![\"Having](\"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2018\/teeter.png\")
For years and years I fought the facts of life – NOT THOSE! I fought the fact of life that I, the young man in a crummy old body, am getting OLD.<\/p>\nFor years and years I fought the facts of life – NOT THOSE! I fought the fact of life that I, the young man in a crummy old body, am getting OLD.<\/p>\n
I used to protest loudly if someone even dared called me a “senior” that I was getting to be an old coot. Even when offered a 10% “Senior discount” by some (obviously visually challenged) young waitress in a restaurant – I’d get riled.<\/p>\n
To make sure everyone knew I was not old, I\u2019d skip down the street, walk really fast, and even jump up in the air like the guy from the Teeter-Hang Ups commercial who claims he is 74 -probably 80 by now – and jumps around like he\u2019s 30 merely because he hangs upside down, like a bat in a cave, on some odd looking contraption he invented called Teeter Hang Ups. To be honest, it looks like a basket on a stick.<\/p>\n
Many of you never saw this commercial so, you\u2019re thinking I\u2019m just making this up, but I swear it\u2019s true. Google Teeter Hang Ups – you’ll see. Doubt me, will ya?<\/p>\n
I think that 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 with old tax returns.<\/p>\n
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 the bathroom \u2013 or should I say stagger to the bathroom.<\/p>\n
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 doesn\u2019t care.\u201d Which reminds me of “Don\u2019t call me, Shirley!” Remember \u201cAirplane!\u201d the movie? )<\/p>\n
Anyway, I\u2019m so sorry for the interruption. I digress.<\/p>\n
One day last week I decided to take a day-trip to one of our local nursing homes. 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 with brains don\u2019t think right anymore. I won\u2019t mention their names. not that they\u2019d care, they can\u2019t always remember their names either.<\/p>\n
I have not yet reached that stage – which some of you are not doubting as you read this. 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 why am I lazy? Because I\u2019m old and entitled to be lazy. So why type a name like Emmanuel or Isabella? If you want names like that, go 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 (but only slightly). When they got married, Harry Truman was president and gas was nineteen cents a gallon. Amos & Andy were famous on the radio, and Humphrey Bogart had not yet died, nor even married Lauren yet\u00a0 And I\u2019m not making that up.\u00a0 Paul McCartney – hard to believe he’s going to be 76 this year) was 6 when they got married.\u00a0 Yes Paul is not only older than me, but he’s richer than me. If I had Paul’s money, I’d buy you all lunch… and sing you a song.<\/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 don’t bring them to lunch because they forgot them. They leave them soaking 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! Could you pass that up? Mush or not, I can\u2019t pass it up. 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, and apparently Dee knows it, but Tim seems oblivious. It doesn’t matter anyway.<\/p>\n
Tim 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. Then he says \u201cYou\u2019re the damned fool that nearly burned down my storage shed, ain\u2019t ya?\u201d<\/p>\n
He used a strong word than damned.<\/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 baggy pants. He brushes off the mushy turkey 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’t you tell he doesn\u2019t remember you or even like you\u201d.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not comfortable, but I\u2019m trying to get a feel for my future here so I stay a little longer.<\/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 bad. I like things I don\u2019t have to chew because chewing, even at my age is a lot of work. I could have eaten this entire meal through a straw. It was salty and it made me thirsty \u2014 but my weak coffee had grown lukewarm and therefore undrinkable.<\/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 two weeks ago. Remember the Easter egg hunt?” Dee said as she looked into his dull, 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 either. Dee tells him that not only were the kids there but the grand-kids too \u2013\u00a0 and they even brought him an Easter basket filled with soft 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 and smooshes it around with his foot.<\/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 and he swirls it around with his foot. He can\u2019t bend over to reach it. The nurse ignores it. I fear they\u2019re going to leave it there until he slips on it and kills himself. I get some paper towel and wipe it up as well as I can. I don’t want Tim to die because he slipped on a puddle of smooshed jello and cracked his skull.<\/p>\n
I did a good deed and I feel good about it.<\/p>\n
I look at Dee and now she\u2019s all but telling me to leave. We hear snoring and Tim has fallen asleep.\u00a0 His toothless mouth gaping and he starts to drool in his sleep. Dee grabs a blanket. It takes her 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
She needs a Teeter Hang Up I think. Maybe hanging upside down like a bat works? How long do bats live? Ever seen a bat in a nursing home? I mean as a resident?<\/p>\n
I 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 you do is new!<\/p>\n
I get home, open my book, read five pages and fall asleep. Like clockwork, two hours later my bladder calls and I stagger to the bathroom.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m having so much fun getting old.\u00a0Maybe tomorrow I\u2019ll trying hanging upside down in a basket on a stick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Having Fun Getting Old For years and years I fought the facts of life – NOT THOSE! I fought the fact of life that I, the young man in a crummy old body, am getting OLD. I used to protest loudly if someone even dared called me a “senior” that I was getting to be an old coot.\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[1720],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14780"}],"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=14780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14781,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14780\/revisions\/14781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}