“Do you know what you shouldn’t do when you’re 64?” I asked my willowy editor Melissa Evans.
“Not bend over?” she guessed. “Walk upstairs? Try to tie your own shoes? Eat dinner after 4 p.m.? Fall down?”
I labor daily in a horribly ageist workplace. I’m keeping track of this sort of thing and when I’m ready, I have a massive file of violations to submit to our HR department and the United States Department of Labor. These are the thoughts going through my mind as she continued … “Drive? Use a walker without tennis balls on the legs? Try to eat solid foods?”
That’s all funny, but the answer I was looking for was “Use Google Images to see what your high-school sweetheart looks like now.” That’s an ageist thing, too, and I will admit to anyone that I’ve aged with no greater grace than anyone else. It’s a cruel little part of evolutionary law that our bodies and former stunning looks go all to hell once we have nothing more to contribute to the population.
Still, it’s disappointing in the extreme to make the leap from looking through your high-school yearbook to a collection of j-pegs on your computer screen showing your prom date celebrating her retirement from her job in an strip-mall escrow office and looking forward to spending more time with her six grandchildren, and she looks pretty much like you do now.
My editor, having finally exhausted her arsenal of hurtful answers to my question, suggested I pose the same question on Facebook.
“What’s Facebook?” I asked, because I’m 64.
After blindly whacking at my keyboard, I finally got the question “posted,” as the kids say: “What should you not do when you’re 64?”
“Meth,” was the first reply, and a reasonable one.
“Anything that contains the word ‘lunges’,” suggested Kathleen Irvine.
“Give your kids advice,” wrote Melissa Evans, having just thought of another one. TSOL’s “Jack Loyd” appended: “Give anyone advice.”
“Purple microdot,” said our friend Mark Hawkins, with a psychedelic take on the “meth” answer.
Dave Newell contributed an ultra-specific, “Sneak in at 3 a.m. from being out with the guys playing poker in the back room of Pacific Dining Car.” You’d almost think he’s had some similar experience with that.
“Taking out a 30-year loan,” said musician Chris Coakely in a take off the “don’t buy green bananas” advice.
I had well over 100 responses, too many of the “64 years young” variety, or the “there’s nothing you can’t do at 64,” to which I would refer you back to Ms. Evans’ litany.
I was urged, at my age, to not have any more babies or chase women in their 20s or 30s, or suddenly develop an affinity for your President Donald Trump.
And, of course, a mess of references to the Beatles’ hit from “Sgt. Pepper’s,” with the familiar refrain, “will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”
But my favorite response came from my old colleague and future Secretary of State once I become president (a job that literally anyone can apparently get now), Will Shuck, who says a 64-year-old should never be seen “strutting around like a 63-year-old.”
Well, I’ll never be doing that. I can’t even remember what it was like being a 63-year-old.
Tim Grobaty is a columnist and the Opinions Editor for the Long Beach Post. You can reach him at 562-714-2116, email [email protected], @grobaty on Twitter and Grobaty on Facebook.
LSD, giving advice, tying your shoes and other things you shouldn’t do when you’re 64
“Do you know what you shouldn’t do when you’re 64?” I asked my willowy editor Melissa Evans.
“Not bend over?” she guessed. “Walk upstairs? Try to tie your own shoes? Eat dinner after 4 p.m.? Fall down?”
I labor daily in a horribly ageist workplace. I’m keeping track of this sort of thing and when I’m ready, I have a massive file of violations to submit to our HR department and the United States Department of Labor. These are the thoughts going through my mind as she continued … “Drive? Use a walker without tennis balls on the legs? Try to eat solid foods?”
That’s all funny, but the answer I was looking for was “Use Google Images to see what your high-school sweetheart looks like now.” That’s an ageist thing, too, and I will admit to anyone that I’ve aged with no greater grace than anyone else. It’s a cruel little part of evolutionary law that our bodies and former stunning looks go all to hell once we have nothing more to contribute to the population.
Still, it’s disappointing in the extreme to make the leap from looking through your high-school yearbook to a collection of j-pegs on your computer screen showing your prom date celebrating her retirement from her job in an strip-mall escrow office and looking forward to spending more time with her six grandchildren, and she looks pretty much like you do now.
My editor, having finally exhausted her arsenal of hurtful answers to my question, suggested I pose the same question on Facebook.
“What’s Facebook?” I asked, because I’m 64.
After blindly whacking at my keyboard, I finally got the question “posted,” as the kids say: “What should you not do when you’re 64?”
“Meth,” was the first reply, and a reasonable one.
“Anything that contains the word ‘lunges’,” suggested Kathleen Irvine.
“Give your kids advice,” wrote Melissa Evans, having just thought of another one. TSOL’s “Jack Loyd” appended: “Give anyone advice.”
“Purple microdot,” said our friend Mark Hawkins, with a psychedelic take on the “meth” answer.
Dave Newell contributed an ultra-specific, “Sneak in at 3 a.m. from being out with the guys playing poker in the back room of Pacific Dining Car.” You’d almost think he’s had some similar experience with that.
“Taking out a 30-year loan,” said musician Chris Coakely in a take off the “don’t buy green bananas” advice.
I had well over 100 responses, too many of the “64 years young” variety, or the “there’s nothing you can’t do at 64,” to which I would refer you back to Ms. Evans’ litany.
I was urged, at my age, to not have any more babies or chase women in their 20s or 30s, or suddenly develop an affinity for your President Donald Trump.
And, of course, a mess of references to the Beatles’ hit from “Sgt. Pepper’s,” with the familiar refrain, “will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”
But my favorite response came from my old colleague and future Secretary of State once I become president (a job that literally anyone can apparently get now), Will Shuck, who says a 64-year-old should never be seen “strutting around like a 63-year-old.”
Well, I’ll never be doing that. I can’t even remember what it was like being a 63-year-old.
Tim Grobaty
Tim Grobaty is a columnist and the Opinions Editor for the Long Beach Post. You can reach him at 562-714-2116, email [email protected], @grobaty on Twitter and Grobaty on Facebook.
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