It’s hard sometimes for me to fathom when I give it serious thought, but I am only a year away from being as old as my dad when he died in 1980. That’s frightening.
Seems just like yesterday I was playing semipro baseball in Bellingham, going to college at Western and working summers at a the food processing plant in Ferndale. I had great jobs there, by the way. I was top dog on the summer seniority list the last few years I worked there, and it paid off with the best jobs.
I worked 12-hour shifts there – 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.‑ seven days a week to start out before the front office discovered I was making more money than the top dog at the plant (we were unionized and after 40 hours it was time and half and if you worked six straight days it became triple time pay).
Those were the days. I could work those long hours, go home and shower, grab something to eat on my way out the door, search out my buddies at a bar and go bar-hopping until the wee hours. Get a couple hours sleeps and then get back up and do it all over again.
What a life when you are young and foolish and stupid. It was all fun, though.
The back end of that life, though, is not as much fun. It can be. But not when you are tied down with two teenagers you are trying to nurse through the minefield kids have to traverse in today’s world. One false step in today’s world and you end up with more troubles than – as David Letterman says – a monkey on a rock.
I’m not complaining, just explaining. Every once in a while I see people who I haven’t seen in several years and I go, “Wow, what happened to him?” Well, what happened is he got old. His body is a 1940 Ford with a 1930 engine trying to make it in the year 2013.
One time about two years ago I saw a guy who was a commanding figure in this community. He was being pushed in a wheelchair out of a grocery story. I’m not going to tell you who he is because that would be unfair to him. But this guy was the spirit of resistance who used his vast intelligence to bring to our little part of the world some of the best speakers and best music on the planet.
Mary and I loved going to these free evenings and listening to some smart people talk about things that others might not like to hear. This guy was a leader of men.
But when I saw him in the wheelchair he was just a shadow of himself. His biological body clock was running out and the powerful guy I used to know was no longer anywhere near that powerful.
It was sad. Actually, it was terrible. But that is what happens when you get old. And it doesn’t matter who you are or whom you think you are, Father Time ticks away on you and at some point the time runs out.
Nobody escapes. Like baseball managers who are hired to be fired, we are born so we can die. I had a good friend living back East who has dome some wonderful things in his life, and made a slew of money as a result. But just a few weeks ago he told he that he was just trying to stay ahead of the Grim Reaper.
Time, as it does for all of us, was running out on him, and he knew it.
So it goes.
I think it’s awful the way we treat our aged-out people. Whenever I see somebody in a nursing home or wherever, I immediately think that this person was once a very productive member of society and likely did some good things for his fellow mates on this good Earth. But here he (or she) is just barely breathing and, in some cases, not knowing where he is or who he is.
And outside, life goes on as it he didn’t exist.
I bring all this up because I’m on the downside of that hill we all climb in our rush up the money mountain to obtain two cars, a boat and a vacation home in some sunny place. As I go down, thousands of smiling, happy people on the way up pass me. In most cases they don’t acknowledge me as I stumble past.
Being a sportswriter in his small area for nearly a half-century used to bring with it in the early years recognition by a lot of people as I walked the streets and greens. I was always uncomfortable with it. I didn’t like the local fame that comes with having your name printed in the local newspaper on a daily basis, along with my ugly mug. But I put up with it, and endured because I loved to write. It never seemed like work to me. It was fun.
But now as I have aged out of the mainstream I can walk almost anywhere and not be recognized. It’s a strange feeling. I realize that I have outlived or outworked the people who grew up with me. Some are dead and most are snowbirds or have moved permanently to warmer climates.
So it goes.
I have become that 1940 Ford with a 1930 engine trying to move around in the world of 2013. My mind says yes, let’s do it. My body says you do it without me.
Mary needs a knee replacement, I need a complete body replacement. My feet are numb – neuropathy – and that causes me to battle a balance problem. I remember several years ago covering a North Mason basketball game and I had to sit in the bleachers four rows back from the floor. As I sat there I was trying to figure out how I could get out of there without embarrassing myself. Could I do it without falling?
Well, no. As the game ended, I tried to weave my way down to the floor and almost made it. That last row of bleachers was my trouble spot, and I stumbled and fell against some people. They managed to support me while I regained my balance. But I had lost the battle with embarrassment.
When I was younger I used to watch older people struggle to get up into the bleachers at a game and say, wow, I hope that never happens to me. Well, it did. Now I’m the old man trying to figure out a safe approach to a bleacher seat.
I’ve had my heart electrically shocked back to normal rhythm twice (or is it three times?) the past few years. I suffer from atrial fibrillation and coronary artery disease and take enough medicine that I’m thinking I should open a pharmacy.
Then there is the lower back pain and the upper neck pain. Both are a product, I suspect, from years of power weight lifting (I used to lift 300 pounds in my mid-60s) incorrectly. But the shoulder is fine. The torn labrum seems to have healed.
Finally, there is the weight problem. I am around 270 pounds. I have tried and tried to get down to around 230 and have not succeeded. A year ago I got down to 247, but my body said no to continued efforts so I finally caved and let myself go. Now I’m back trying again. But I’m battling one of the medicines that have a side effect of weight gain.
Unlike my friend back East, though, I’m not afraid of the Grim Reaper. I believe God has a plan for me and when he wants me back home I will go whether I’m in the best shape possible or not.
But until then I will battle on and lick some of this stuff. I know the aging process works against me, but I’m going to fight anyway. Today I will go out and cut some wood up just to defy those who think I can’t or shouldn’t – did I mention I’m also stubborn.
So until we meet again:
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.