It was a perfect dive … arms fully extended, head down and four inches of rock-hard ice rising to meet me at warp speed! The emergency room doctor later called it a “Superman”, although my instant replay indicates it must have looked more like an Elmer Fudd. I bruised several ribs and possibly cracked two of them, just to enhance the effect. But th-thea the-thea that’s not all folks!

Since my arms were occupied with a death grip on my upper torso, Vigi went outside to chip some ‘winter mix’ off the windshield so we could find our way to the hospital … and, not to be outdone, she successfully executed a back flip on the same slippery, snow dusted surface. Her L4 vertebra is now attempting to pass L5 like a couple of NASCAR drivers closing on the finish line at Daytona. That was more than a month ago and we’re still nursing our bruised, battered bones. Last night as we poured ourselves into our respective couch corners she asked, “Is this what old age is going to be like?”

Since Veege is a pretty upbeat person, I know when she asks a question like that it usually isn’t rhetorical. I’ve never been known for a loss of words, so the resounding silence that enveloped the room echoed even louder, eliciting both a slightly arched eyebrow and an actual pause in her knitting. It’s amazing how much can stampede across your mind’s hi-def widescreen in only a few short seconds.

I remembered a lean teen standing shirtless in front of the mirror, flexing his muscles and vainly admiring bulges that I eventually learned were called names like pecs and abs. During my middle years, I didn’t have to take my shirt off to see that many of those bulges had shifted somewhat and now stood before the looking glass calling them ‘contours’ and saying things like, “Not bad, not bad.” While I still have bulges, they have completely reconfigured themselves in both geometry and geography. None of them have names anymore.

Not long ago, in the process of greeting the new day, I stumbled past the bathroom mirror and noticed an older silvery-bearded gent giving me a curious once over. The landscape between his right and left ears was dominated by a field of skin, and I wondered who had been trying to make waffles on the side of his face that only moments before had been nestled into a properly punched pillow. Thankfully, performing my morning toilette is the only time I have no choice but to stand toe-to-toe with the updated ‘Me’ … the rest of the day I try to avoid all reflective surfaces of any kind.

As those silent seconds passed, with my widescreen now beginning to flicker, the scene changed and a devilish little voice inside my head began whispering about how food used to taste better, things lasted longer and a buck stretched all the way from necessity through desire with a little left over for saving. It reminded me of 5¢ chocolate bars that filled out their generous wrappers and didn’t taste like something you’d light on fire atop a birthday cake; how steak was so succulent and tender it made you feel as if the cow had given it up willingly … and when stuff broke, you were able to fix it instead of throwing it away. Life just used to seem less complicated. Maybe being more energetic and less brittle had something to do with it.

Then, as I looked over at my bride, her eyebrow had returned to its normal down and locked position, the yarn resumed its flight around the needles, and for some reason I began thinking about our wedding vows. “For richer or poorer,” we had promised. We’d been fortunate enough to struggle ourselves up to a comfortable middle point over the years. Where adversity sometimes pulls people apart, it has always bound us closer together with a kind of “you and me against the world” attitude.  “In sickness and in health.” Well, like most people edging closer to the ‘getting-off’ place than the ‘getting-on’, we’ve had our share of door number one in the past few years. The thing is, I couldn’t remember anything about injuries anywhere on the list … certainly nothing about ice-diving.

Finally, trying to lighten the moment with something clever I offered, “Hey kid, like it or not these are the NEW good old days! If we’re going to have any ‘golden years’, I’d better buy a bucket of paint!” She didn’t seem particularly amused … didn’t even look like she thought it was cute. As if peering at me over an invisible pair of reading glasses, she sighed that sigh that women sigh [like when you spill something] and adjusted the stack of pillows supporting her back.

With one hand on my ribs, the other on the T.V. remote and Vigi’s question neatly tucked away in a corner of my cranium, we settled back to resume our evening secure in the knowledge that “for better or for worse,” we had each other … and a large bottle of Tylenol at the ready.

