Today marks the first year anniversary of my last day at the toy factory, and yesterday was my birthday. I don’t know which day was funner. I turned the oldest I have ever been to that point, and as my wife points out, this is my first day of my next birthday, which skewers thought as you might think. I have never been this old nor ever really thought about its impact on me in the immediate. I understand, sort of, how the human body ages and deteriorates in time, but it’s slower in some people than others I’ve observed, so this interests me. I have questions, but I know I am not alone.
“I don’t like retirement. What’s wrong with me?” is not one of those questions. I love retirement.
I have several ‘life guide’ friends around me who are older, by even five days, to whom I look to for wisdom and life lessons because, of course, I respect my elders. I am blessed beyond reason.
And too, I’ve always grown up with older people. My mother and father were older than me. So were my three sisters and their husbands. Coincidently, my wife is older than I am too, something she never lets me forget, always saying because of her advanced age, versus my not so advanced age, she intrinsically knows more and is thereby wiser. No argument from me, I know which side my bread’s buttered on (or old words and phrases to that effect).
My good friend ‘Joe,’ who is older than I am, now wants me to identify him in all future entries in which he is cast in a good light. This acknowledgement issue stems from me rudely not identifying him, nor ‘Jerry’, in last week’s Thor’s Day, June 21st, 2018 entry, when I just used the vague generic term ‘friend’ to describe the genius whose idea it was to use a natural wooden support in my project, and the high craftsman who, using his drill press, drilled the hole in Joe’s idea.
For instance, it was Joe’s idea to use an oak cob to support the telescoping pole to keep my tent roof from collapsing in sudden downpours. And it was Jerry, who is also older than me and Joe, who drilled the hole in the oak cob support that was Joe’s idea. Did I mention, Joe’s wife is older than me too, as is Jerry’s wife? There’s some real wisdom there between those two women, and they’ve passed it down to me, (one a lot further down than the other), and the mutual wisdom is not to mention their names in any discussion about aging. Thanks for that.
Our neighbor and friend, “Uncle Wayne” is older than me, my wife, Jerry, Jerry’s wife, Joe, Joe’s wife, and Woe’s wife, but not so Woe. ‘Not So Woe’ is not Woe’s wife’s name. I would never thinly disguise any woman’s name who is older than me whether she is Chinese or not, and in this case she is not and neither is Woe, Chinese, or woe is me, the older women made plain. 你明白吗？
So we’re all younger than Uncle Wayne, including Woe. Woe is younger than me. If only his mother would’ve started having children seven to ten years earlier, this wouldn’t be the case, and likely I would be the younger acquaintance, as is normal in my situation.
Despite U.W.’s agedness, he’s out in the woods everyday cutting down trees and laying in a stock of firewood for his winter stores. He cuts only as many trees as his chainsaw has gas, and when it runs out, he’s done for the day. He doesn’t overwork himself. He can’t afford it at his age, for next birthday, he’ll be eighty.
Eighty seems a long way off for me, but not so distant for the other older people in my life. A few of them can see it just over the crest.
Okay I admit, finally, that as a parent and grandparent and uncle, I might be older than any one of my offspring, grandchildren and nieces and nephews, but in one case of nieces, I’m only six years older. It was just a fluke that my eldest sister waited until she was twenty-seven to begin having children. Had she began when she was legal to have offspring, say at fourteen, like in Iowa, why her oldest child would’ve been my wife’s age and her three other children, yet older than me too. The upside is, that the oldest younger one is a different generation. I can’t be younger than everybody forever. The world doesn’t operate that way, says my older friends and family, so I take stock in this.
Being the youngest all the time has its disadvantages, one being not meeting the height requirements for rides at the Roseau County Fair, for instance. I can’t begin to tell you about the many times I have been turned away at the really fun rides as my elder friends get buckled in, hurriedly securing their hairpieces, glasses and false teeth, and I’m left outside, holding big old purses and women’s shoes, canes and walkers. Why, it’s just embarrassing. I’ve begun bleaching my beard and mustache just to fit in.
I don’t qualify for senior discounts either without some real wrangling. They check my ID when I try to buy alcohol, every time. I have to take off my WANNASKA cap just to prove that my drivers license ID is accurate. And even then, they examine my external cerebral hemisphere to see if I’ve shaved my head or if I am truly a partially bald long-haired individual. All the time, younger people say, “You’re how old? I’d never guessed.”
As my similar aged cousins hobble around deer camp with bad knees and backs earned from years of hard labor on the Iron Range and their formative years in high school, college and the national hockey leagues, I can still almost touch my toes without unfastening the top button on my jeans or do deep squats to reach empty beer cans that have rolled across the floor beyond the garbage can, that the former high school basketball star missed from the free-throw line by the woodstove.
