I love long walks, especially when taken by people who annoy me.
—Fred Allen
33
Life of the Party
I used to be the life of the party at amusement parks. I don’t know what happened, but I’m no fun anymore. I know this because everyone else brings home souvenir pictures of themselves on the newest roller coaster ride, right in the middle of the upside-down triple loop. I bring home souvenir pictures of me on one of the stationary animals on the carousel.
It’s not that I don’t want to ride the roller coaster. I do. I used to ride all those wild rides, but the older I get, the more safety-minded I’ve become. You can get hurt on a roller coaster, for heaven’s sake. Sure, millions ride them every day, and there have been only a few incidences of a person falling out, but it could happen. If I’m riding the roller coaster, I really don’t want to end up in the sky buckets. You have a much better time when you get off the same ride you got on.
My day at an amusement park usually goes something like this:
9:00 A.M.—Arrive at park. Discuss renting locker. Everyone convinces me we don’t need one.
9:15 A.M.—Buy tickets.
9:30 A.M.—Restroom break
9:40 A.M.—Pass on virtual reality ride. Afraid shaking might throw my back out.
9:55 A.M.—Walk by log ride. Decide to pass. Getting wet could give me a chill. Hold jackets and cameras of family and friends (the same ones who said we didn’t need a locker) while they go on log ride.
10:33 A.M.—Snack break
11:05 A.M.—Walk by roller coaster. Hold jackets, cameras, and cups of soda of family and friends while they ride roller coaster.
11:58 A.M.—Lunch break
12:48 P.M.—Ride train after conductor guarantees in writing that the ride only moves in a forward direction and absolutely no water is involved.
1:36 P.M.—Restroom break
2:00 P.M.—Stop at souvenir store. Insert quarter and use the electric foot massage machine. Get a little dizzy, but it’s worth it.
3:05 P.M.—Walk by spinning teacups. Pass on spinning teacups (I forgot my Dramamine). Hold jackets, cameras, cups of soda, and bags of souve- nirs of family and friends while they ride spinning teacups.
3:45 P.M.—Restroom break
4:00 P.M.—See stage show. Try to convince family and friends that it should count as a ride since a slight aftershock hit while we were there, but they don’t buy it.
6:10 P.M.—Dinner break
7:35 P.M.—Ride bumper cars
7:45 P.M.—Still trying to figure out how to get my car to move.
8:11 P.M.—Restroom break
8:25 P.M.—Hold jackets, cameras, souvenirs, and doggie bags of friends and family while they ride dinosaur ride. I pass on the ride. (I watched Jurassic Park one too many times.)
9:30 P.M.—Walk by lockers on our way back to the car. Family and friends remind me how smart we were to not waste our fifty cents on a locker.
10:45 P.M.—Arrive home. Sit in vibrating recliner. It’s exhilarating, free, and I didn’t even have to wait in line for it.
To err is human. To forgive is simply not our policy.
—Source unknown
34
Is There a Doctor in the House?
There’s nothing that’ll make a person feel older than having to deal with a young professional. The older we get, the younger pilots, police officers, lawyers, and doctors look. Especially doctors. I don’t know about you, but I feel uncomfortable going to a doctor who has a Scooby Doo sticker on his residency certificate.
But regardless of how young he looks, we still see him regularly. Why is this? Because medical care is important to us. It’s important at any age, but it’s especially important as we get older. We’re hoping to hold up, but just as a car needs repairs and replacement parts as it ages, so do our bodies. We could be chugging along fine on our factory-installed original equipment, but after those first one hundred thousand miles or so, things could start to go haywire. Our battery doesn’t charge like it used to, our fan belt gets a little frayed, and we might even discover a crack in our engine block. And if that’s not bad enough, we can develop an embarrassing leak in our transmission. We need help, maybe even a complete overhaul.
Fortunately, I’ve only had a few things go wrong with my engine over the years. I’ve had a couple of benign breast cysts removed, some laser surgeries performed on my eyes, and my pancreas needs a little help to work properly. Other than that, I haven’t had to spend too much time in the pit, and for that I’m thankful.
But since ours is the age when things can start to go wrong, good health insurance is important. If you don’t have private insurance, chances are you have an HMO. I’ve had both. One thing I’ve learned about HMOs is that they aren’t all the same. Some are terrific and are equipped to meet whatever medical need might arise. Others fall short of the mark.
To aid you in your search for a good HMO, the following list is provided:
YOU KNOW YOU’VE JOINED A CHEAP HMO WHEN . . .
• Resetting a bone involves duct tape.
• For a second opinion, they refer you to last week’s episode of ER.
• Their EKG machine bears a striking resemblance to an Etch A Sketch.
• Their IV solution looks an awful lot like Kool-Aid.
• They get their X rays developed at Walgreen’s.
• They recycle their tongue depressors.
• You get a discount if you make up your own hospital bed.
• Their ambulance rents itself out as an airport shuttle on the off-hours.
• Their thermometer reads to 400 degrees and tastes an awful lot like turkey.
• Their mammogram machine doubles as the waffle iron in the hospital cafeteria.