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

He leaned in close so only the two of us could hear and said, “God loves you.” “I know He does,” I replied to the surgeon. “No, I mean He REALLY loves you!” the surgeon insisted. “After seeing what we just had to fix, I don’t know why you didn’t have a major coronary … but you didn’t, so He must love you a lot!” That got my attention. I mean, it REALLY got my attention. Up until then, I had taken to celebrating various anniversaries of my 29th birthday. The anniversary before my doctor’s chilling observation was my 19th and final such celebration.

People are funny about age. When they’re under 21, they count the half year: “He’s 1-1/2.” “I’m 16-1/2.” Between 21 and roughly 75, whatever the whole number indicates is usually offered at face value: “I’m 51.” After that, it’s back to emphasizing the half year: “I’m 83-1/2.” How someone treats his own birthday is a personal matter. How someone else treats it can be a horse of a different stripe.

High on my list of irritants is the way in which some well-meaning yahoo hangs a number on you, when he decides you’re moorings have come loose and you’re drifting so far from shore that he simply must announce to the world: “He’s 97-1/2 years YOUNG!” or even worse, addresses you as “Young fellow.” These last two are the blood pressure boosting parents of all insults to a mature person who has devoured huge chunks of life, and earned at least a modicum of respect for enduring the experience. It may come as a shock to many young whippersnappers who have spent far too much time sitting around snapping their young whippers … but old people know that they’re old! Believe me, they actually do.

During that 21 to 75 period, I see most people regarding birthdays as a necessary inconvenience, sometimes to the point of actual rejection … like the silliness of celebrating birthday anniversaries instead of coming clean on the total. A couple of my favorite denial clichés are, “Oh, it’s just a number,” or “You’re as young as you feel.” Heck, some days I feel about a hundred seventy-five! Does that mean I’m walking in Moses’ footprints? It’s amazing how fast birthday-bashing can come to a screeching, grinding halt once you’ve stood eye-to-eye with your own mortality.

Kids are bulletproof, indestructible and even immortal. They’re never going to get old and prune up like those “L” shaped relics they see chugging along, clutching their walkers or canes. Sadly, some of them don’t. The concept of disease is an abstract to a majority of young people … and death is something that only knocks on the other guy’s door. Maybe that’s why it’s mostly the young who go off to war.

When the team manager moved me from second base to first, I knew I had lost a step. Nobody had to tell me I wasn’t moving to my left fast enough to stop some of those grounders anymore. At the tender age of 34, when I allowed my wife [in another life] to convince me to stop playing ball altogether, I realized I probably lost more than just a step. That was about the time I formulated my “Nature’s Cruelest Joke” philosophy,  having to do with a 20 year old kid being trapped in a 200,000 mile body … only back then, as it turned out, there were only about 75,000 miles on it.

My good friend Bill never fails to send me a greeting every January 29th wishing me a “Happy Born Day.” I like the gentle sound of that wish … and it offers those still in denial a little wiggle room. As for me? Ever since Dr. Wang’s attention-getting surgical suite pronouncement my attitude has become, “Lord, bring me as many of these things as you can.” I have all of eternity to enjoy eternity and still too much I want to do right here!

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

The vaguely familiar face in the mirror gazed at me suspiciously as I prepared the brutal ritual about to be inflicted upon it. I knew I couldn’t go on this way any longer. After three agonizing days, it had grown to be too much. Slowly, I raised the shimmering steel shard toward my neck, took a final deep breath, and steadied myself to commit shaving. I hated it. In fact, I hated it so much that I actually cultivated selected facial acreage, in order to cut down the area I needed to lather and scrape. Besides, my beard looked cool, too … until it turned from pepper to salt-and-pepper, and then to salt.

Suddenly I stopped. Standing proudly erect, almost defiantly at attention, on the very tip of my left ear was a silvery, shining, nearly-neon 2-1/2 inch hair!  What was he doing there? How long had he been there? He couldn’t have gotten lost and wandered down from the top because nothing with his majesty or bearing has grown up there in years! There was a time I spent hours in front of the mirror and scooped pounds of  ’pomade’ onto my pompadour, making sure every hair was precisely in place … but now my crown has been re-designated as a landing strip for flies, mosquitoes and other small insects. In those days, the smiling kid in the mirror used to break the teeth off of combs … now I can comb my hair with a towel! Why is it that the older you get, the tougher it is to grow hair where you want it, and the more abundant it becomes where you don’t?

