A Half Century

It happened! On October 22 of last year, 2008, I officially crossed over to the other side and entered Old Geezerville; I turned 50 years old! That’s half a century, folks, and I’m as confused and frustrated as flatulence in a fan factory.

Now that I’m 50, I’m constantly being reminded by the mail I receive that I’ve joined the ranks of senior-hood--I’m receiving more and more junk mail, mail that I once thought was reserved only for old folks like my parents and grandparents, from places like A.A.R.P. and fifty-and-older retirement communities, inviting me to join them because I now meet their qualifications for membership--I’m old.

Also, I can now receive discounts at movie houses, restaurants, and various other establishments. But I feel way too young to take advantage of these offers. In fact, I’d feel like I’d be ripping these places off if I did. Besides, to use these offers would be admitting that I’ve crossed over to “the other side.”

At 50, everything I eat and drink now gives me gas (who am I kidding, now-a-days just breathing give me gas), but I’m not yet old enough to join the wind section of the senior citizen orchestra, where I can publically and loudly trumpet “Yankee Doodle Dandy” from my hind-end without being considered crude. So, for now I still fight the urge, which gets harder to do with each passing year, to entertain the public with my “trumpeting” skills and so suffer in silence.

I’ve noticed too that the medical field’s attitude toward me is different now that I’m half a century old. I was in the hospital recently for the third time in 15 months for a kinked bowel, aka a bowel obstruction. But this time as they treated me for the obstruction I was kept hooked to an E.K.G. monitor to keep tabs on my heart, do breathing exercises to keep my lungs strong, and had to wear those butt-ugly white, tight, anti-blood clotting socks! All standard procedure I was told. A year ago they weren’t. But then a year ago I wasn’t fifty.

Since I turned fifty there are all kinds of things I’m encouraged to routinely do that years previous were only a suggestion. I’m now in the you-should-get-a-flu- pneumonia-shot-and-your-cholesterol-checked-every-year categories. And I’m getting pressure from the medical field to make sure I have regular prostate, colon, and fecal exams. Now, it’s about all I can do to allow someone to put his finger up my behind (the first time I had a prostate exam I warned the Doc, in reference to the show Star Trek, “careful there Spock, you’re going where no man has gone before!” And I wanted to asked him what I was thinking since his finger was tickling my brain!), but cleaning out my colon so the doc can use a scope to, like the bear who went over the mountain, see what he can see is more than I can bring myself to do. And as far as squatting over a newspaper, relieving myself, scraping up my fecal matter to carry to the doc’s office, not going to happen.

And speaking of all things medical, it dawned on me the other day how young’uns can figure out an older person’s age. You know how when a tree is cut down, the number of rings in the stump is how many years old the tree is? Well, by counting the medicine bottles on an elderly person’s shelf you can pretty much figure out said person’s age--the older one is the more bottles of medicine on one’s shelves.

Another thing I’ve noticed as I crept toward age 50 is the conspiracy amongst publishers and optometrists to make reading more difficult. A few years ago, I noticed the font size used in books, on medicine bottles, menus, etc. was a bit smaller than years previous. I had to squint to read them. With each passing year the print continued to shrink until I was holding these items further and further from my eyes. I finally ended up seeing an optometrist who prescribed reading glasses for me. The glasses helped but as time goes on and publishers continue to shrink the size of their fonts I’ve come to realize that if I want to continue to experience the joy of reading I’m either going to have to get longer arms or stronger glasses.

And I’ve noticed that as I get older other people speak softer (I wouldn’t be surprised if the general public owns stock in different hearing-aid companies). Oh people speak loud enough for me to hear sounds o.k. but not loud enough for me to understand what they’re saying. In fact, lately the most oft word spoken from my mouth is (as I cup a hand to my ear), “huh?”

So, as I time takes its toll and I creep closer to that proverbial hole in the ground, I at least can say my mind is still sharp, no senility--knock on wood, “Who’s there?!”