”Ooo, look, he’s so flexible,” is a preferable exclamation to me than hearing, “Big deal, he never worked a day in his life, the sissy.”
Well, it’s difficult to determine age today ... of some people. Many old people have received new parts now, like new shoulders, hips, knees, jawlines, teeth, noses, necks, hair implants, pedicures, butts, tummy tucks, and lips. It’s odd that anyone even ages anymore with all these accessories available. The only way you can tell a man is old, these days, is that the majority of really ancient retired men wear white shoes. Check it out. Next time you’re at Super One in Roseau or one of the pharmacies, or driving down Main Street, count how many old guys wear bright white running shoes. Bingo. I’m tellin’ ya.
It isn’t like you can just count their rings or scuts. Any wildlife biologist with the Minnesota DNR will tell you it’s an inaccurate science, so there’s some leeway either way--and anybody with a modicum of sensitivity, would guess toward the younger arc of the spectrum, unless it’s a turtle that you’re aging. I think people have an idea that turtles are automatically old and we want to know how old, like it’s an amphibious antique of some kind. On the flipside, we don’t want to know, or likely never consider how old the fish are that we catch. Some are over 20 years old! Really?
“Check its ID...”
I was at the bus station in Chicago a few years ago and a father, I presume, and his son, an obviously younger version of the taller man, were nearby. The older much tattooed man wore his cap backwards, a sleeveless sports jersey with an angry bull face on it, the waistband of his short pants just above his crotch and his untied high-topped sports shoes, his boxers showing. He stood staring into a tiny dark monitor of his cellphone, oblivious to his camo-covered child who sat quietly in his stroller, drooling, watching with great interest the crowd walking by. I wonder how old his dad was. Probably much younger than he looked. Twelve, maybe. Hard to tell.
Looking at old photographs, I think my own dad would’ve been behind the times today, with his belted pleated pants ‘way above his protruding belly, and sensible black shoes and black socks. Did he ever dream, that men his age, in the future, would likely wear jeans, white sports shoes, baseball caps and likely, sportswear jackets, well into old age, then congregate at the end of aisles in grocery stores, tap the tin covers of their snus cans, take a pinch, then compare notes of their recent prostrate surgeries? Who says retirement isn’t great? I love it. No, I don’t chew snus nor own a single pair of white shoes. I’m not that old!
“I don’t like retirement. What’s wrong with me?” is not one of those questions. I love retirement.
I have several ‘life guide’ friends around me who are older, by even five days, to whom I look to for wisdom and life lessons because, of course, I respect my elders. I am blessed beyond reason.
And too, I’ve always grown up with older people. My mother and father were older than me. So were my three sisters and their husbands. Coincidently, my wife is older than I am too, something she never lets me forget, always saying because of her advanced age, versus my not so advanced age, she intrinsically knows more and is thereby wiser. No argument from me, I know which side my bread’s buttered on (or old words and phrases to that effect).
My good friend ‘Joe,’ who is older than I am, now wants me to identify him in all future entries in which he is cast in a good light. This acknowledgement issue stems from me rudely not identifying him, nor ‘Jerry’, in last week’s Thor’s Day, June 21st, 2018 entry, when I just used the vague generic term ‘friend’ to describe the genius whose idea it was to use a natural wooden support in my project, and the high craftsman who, using his drill press, drilled the hole in Joe’s idea.
For instance, it was Joe’s idea to use an oak cob to support the telescoping pole to keep my tent roof from collapsing in sudden downpours. And it was Jerry, who is also older than me and Joe, who drilled the hole in the oak cob support that was Joe’s idea. Did I mention, Joe’s wife is older than me too, as is Jerry’s wife? There’s some real wisdom there between those two women, and they’ve passed it down to me, (one a lot further down than the other), and the mutual wisdom is not to mention their names in any discussion about aging. Thanks for that.
Our neighbor and friend, “Uncle Wayne” is older than me, my wife, Jerry, Jerry’s wife, Joe, Joe’s wife, and Woe’s wife, but not so Woe. ‘Not So Woe’ is not Woe’s wife’s name. I would never thinly disguise any woman’s name who is older than me whether she is Chinese or not, and in this case she is not and neither is Woe, Chinese, or woe is me, the older women made plain. 你明白吗？
So we’re all younger than Uncle Wayne, including Woe. Woe is younger than me. If only his mother would’ve started having children seven to ten years earlier, this wouldn’t be the case, and likely I would be the younger acquaintance, as is normal in my situation.