All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
—Source unknown
35
It’s All in the Attitude
Getting older is beyond our control. No matter how much we’d like to, we can’t stop time from marching on. However, growing old is something we can control. That’s where attitude enters in.
When we look in the mirror, we can either see a life that’s half over or a life that’s half begun. We can spend all our time dwelling on the mistakes of our past or we can spend it focused on the hope of the future. We can count our wrinkles or count our blessings. The choice is ours.
It’s been said that we live the first half of our life for success and the second half for significance. I agree. In our twenties and thirties, most of us were consumed with our careers, attaining financial stability, and perhaps raising a family.
By the time we reach the second half of our life, our priorities change—or at least they should. Many of us have had to watch our parents’ health decline or fail. At this juncture, we are forced to face the cruel reality that our time on this earth is limited. When we fully realize this, the reports and meetings that seemed so important and pressing suddenly lose their urgency. We spend less time thinking about the mortgage on our home and more about the people in it.
When I was driving my mother to her chemotherapy treatments, she would often remark about the flowers along the side of the road. She noticed them as if for the first time. Of course, she’d driven that road many times before, and the flowers were there each spring, but she wasn’t looking at them then. She was usually on her way to work and had a host of other things on her mind. Now, battling cancer, she appreciated their beauty to the fullest.
The second half of life is a chance to get our priorities straight. It’s a time to realize that having the last word isn’t as important as having a conversation. It’s time to quit trying so hard to get ahead of the Joneses and to try a little harder to walk beside them and be their friends. It’s time to realize that it’s not going to matter how much money you leave your family when you die. What is important is how much of yourself you leave with them.
By the time you’re eighty years old, yo
u’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.
—George Burns
36
I’m My Own Grandma
There’s an old country song titled ‘‘I’m My Own Grandpa.’’ If my memory serves me correctly, it’s about a man whose relatives have married people they’re already related to by law—in-laws, stepparents, step-siblings, etc., eventually making him his own legal grandfather.
Now, while the story in the song may be highly unlikely, there’s another way to become one’s own grandfather, grandmother, mother, or father. Just live long enough.
They say as we grow older, we begin to look and act like those who’ve gone on before. My sister, Melva, is becoming my mother right before my eyes. Not only does she look like her, she has her expressions and even sounds like her. I wish she would have sounded like her years ago when I was in high school, then when my teachers called the house, they could have talked to Melva instead of Mom and I wouldn’t have gotten grounded so often.
One of my mother’s favorite sayings was ‘‘Food takes the place of sleep.’’ There’s absolutely no official documentation to this, but Mom said it as though it were the latest finding of the American Medical Association. She honestly believed that if you had to work late, a meal was as good as a nap. (Maybe that’s why I gained those fifteen pounds.)
My sister says things like that now. She reacts to situations as Mother would have, is a hard worker, and has a heart for others. She may not be her own grandpa, but in so many ways she has become her own mother.
I don’t remember seeing my mother in my sister in her younger years. When my sister was a teenager, she was just Melva. Even in her twenties she was Melva. She didn’t start turning into Mom until recently. The forties seem to be about the time this phenomenon hits. We’re going along fine, being our own person, and then one day we look in the mirror and are suddenly struck with the image of one of our parents staring back at us.
I have some of the characteristics of both my parents. I’ve already mentioned that I inherited my father’s eyebrows, but I also have his sense of humor. I have my mom’s appreciation for a good joke, her smile—slightly tilted to one side—and I have her almond-shaped blue eyes. Both of my parents were tall with high cheekbones, and I’ve inherited those qualities, as well. But the person I believe I’m starting to look like the most is my maternal grandmother. I have a picture of her over our bed, and the resemblance between the two of us is becoming more apparent with each passing day.
When you get down to it, we’re all a combination of all our ancestors. We might have our father’s nose, our mother’s eyes, our grandmother’s ears, and our great-grandfather’s chin. Depending on our family, this could be a good or a bad combination. Yet no matter what physical characteristics we’ve been blessed with, or stuck with, our inner qualities are what are most important. In other words, heirs should be more grateful for the good judgment they inherited from their father, the gentle spirit they got from their mother, the sense of fairness that was passed down from their grandfather, and the self-esteem imparted to them from their grandmother than they are for whatever physical characteristics they may have inherited.
For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
—2 Corinthians 4:18 KJV
37
When You’ve Got It, You’ve Got It
I couldn’t believe the nerve of this guy. Had he no manners? Didn’t he realize his Neanderthal behavior wasn’t appreciated in the least? Did he not know he was being obnoxious and making a scene? Couldn’t he see that I had a cell phone and could call 9-1-1 at a moment’s notice?
Perhaps I should start at the beginning. It happened at the post office near my house. I had driven there to mail a letter, and as soon as I got out of my car, he started howling and making wolf calls at me. They were loud, they were rude, and they were annoying.
I walked to the post office entrance, trying my best to ignore his junior high behavior, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult.
‘‘Grrrowwwooofff!’’ he howled loud enough for anyone within a two-block radius to hear. ‘‘Grrrowwwooofff! Grrrowwwooofff!’’ The guy was pathetic.
