BEING OLD IS A GOOD THING

Photo of me at 75 - don't look a day over 90 - right

          Here it is; April already and spring hasn't even arrived yet. In my earlier years, just a boy actually, I can remember swimming near the end of March (in Vancouver, BC at Trout Lake - why they called it that I'll never know because there were no trout, only catfish). However, here, living near the base of Green Mountain, the nearby lake, which is about a ten minute leisurely walk in the summer is now a slog, up to your thighs in snow, tripping and sliding on some bare ice, and, if you forgot the ice auger to cut yourself a hole, good luck diving in and going for a swim - jumping up and down like a kid throwing a temper-tantrum or butting your head against the ice, won't so much as crack it, most likely split your head wide open, so I advise you not to try that. Even a polar bear would have difficulty getting through the ice in search of seals. Oh yeah, almost forgot, there are no seals in the lake this time of year, they don't arrive until the summer and then they're wearing fluorescent bikinis to disguise their wobbly bits. Not being able to swim, if you're a high-diver training for the Olympics, all you have to do here is climb a tall tree and then dive off, do a triple flip, maybe spread your cheeks a wee bit to slow down your descent  and then, plow head first into the deep snow - even an out of control belly-flop wouldn't hurt a 450 lb. man the snow is so deep. 
         I used to enjoy swimming when I was around 45, could easily swim up to a mile or two. However, today, even wading in shallow water is a problem even if there is still a little ice left on the lake. Walking is slow two, if you could call it walking - I actually call it the old-man-shuffle. But hey, I can do one hell of a jig as long as I don't lift my feet - just sway, nod my head to the beat of the music and have a lot of arm action - of course I still have to be careful I don't totter and then tumble face down on the dance floor. 

           I have no idea concerning the average age of the people who read this blog but for those of you who think they're just getting old, are old or are ancient and decrepit, don't you just love this age. Imagine, some bullshit guy, most likely an overpaid advertising exec came up with the slogan, "the 70's are now the new 50's" (what a crock)! Have you noticed all the old people with dyed hair, - the only part that looks young is their hair - the rest of their wrinkly, saggy body is heading south faster than a Mexican getting chased by a Texan armed with a 12 gauge shot gun. And the reason many of us old people are hunched over, it's not because we have bad backs, we've got 3 lbs, of makeup on our faces to fill in the wrinkles - that's a lot of weight for an old turkey-neck to hold up. I was once walking along a street and I saw this woman coming towards me, her long blonde hair blowing in the breeze. I was beginning to get a little excited until she was almost in front of me, her body looked as if it had been pried into a girdle and her face looked as if she had tried using it to open a 45 gallon can of oil. But who knows, in the dark, in bed, she may have seemed like Marilyn Monroe if she had lived to be 105 old.

          Now, some of us have been told they look younger than we are. Me, for instance, have been told that I look ten years younger. That's funny because I'm 77 and if I look 67, I still look freaking old. Now kids, if we're over 30, they tell us we look old, which is probably more the truth because when I hit the age of 40, I wouldn't have been able to keep up to myself when I was 20. But hey, being old is a good thing, we can wear our wrinkles like medals -we're not yet looking up at the daisies - still survivors...cheers, eh!