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Let me say this about that.

I must admit, I am not aging gracefully.  Not to put too fine a point on it, getting old sucks.  But, as I have remarked in the past, the option to getting old is not one I would like to explore.  I am not afraid of death, per se.  It’s the process of getting dead that scares the hell out of me.  As the man said, it’s not the fast pace of life that is disconcerting, it’s the sudden stop at the end.

Contemplating one’s mortality is a waste of time, really.  If getting old is inevitable – and if your lucky, it is – might as well enjoy what few benefits that accompany it.  For example, most old people are…    pretty smart and bare listening to.  As that great American philosopher……Richard Pryor…… once said:

“You don’t even get to be old by being no fool.”

In my humble opinion, one of America’s greatest thinkers, and certainly one of it’s greatest poets, is Yogi Berra.  Berra, of course,  was a great catcher and coach of the New York Yankees.  In addition, at age 84, he is one of the most quoted celebrities since Mark Twain.  Berra has a unique talent of explaining situations in a way that only old people could appreciate.  For example, Yogi has his own take on mortality:

“You should always go to your friend’s funerals.  Otherwise, they won’t go to yours.”

And, when it comes to life’s great moments of decision:

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Yogi Berra, at age 84, is not a lounge lizard any more but does have his take on the New York social scene:

“Nobody goes there any more.  It’s too crowded.”

Any old guy will tell you that he can remember things from a thousand years ago, like the words to ‘the Gilligan’s Island’ theme song, but can’t remember what he had for breakfast.  One of my fondest memories was watching the old TV sitcom ‘Leave It To Beaver’  when the decidedly un-politically correct phrase was uttered by the Beaver’s Mom to his Dad at the breakfast table:

“Ward, don’t you think you were a little rough on the Beaver last night?”

It cracks me up to this day.

When you’re old, young people can be a pain in the ass.  Not necessarily because of the nipple rings, the rap music, or their mysterious desire to show their underwear in public.  Sometime, they are just smarter than us old farts.

My wife and I went to Disney World in Orlando a couple of years ago.  We parked in the lot – along with a few hundred thousand other cars – and boarded the tram to the front gate.  As the tram pulled away, I forgot to write down the row number of the space where we parked the car and shouted at the tram driver to stop.  The kid driving the tram, who I thought had the IQ of an avocado, said:

“Oh, don’t worry sir.  Just wait until everyone else leaves and take the car that’s left.”

And, that’s all I have to say about that.

Shambo