Geezeracity Manifestations

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made.

Very few people die past that age.

- George Burns

Why is it our children are constantly complaining that we are 'too old' to understand, then with the next breath telling us to grow up? More than likely they are going through that phase where nothing we do is right! Of course, I never complained as a young adult (wink, wink, nod, nod) so it is difficult for me to understand where they are coming from. But for a moment let's focus on people who are growing older, say past sixty at least. (Of course, this won't make much sense to a 15 year-old who thinks a 25 year-old is over-the-hill or a 25 year-old who thinks 35 is ancient!) What is it that gives folks like those in the video such a passion for life at age ninety, while we all know people that act like they may not make through tomorrow and they are only fifty? Is it nature or nurture or some combination of the two? There are older folks I love to be around, because of their positive outlook on life and the zeal they have for adventure. My wife belonged to book club where the she was the youngest member, the rest of the group was in their 70's and 80's. This group of women enjoyed every minute of every day and when they got together they knew how to party. After a book review they loved to share a glass of wine or two or three and could easily go through two cases of Chardonnay. They broke all the familiar stereotypes of old people.

Stereotype 1 - Od people smell badly. Not that I have noticed. Rest Homes smell badly, basketball games smell badly, motorcyclists, babies, homeless people, congressmen, garbage dumps (P.C: Landfills), anyone in an occupation that requires strenuous outdoor physical activity, and young people that think it is healthy to bathe only once a week smell badly. To generalize that all old people smell badly is grossly inaccurate. O-o-o-o-oh, what is that smell? Do you have moth balls in your pocket?

Stereotype 2 - Old people drive slowly. This is a generalization that has more evidential support, however it does not approximate any truth. The ladies in my wife's bookclub (bookclub ladies) all felt like they were in training for NASCAR and that it was a sin to be the first in line at a stoplight. Young people should be aware that they must yield anytime they see someone with grey in their hair driving down the middle of the road at an excessive speed. On the other hand those olde farts weaving down the road and being passed by snails should be reported immediately to the old people police, they are giving the rest of us a bad name.

Stereotype 3 - Old people are always complaining about their physical ailments. True, some old people gritch (a hybrid of gripe and bitch) a lot. But what makes you think hypochondria and complaining are the domains of the elderly? You might even be thinking at this juncture that I did a little gritching of my own in my last blog. Not true, i was just 'splainin' croquet. My daughter has a friend that ALWAYS has the symptoms of whatever designer ailments happen to be in vogue at the time. Trust me on this one, gritching is not the sole province of old people, but I will concede that if you gritched a lot about your physical ailments (or anything else for that matter) when you were young, you will probably be gritching as you grow older. Truth is none of us want to hear it but all of us want to let others know what is bothering us, the problem is some people make a religion out it. Am I gritching too much here?

Stereotype 4 - Old people can't see, hear or remember a damn thing. Actually, this stereotype could have been combined with Stereotype 3, because there are old people who do complain about these things, only they just can't remember any of it. Sure there is some eyeball distortion as you grow older, and you may need reading glasses or surgery to correct visual problems (unless you are still driving), and yes their is definite loss of hearing for some folks and a highly developed sense of tuning out the noise that causes so much distortion in the lives of others. My wife says I'm a tuner inner/outer, but it doesn't bother me all that much because one of my daughters is a fine tuner, also. A humorous note here, why do young people think old people don't like loud music, but then accuse us of being deaf? Truth is, the music that is being played so loudly at every stop light I come to just SUCKS! And Alzheimer's and senility are certainly not conditions that we would wish on anyone, no matter what their ages. As a former high school teacher and coach, I can tell you it was very distressing for me to see so many young people with symptoms that could only be described as the early onset of Alzheimer's. But a friend of mine told me that there is a positive side of Alzheimer's, you get to sleep with a new woman every night!

Stereotype 5 - Old people are wise. Some are, like the folks in the vid, most are just marking time until they die and I wouldn't give two cents for anything they might have to offer. When I was younger, there were old people that I knew that could bore the bark right off a Dogwood tree, and others that I could listen to for hours on end. The wise ones involved you in their tales and remarkably, never repeated themselves. But the stories they told remain with you forever. Guess which one I chose to spend time with? Spend time with?