Despite U.W.’s agedness, he’s out in the woods everyday cutting down trees and laying in a stock of firewood for his winter stores. He cuts only as many trees as his chainsaw has gas, and when it runs out, he’s done for the day. He doesn’t overwork himself. He can’t afford it at his age, for next birthday, he’ll be eighty.
Eighty seems a long way off for me, but not so distant for the other older people in my life. A few of them can see it just over the crest.
Okay I admit, finally, that as a parent and grandparent and uncle, I might be older than any one of my offspring, grandchildren and nieces and nephews, but in one case of nieces, I’m only six years older. It was just a fluke that my eldest sister waited until she was twenty-seven to begin having children. Had she began when she was legal to have offspring, say at fourteen, like in Iowa, why her oldest child would’ve been my wife’s age and her three other children, yet older than me too. The upside is, that the oldest younger one is a different generation. I can’t be younger than everybody forever. The world doesn’t operate that way, says my older friends and family, so I take stock in this.
Being the youngest all the time has its disadvantages, one being not meeting the height requirements for rides at the Roseau County Fair, for instance. I can’t begin to tell you about the many times I have been turned away at the really fun rides as my elder friends get buckled in, hurriedly securing their hairpieces, glasses and false teeth, and I’m left outside, holding big old purses and women’s shoes, canes and walkers. Why, it’s just embarrassing. I’ve begun bleaching my beard and mustache just to fit in.
I don’t qualify for senior discounts either without some real wrangling. They check my ID when I try to buy alcohol, every time. I have to take off my WANNASKA cap just to prove that my drivers license ID is accurate. And even then, they examine my external cerebral hemisphere to see if I’ve shaved my head or if I am truly a partially bald long-haired individual. All the time, younger people say, “You’re how old? I’d never guessed.”
As my similar aged cousins hobble around deer camp with bad knees and backs earned from years of hard labor on the Iron Range and their formative years in high school, college and the national hockey leagues, I can still almost touch my toes without unfastening the top button on my jeans or do deep squats to reach empty beer cans that have rolled across the floor beyond the garbage can, that the former high school basketball star missed from the free-throw line by the woodstove.
”Ooo, look, he’s so flexible,” is a preferable exclamation to me than hearing, “Big deal, he never worked a day in his life, the sissy.”
Well, it’s difficult to determine age today ... of some people. Many old people have received new parts now, like new shoulders, hips, knees, jawlines, teeth, noses, necks, hair implants, pedicures, butts, tummy tucks, and lips. It’s odd that anyone even ages anymore with all these accessories available. The only way you can tell a man is old, these days, is that the majority of really ancient retired men wear white shoes. Check it out. Next time you’re at Super One in Roseau or one of the pharmacies, or driving down Main Street, count how many old guys wear bright white running shoes. Bingo. I’m tellin’ ya.
It isn’t like you can just count their rings or scuts. Any wildlife biologist with the Minnesota DNR will tell you it’s an inaccurate science, so there’s some leeway either way--and anybody with a modicum of sensitivity, would guess toward the younger arc of the spectrum, unless it’s a turtle that you’re aging. I think people have an idea that turtles are automatically old and we want to know how old, like it’s an amphibious antique of some kind. On the flipside, we don’t want to know, or likely never consider how old the fish are that we catch. Some are over 20 years old! Really?
“Check its ID...”
I was at the bus station in Chicago a few years ago and a father, I presume, and his son, an obviously younger version of the taller man, were nearby. The older much tattooed man wore his cap backwards, a sleeveless sports jersey with an angry bull face on it, the waistband of his short pants just above his crotch and his untied high-topped sports shoes, his boxers showing. He stood staring into a tiny dark monitor of his cellphone, oblivious to his camo-covered child who sat quietly in his stroller, drooling, watching with great interest the crowd walking by. I wonder how old his dad was. Probably much younger than he looked. Twelve, maybe. Hard to tell.
Looking at old photographs, I think my own dad would’ve been behind the times today, with his belted pleated pants ‘way above his protruding belly, and sensible black shoes and black socks. Did he ever dream, that men his age, in the future, would likely wear jeans, white sports shoes, baseball caps and likely, sportswear jackets, well into old age, then congregate at the end of aisles in grocery stores, tap the tin covers of their snus cans, take a pinch, then compare notes of their recent prostrate surgeries? Who says retirement isn’t great? I love it. No, I don’t chew snus nor own a single pair of white shoes. I’m not that old!
Wise of you to give credit to your genius/craftsman friends. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I do understand.