Age is a State of Mind

Age is a state of mind. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. If you care, you’re screwed.

I’m always amused by those soothsayers who’ve decided that since their parents lived long lives, somehow, they’re entitled to the same shot at longevity. Genetics and heredity aside, it doesn’t work that way. It’s a life journey we’re all on and no one has a ticket punched ‘eternity.’

My Mother lived a relatively healthy life until around age ninety then endured several years of gradual decline until her death at age 92. My Father died at age 46 of coronary thrombosis, a heart attack. So which parent will I follow? I’m just days away from 82 so I guess I should be aiming for the nineties like my mother. Oh, if it were only that easy.

One of the newest trends (read hot topic scams) is the hunt for longevity. Every day it seems there’s a new breakthrough on the road to Valhalla.

Too often the commercial focus on longevity gets it all wrong. Living well into old age is not a goal to strive for if good health and mental acuity isn’t present. Without a body that can move around somewhat agile and a mind still curious about life, living into old age is simply an exercise in cheating death for the moment.

Robert Reich (former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration) has an interesting piece on aging online. His synopsis on aging had some interesting observations. ‘In 1900, gerontologists considered ‘old’ to be 47. Today, you are considered ‘youngest-old’ at 65, ‘middle-old’ at 75, and at age 85, you are a member of the ‘oldest-old.’ Elderly friend once told Robert there were four ages to life: youth, middle age, old age, and ‘you look great.’

I have a friend, a former doctor, who reads the obituary pages religiously. I asked if he was looking for former patients. ‘Not ready,’ he answered, ‘I’m more curious how long they lasted and what brought them down. Maybe, I suggested, the banner page should read: ‘Older than Me’ or ‘Younger Than Me’ to refocus his real interest in the subject matter at hand.

There seems to be a new topic of conversation with some folks I know. Robert Reich calls it the ‘organ recital.’ The conversation almost inevitably turns to: how’s your back? knees? heart? hip? shoulder? eyesight? hearing? prostate? hemorrhoids? digestion? and the list can go on and on.

I’ve been extremely lucky in that I still have all my original body parts. After 47 years of running including three marathons, several attempted long-distance runs (over 50 miles) and countless trail runs, my joints, limbs, and extremities all seem to still be in reasonable working order. Whether that’s because of genetics or the support of walking sticks and knee braces on long hikes, I’m still going slow and easy and long.

One philosophy I try to adhere to religiously is the theme of keeping one’s mind active and body moving. There’s no time limit on one’s curiosity or one’s ability to find wonder in the little things around us. As we age, a lot of those things that mattered before like pop entertainment, political clowns and the weather lose a lot of their luster in the dawn of another brand-new day.

As I’ve repeatedly told friends, I have never looked forward to my afternoon at the gym but I’ve always felt one hundred percent better having completed my routines there. So, in a word, the secret is to keep moving; mentally and physically. The grim reaper may be coming around the corner but I’m going to give him/her one hell of a run for their effort to catch me.

Creating A Monster

Over the holidays, the kids and I were reminiscing about the strange menagerie of pets they had growing up. From a turtle that was supposed to live forever to bunnies that died after Easter, the list was a bit unconventional. We also had parrots and cockatiels, an errant snake and plenty of fish (life expectancy of one week). Over the years, the animals came and went and none held on for very long.

Living on a golf course has provided Sharon and I with another kind of menagerie. Over the years, we’ve played host to a wide variety of desert creatures.

Road runners would occasionally amble through our yard. Herons and geese were more elusive, if for no other reason, than the whirly coyote always on the hunt for them. Mountain lions and bobcats were even scarcer and seldom seen in daylight but they were there. Coyotes were around day and night.

This Christmas, the kids were awakened around 3:00am by a pair of coyotes digging frantically under my shed looking for rabbits. Those predators left quite an impressive hole in the ground.

It’s not unusual to find animal tracks in our sand and sometimes scat there too. I’ve often thought it would be fun to have a night camera to catch the animal action that happens long after we’ve gone to bed.

