Ten Reasons It's Great to Be an Old Man

I have attained my grandfatherly years honestly. I will admit I had hoped for a few more grandchildren than I wound up with, but my children have stubbornly refused to reproduce in the quantities I had in mind. I gave up my armada of boats, my ton of fishing gear, my sporting goods bag (in case a ball game broke out among my 18 grandchildren that, sadly, never materialized), my scuba diving equipment, my train sets, most of my game collection and all but a few of my young people oriented book collection (even "Mike Mulligan & His Steam Shovel" was passed along to the one grandkid we've determined to spoil rotten).  I have two grandsons, one of whom is 2300 miles away is adopted and whom I love like one of my own children and visit weekly by Skype. My other grandson currently lives in Tennessee and moves around a lot, I've never met him and have only made tentative contact with him through Facebook recently so we don't know how that will go yet. 

 

So my dream gig as the fun grandpa has been abridged significantly. I had a fleet of canoes and equipment all ready to lead family floats down the mighty (and fairly safe) rivers of Texas. I even trained as a Red Cross swimming and canoeing instructor. Man I was ready. Oh well. "The best laid plans o' mice and men oft times gang agly" as Scottish poet Bobby Burns once opined.

Still there are some definite advantages to becoming an old geezer and a few disadvantages like arthritis to make you appreciate the good bits.  So let me list the good stuff that comes with being an old coot.

1. People don't expect you to dig ditches. It surprises them if you do pick up a shovel and they are appreciative since they didn't think you were going to help. AND they keep offering you drinks and asking you if you need to sit down for a minute.
2. Your children and their spouses ask you if you want to take a nap and think it's funny when you snore. You actually win points with your offspring, your spouse and your various descendants when you pile up in the recliner for an afternoon snooze.
3. You finally have accumulated an assortment of favorite things that don't get thrown out by your significant other because either they are ugly or you don't need them. By the time you are eligible for social security you own some things like mugs, recliners, fishing gear, Hawaiian shirts, and books that your wife tolerates and won't slip into the Goodwill donation box when you aren't looking. Figuring out what you can keep is a process of elimination.
4. Arthritis is a great excuse for avoiding unpleasant tasks. Conversely, when you actually get around to doing one of those honey-do projects, you get a brief respite from the admonishment to get-er-done!
5. You have a collection of favorite TV shows you really like. Better still, because you've previewed and selected the good stuff you enjoy, you don't have to wade through the depressing post-modernist crap your kids and grandkids think is relevant. 
6. You have a favorite music collection that is wonderfully eclectic. I've got more than 500 songs in my phone's mp3 list and a pile of CDs, cassettes and vinyl that I'm gradually converting to digital mp3s. I defy anyone to look at my digital collection and find a bad song or at least one I don't like. I've got every thing from Pearly Shells (Don Ho) to Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road, from Doris Day to The First Highlanders Pipe Band playing Amazing Grace, from I'm My Own Grandpa to Brown-Eyed Girl, from Monkees, Beach Boys and Beatles to Placido Domingo, John Denver, Earl Scruggs, Burl Ives and Audio Adrenalin. My personal radio station never plays a song I don't want to hear or interrupt the music with a commercial for Honest Bob Vanderhoort's Used Cars.
7. You can sit on the back porch in the sun for 4 hours and it feels like you had a productive afternoon.  It is no longer necessary to tick off a list of things you need to meet your life goals. Sitting on the back porch playing your guitar and feeding the squirrels in the sunshine WAS one of your life goals.
8. You know how to do stuff that makes you happy. You play the guitar, banjo, dulcimer or Irish bodhrain, You build model ships. You can make your own bookshelves. You have time to write that novel you always wanted to write. You can cook things you want to eat and you're pretty good at it because you have lots of practice.
9. People no longer ask you to help them move. You can go over if you want, but you are participating in more of a supervisory role because you have a lot of experience in how to move and pack having done so many many times in your life.
10. Little things give you immense satisfaction.  A favorite restaurant, a walk down a country lane, a grandkid coming to visit, birds coming to your bird feeder outside your window and you can watch them from your easy chair. You, in fact, have an easy chair and people save it for you. 

There are other things I'm sure, but I just can't remember them now. In fact, people don't expect you to get ten things pulled from memory in the first place, so when you do, you get credit for being kind of old, but still sharp as a tack.

Time for my obligatory Sabbath afternoon nap.

© 2021 by Tom King

 

 

 

In Memory - Loyde "Snake" Arender

My wife stayed with her cousin a couple of years ago to help her take care of her husband, Loyde in his final struggle against the effects of Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. Loyde, known as "Snake" by his Marine buddies served in 'Nam and it eventually cost him his life. Snake was a warrior and a poet. His work is even inscribed on a monument to soldiers from his county who died in Vietnam. His poetry is powerful and gives you an insight to what Vietnam vets experienced during and after the war.

I wrote this book for his memorial. It includes stories, comments from friends and fellow soldiers, and his poetry. Snake was, in addition to being a poet, was a hero. When his platoon walked into a minefield, several of his buddies were wounded. With VC in the jungle nearby, Loyde knew they had to get out of the exposed position, but getting out of a mine field would be dangerous. Loyde tossed the first of his wounded comrades over his shoulder and picked his way out with his buddy. Then he went back again and again. His commanding officer wrote up a recommendation that Snake receive the Medal of Honor. 

Unfortunately, his commanding officer was killed the next day and the MOH citation died going up the chain of command. Several of his fellow soldiers have worked on getting him the citation decades later.

Here is the story in PDF format.

God bless our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. We owe them so much!

© 2021 by Tom King