \u2013 or should I say stagger to the bathroom. When I was in my 30\u2019s, staggering to the bathroom had a much different meaning. My bladder don\u2019t work right anymore, my body don\u2019t work right anymore, and soon my mind won\u2019t work right anymore- and it\u2019s hard for me to muster up enough energy to even care anymore. As and old friend oft reminds me \u2013 it is what it is.<\/p>\n
(Phone\u2019s ringing. \u2018cuse me. \u201cHello? Grammar police? Yeh I know I don\u2019t use don\u2019t correctly in this screed. You know what? I surely don\u2019t care.\u201d Which reminds me \u2014 Don\u2019t call me surely! Remember \u201cAirplane!\u201d the movie? )<\/p>\n
Anyway, I\u2019m so sorry for the interruption.<\/p>\n
One day last week I decided to take a day-trip to one of our local nursing homes, just of the halibut, no, no, no, just to see some people I used to know who are holed up there escaping the pressures of trying to live out their lives in bodies that don\u2019t work right anymore and minds that don’t think right anymore. I won\u2019t mention their names not that they\u2019d care, they don\u2019t always remember their names either. I have not yet reached that stage. But for the sake of this little essay, I\u2019m going to call them Tim and Dee. Why Tim and Dee? Because each has only three letters and I\u2019m lazy and my excuse is – because I’m old. So why type a name like Emmanuel or Isabella? If you want names like that, you can write your own essays!<\/p>\n
Now let me tell you, Tim and Dee are OLD. Not old like me, but REALLY old. They\u2019ve been married for 70 years or so \u2013 in short, they\u2019ve been married longer than I\u2019ve been alive. When they got married, FDR was president and eggs were 64 cents a dozen. And I\u2019m not making that up. Here check it out! Sixty-four cents a dozen! Paul McCartney was 2 when they got married, now he\u2019s even older than me.<\/p>\n
(Yes, grammar police, I said ME, not I. )<\/p>\n
So I get to the nursing home -unfortunately- at lunch time. They\u2019re having turkey and mashed potatoes and soupy corn which you all know as cream-style corn. Not many of the residents have teeth and none of them have good teeth. Some of them have good dentures, but most of them leave them in a glass of Polident in their rooms. Too much trouble popping them in and out anymore. Anyway, who cares?<\/p>\n
The food looks mushy to me, and I understand why. So anyway, the nurse\u2019s aide or whatever she is, asks if I\u2019d like a tray. I can get one for $2.00. Two Dollars! I can get a whole tray of food for $2.00. I can\u2019t pass it up, though I\u2019m hungry. While I\u2019m waiting, I watch Tim and Dee dig in. Tim looks at Dee and asks her what the heck he\u2019s eating. She says, \u201cIt\u2019s turkey, honey\u201d (how sweet!) and Tim looks at her with a serious expression and asks her if it\u2019s Thanksgiving already. It\u2019s only April \u2013 I know it, apparently Dee knows it, but Tim is oblivious.br>
\nTim looks at me with a mouth full of mashed potatoes and says \u201cWho the heck are you?\u201d (He uses a stronger word than heck but the last time I used that word I got emails condemning me for my foul mouth \u2013 or fingers as the case may be). I told him who I was and he has no idea. Dee looks at me and then looks at Tim and tell him that I used to their neighbor back on Chestnut Street. \u201cYou\u2019re the damned fool that nearly burned down my storage shed, ain\u2019t ya?\u201d<\/p>\n
I have no idea what he means so I just say I don\u2019t remember. He looks at me and a big hunk of turkey falls out of his mouth and onto his pants which he brushes off onto the floor. Dee looks at him with a compassionate look and at me with a look of \u201chow long are you going to stay, can you tell he doesn\u2019t remember you or even like you\u201d. I\u2019m not comfortable but I\u2019m trying to get a feel for my future here so I stay.<\/p>\n
Luckily, just about then, the nurse\u2019s aide brings in my tray of mushy turkey, mashed potatoes, soupy corn and green Jell-O. I thank her. The food does not actually smell too badly. I like things i don\u2019t have to chew because chewing, even at my age is a lot of work. I could have eaten the entire meal through a straw. It was salty and it made me thirsty — and my weak coffee had grown lukewarm.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s Thanksgiving, where are the kids? They always have more important things to do than come see us!\u201d Tim mused. \u201cHoney, it\u2019s not Thanksgiving. Easter was just last Sunday.\u201d Dee said looking into his filmy gray eyes. He wipes his nose and clears his throat a dozen times and snorts something about the kids not being there for Easter. Dee tells him that not only were the kids there but the grand-kids too \u2013 they even brought an Easter basket filled with candy. \u201cWell, where is it then?\u201d he says grumpily. \u201cYou ate it, Tim . Don\u2019t you remember?\u201d He doesn\u2019t remember. He drops his Jell-O on the floor.<\/p>\n
He looks at me and asks who I am again and I tell him. The Jell-O on the floor really bothers him and he grumbles about it. He can\u2019t bend over to reach it and them _______ nurse know it. They\u2019re going to leave it there until he slips on it and kills himself.br>
\nI look at Dee and she\u2019s all but telling me to leave. We hear snoring and Tim has fallen asleep, his toothless mouth gaping. Dee grabs a blanket and takes almost 5 minutes to walk the 10 feet to where Tim is sleeping. I was going to help her but I think she\u2019d have slapped me.<\/p>\n
II decide to leave my old friends and go home. On the way home I start thinking how much like childhood being old is. It\u2019s almost like being a baby all over again \u2013 the mushy food, the diapers, the groping for words, the caregivers. And almost everything is new every day. See, when you forget what happened an hour ago or a day ago, then just about everything is new!<\/p>\n
I get home, open my book, read five pages and fall asleep. Two hours later my bladder calls and I stagger to the bathroom. I\u2019m having so much fun getting old.br>
\nMaybe tomorrow I\u2019ll hang upside down in a basket on a stick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Growing Old Is Fun! For years and years I fought the fact I was getting old. I\u2019d protest loudly is someone even hinted that I was getting to be an old coot. I\u2019d skip down the street, jump up in the air like the guy from the Teeter-Hang Ups commercial who is 74 (probably 80 by now) and\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10718"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10720,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718\/revisions\/10720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}