Now the main attraction seems to be coming from our winged neighbors, hence the monster I speak of.

My first introduction to our winged neighbors began with a set of hummingbird feeders we placed strategically in our backyard. Soon, nests began to appear and the tiny families moved in.

A bird bath began to attract even more larger birds and the final step was a plastic container filled with bird food. I got into the habit of filling it each morning and hence the monster was born.

There seems to be a kind of caste system going on here. First, the small birds find that the tray is full again. They begin congregating and enjoying the mornings feast. All it takes is for one dove to appear and the scramble is on. More doves appear very quickly and soon the tray is swamped by all forms of winged hungry eaters. That’s when the caste system kicks in.

There are several large doves who usually appear after the feeding frenzy is on full-tilt. They’re mean, obnoxious bullies who push and shove and wing-flap the other birds away. The jockeying for someplace to eat never works when they’re around. It’s a free for all and the larger doves edge out the smaller birds for the best spot to gouge themselves. I’ve tried to capture this scene in a video clip or photo but I can’t get close enough without them scattering to the winds.

I have a little buddy who often sits with me to watch this social strategizing going on. He seems content to let the bigger birds fight their morning fight since he has their own feeder just a wing flit away.

Of course, an outsider might surmise that this is what happens when one has time on their hands, ravenous birds to entertain him and a background setting that can’t be beat.

I am one lucky guy….so say the birds and me.

Why Didn't I Ask?

Last week’s blog ‘When You Were Young and I Was Poor’ reminisced about missing out on so much of my own backstory as I was growing up. My mother, indoctrinated by her staunch German Catholic upbringing, would not allow herself to talk about the past. That reluctance to share with my sister and I her own history has left Marlene and I with a void that’s never been filled. Sharon and I didn’t want to make the same mistake with our grandchildren.

Our shared history is, in a very real sense, their history dating back through the years. Through my blogs and Sharon, through her dialogue, we have made the occasional effort to share our past lives with our grandkids. We felt it was important for them to know about those life events that brought us to where we are today.

Like most grandchildren, ours weren’t that interested at first. But gradually, they’ve come to realize that our world growing up was vastly different from their world of today. The contrast surprised and sometimes perplexed them.

So, this Christmas when both families were together, Sharon and I made a concerted effort to talk about our past and welcome questions from the grandkids. The grandchildren, ages thirteen through eighteen, through their probing questions highlighted the stark contrasts between respective young lives growing up.

Sharon shared photos of her birth place in Elgin, Nebraska. It was a two-bedroom farm house on land her father rented. They were two miles out of town and Saturdays were ‘go to town’ and resupply day.

In contrast, I talked about the first place I remember which was a six-plex apartment building near downtown St. Paul. After that, we moved to another neighborhood farther away.

Photo Credit: Jerry Hoffman

Sharon talked about moving to Minnesota when she was eight to the 100-year-old farm house in Wabasha, Minnesota. I showed a photo of the house my mother built by herself in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Sharon talked about her one room school house out in the country before she went to town for high school. I took a city bus to my grade school in downtown St. Paul and walked to high school.

The differences of Sharon growing up in the country verses me in the city were clear enough. It was the questions the kiddos asked that surprised me the most.

They had never heard of a ‘paper route’ or side gigs like ‘cleaning the bulk tank’ on the farm or working at the ‘neighborhood grocery store.’ They asked me about the draft and my time in the Army. They had no concept of the Selective Service or what an ‘internet café’ was. They couldn’t understand why I chose to use hitch-hiking as my primary source of transportation while living in Denmark.

They knew little of Vietnam and less of student protests. Unfortunately, a couple of other wars came after that one. Their world began with cell phones, the internet, family vacations, comfortable homes, and access to good education. Theirs was a world radically different from the one Sharon and I grew up in.

Yet, it was very important that our grandchildren understood their heritage and background and that of their parents and grandparents. If for no other reason than to better understand their own advantages and the expectations placed on them because of those advantages.

I can’t make up for the lack of information I had growing up on my own heritage. My kids and grandkids won’t suffer the same fate.