This dilemma has often led me to wonder why guys today, who can grow yards of hair on their heads, either shave it off or get such a bad haircut that, as long as I was still living “under his roof,” Dad would have marched me back to the barber to retrieve my seventy-five cents! Even more puzzling is their inability to grow proper beards, sideburns or hair on their torsos. At best, it’s either sparse or grows in little tufts. Many of those exceptions who do seem to have a suitable supply of testosterone, have ‘fashionably’ turned to exfoliating products to render their legs and chests as smooth as baby’s bottoms! One thing I clearly remember in my crowd was the ego crushing chant of “Baby legs, baby legs!” hurled like a sinking fastball at any guy who showed up without hairy wheels in gym shorts or a bathing suit.  And the guys who showed up with actual hair on their chests? Heroes!

Did I hear myself blame testosterone? It all got me thinking that, just maybe, ‘The Governator’ in ‘Caulifornia’ with his “Girly-Men” remarks and Rush Limbaugh with his ‘New Castrati’ comments might be onto something. After all, even back when my daughters were still growing up, I can remember questioning why so many young guys would rather hang with each other than go out on a date. When I was footloose and prowling, it was automatically understood that a date with a girl of the female persuasion trumped anything the boys might have planned … especially on a Saturday night!

Anyway, I did a little research and may have found an answer. First of all, there really is a condition called male menopause … but since women have a lock on the name MENopause, the correct term for the symptoms men experience is ‘VIROPAUSE.’ I guess ‘WOMENopause’ simply refers to women who hesitate too much and is not applicable here. Anyway, it seems that testosterone levels in males are dropping faster these days than the decreases normally associated with aging in the past. It is suspected that pesticides, preservatives in foods and the hormone pellets used to fatten up cattle, pork and chicken may actually be thinning more than just the hair of our younger male generations.

Everything else being equal, I was willing to chalk up most of the new ‘feminine-side’ demeanor to fashion and, “You don’t realize what you have until it’s gone.” But I guess that’s nothing new. Mom used to see me plastering down my naturally wavy hair in the morning and she’d say, “Someday it’s all going to fall out and then you’ll be sorry.” She was right. Of course, that was usually followed by the obligatory, “God’s going to punish you, you’ll see!” I don’t know if God actually intervened directly because of my early grooming habits … but I do wear a variety of hats to keep my head warm in winter.

As the face in the mirror began to regard me with less suspicion, I remembered reading about a certain ancient Amazon tribe that removed facial hair by applying a rubbery tree sap to their faces, letting it dry, and then ripping it off, whiskers and all. Suddenly my own little ritual didn’t seem so brutal. With a single stroke, I unceremoniously hacked off the silvery little soldier perched atop my left ear and smiled to think how lucky I was to have a fresh blade in my razor.

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

For whatever unknown reason, my eyes were riveted on the Cabernet, Claret and a case of beer clattering around in my cart as I approached the checkout.  Slowly, as I regained focus from my stupor, I looked up and found myself staring into a pair of the bluest eyes I’d seen in thirty years.  She had this great little nose, slightly blushing cheeks, a smile that made the sun blink and zippers on her ears!  One zipper on each ear — at least, that’s what they looked like!

I’ve seen piercings before but this kid’s piercings had piercings and in each hole was a little gold stud, except for the bottom two holes which had hoops.  The girl was young enough to be my granddaughter but old enough to make me want to smile back.  ”Do you have everything?” she asked.  ”I used to,” I thought — but just answered “Ya, I guess so.”  I reached for my plastic, provided my autograph and as I handed the pen back heard someone say, “I can’t resist.  Can I ask you a personal question?”  I almost looked around but suddenly realized the voice was mine.  ”Sure” she said, still smiling with her lips but wondering with her baby blues just where this old coot was going.

