SIXTY AND STILL KICKIN’ (AND PEEING A LOT)

This goes out to all of my younger friends. Unfortunately, ALL of my friends are younger. Think of it as a public service, a preview of what it’s like to be 60. I usually wake up a couple of hours after I go to bed needing to pee. Hopefully I wake up because if I don’t wake up it’s a whole new set of problems. This happens two, three, sometimes four times a night. I make these funny noises as I am getting out of bed. I remember my grandfather making noises like that. I eventually get somewhat steadily to my feet. I say somewhat because steady is a relative term. I always hope that you walk away with some kernel of knowledge after reading my blogs. So here is that kernel. By the way, I lied. There will be math. And a pop quiz at the end. So, as I am standing there in my bedroom, in the dark, in my bare feet, I lean on the bedpost for balance. Do you realize that the earth is constantly rotating on its’ axis at a speed of about 1000 mph? Not only that, but it is also hurtling around our sun at a speed of 67,000 mph. In turn, our sun circles the center of our Galaxy at a speed of 137 miles per SECOND. Lastly, the Milky Way Galaxy, our home in the big, gigantic scheme of things, is careening through space at a speed of about 1.3 million mph. So, taking all of those monumental forces into account, I am somewhat surprised to find myself even semi-steadily on my feet relative to the rest of the universe. It’s truly a wonder I don’t fly off in all directions, creating a bloody, pulpy mess of my bedroom walls. S’okay, we need to paint anyway. Taking a deep breath, I do the Tim-Conway-Old-Man-Shuffle to the bathroom, hoping I don’t find that needle I dropped on the floor last week. I also have to avoid accidentally kicking the bed frame, or the dresser, or the clothes hamper, or the bathroom door frame, all hidden in the dark between myself and the porcelain bowl I so desperately need to reach. Finally, I arrive. Triumphant I stand and wait, and wait, AND WAIT until finally, I begin to pee. Unfortunately, only God knows in which direction it’s going to go. I finish my business, along with any necessary cleanup, and slowly shuffle back to bed, only to find Ginger, our Queensland heeler, has jumped up onto the bed taking my warm spot. I gently, well, to be honest, I usually have to shove her out of the way, and crawl back into bed. Sleep two hours and repeat.

But wait, it gets better. The highlight of my day is getting to take a nap in the afternoon. Sometimes I do this while driving home from work. Some people complain but they shouldn’t have been standing in front of my car in the first place. So, I nap in the afternoons and pee myself at night. I could be sixty years old, or I might be six months old, except I don’t cry as much as the six-month-old. So ya got a turd in your diddy! I’ll raise you a turd and I have something growing on my nut sack. Here’s a little tip if you are over sixty… NEVER trust a fart!

Hair is another interesting thing about being sixty. It grows everywhere except on your head. There is a reason I wear hats; they are cheaper than a toupee. My eyebrows look like a couple of caterpillars ready to go to war. And this generation is so into manscaping. I need a weed wacker just to manscape the hair on my back. Ear hair and nose hair are a thing. I know it’s time to trim my nose hair when I look in the mirror and it looks like something is coming out of my nose and trying to devour my upper lip. I can braid the hair growing out of my ears and change my name to Travie, or Xzibit or Cornelius or some shit like that.

You find yourself saying ‘what?’ a lot. I wear earplugs where I work. That has only been for the last 10 years or so. I should have been wearing them for the 30 years before that. Sometimes I forget to take them out and my wife will remind me that I still have them in when I get home. What is really annoying, is when you’re having a conversation with someone, you reach up to remove your earplugs so you can hear them better, only to discover that you aren’t wearing earplugs. Or, you might be having that conversation and look around and realize that you are the loudest person in the room… By far!

