My body is like an old car. How’s that for a story-starter? For some time I’ve been aware of my body, aware of how it’s changing, how it’s—how I am—growing older.
Now before I get too maudlin or cynical, let me point out that getting older is definitely better than the alternative. It’s not a pleasant subject, but because I’m not old yet (old is always 20 years older than you are) I’m struck by the obituaries I read of people younger, sometimes much younger, than I. So getting old or even getting middle-age is good, considering the options.
But getting old, I mean getting middle-aged, isn’t easy. That’s why, unfortunately, the old car metaphor works. You see, I have an old car. In many ways, it reminds me of myself. (I wonder if somewhere in Carworld my car is composing a story of how I remind it of it?)
Anyway, my car is a gray Volvo. An aging gray Volvo. Like myself, then, because it’s a Volvo that means one worry about aging isn’t relevant: my car never has to worry about going out of style because it never was in style. The same holds true of its owner.
Oh sure, I was fashionable and wore the best plaid Nehru jackets back in the early 70’s and my bell-bottom jeans shook like a wet dog when I boogied to “Saturday Night Fever.” But just as Volvos aren’t esteemed because of their looks, I was never a fashion-plate.
But, dear reader, to be shockingly honest, there was a time when I was somewhat of a fashion trend-setter. The youthful of you may smile or even roll your eyes, but wild, wide, patterned, bold ties were not always in style. No, indeedy. This is a fashion movement that I personally started way back in the early 70’s.
My first wife and I would go to the fabric store and select material to be made into ties. Back then my ties were considered fashion statements, outrageous cravats of how a man-on-the-move should look. I was even featured in Lands’ End. (Ok, to be fair, I wrote a letter about ties that they published in a catalogue, but still, my name was there.)
Today my wild and crazy ties, as Steve Martin used to say, are found in every hum-drum clothing store imaginable. I broke the mold and was subsumed by it.
But as with any true role model, one act does not define a career. So it’s only fair to point out that I am also the trend-setter who originated the wear-your-safety-pin-in-your-sock-so-they-stay-together-in-the-dryer-and-the-drawer routine.
Still, no, despite defining what is considered a snazzy tie and despite changing the way millions now affix their socks each evening, fashion never was something for which I was known. Like my Volvo, I’m functional more than decorative, ties and safety pins aside.
But my Volvo, like its owner, is showing signs of age and wear. The trim on the sides, for example, looks natural. But if you get close you’ll see that it’s a replacement, plastic strips that appears the same as the original honest metal molding but isn’t. Well, that’s nothing compared to my teeth.
More of my pearlies originated in a dental lab than in my gene-pool. I have more bridges in my mouth than span the Mississippi in downtown St. Louis. After my last dental implant the dentist told me that I now have so much porcelain in my mouth, that he wasn’t sure whether I should brush or use Drain-O (and, no, that does not refer to my vocabulary).
My coat pocket that used to hold a comb now has my eyeglasses in it. It’s not that my vision has deteriorated, it’s just that all the printers in the world have conspired to make the letters fuzzy.
And my hair! Rather, and what’s left of my hair! Back when I had lots of hair I often kept it long, a “Prince Valiant” cut, at least that’s what the first wife called it. Now when I keep it long I look like an unkempt wacky professor (or is that redundant?). And my Volvo’s gray color is more and more relevant to my hair.
The only good aspect of this is that no hair means that I need to wear hats when it’s hot or cold or in-between. Consequently, I have a marvelous selection of caps and can mix and match them to correspond with my ties. My Chicago Bulls cap, for example, goes well with paisley whereas my Bugs Bunny cap brings out check patterns.
My car doesn’t have hair but it’s losing its counterpart. The cloth that used to be appended tightly to the inside of the roof of my car now hangs loosely. If I drive with the windows down—something I like to do on the 3 days of spring and 4 of fall that we get each year—the material billows back and forth, waving as if a flag in a windstorm.
I don’t know whether to staple what’s left to the roof or start putting Rogaine in the upholstery cleaner.
And then there are my knees. I’ve gone through three or four sets of tires because it seems that the potholes play tag with my tires and the tires lose.
Then there’s that curb in front of the house, the one that is never quite in the same place so that I always wind up against or on top of it. So yes, the tires, all of them, have quite a bit of wear and tear and so do my knees. But my knees, unlike the tires or my teeth, are originals.
It’s not just the years that have taken their toll on my knees, it’s how they’ve been used. First, in all fairness to the knees, they have had to deal with—carry—more than what they might be fairly expected to support.
In fact, if you multiply my average body weight by years and then divide by what my average body weight should be times years, the extra burden means that my knees have already put in 217 years. That doesn’t count the additional pain from trudging to a third-floor bedroom each night, playing basketball twice a week, and running less than I should but more often than I like.
So the knees, God love ’em, like the tires, are in revolt. I’ve been to Dobbs twice to fix a tire recently but have thus far resisted visiting a knee-doctor.
Close to the knees, just as the hubcaps also show wear, my left ankle is killing me as I write. I know what happened, a week ago I made a shot a 3 point shot and came down on fouling Ed’s foot. I’ve done that before but it never took this long to feel good.
Injury recovery time is now measured in lunar cycles, not days. Maybe I should soak my ankle in Rust-O-Leum.
And oh yeah, my one ear is clogged too. Don’t know how it happened but it feels like there’s something in it that shouldn’t be there. My hearing has been getting worse over the years, the result of too many Rolling Stones concerts, so this latest development doesn’t help.
By the way, the stereo in the car is down to mono now. One speaker simply isn’t working and when I put the radio on AM, there is always static. What did you say?
The day will come when there’s a body equivalent to AutoPartsUSA. Y’know, BodyPartsUSA. You and your doc will be able to go to (or maybe you’ll do it over the ‘net) and order a replacement knee or kidney or heart. Surgery, if it is still used, will be a piece of cake. Or maybe they’ll just put in a new circuit board.
Then society will have to deal with the question of what to do when people just get older and stay around. I mean, what happens if you retire at 62 and live until 144? Alas, my guess is that’s a generation or two away.
So for now, for me, like my car, my body shows more and more signs of age. It’s painful, literally, figuratively, and internal combustionably.
Usually writing this friendly column is a bit renewing and invigorating. Odd, and I’m not sure why, but this one doesn’t feel that way. I’m not sure what to make of the car-body metaphor but let’s just say that I plan to avoid going anywhere near a junkyard.
