In Your Ear

Historical April 1992 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.

It’s not something that I notice every day. Or maybe it is, but then I forget about it.

The aging process, that is. One nice thing about lapses in memory is that while you forget what you wanted to buy at the grocery store, you also forget the things that you don’t want to remember as well. Oh, I’m growing older, there’s no doubt about it. And I’m not complaining, given the alternative. Older I’m becoming, day by day by day. I’ve always considered myself an observer of the human condition. That’s a pseudo-scientific way of saying that I like to watch other people.

The airport is probably my favorite spot for doing this, followed by shopping malls, museums, and the dentist’s office. And for some time now I’ve been watching myself get older. Aging is a gradual process.

There are times when I don’t think I’ve changed much, and then I see a photo with me in it that was taken a couple of years ago. Gosh.

I used to have much more hair. or was it simply the angle of the light at that. particular time?

I really do think I look almost exactly the same as I did ten or twenty years ago. Honest.

But then reality hits home.

The other day I was interviewing someone and he mentioned that he was 45 years old. That’s a year younger than I am. “Boy, he looks older than that, much older than I do,” I thought. And then I wondered how I appeared to him and to the others around the table. Although I didn’t want to confront it, I. suspect that everyone. would have said we were peers, maybe even that I am a bit older than he is. One thing I am sure about is that it takes my body longer to recover from ‘ injuries. Even though I’m quickly nearing the end of my youth, I still don’t act my age, so I play basketball and run fairly regularly.

The good news is that my skill level, even as a full-fledged youth, was never that good, so there’s not a lofty peak from which I’ve declined.

I don’t get frustrated wishing I could do what I used to do because what I used to do wasn’t all that good to start with.

The bad news is that when I hurt myself —running and tripping over a rock that I would have noticed a decade or two ago, landing wrong on my foot after Jumping for a rebound that I would have easily snared in 1966 — it takes a long time for my body to recover.

I have a running partner who’s’ almost my age but in much better shape. He’s sort of my athletic conscience. Two or three times each week he shows up at my door at 5:50 am., already huffing and puffing from having run to my house.

We then run together, Yesterday he tripped over a rock hidden by a leaf, and went down heavily.

He lay writhing in pain for a while, then got up and continued to run.

I was impressed because that same twist would have had me limping home. “I must really be getting old;” I thought. “He’s doing a much better job of ‘recovering than I would? Not to worry.

This morning he called to tell me he can hardly walk. At least I’m not getting older alone. Getting older has really affected my sleep patterns.

During my college days I remember staying up until 3:00 or 4:00 am., and sleeping until near noon.

During the summers I used to have an automatic timer.on my television so I could awaken to Art Fleming’s “Jeopardy” at 11:00 am.. Even as a graduate student, as late as the 1970’s, I had difficulties getting up early.

I had a job downtown and the parking lots had an “early bird” rate; if you had your car in by 9:00 am., it was much cheaper than if you came later. What a struggle that was for me! Being downtown by 9:00 a.m. was more than I could do on a regular basis.

As a result, I never got the worm and the early bird parking lot folks received more of my money than I would have preferred.

Now I find my circadian clock running in a different direction.

I get up much earlier and have trouble staying up late. Breakfast meetings at the St. Louis Bread Company are the norm, and I’m delighted when someone can meet as late as 7:30 a.m. Part of this, I must admit, is my own doing.

A few years ago I attended a seminar on “Situational Leadership” and heard the speaker talk about how the pace of life only gets quicker; it never slows and continues to ratchet as we take on more responsibilities and raise our own standards for our performance.

He advocated getting up 30 minutes earlier each day, rather than timing the morning ritual as tightly as possible, and creating a quiet period for slowly making coffee, reading the paper, and so on. I’ve done this and am pleased with the results.

While I still treasure those fleeting minutes lying in bed, I prefer those extra unhurried minutes, opening the paper and having time to hear the birds greet the morning. So I now add extra time to however long it’ll take me to get ready each morning, just so I can have time to enjoy the start of the day. Just taking a few minutes to listen to “Morning Edition” puts things in a good perspective.

But I’ve never seen Jay Leno. Oh, I’ve read about him, sure, but in the event that I’m lucky enough to stay up that late, inevitably I have other things to do, things that- I didn’t get to during the day. And David Letterman?

He might as well be appearing in person at a West County comedy club; either way I’ll never see him. John, my athletic conscience, says that people need less sleep as they get older, That’s why, he explains, people our age wake up several times during the night- “We need to rest, sure,” he say, “but resting doesn’t necessarily mean sleeping, and we need less sleep.” For what it’s worth, John is a lawyer, not a. doctor.

My taste in music is changing, too, as I age. Oh, I still embrace the classics. Fleetwood Mac is providing background music as I write this, to be followed by the Beatles, Stones, and Gershwin.• Yes, George Gershwin. Somehow; I’ve noticed Gershwin sound much better now than he did twenty or thirty years ago. Do you think he’s improved .that much? And, get this, I find myself appreciating Sinatra. Old Blue Eyes really does have an amazing voice! And I find myself really enjoying the jazz and Big Band Sounds on KWMU.

I read even more than I used to, but have difficulty finding fiction that will hold my interest The daily N. Y. Times is a staple, and between it and the Post, along with my magazines and journals, there’s not much time left for a real book.

The real books that I do read tend to be professionally related, informative, ‘and, I hate to admit it, pretty dry.

But I enjoy them anyway. What, dare I ask, does that say about me?

A colleague once said that until age 28 or 29, we are all broadening, trying new interests and investigating different fields.

After that, he continued, we find a track and pursue it pretty intensively, narrowing ourselves in the process.

I think he was right I’ve become more tolerant, or at least I think I have. Even my current wife says I’m more patient than when I was younger.

I wish my dad were alive; he’d be very surprised to find that we now agree on so many issues.

But the tolerance is for others.

As I’ve grown older, I have come to expect more of Myself.

I now have decades of experience as a human being, so I should be better. Right? And then there’s death.

The alternative to aging.

I remember when death was something that happened only to other people and other people’s friends and relatives. No more. Death. used to be in a distant land, across the ocean of life and experiences; now it’s around, always around, never far from consciousness.

I check the obituaries each day, but I don’t carefully read them; that would be making a statement which I’m not prepared to make. And close friends have died, from illness and one from suicide. Actually, the friends, the memories are still with me; it’s only their bodies that are gone for now. Life is a wonderful and interesting journey. There’s no destination, I fear, simply a passage. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next and reflecting upon my evolution.

Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April 1992.

Read this article in the original newspaper issue.

Original source: SD_Times1992_04.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.