I'm in the autumn of my years (redux)

I'm not quite sure when it happened, but I got old.

Maybe I first realized it when I took my son to a concert when he was in high school. We had gone to concerts before, but this one was the first on a school night. It was a performance by the guitar-heavy space rock band Secret Machines. As the venue filled in, I noticed an awful lot of stares in my direction. There was a bit of whispering and pointing and dismissive, judgmental glances silently asking: "Who brought their father?" I looked around more carefully and saw that I was the oldest person in the crowd. By a lot. An awful lot. Luckily, the lights dimmed and the attention was on the band, where it rightfully belonged. 

Another time, my son and I attended a small show at a local bar. As is the policy at most clubs, a brawny, mean-looking bouncer is stationed at the front door making sure that everyone who enters is of the legal age for consuming alcohol. (Whether or not you choose to consume it is up to you once you make it past security measures.) So, while my son was displaying his identification to the bouncer, I made an overt gesture towards my back pocket to produce my wallet. Once he cleared my boy, the bouncer chuckled and, with a conciliatory grin, waved me off as I fumbled to remove my driver's license from the little compartment in my wallet. "That's okay, sir," he announces, "you're good." Good!? I pretty sure he meant to say: You are obviously old enough to be my father! Do you need assistance up the stairs?

I would be satisfied if I thought that these age-related incidents were limited to music venues. But they are absolutely not. There are other things I have caught myself doing. Things that surprise — and somewhat jar — me.

I find I am always cold. When, I'm really cold, I put on a fleece pullover. Rather than turn the thermostat to a slightly higher temperature, it's cheaper to just put on a fleece. Hey, it costs a lot to heat my house. Wait! What? When did I become my father? My father used to say shit like that! And, speaking of fleece pullovers, I purchased a ridiculous amount of them over the past few years. I don't need more than one or two. But I must have a dozen of them! And they are all either gray or black! And they all look the same!

Just the other day, after dinner, I found myself turning off all the lights on the first floor of my house— the living room, the kitchen, the front porch. Then, in the dark, I keyed in the code to set the alarm on our home security system. Then, I flicked the deadbolt on the front door, When I finished, I headed upstairs. As I ascended the staircase, out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the kitchen clock. It was twenty minutes after seven. Not even eight o'clock and I'm locking up like it's 2 AM and I just threw the last drunk out of my bar. Network prime-time television hadn't yet begun and I'm ready to turn in for the night. As it was, I probably gonna conk out around 9:30 anyway.

There's another thing — television. A lot of sitcoms and stand-up comics make Jeopardy! jokes in reference to old people. Is that a thing? Do only old people watch Jeopardy!? My wife and I have been watching Jeopardy! for over thirty years. We watched the original incarnation in the 60s when it was hosted by (the late) Art Fleming and the top dollar amount in "Double Jeopardy" was a hundred bucks. When I'm not watching Jeopardy!, I'm watching reruns of TV shows I watched as a kid — Leave It to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, The Addams Family. I watch little to no current television programs.

I have been to more doctor's appointments in the last five years of my life than I had in the first fifty. I take daily medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol. At my doctor's insistence, I recently lost a considerable amount of weight and I have caught myself offering extensive details when casually asked, "Hey, did you lose weight?" I realized, during my various ramblings, I sound like all those old men I hear telling old man stories. I also experience pains in my lower back when I stand up or bend over. Ugh! There I go again.

I still think of myself as the same robust young man I was in my twenties when I was newly married and a new father. Though I was never particularly athletic, I rollerbladed and I rode a bike. I walked a lot and never gave it a second thought, This past summer, Mrs. Pincus and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary and that baby of ours just turned 30. Earlier this year he and I walked from one end of downtown Philadelphia to the South Philly neighborhood that he now calls home — a roundabout distance of about three-and-a-half miles. Four days later, my feet were still hurting. Dammit! I'm doing it again!

At 56, I am eight years away from the age when both of my parents passed away. I didn't think they were old at the time. I guess I really don't think I'm old either.

But now, I need a nap.

I wrote on this subject in 2015. You know how old people repeat themselves...

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