Old Age and Sissies

Dear Boo and Bubble,

I have a birthday coming up and with its approach, the conversation inevitably seems to turn to a discussion about growing old.....well, maybe old-er.....not old quite yet. As I watch the two of you with all of your boundless energy, it underscores the point even more - the day will come when I won't be able to keep up with you. Perhaps time will help sort it all out. As I age, so will you.... and the expectations of my joining in on your running and jumping will give way to the satisfaction that I am in the bleachers spectating while you play your sports of choice; or, maybe that I am in the audience as you perform on stage.

The prospect of getting old, with all of its limitations and challenges, has yet to hit me. Quite honestly, I feel about the same as I did years ago. The fact that your mom is now in her 40's and Aunt Bee isn't far behind stuns me. How could they have aged so much when I haven't changed at all?!?

There are harbingers out there, though, and one of them comes from your great granddaddy Schaefer's thoughts on the matter. He obviously had no use for old age when he wrote the following.

"Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be; The last for which the first was made." - That is pure unadulterated hogwash all dressed up in rhyme and meter. I have been told Robert Browning wrote that ditty when he was close to 50 years old, so he was still eating on the first half of the pie. If he had really been old, the verse probably would have read: "Grow old, oh my, oh me, the worse is yet to be; Just wait and you shall see." If age were an exercise in double entry bookkeeping, you can bet your bottom dollar (if its still under the stack) the entries would be out of balance on the debit side. Grandchildren are powerful credits, but they will not offset arthritic joints, loose fitting dentures, squeaking hearing aids, impatient bladders, moribund memories, brittle toe nails, dripping noses, aching backs, fluttering hearts, quivering muscles and wrinkled skin.

The other night going to bed, I went to the dresser; took off my glasses, took out my hearing aids, removed my bridge work, slipped off my knee brace, took off my orthopedic corset, and the thought struck me that about as much of me would be sleeping on the dresser as in the bed. And what was on the dresser would sleep a lot better than I would because it wouldn't have to get up three or four times during the night to pee.

So far in the double-entry bookkeeping ledger of my life, the credits far outweigh the debits because I have the two of you and I have yet to suffer the litany of frailties that Granddaddy describes. I guess the day will come, but hopefully not with this birthday -- or the next few at least. Until then, I'm just going to keep being amazed at how much older everybody else is getting while I'm not.