Living on Eighties Time

Do you remember when every move was calculated and effective, every motion quick and accurate, every deadline fourteen minutes away?  The pace, the pace.  Now! Or better, yesterday.

I don't live that way anymore.  I couldn't live like that even if the desire to do so were present. I have two speeds:  exceedingly slow and can you still see me moving?. Do I still accomplish things?  Not much, but I can still shower and dress myself.  I live in gratitude fo what I can do. 

Will the world, or even the nation or my community be improved if I watch congressional hearings, form biting opinions about the state of affairs in which we are entangled?   They will not, so therefore I do not invest any of my precious remaining time doing that.  Same for most "news" outlets.  I hate this, but I have become so skeptical that I herewith validate my father's opinion regarding reporters and pundits.  "The only thing you can believe in the newspapers is the funnies page."  But that is not all bad; saves me more of that dear commodity called time. 

So what do I have to contribute to the conversation over the coffee mugs at the old coots' gathering?  Pleasant words about the weather.  A cheery, "How're things?" and a firm "Good day!" if someone should steer the conversation toward Washington, the State Capital, the mayor's office.

Seriously.

Think the wain will huht the whubob?      (The "ahh" key quit on me.  Sowwy,)

Eighty-five, Man Alive!

Can that be true?  Is it possible that I have lived 85 years?

It is; it is!

 Here is the intersection of 85 with 85:  As a lad I lived in Colorado Springs through which the major north-south highway was US 85/87. Up and down that road untold numbers of times on bicycle, by automobile, and even short portions of it on foot.  When I left those environs at the age of 18 I am sure it never occurred to me that I would live 85 years.  Or maybe I hoped I might, who knows? 

Fyi, US 85 runs from the Mexican border in El Paso to the Canadian border in North Dakota. It is sometimes called the CanAm Highway.  As a boy I traversed this road many times with the parents, or that is the section between Pueblo and Denver.  I believe the farthest point south we achieved was Albuquerque.  When I left the Springs in favor of the PNW I took 85 north into Wyoming as far as US 30.

I have taken many roads since then, speaking not only geographically but in all areas of my life.  Some of those roads were smooth, straight and easy sailing.  But not all of them.

The March of Time

October 29, 2014

The Old Guy and the Old Dame

The old house is still standing

Its days of usefulness are o'er

And though it hasn't fallen

It is more decrepit than it was the year before.

Missing panes and tattered shingles

The building is beginning to crumble

Time-battered and weather worn

I, too, am beginning to stumble.

From time to time I stop to visit

To assess the prospects for tomorrow

Some day she'll fall but I may not see it

Like her, I've little time yet to borrow.

Will the house go first, or will I?

 You may not play our little game

We'll soon revert to dust 

The old Guy and the old Dame.

© 2014 David W. Lacy

Pictorial Update 

 December 11, 2017

November 17, 2018

Conversations with Random People --25 #T

I was in our local Consumer Value Store to pick up an item in the shaving needs aisle and a prescription.  I entered the aisle and easily located the prize I was seeking but it was on a bottom shelf.  I hate to bend down to retrieve things.  However, squatting down herself to get an item from a bottom shelf opposite my bottom shelf was a lady of a certain age.  She looked up, apologized for blocking the passage.  "Not a problem," I said.  " I just need to get an item over here."

She stood.  "It is such a pain to have to get down," she stated.

"I know what you mean, though for me I can get down readily enough but I am never sure I'll be able to stand up again."

She chuckled, then went into the getting-old-ain't-it-awful routine.  "I'll be sixty-five next month," she informed me.  "It's not just the aches and pains, but my health overall."

Uh, oh, I thought.  I'm in for it now.  And  I was.  She started with the dread of Alzheimer's. Told me her mother had it and she was constantly on edge for fear she was going to suffer the same fate.

"You may not get it.  Not everyone whose parent suffered from that does."

"Oh, yes; I almost certainly will.  My grandmother had it,  too.  Mother lived to be 94 and the last two years of her life were very unpleasant."

"Well, you may have a long way to go, then."  Always  trying to be an encourager, even when my efforts are clearly doomed to fail.  And they did.  She moaned on and the litany of ills got longer as each passing minute got even longer.  I was beginning to try to think of a way to graciously extricate myself from this conversation that I did not initiate.  I started to move slowly toward the pharmacy.  She kept talking. 

Suddenly she said, "How old are you, anyway?'  Well, she asked, so I told her.  "No!"  There's no way you can be 83."

"Well, yes.  I have children your age."

Conversation stopper.  Thankfully.

Still Standing

Today the Old Dame

stumbled, but did not fall

The Old Dame three years ago.

83 and Fuzzy

   

  It seems a bit like I am "going South" and I don't mean that in a literal geographic sense.

Yet I think I don't look a day over ninety.

   
   

Are you kidding me?

Okay, I'm ticked.

We are ticked.

One of the daughters stopped in for a visit and we are grateful for that.

But.

