Memorial Day Musings

ANOTHER MEANDER DOWN MEMORY LANE...
I thought I'd reprise something I wrote three years ago, on May 26th, 2006 - when I was using my previous blog host. Most of you current readers - both of you - have probably not seen this, so I thought I'd share it with you for some nice Memorial Day reading while I spend the weekend celebrating my 50th high school reunion with a bunch of geezers I may not even remember. Yikes! Fortunately, my sweet, patient and much younger wife will join me for this milestone event, to wipe the drool from my chin and keep me from falling asleep face-first in my mashed potatoes. I'll be back next week. Enjoy...

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May 26, 2006

TOTTERING ALONG

As the clock continues to tick I found myself at a major milestone in my life earlier this week. Following a much-needed nice, little vacation that took my sweet wife and myself to our favorite California city, San Diego, and included a few days at another favorite place on the Central California coast, we returned home in time for my scheduled appointment Monday at - ta da! - the Social Security office!

EFFICIENTLY SIGNED-UP
After a brief, efficiently-conducted interview with a helpful young woman, I was out of there in fifteen minutes flat and am now poised to join tens of millions of other American geezers bellied up to the trough of Social Security and Medicare. I confess that I haven't yet untangled the ball of snakes that is Medicare Part D - the prescription drug program. That will come soon.

SURE SIGNS OF MY AGE
As I head on into this summer, which brings with it a major milestone birthday, I find myself having some very strange urges. Meandering through the aisles of my local drug store I find myself slowing as I pass the Ensure display, checking out the flavor choices. I feel my pace quicken as I approach the aisle where the Depends are stacked neatly on the shelves, unwilling to even consider that particular requirement for the time being.

PASS THE DEFOLIANT, PLEASE
Is it my imagination, or are my ears getting bigger? And what's with those hairs? Nobody told me I'd eventually have foliage sprouting from almost every orifice in my head! I used to joke about those nose hair trimmers from The Sharper Image but today, if I didn't tend to my ears and nostrils, you'd think I was wearing earmuffs and growing a mustache!

LOOK OUT! HERE THEY COME!
I find myself glancing over my shoulder from time to time for fear of being trampled by the hoard of baby boomers who begin turning 60 this year and thunder into geezerdom, demanding more and more services and spending money like drunken sailors - just as they've done throughout their lives.

SAME GUY, ONLY MORE OF HIM
All this is very disconcerting. When I look in the mirror as I shave each morning I still see that "kid" who has smirked back at me more than five decades, when I first began scraping off the stubble with a Gillette double-edged safety razor, applied styptic stick and toilet paper to the nicks and slathered on the Old Spice. He has gotten a little more pudgy and his hair has gone from blond to brown and back to blond again. Well, not really blond - more like silver, but I tell myself it looks kinda blond in the right light.

MIXED BLESSING
Even though I love the senior discounts at the movies and restaurants and carry a Golden Age Passport to national parks, I still have a tough time when someone in their forties or fifties calls me "sir'.

WANTS AND NEEDS
All this has given me a little mid-life crisis (don't I wish!) and I find myself wanting to run out and buy a sports car. The only problem is, something in my aging cranium keeps whispering "Buick"! Arrgghh!

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REMEMBER THE REASON FOR THIS HOLIDAY

Have a very safe Memorial Day Weekend and try to carve out some time to remember what it's really about. Maybe this link will help. The photo above is of the American Military Cemetery just south of Florence, Italy. It's a wonderful, peaceful place where the remains of over 4,000 American soldiers who died during World War II are buried.