Historical personal and humorous essay by Tom Hoerr, November 1982, reflecting on aging and everyday life.
Age seems to be a big topic today. Hardly a news broadcast passes without someone talking about social security benefits, our aging population, and the effects of the baby boom’s growing older. Like the weather and inflation, age is something about which there’s a lot of talk and precious little action. I don’t know when it first hit me, that I was aging, I mean.
Oh, somewhere in my pre-pubescent youth probably, when I was “suddenly” old enough to handle some responsibility heretofore denied me, e.g., “Tommy, make your bed.” There then followed a period of many, many years in which aging was something that, well, just happened. You went to school, wasted time, shuffled semi-aimlessly through life, got a job, got another job, went back to school, shuffled semi-directionally through life, and so on. Cars, homes, pets, spouse, kids (others’), and seasons all came and left (more or less, I still have an old car and a semi-old spouse), but one never really aged. Time just passed.
As I move farther into the last half of my thirties (the thirties that preceed the forties!), however, my perception of aging is changing. Suddenly it seems, I see the aging process occurring on the actors and sets around me, only now I, too, am in the play. Nothing big caused me to see the glass of life going from half full to half empty.
My father died, but I was far into realizing my own mortality before that happened. No, it was the little things that told me that somewhere somebody was holding a lifestopwatch on me. I remember the first summer that I stopped playing slow-pitch softball. You’ve got to realize, slow-pitch softball was, at one point in my life, very important indeed. I played on as many teams as would have me. I envisioned myself as a good-field, no-hit third baseman, rightfielder, catcher,-whatever. I looked the part, too, as long as ground balls were hit to my left. Then one summer, I really didn’t care if I played anymore.
No big decision, it just wasn’t important enough to decide.
Not playing slow -pitch became one of those decisions that you make by not making a decision. Listening to Cardinal baseball games became very pleasant (this was even during the pre-Whiteyball days).
I still kind of cringe at the thought: me, the hyper kid who couldn’t sit still, enjoying sitting on the porch listening to the game.
Well, at least I don’t enjoy wearing an undershirt and drinking a beer while I turn Jack Buck’s prose into images!
It is a lot more fun to just sit and listen than it used to be, and I don’t think that’s because Jack has gotten any better. I’ve always been a Rolling Stones fan, but recently I find myself noting how good Frank Sinatra sounds.
The Stones are still the ultimate (“You can’t always get what you want …”), but old Blue Eyes is sounding better all the time. Thank heavens I’m not old enough yet to appreciate Lawrence Welk.
My taste in books is changing, too. I’ve just purchased Kissinger’s Years of Upheaval, yet I haven’t gotten around to the latest James Bond epic and it’s even in paperback.
An important part of growing older, I think, is a realization of the aging phenomenon and an understanding of the evolution. I am now able to appreciate the small things; no, not the small things, just the things that I used to take for granted. Friendships, always treasured, are now cherished. Sitting on my porch and watching the neighbors trek to and from church, renewed going and coming, is a pleasant experience. Leaves are special now: changing colors, floating, dying, and rustling.
The smell of firewood in a safely-tucked chimney makes my Saturday a special one.
An evening is completed by a good cigar—well, let’s not get carried -away—an adequate one anyway. I don’t know where I am headed or how far I have to go, and I certainly am not plan – ning an early exit; no, I won’t go gracefully. I am glad somehow, though, that I know I am going so that I can enjoy the passage. Perhaps the best part of being mortal is appreciating it.
Originally published in The Neighborhood Paper, November 1982.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1982_11.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
