Geezer Here

Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.

Leon Trotsky
****************
Hello George
*****************
I'm a senior citizen.

"No, you're an old coot, a geezer." "Don't get around much any more?" "Old rocking chair's gotcha?" "To old to cut the mustard?"

No, I'm a senior citizen.

"Nah, it's all down hill for you. You're past your prime. You're over the hill, rusted out. Why, you're on overtime. Give it up."

No, I AM a SENIOR CITIZEN.

"Look at yourself, you're nothing but a bag of bones. You stagger around with a cane. You can't remember people's names. You probably forgot where you left your wallet Look at you, hanging on by a thread. Why don't you just die and rid the world of a parasite?"

I am a senior citizen and proud of it. And if you don't shut up I will do something which will probably send us both to the hospital.
-------------------------------------------------------------

As well as putting up with prejudice, underestimation and tacit or direct verbal abuse, one of the other tasks of being an older person is learning how to process what you know.

One cannot put in many years of life without knowing something, more than your youngers, about the world, human behavior and human misbehavior. Indissolubly linked with that understanding is what you know about yourself.

Life is unfinished business. As an old geezer I am still astonished to find out certain things about myself, and that tells me that my business isn't done. That knowledge comes upon me in unexpected ways. It's almost as if nature is saying "It's almost time to be tested for an advanced degree in selfknowledge, Better do some studying." And the understanding I learn about myself is also linked to what I know about the human race in general.

There's a proverb that says "When an old person dies a library burns down." I can't teach anyone what I know by sitting on my front porch. No one comes by to hear it. If I had a faithful old dog sitting at my feet I could tell him. But he probably knows it all already. So instead I write.

There are three levels of communication for a writer with senior years wrapped around his shoulders: the exoteric, the esoteric and the secret. The exoteric is knowledge that is proven. The esoteric is knowledge that can be proven if anyone cares to do it. The secret is manna of the heart that cannot be written except in parables, and then only with a silent pen.

Children screaming
With delight
There is no night there
All equations have been reduced
There is no right there
Only better

Dana Bate - Senior Vagabond
Never Give Up
******************************

A Young Man

You're never too old to become younger.

Mae West
*****************
"I can't do some of the things old folks do any more. I'm not as old as I used to be." Bate

I knew an actor years ago, we were about the same age, who, when we reached our 30's began to talk about all the things that were going to go wrong with our bodies. Soon this was going to fall apart and that was going to go and we would start having trouble with the other thing. He was literally talking his way into old age and trying to take me with him. I was determined to reject his appraisal of growing older. But I guess some of it rubbed off on me because when I was 35 another actor friend said I reminded him of a old fogy.

That remark made me sit up and take inventory of myself. I wasn't an old fogy, I was just acting like one. So I improved my mentality and began to think of myself as young.

When I was in my early 50's I accidentally ran into the first actor in a restaurant in New York. I felt in my prime and looked it. He looked terrible and old. My friends asked me who the old man was. I had to admit, sadly, that we were the same age.

I learned how much an attitude can affect a result. The actor had been forced to give up his career at an early age and carry around with him a double yoke of infirmity and decrepitude. While I had pulled myself out of that pit by rejecting those suggestions he fell more deeply into it.

Now, 20 years later, I have found myself in the same joyful rejection. It's not that I don't have the problems that confront age, it's that I reject the idea that I have to succumb to them and allow them the prerogative of defining me as a miserable old wreck.

Oh, I almost went for it. An option to relax into uselessness presented itself with a smile and an handshake. I almost agreed with the diagnosis my thoughts were giving me. But I didn't need a friend to tell me I was an old fogy. I had learned the lesson.

Ten years ago I worked with an actor who was well into his 80's and going strong. Those are the people I want to emulate now. He had a bad knee which was eventually replaced, but he had a joyous and energetic attitude, and after the knee replacement he went on working.

So I'm a senior citizen, a coot, a geezer, a curmudgeonly bag of bones, but I'm no fogy and I'm not as old as I used to be.

DB - The Vagabond
*************************
AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

8 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
************************

On Geezer's Lap

To what childishness does man descend in his ripe old age, when he allows himself to be held by the leash of sensuousness.

