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Growing old is laughing matter
(by Barbara Christian - July 29, 2009)
WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
Growing old is laughing matter
Was contemplating a new ache in my leg and watching floaters dance across my field of vision, accompanied by a symphony of tinnitus-inspired trills and buzzes, when it occurred to me that my parents were right.
"The golden years aren't so golden," Mom would say, closely followed by Dad's favorite rejoinder, "Getting old isn't for sissies."
If you are of a certain age, you know how true those old jokes are. If you are not, well, just wait, your time is coming up faster than you know.
Our parents had a lot of those kinds of one-liners. They didn't invent them, and they are hardly new. You may have heard them coming from the mouths of your parents or older relatives.
But these bumper-sticker philosophies are instructive on how to grow old -- if not gracefully -- then with a smile. Yes, I said smile even as each new pain shoots down your back or through your shoulder, and the list of names you cannot remembers grows longer with each passing day.
Here are some of these bits of wisdom:
"Youth is wasted on the young."
"If I knew I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."
"I'm so old I don't buy green bananas."
"At least I won't die young."
"I feel terrible, but at least I am on this side of the grass."
"If I only knew then what I know now, I could rule the world."
And, "You kids better put your names on the things you want now, because, when it's time, I'm not going to be around to referee."
Our parents, these kind, gentle, quiet people, turned into a vaudeville-circuit comedy act when they started in on the indignities of aging.
They were of that frugal Depression generation. They saved a buck by not going to doctors unless there was bone sticking through flesh.
Mom recalled that Uncle Isadore was thrilled when he retired, because he could go on Medicare. "He goes to a different doctor every day and finds out about some problem he never knew he had, and he's never been happier," she would say.
Dad studied medicine at Ohio State before the Depression. Even though he once envisioned a career as a doc, he would eventually hold a dim view of the profession, and it got dimmer as he grew older.
The story goes he may have decided to change careers the first time he had to cut into a cadaver. His classmates were so amused at his queasiness that they took an arm from one of the bodies and hung it in the middle of his room in place of the pull chain to his overhead light.
Even as times got better and there was money for doctors, Dad resisted even the most basic exams. He would caution us with, "Go to a doctor, and they will always find something wrong with you. That's their job."
Getting old and coming down with the aches and pains of living "is no picnic," Mom would say.
"Oh yeah, but what's your alternative?" Dad answered.
True enough. We should probably try to keep that in mind.
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