The problem with stereotypes or forming a hardened view about old people is usually that if you think old people behave a certain way, then the odds are that you will act that way when you are older. If you have a negative view of growing older, then you will have a negative experience as you age. However, if you have a positive view of growing older, your personal experience should be much more positive as you age. The psychology of how we view the world has been exploited successfully by advertising for generations. Even today, I can't tell you how many of my friends think they have to take medication to stop going to the toilet so much! Flomax, was originally developed to lower hypertension, NOT to reduce the number of times you have to go to the toilet. Now they even have a Flomax for women! Hell, if enough people said they had a particular symptom, there would be a pharmaceutical company selling a quick over-the-counter fix for it within the week. I'm not saying 'having to go often' is not a problem for some people, I'm saying that it became a much larger problem when the drug companies started advertising that it was a problem! Same with stereotypes. As long as older people are portrayed as 'smelly', forgetful, hard of hearing, nearly blind, idiots that repeat themselves and need drugs for erections and peeing too much, what will the future be like for younger people who never see anything different? Where are the Golden Girls now that we need them?

Until Next Time,

I Remain,

Just another Old Zoroastrian Cowboy looking for his glasses and his hearing aide so he can mount old whatshisname, and hunt down those young heathens playing their music so damn loud...

Numinous Croquet Lunacy

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late.

- The Beatles (A Day in the Life)

Early on Friday morning, before Labor Day, we were up at the crack of dawn, running around trying to make sure that we were packed and ready to go to Tulsa for a Labor Day Croquet Tournament.  Then we remembered we weren't leaving until One o'clock!  My first indicator that I had done something to annoy the Croquet Gods.  So, after we slowed our pace considerably, I decided to make a quick trip to the market, and found that during the night two of the tires on our car had been punctured by an intolerably inconsiderate vandal.  Obviously, the Vandal had received his/her inspiration from the Croquet Gods. The second indicator that the Croquet Gods were not only annoyed but downright pissed off.  Luckily, we had our daughter's car, the Baborus (-a, -um) Tintinnabulus (-a, -um), or the Babe for our transportation purposes.  I don't know if she calls it the Babe because it is so deceptively alluring (like the tinkling of a small bell) or because it smells like it was used to transport pigs to front during the Crimean War.  So, the Dans (there were two of them) show up and we get their gear situated and we're off.  Almost.  The car starts grasping for air, then goes into electric mode.  We are out of gas.  Thank God for Hybrids.  This was the third indicator that things were just not going my way.  The Dans, bless their black hearts, spent about two hours trying to help me get over it.  They provided me with a dozen tried and true aphorisms.  "That which does not destroy us makes us more inebriated".  "When life hands you lemons, make yourself a vodka martini with a lemon twist."  Ad infinitum.  

One of the Dans stalks his shot, thinking,

"What the f...!"

We arrived around four, checked into the hotel and then took off for the croquet courts at La Fortune Park.  After a practicing for a bit I met my partner for doubles on Saturday morning.  A college student from Oklahoma Wesleyan.  He might possibly have been conceived in a blender or one of those Dyson vacuum cleaners.  Let's just say he was a wee bit hyper and resembled the much-maligned Roadrunner on the crouquet greens.  It struck me that this was some type of Cosmic justice being meted out by the Croquet Gods, pairing the old slow Elmer Fudd kind of guy with gimpy knees and the young athletic Tasmanian Devil.  He slowed down after a bit when he noticed he was talking to air, because I couldn't keep up with him.  But, I have to admit, he garnered my respect for the game and the gracious people who are involved in it when he told me to either keep up or have my brains smashed in with a New Zealand built crouquet mallet.  Being older and quicker of wit I says, "What brains?"  "Don't worry," he says. "I'll just keep smashing 'til I find one."  

One of the Dans lines up his croquet shot, thinking,

"How can I best destroy this S.O.B." 