Then there are the memory lapses or, as I refer to them, brain farts. You will be talking to somebody about an old movie you recently saw. “It stars that famous actor, you know the one. He was in that other movie with that other actor. And that actress, what’s her name, was the love interest. You know. It was directed by that great director.” And so it goes. Sometimes it’s just a common everyday word you are searching for. It’s right there on the tip of your tongue. You can see it all lit up, plain as day. You just can’t say it. I habitually write To Do Lists. Have been doing that for as long as I can remember. Some people use post-it notes. I always kept a list on my computer. And now I keep a list on my phone. I think it’s true what they say, those who don’t write lists should, those who write lists don’t need to. Although, in recent years, I have come to rely on those lists more often than not. And I remember things at the oddest times. Recently I was talking to a friend at work about a great book I had read some years ago. I had a copy at home, and I told him I’d bring it to work with me. Usually, I might add that to my To Do List on my phone, but I didn’t do that this time. And I completely forgot about it, for about a week. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I suddenly remembered this conversation and the promise so I went into my library, grabbed the book, and put it in my truck so I wouldn’t forget it the next day. It’s really kind of fascinating how your mind works and sometimes doesn’t work.

What is less fascinating, is how my body refuses to cooperate with me, or my mind, the way it once did. I work in a machine shop, and we have all kinds of metal racks for storing and moving steel pipe. Most of these are just under waist high so, I’m guessing, somewhere between two and one half and three feet high. There was a time I could just hop over those racks without thinking twice about it. Or I could be standing up that high off the ground, maybe on the tailgate of my truck for instance. I could just jump off onto the ground as easily as I please. Not anymore. Try that now and I think I’ll break an ankle, if I’m lucky. I no longer hop over the racks, but methodically climb over them. I recently saw something on YouTube called the old man test. It’s a way of checking your balance as, I guess, that is one of the first things that goes. The idea is to stand on one foot in your bare feet. Your shoes and socks are on the ground. You bend over, pick up a sock, and put it on the upraised foot. You bend over a second time to pick up your shoe, put it on the same foot, and tie it. You do all this without putting your hands on anything for balance or putting your raised foot on the ground. Once you get your first sock and shoe on, you balance on the opposite foot and repeat the process. Heck, I couldn’t even pick up my sock without falling over. I think I may have failed the old man test miserably.

I truly believe that when we are young, a major component of our bones and muscle has got to be rubber. We could bounce off anything. I remember making those diving, rolling catches going after a frisbee in the park. I bounced back up as if the only thing keeping me tethered to the ground was gravity, which is true, I suppose. I’d brush myself off, stare down my opponent, and make him dive for the frisbee. I was a skier. How many times did I take a fall on a run only to immediately pop up and finish that run off in style? I picture myself after a fall now, and I see two guys from the ski patrol trying to help a fat, old man onto his feet, and somehow all three of us end up eating snow. Knee pads! Trust me. after you reach sixty, they are the best investment you can ever make for working in the yard or around the house. Thirty years ago, if I needed to get down on my knees, no problem. I simply just plopped down on my knees. When I do that now it sends shockwaves all the way up to my teeth. First of all, just getting down on my knees is a major undertaking as I need hand holds for support. As arduous as that may be, it’s worse trying to get back up. Now that’s a lot of work. I resemble a turtle that has rolled over onto its back and is trying to right itself.

You also become much more aware of the things that you put into your mouth. There was a time I could eat a dozen donuts and lose weight. Of course, at that time, I was bicycling across Canada and pedaling 60 to 100 miles a day. I was going to lose weight no matter what I ate. Still, donuts, pasta, two or three big Macs at a sitting, deep fried anything! There is nothing I had to say no to. There was an ice cream parlor, now out of business, called Farrell’s. They served something called a trough, and I am not even going to tell you what was in it. I’ll let your imagination figure it out. I could polish off the entire thing and go back for dessert. That old lady on the Wendy’s commercials kept asking “Where’s the beef?” I knew where the beef was. I had it. I can still eat all those things, but there is a price to pay. That price is a 36-inch waist. Okay, maybe 38 inches over the holidays. But I’m trying to work it off. I think I may have gained a couple of pounds just writing that last paragraph.