Trying not to ‘let the old man in’

I was asked on the Bard’s and my birthday two or three years ago how old I was. I get asked that once in a while. Everybody probably does at one time or another. That time I said, “Too old to know and too young to care.” And that’s pretty much how I think about it. You do what you can for as long as you can.

Another time, I was asked how old would I be if I didn’t know how old I was? Good question. It varies from day to day and from year to year. My mind is younger than my body all the time. And it shows. I was ambling along on my way back to the Virginia Theatre from lunch during the recent Ebertfest, thinking about how I was not moving very fast and hobbling along like an old man. Which I reckon I am.

But as Toby Keith sang in his song, “Don’t let the old man in.” And I’ve been trying to keep him out for some time, even though I know he’s creeping in. A day or so later, I passed a woman stopped at the corner, talking on her cell phone. I was walking at a snail’s pace and passed her as I turned the corner and saw the Virginia off a block away. There was nobody else nearby on the street, and I was thinking about the old man when I felt a hand go around my arm.

Old Father Time

“I thought you might need some help,” the woman who’d been on her cell phone said softly.       

I laughed and said I probably did. We walked along the street. I told her how nice it was of her to walk with me. She’d look at the street and tell me to watch where there was an uneven place in the pavement. Arriving at the Virginia, I told her thanks again. I saw her and talked to her with my wife at dinner the next night.

That’s the kind of world I’d like to see. Kindness and consideration. With Ebertfest being the manifestation of Roger Ebert’s belief that empathy is a great benefit of movies, I thought more about not letting the old man in for as long as I could keep him out. Just two more days later, I was hobbling across the road to the car after getting the mail. Before I got into the car, I looked around and saw there was a car that had stopped at the entrance to the lane and the driver said something I couldn’t make out. I walked back toward the road so I could hear her.

“Do you need some help?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “Just gettin’ the mail. Thanks for askin’.”

I reckon from the looks of me, the old man is picking up speed because at two other times, people have stopped at the entrance to the lane as I was getting the mail and asked if I needed help. One guy went up to the four-way stop, turned around and came back and asked if I needed anything. Others have stopped on the road if I’m at the mail box and waited until I crossed back over the road to the car in the lane safely.

As Toby Keith’s song says about dying, “You knew someday it would end.” And I knew that someday the old man would be trying to get in. And he’d probably get there some day.

I’d already fallen at the Marine Corps War Memorial on a recent trip to the D.C. area for the Iwo Jima Association of America Reunion and Symposium when we were there for a wreath-laying ceremony. Wound up with stitches above my left eyebrow, a bruised elbow and back.

A couple of months after that, I was preparing to mow and was picking up sticks that had blown off the trees. An apple tree had two limbs down but still attached to the tree. I grabbed one of them, stepped back in the field, and gave it some hard jerks. First thing I knew, I was flat on my back. I lay there for a few seconds and said, “You better watch what you’re doing, Old Man.”

But the limb was off the tree. I got up and walked around to the other one, picked up some of the limb, twisted it a couple of times, then jerked it hard. Guess what? That limb came down, too, and so did I. This time I lay there a little longer, looked up at the blue sky and laughed at how dumb I’d been. Still no injury, but it took me a bit longer to get up that time.

I reckon I’ve always been a slow learner, but this one takes the cake. The old man must be laughing and coming on strong.