Friday evening we enjoyed a wonderful Last Supper at the Stonehorse Restaurant in Tulsa.  For me, it was the highlight of the trip.  Do you like that foreshadowing of how I played in the tournament?  It started off well on Saturday morning, my partner and I won our first match and then proceeded to lose our next two.  One to a pair of Octogenarians and the other to a pair of college students.  The gods have no mercy.  And neither does croquet.  It doesn't matter how well you know the strategy or how smart you are, the bottom line is you have to first make your shots.  Without the skills to put your ball through a wicket that is only a fourth of an inch wider than the ball, or croquet a ball that is only three feet away from your ball, you are pretty much up the creek.  After being spanked by the two 80 something females and put to bed crying, I had a decision to make.  Would I let the croquet gods defeat me, would I learn from the tournament and try to improve my skills, or would I hide behind a tree and smash the old ladies over the head when they walked by.  I decided to smash them over the head but I missed...then I had to endure a lecture from them on how to properly line up a head with a croquet mallet.  Humiliating, I tells ya.  But like my friend Arnie Palmer used to say, "It doesn't matter if you win or lose as long as you're in there swingin'."

It doesn't take long for the experience of the numinous

to unhinge the mind.

Umberto Eco

Until next time,

I remain,

Just another Zoroastrian Croquet Player seeking a didactic pretext for being unable to place his balls in the right postion....

Bohemian Melancholia

"Theophilus Crowe's mobile phone played eight

bars of Bohemian Rhapsody in an irritating electronic voice

that sounded like a choir of suffering houseflies,

or Jiminy Cricket huffing helium,

or, you know,

Bob Dylan.

- Christopher Moore

(The Stupidest Angel)

Time is such a hard concept to understand. It's like Groucho Marx said, "Times flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana." I thought, well, I think I will write a little today, I look at the computer and May has turned into July. Two months without the solitude of writing, how did this happen? Oh well, I suppose I will have to deal with it or in my case just accept it and move on. There was a Psychological Hospital that had the slogan, "Deal with it, or it will deal with you." I don't know if I ever really understood that slogan. It should have read, 'deal with it, until you run out of insurance, or it will deal with you.' It is interesting to observe how people do deal with different tragedies and joys in their lives. More entertaining, is to witness how other people deal with the tragedies of others.

I have seen emotions range from real heartfelt empathy to absolute cold bloodiness in the way that others deal with the grief of friends and loved ones. Grief is such a private thing. I think it is the reason so many people want to be alone when they deal with it. Being alone with your grief does not mean that you have psychological problems. The problem lies in the fact that our society thinks that you need to have 'others; around you to help you deal with that grief, when in reality having a bunch of folks around you feeling sorry for you or droning on about their own grief experiences doesn't do a damn thing for you. It might do something for them, it might help them to deal with a problem that they might have put off grieving about at an earlier time. I suppose it's cheaper than seeing a psychiatrist but it does seem a little on the rude side.

Maybe we should return the practice of hiring professional mourners to express our grief when we lose a loved one the way the Ancient Romans did. But I suppose Funeral Homes would lobby against that idea, I mean after all, don't they know about grief more than those who experience it? Probably not, but they do have more cash. I have met folks that feel guilty because they didn't feel the need to scream and cry and tear their out when they lost a loved one, because they thought that was the way they should feel. When asked why they thought that, most responded that that was the way they had seen others respond. You cannot judge the depth of a person's grief by outward appearances. Sorry, but the crap you see in the movies and daytime soaps, is just crap. It does not have anything to do with real grief and how real people actually deal with it.

Today's particular rant is derived from a post on I recently read on GeekFest regarding the tragic accident that took Marty Roenigk's life, "To pass away along with your dog must be a perfect dream of many in our community."  Was this a statement to assuage grief?  Give me a f***ing break!  I won't let you be in my dream, if you will keep me out of YOURS.  Grief is such a personal thing and how we deal with it is also, very personal.  It takes time for each individual.  How much?  Who knows, we are all unique.  (Especially in ES).  How do you cope? Again, it varies just like the amount of time it takes.  There are no shortcuts.  You can't drink your way out of it, you can't shop your way out of it, you can't pray your way out of it, and you can't 'just climb back up on that horse, partner'.  You cry, a lot. You scream at God, a little. You pray, just like a small child.  But slowly, you start remembering.  You remember wonderful stories about the one you lost.  Some are so funny you laugh out loud, and some are so sad it makes you cry again.  But inevitably you start coming around.  Back with the living, only you have changed.  Because something beautiful has been taken from you life.

Until next time,

I remain...

Just another Zoroastrian Funeral Director trying to sell you an Absurd Lay-A-Way Plan...