Why Didn't He Act His Age??!!
“Congratulations! You've entered
elderly territory!”
“Does this always include breakage of
body parts?”
“Dude, you've just
entered it...just you wait! AH! HA! HA! HA! HA!”
**
I can always count on compassion and
understanding from him. I called him up for advice on how to deal
with knee pain and his first reaction was to goof
on me. “You're breaking your cherry!” was another comment.
Gee.Thanks...
The advice I get was to hit up a Dollar
Store/Tree/WelfareHut and buy cheapo liniment cream to use. He
advised me never to get BenGay, IcyHot or any other brand name as
it's over $8 a tube and the cheaper stuff works just as well.
“BenGay? You're telling me to get
BenGay? Don't even mention that product to me! I ain't that old yet!”
I complain. “I don't need to smell of Social Security check just
yet!”
My ball busting friend retorts: “Listen, will you? It's a FACT...You're 51 now and you have just barely stepped into another world. You don't know anything about it yet and it's only going to get worse, not better. Stop thinking you're 35 still!
“BenGay ain't going to cure this.”
I say
“Nope, it won't do a damn thing to
cure it. You're problem is you're 51, stand on your feet all day and
have you're grandmother's genes for grinding your joints to dust!
Unless you can magically change all three...until then...you want the
pain to go away...it's liniment oil and I'll prescribe Geritol too if
you need it.”
**
There's a scene in Spielberg's
“Lincoln” where he does the simple act of grabbing onto a chair
to help stand up while his son, Todd is riding on his back. The scene
was just to impart to you the idea that Lincoln was a declining man
with all the early signs of age working him harder at 56. When I
found myself the other day using the arm of a chair to right myself
up and take the weight off that left knee, I couldn't help but
remember that scene.
“Damn...it's happening” I thought.
Since I'm a Boomer, born in the last
year of that cohort, I have been infected with the idea that we're
always going to be young and that rock and roll will never die. Rock
and roll will never die. However, the acceptance of the fact we're
never going to remain 23 forever has to finally sink in when your own
body starts reminding you. You cannot ignore that fat elephant that's
in the room. But like I said before, I'm a Boomer and still can't
let go of what youth. I did buy into that belief when we were young,
that we were: “Too young to know, too old to care” It defined us.
We were too soon grown up and proudly jaded by 14. Get out of
childhood quick into young adulthood and remain there as long as
possible
**
Do not go gentle into that
good night,
Old age should burn and
rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the
dying of the light!
This is probably how I'm
going to do it, rage against it, considering my reaction to it now.
So what if I chase girls half my age. So what if I blast Ozzie
Osbourne in my car, doing it with this mop of blinding white hair as
others look on. So what if I end up with a knee brace while at the
beach? Want to know why “So what?” Because I can get away with
it. How do I “get away with it?” Easy, by blowing off conformity
and convention. It helps greatly to ignore what everyone else thinks
of you, in fact, that's the liberation. Thank GOD for the 60's and
70s! It taught us kids then that busting out of convention was the
way to go.
“Look at him...he should
be ashamed! My daughter is that girl's age!” I once overheard.
“You have a 22 year old
daughter? Where?” I fired back.
Now he's too old to
Rock'n'Roll but he's too young to die.
So the old Rocker gets out
his bike
to make a ton before he
takes his leave.
Up on the A1, by Scotch
Corner
Just like it used to be.
And as he flies --- tears
in his eyes ---
his wind-whipped words
echo the final take
and he hits the trunk road
doing around 120
with no room left to
brake.
And he was too old to
Rock'n'Roll but he was too young to die.
No! You're never too old
to Rock'n'Roll if you're too young to die!
Click the Pic and Watch the Anthem of the Boomers!
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