Yet More on Growing Old

These three couples are having a great time.  Looks like sunshine and maybe a beach are involved.  Well, maybe the young lady on the left is having issues but, in general, a good time seems to be the order of the day.  The day would be somewhere in the vicinity of Biloxi, Mississippi around 1951.  I know this because the two people in the middle are my parents and the guy on the right is my dad's "cumpari," his best friend, Jay; I knew him better as "Uncle Joe."  I know where they are because the three of them were stationed at Keesler Air Force Base together.  Dad and Jay remained close friends until the mid to late 1960's when Jay just up and left; disappeared off the face of the earth.  There was no explanation and no goodbyes.  One minute here, the next gone.

Dad is in his early 80's now, and I'm sure everyone else in the photo is within range of that.

"As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say.  I just watch what they do."  -- Andrew Carnegie

Have you ever watched older people?  Older than my dad, that is; he would take umbrage at someone calling him old.  And I mean really watched them, not just acknowledged they are there as you move on to something else more interesting.  Try taking a moment every now and then to study them.  You have to be coy about it, especially if they're women.  Much older women have this sense they're being watched.  You can be looking at their back, for a moment longer than common courtesy would allow, when you hear, "Is there something I can help you with young man?"  There is nothing more humiliating than choking out a "No, ma'am," as your innocent act dies a painful death.

Given the opportunity, I would recommend checking out the fruit section in the supermarket.  Watching an older lady choose fruit is like watching a fine tuned machine; a ballet of facial features and digital dexterity a surgeon would kill for, as they pick through a mountain of fruit with a frail hand, looking for a likely candidate.  They gently lift and squeeze, ever so slightly as not to bruise the interior meat and close their eyes as they bring the possible treasure to their nose for the final test.  The verdict is easily determined by the slight smile of triumph, or the almost imperceptible sneer of disgust as the fruit is returned to the mountain as she searches for another.

"At age 20, we worry about what others think of us.  ASt age 40, we don't care what they think of us.  At age 60, we discover they haven't been thinking of us at all."  -- Ann Landers

Getting caught while "older people watching" is particularly common due to the fact that watching seems to be what older people seem most adept at.  They'll sit in a park for hours, feed the squirrels, and watch the parade of life go on around them.  I think they feign the crotchety ol' fart stuff just to have some fun at our expense and have some anecdotes to tell their friends over a coffee next morning.  Most elderly people I have met in passing have been engaging encyclopedias of little known histories and most people my age were eager to hear them.  Young people now days seem too wrapped up in their own personnel bullshit to care or notice the elderly as anything more than a bothersome bump on their path.

"Small children will talk to anyone, once the guard of shyness has fallen, and they have, like the elderly, a sense of immediacy, a need to say or do something, now, now, the minute it is thought of, combined with that other sense, of the complete irrelevance of time."  -- Susan Hill, "The Magic Apple Tree: A Country Year

Why is it that young people always want to give old people advice?  Is it that old people listen to it?  Personally I believe the old people listen because they think it's precious and are just happy some young person is giving them the time of day, as well as another funny anecdote to tell over a coffee next morning.  I always like to watch their facial expressions and their eyes as they complain about the aches and pains of a hard life, having to get up to piss four times a night, the baby food served at the cafeteria for lunch, and forgetting why they walked into a room.  I think most of the complaining is the bullshit they throw out as bait to see if someone bites.  The eyes usually give them away.  The outside of the structure might be ancient and weathered, with peeling paint and a rickety porch but, every now and then, the high wattage lights come on inside with a sharp click of the switch.  Old?  Like a fox!

I think I'll enjoy being old.  I like feeding squirrels, and watching people.  I've done both most of my life.

When You Are Old

"When  you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars."

-- W.B. Yeats