“There’s no line behind me or I wouldn’t take the time” I said, now refocused on the dozen or so holes in each ear.  ”Why?”  ”Why what?” she asked.  ”I’ve just always wanted to know — why all the piercings?  Was it fashion or peer pressure or-r-r…”  ”I dun’no” she responded, revealing the gold stud stuck through her tongue. “Was it something you thought about for a long time or an impulse or something?” I pressed.  ”I mean, with tattoos I know people who said they got drunk and it just seemed like a good idea at the time, you know?”  ”I dun’no,” she repeated. “I have tattoos, too, but they’re in places that I couldn’t show an older gentleman like you.”  What?  Didn’t she realize I’m a guy — or was that exactly what she did realize and she was having her way with my head?

Now, most people would simply stop right there with a polite, “Oh.” or better yet, silence.  But I don’t work that way.  Not me.  I have to grab my big purple crayola and make at least a little smudge outside the line. The same voice that surprised me in the first place piped up again, “Then you mean you could show them to, maybe, a younger guy?”  ”Sure, why not?” she sort of half-asked.

Being a good learner, this time I put my crayon away and referred back to the ‘zippers’.  She went on to explain that her mom had allowed the first two piercings, then hit the brakes.  She wanted more [holes in her head] and so learned to do it herself with a needle.  Ouch!  Just the thought was sending chills from my knees to my arch supports.  It was time to go.  Actually, I have asked other young people about piercings, tattoos and various mutilations their own kids will admire someday and except for one, “‘Cuz it’s cool!” the response was always the same. There didn’t seem to be a clear moment of decision and nobody really knew why.

I guess I’m getting older even faster than I thought because, looking at that beautiful kid behind the counter, all I could see was somebody painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa.  Her smile wished me a nice day and politely offered that she’d see me again next time.  I said, “I Dun’no.”

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The telephone warbled [they don't ring anymore] and when I answered it, I was greeted by a voice so excited I hardly recognized it as belonging to my daughter Heidi. “It doesn’t feel any different!” she gushed nervously, “I feel exactly the same as I did before!” It was her 30th birthday and, somehow, she seemed to expect the earth to open up and swallow hard.

I assured her that she wasn’t in any danger and welcomed her to adulthood. It’s the biggest secret shared by everyone stumbling down life’s highway and Ma’ Nature’s cruelest joke. Ma’ takes a 20 year old and traps the kid inside a degenerating carcass that won’t work the way it’s supposed to anymore. The journey begins just post teen and morphs an agile youth with cat-like movements into the snap, crackle, pop of a Rice Crispy in a bowl of warm milk. The trouble is, your head doesn’t change. What a sense of humor!

You still like the same stuff, want to do and have the same stuff — but you just can’t scoop up those grounders at second base the way you used to. Actually you still can but, as I discovered around age 34 when they moved me from second to first, I couldn’t get back up as easily to throw the ball! Even at first base, I started making funny noises when I’d stretch — but I still wanted to play!

The real clue to the fact that my body was no longer in agreement with my head was the first time a cute little checker, whose name tag I’d been enjoying just below her ample cleavage, called me “sir”. At first I looked around. Maybe my father was standing behind me. Then to add insult to injury, she asked if I needed help with a large bag of dog food. Of course, true to my testosterone, I casually grunted the bag over my shoulder and said, “Na-a, I’ve got it.”

After a while, I allowed it to penetrate the granite above my neck that not only were pretty young things like that younger than my daughter but my back wasn’t. That’s when I refined the technique by asking for a strapping [male type] youth to help and began simply saying, “Yes, thank you. That would be nice.” It wasn’t easy, because I still wanted to play!

Now, here’s where women are smarter than men. They don’t even wait for the birthday blur to occur. Women avoid the middle-man in the first place and gracefully accept any help they can get right from the start, brandishing only the car keys and an all knowing smile! A guy can stand in front of the mirror for only so many years, suck in his gut and say, “Not bad.” Pretty soon a huge dose of reality reveals an ultimate truth — body and spirit are speeding in different directions.

That brings to mind another truth I tried to impart to Heidi on that birthday and it’s sometimes tough to remember but Fred’s Rule #1 is in force regardless of age, sex, race, religion or the mirror: Older is something Ma’ Nature does to you and there’s nothing you can do about it. Old happens in your head and you do it to yourself. Me? I still want to play!