Immanuel Kant
********************
Growing older is not for the squeamish. It is filled with surprises, unexpected changes, adaptations and reevaluations. And there are things that must be left behind, and one of them is childhood, that which Shakespeare referred to as "second childishness." To be perpetually young at heart is a very good and useful thing, but though childhood may not end when you're 20, it had better have ended by the time you're 80.

I always get a chuckle when I see a photograph of a skinny old geezer flashing thousands of dollars of false teeth, with a young buxom blonde in big hair sitting on his lap, his wife. What's going on? Is he trying to recapture his adolescents? Or to get the youth he never had because he was too busy making his fortune? Is he trying to tell us that in spite of his age and lack of hair and teeth he's still a virile young man? Or is he simply saying "Look what I have" thinking he's roped in a beauty with his money and has her on his leash.? The fact is she's the one holding the leash and either he doesn't know it or he doesn't care.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against loving relationships between people of different ages. In the long run age should have nothing to do with it. It's true that young people usually want someone who has the same amount of energy as they do. And it's advantageous for older folks to have someone around with some life experience. "The sadder but wiser girl for me" Meredith Wilson wrote. But I've seen many examples where it works out well if people come together from different ages.

I knew a broadcaster, an excellent one and a senior citizen, whose wife was a couple of decades younger than he. They were completely dedicated to each other. And in the theatre I knew a stage manager whose husband was much younger than she was. I saw them once at a party and it was obvious they were very much in love with each other.

So if an old coot wants a young wife that's fine with me. Just let the reasons for it be about love and a shared life, not about money or power. If you ever see me at 90. all skin and bones, smiling like a fool, with a Dolly Parton wannabe sitting on my lap, shoot me.

DB - The Vagabond
-------------------------
Weekend Contest
Below are the name of three fictitious law firms. Read them carefully and then come up with your own example. You may enter more than once but the decision of the irascible judge is final.

Chase & Sewer
Huchlein & Sincker
Locke, Stock & Beryl

4 entries so far.
Good luck
DB
****************

Amuse Me

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, be always in your own best company.

Dana Bate
***************
I was in rehearsal for an original play, a comedy, and one day on my way to work I came across the playwright and one of the actors. I told them I had just been on the phone with a friend in New York who asked me how it was going and I had replied "They make me go out on the stage in front of everybody and expose my comic timing."

I am one who fortunately developed an appreciation for the ironies and absurdities of life. Years ago I met an older woman who was so unconcerned about growing older that she would laugh when she couldn't remember a name. To her age was just an annoying inconvenience and was not about who she really was.

There is nothing in this world that is so deadly serious that it doesn't have its humorous side. I don't mean I would laugh at another creature's suffering, but I may ultimately laugh at my absurd struggles trying to alleviate that suffering. If the pig out wits the farmer and escapes being slaughtered I cheer for the pig, even though I know its freedom is probably temporary. But I hope the farmer gets a genuine laugh from it.

I also find humor in my own struggles to survive and live. Why get outraged and curse because there is an ice filled snow bank in your way. Get over it, get through it or get around it. In any case you're going to look funny doing it. So laugh at yourself.

Unfortunately my sense of humor has a negative side to it. I also can't remember names. And I have to go slowly and stagger as I walk, another result of age. And if I have to face an ice filled snowbank it's a major problem. But I confront all those problems and others with a smile on my face because I don't take any of it seriously. But sometimes other people do. If I say that I stagger to the market and stagger home again people think I'm complaining about my lot in life. "Woe is me, look how sick and decrepit I am. Alas and alack. How sad." Well it isn't. Life isn't perfect. Have you noticed that? "Much of grief shows still some want of wit" wrote Shakespeare.

Once a month I meet with a surly group who seem to think everything I have to say is of no value. But whether I'm with them, with others or by myself I'm accompanied by a sense of humor. It is my companion, the company I keep.

I suppose there are those who have no sense of humor and cannot develop one. But if you are reading this journal you are probably not one of them. So my advice is no matter what the situation, without losing sight of its serious nature, look for the humorous side. It's there.

We don't need stand up comics, who could be funnier than politicians? It's too bad they don't have my comic timing.