Finally, I’d just had it. I was ready to give him a piece of my mind or at least shoot him a look that said exactly what that piece of my mind was thinking. But when I turned to glare in his direction, I saw something totally unexpected. That howling wasn’t coming from a man. It was coming from a dog—a very large dog upset about being left in a very small car.
I was laughing so hard at myself when I stepped into the post office, the clerks must have thought they had another crazed lunatic on their hands. But I couldn’t help it. Here I had thought I was attracting the unwanted advances of a man, when I was merely attracting the attention of a canine who only wanted his freedom. No wonder they say it’s not a good idea to jump to conclusions. How we interpret a situation might have very little to do with reality.
So now when I hear someone make some sort of verbal advance at me, I turn to look before I start judging. After all, the next whistle I hear might be coming from a parrot, and it’s not easy to press harassment charges against fowl.
YOU KNOW YOU’RE
GETTING OLD WHEN . . .
you need a running start to go for a walk.
38
Plenty to Smile About
The ad read, ‘‘Do your teeth make you look ten years older than you really are?’’ Now, there’s a side effect of aging I hadn’t even considered.
The advertisement went on to say that as we age our teeth can darken, our gums recede, and our breath start smelling like last week’s laundry. I guess wrinkles and age spots weren’t enough, now our teeth have to get into the act.
And what’s this about receding gums? Why would they want to do a thing like that? There’s nothing honorable in receding. Can’t they hold on for another twenty or thirty years and then retreat?
None of it seems quite fair, does it? After all the attention we’ve given our teeth all these years, when we need them most, they’re going to start jumping ship one by one.
From as far back as I can remember, my father wore a full set of dentures. I know this because whenever he sneezed they’d fly out of his mouth and land some ten feet away. I don’t know if there’s ever been an Olympic event for this, but if there were, he would have taken home the gold.
My father even made his own denture repairs. If they didn’t fit just right (which was obvious since they were on the frequent-flyer program), he’d heat them over the kitchen stove, remolding them to whatever size or shape was needed. My father was creative that way. He probably could have set up a business fixing dentures for other people, but we lived in a residential area and I doubt if he could have gotten a zoning permit.
But Dad’s philosophy was why pay for dental work when you could just as easily do it yourself? Luckily, he didn’t have the same attitude when he had to have his appendix removed. I don’t think our butter knives could have done the job.
I’m not sure if I’d like having to wear dentures. There’s something about putting your teeth in a glass at night and waking up to their smiling back at you that’s unsettling. It’s a little Stephen King-ish, if you know what I mean.
Darkening teeth and receding gums aren’t the only mouth problems we have to be concerned about as we grow older. Over the years my jaw has developed a malady known as TMJ. Because of this condition, my jaw makes a popping sound whenever I eat. Sometimes the popping is so loud a seven-course meal can sound like a reggae concert. One of these days I might look into getting my jaw fixed, but until then I’m still looking to land a recording contract.
We should never allow ourselves to fall into the trap of thinking we’re too old to correct mouth or dental problems, however. Some people in their forties or fifties are getting braces for the first time. They’re correcting something that has bothered them for years. Too often by the time we reach middle age
we tell ourselves, why bother? We figure if we’ve put up with something this long, why not put up with it for the rest of our lives? That’s limited thinking. No matter how old we are, chances are we still have some good years left, so why settle for dingy teeth, receding gums, or loose-fitting dentures?
We should all do what we can to improve our smiles. After all, it’s one of the most important aspects of our appearance.
Do not worry, saying, ‘‘What shall we eat?’’ or ‘‘What shall we drink?’’ or ‘‘What shall we wear?’’ . . . your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
—Matthew 6:31–32 NIV
39
Seasons
Growing up in the Los Angeles area, I didn’t really get to experience the changes of seasons. The only variation we had was going from wearing long sleeves in winter to short sleeves in spring to no sleeves in summer to three-quarter sleeves in the fall. The only big changes in our weather reports were the jokes.
When I moved to Tennessee, I finally got to see what a real change of seasons looks like. It snows in Tennessee—just enough to remind you that the white stuff exists. After a few months the winter cold gives way to spring with all the dogwoods blooming in bright splashes of pink and white. Summer has a different kind of beauty, with more shades of green than you could imagine. To me, the most beautiful of all seasons here is the fall. I think no matter where I might live in the future, I’d always want to spend some of the fall in Tennessee. The drive from Nashville to the Smoky Mountains is breathtaking. It’s as though someone came along and aerial-sprayed barrels of orange, yellow, red, and brown paint all over the countryside.
Being over forty is like being in the fall of your life.
Spring, of course, is the time when new life is birthed, and one can’t help but be filled with anticipation for what each new day will bring. It’s a period of firsts: the first smile, the first tooth, the first steps, and the first time to shave the cat. A few bruises are earned learning to walk, words are jumbled learning to talk, and a few plates of spaghetti are dumped learning to eat, but eventually these tasks are mastered and one moves on.
Didn't My Skin Used to Fit? Page 7