During the course of the evening she casually mentioned that we should consider moving into assisted living quarters.  "This place is just too much for you," she said.

Oops.

Okay, so the vacuum cleaner has not been run in over a week, the layer of dust on the horizontal surfaces is less than an inch thick, and the cob webs sparkle in the light hither and thither.

But.

The lawn is mowed and edged, the gutters are clean, and from the outside no one can see what is inside.

And.

Darn few people ring our doorbell.

Actually, the woman may be right.  But please allow us a few moments of disgruntlement.  I mean, we thought she would be the one that would want us to move into her home when we reached our dotage.

(While the above is true, I share it in fun.  No one is mad at anyone.  I think.)

Tale of the Three A.M. Blog Post

A marvelous idea for a blog post slapped me upside my mind at three o'clock in the morning.  This happens.  All too frequently.  I lay abed and composed it.  This is good stuff.  So l edited and polished it, refined it, perfected it.  Four-fifteen I make a trip to the little room next door, return to bed.  Shiver a bit to get warm again, run the post through my head one more time.  It is perfect!

I slept.

After I showered and dressed, eight o'clock, I went to the computer and logged on.  Brought up blogger to write my post.

I could not remember. One. Single. Word. Of that perfect gem.

I wrestled with this throughout the day, convinced that ere nightfall I would recover my work.  Not so.  Not one inkling.  But I do remember that it was an absolutely wisdom-of-the-ages, polished and perfected, ready for the world

One-liner!

The Grass Withers

“All people are like grass,
    and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
    Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God endures forever.” 

--Isaiah 40:7,8  (KJV)

Image: Samsung DV15OF,

 05NOV16

7:50 p.m

Tipton, Indiana

Night Out

Saturday night, somewhere amidst the corn and soybeans which, by the way, are turning golden and brown.  In fact we saw one corn field where the combine was making passes.  Ah, autumn in Indiana!

But this night was a night on the town.  We had dinner at Erica's which is one of our favorite places to spend money to let someone else cook and wash up.  Then to the Atlanta Music Hall.  The band was in fine form.

 The gentleman in the boater and linen jacket was the evening's dance partner to BBBH whom you may see on the far right.  I mean they cut a rug, sashayed across the floor and brought down the house.  Bob is 94 years of age, and BBBH is a spring chicken, relatively speaking..

The band director asked the couple to do another number in the second set, but they declined, claiming the energy level was insufficient to support another go-round.

We actually rolled up the streets in Atlanta; we shut the place down.  That is our car in the distance and we were literally the last to leave main street.  It was 9:30 p.m.

Thingamabob

Ever need one of these?  Do you know what to ask for?  I have known the correct terminology for many years, yet I can never remember it when I need to ask for one so I have to resort to "I need four large thin washers with a small hole."  Then the hardware person says, "Sure.  We have a large assortment of fender washers on aisle three."

How hard can it be to remember "fender washer"?

By writing this the author hopes to amuse you, but more importantly he hopes to be able to ask for the item by name the next time he needs one.

Long Time?

Today is my 30,000th day of life on this Earth.

More about Aging

The mind says, "Yes, you can,"  and still ya

Hear your body say, "Do it and I'll kill ya."

"Listen to your body." --My physical therapist.

 

When is Old!? #T

I believe Dad was 55 years of age when I first realized he was "getting old."  Dad was athletic and very quick.  I was standing on the sidelines watching him as he played softball with a group of teenagers.

One needs to understand that in his teen years baseball was his passion and he even dared to dream of a career in the sport.  His reflexes were amazingly fast, and he also considered professional boxing.  Now here he is on an August afternoon exercising his skills on the ball field.  Dad came up to bat.  He let the first pitch pass, and the umpire called, "Strike one."  My father shifted his position slightly in the batter's box and when the second pitch came he swung, made contact and laid the ball neatly in left field between the third baseman and the fielder.

Dad headed for first base.  As I watched I realized his step was slower than I remembered it to be, and with a sinking feeling I realized that Dad was old!  Not so old, however, that he failed to beat the throw to the bag.

I am now some twenty-seven years older than my father was when I realized he was old, yet until today I had never encountered that realization in myself.  Oh, yes, I have aches and pains, and yes, I know I move slower than I used to, but old?  Of course not.

But today I stopped near the front door of the DG store, dismounted the bicycle and set the kickstand.

I saw a sporty red car park on the opposite side of the lot.  I headed toward the door of the market, shuffling along in my Tim Conway "old man" gait and before I reached the door the young lady who had parked the car hurried around me to "get the door."  Yep.  With extended arm she opened the door stepped back and with a smile indicated that I should pass through.  A young woman holding the door for the poor old man.

Realization.

   

Old. And Puny.

Little old woman and little old man
    took a thirty-gallon garbage can
into the yard to pick up loose grass
    five pounds or so, and another eight
then dragged the bucket through the gate
    to the compost site.

They are exhausted.  Nap time.

     It really is very annoying to be unable to get anything done without total exhaustion.  How did this happen?