Growing Old
The Good, The Bad, and, well, you know!

We know the problems of aging. But most of the problems we know about are physical! Compared to the way I looked at 30, at 80, I look like crap. I resent the loss of strength and agility. Makes it hard to earn a living and leads to things like suddenly falling on your butt in the shower.

And there is the accumulation of a lifetime of mishaps. I still have trouble with that forefinger I stuck in a running lawnmower thirty years ago!

There are things like memory loss, but I wonder if that is not the product of just learning to ignore life's trivia. With the Dow averages dropping below 7,000, am I supposed to obsess with where I left my car keys? And sometimes it is downright entertaining. This morning, preparing for an early doctor's appointment, I showered, shampoo'd, and (following my mother's advice of so many years ago) made sure I had clean underwear and socks. Five minutes before heading out the door, I stroked my chin and discovered I had forgotten to shave! Ever try to shave when you're in a hurry and can't quit laughing at yourself?

But there is the good side to aging. For example, the "I told you so" factor. I grew up a country kid during the depression. I remember sitting around while the "men folk" discussed things. These simple men, with little formal education but a wealth of logic and practical experience, deplored what Franklin Roosevelt was doing to our country. I grew to despise FDR.

The press was so in love with him, they never, NEVER showed a picture of him in a wheelchair or being lifted in or out of his limo - that nasty cigarette holder clenched in his teeth.

I was working at a gas station for $14.00 a week in 1945 when Roosevelt died. All around me were mourning. Not me. I was actually relieved that the old fool was finally out of the Oval Office.

Years passed and among other things, the government erected a magnificient monument to the guy, in Washington. He has been glorified to no end.

But, at last, thinking people have begun to speak up, and FDR's New Deal is at last revealed to be the cause which turned a recession into the tragic depression.

I had to wait until I was 80, but I got the joy of hearing that.