DB - The Vagabond
***********************

WEEKEND CONTEST
Hitch up the teams.

What teams do the following letters represent?

1. A & C
2. B & B
3. G & S
4. GB & GA
5. L & H
6. LR & T
7. M & L
8. P & T
9. PP & M
10. RR & DE
11. R & M
12. W & F

good luck
DB

Present Mirth

You don't stop laughing because you get old.
You get old because you stop laughing.

Anonymous
*******************
There was a joke yeas ago that I liked. An American journalist went to spend some time in The Soviet Union in the 50's. While there he visited a Russian farmer and his family. He asked the farmer "What do you think of Nikita Khrushchev?" The farmer stood up, opened the front door and looked around, then peered out of the windows. He motioned for the journalist to follow him as they went out to the barn. At the back of the barn there was a small room with a door. The farmer opened the door, lit a candle on the small table, then closed and bolted the door. The two men sat across from each other at the table and finally the farmer leaned over and whispered "I like him."

I was doing a play in Boston. There is a place there called The Common where people can stand up and make a speech about anything they consider important. One afternoon between performances I went out there and found a guy standing on a box and declaring that Khrushchev should not be allowed into the country. Niki was coming to speak at the UN, and this fellow was trying to prevent it. According to him no Russians should ever be allowed to come to the USA as it would give legitimacy to their "evil communist society."

It was pointed out to the gentleman that Khrushchev had a right to speak at the UN since his country was one of the main and founding members of it, that the only way he could get there was by landing a plane at a New York City airport and getting in a limo to be driven through our sacred streets. Furthermore he was reminded that the Soviet Union had a consulate in the city and a permanent group of representatives there. So much for not allowing the Russians in. It wasn't long before people were chuckling and shaking their heads in approval of what the others were saying. It's no doubt The Cold War was a serious matter for the world, but this man's objections were laughable.

Today, when I see or hear some authority, whether a pseudo Christian or otherwise, get up on a stage and start lecturing in simplistic terms about what's wrong with the world, the country or anything, I have the same response. They deserve to be laughed at. It's a clown show. Nothing more. It may stir up a lot of people who also lack the humor to see the show, but in the long run it will accomplish nothing else.

Khrushchev came, spoke, hung around for a while and then went back to Russian. Our country survived it. We weren't invaded nor did we fall into the "evil" embrace of Communism. The irony of it all is very funny.

So now the doomsdayers are up again and blaming the government. There's nothing new about that. They've been doing that since the 18th Century.

One of the advantages of having been an actor all my life is that I can recognize bad theatre when I see it, and that's what I see. It may fool a lot of people. But it can't fool anyone who can still laugh.

DB - The Vagabond
***********************

SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

Only 7 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

Thank you.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
*******************

Basic Boyhood 3/11/09

To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.

Bernard Baruch
*****************
Howdy, old timer.
----------------------
What is this nonsense about age? This week I'm moving from one decade to another. But I don't feel any different. We have become brain washed into measuring our advancement by years. What are years? Numbers. Ridiculous. According to the numbers I am now too old to play some of the roles I used to play when I was too young to play them.

Why don't we have a different measurement for our growth and development such as wisdom, accomplishment or energy level? "How old are you?" "I'm at the 7.42 energy level." "Oh, you're so young yet!"

While it's true that growing old is not for the cowardly or squeamish, I don't think a person really gets "old" in the classical sense, until they decide to. With some men it happens in a strange back door manner. As soon as the specter of age starts creeping up on them they will do outrageous and undignified things to preserve the illusion of youth. Change their apparel, change their social life, swim the Hudson River, bungee jump blindfolded, etc. What Shakespeare calls "second childishness>" All that means is that they have decided to get old but refuse to admit it.

Others will go the opposite route and jump into old age with both feet, start noticing and complaining about every creak, crack, rough and wrinkle, practice the art of the thorough curmudgeon and generally annoy everyone around them.

But then there are others who will go calmly into advanced energy levels with grace and a sense of humor. I knew an old lady who used to laugh at herself with benign amusement when she couldn't remember someone's name.

As for me, I can no longer do some of the things old folks do. I'm not as old as I used to be.

DB - The Vagabond
------------------------------------------
Do something nice for an ancient one today.