Author’s note: So here’s the thing, I woke up grumpy today. It’s Friday and I always look forward to posting my new blog on Friday’s but something about our stay for the last four weeks in Chacala, Mexico coming to an abrupt end today has me all ‘grumpy ass’. When I was younger, you know in my sixties, I’d fight being grumpy but not so much anymore. I’m good with it now. In fact, I think I’m really good at it. I wrote this blog about Grumpy Old Men last year and I think it’s good for another spin. At the very least, it seems appropriate given my bristly energy. I hope you enjoy it.

And if you don’t well, whatever!

You know one of the best places to observe old men in their natural environment? The men’s changing room at the Nanaimo Aquatic Centre in Nanaimo BC. Now it could be any men’s changing room in any town but I happened to be in this one after my morning swim. AND DISCLAIMER I know there are many new ways to describe gender, no less than sixteen I’m advised and being the self proclaimed progressive such as I am, more than happy to incorporate the non binary gender descriptions into my story telling. But here’s the thing about this particular story: It is set in a changing room surrounded by a number of men in various states of undress, not one of whom is under the age of 75. I observe myself to be the youngest at 73. I think it is acceptable given that Monet like tableau of old, wrinkly naked bodies that I default to generational gender descriptions born of simpler times. My apologies if that somehow offends you. Well, actually not really but I’ve said it now.

So where was I? Ah yes, more details are needed to set the scene so that your mind’s eye is overwhelmed with inescapable descriptions. I’ve been a subject in this picture all of my life from as early as I can remember, stripping off and showering after some athletic event, surrounded by others, an everyday experience from the earliest age. And of course there would have been old men in those changing rooms but I didn’t really see them. Something about the self absorbed nature of the young. BUT now that I am officially old I SEE them.

Author’s note: Let us for the sake of metrics agree that ‘old’ begins at 70 shall we? I mean it hints at it for some years before but OLD really kicks into bold font at 70 for sure!

So where was I? Ah yes, visualize this. Fifteen people in the changing room ranging in age from twelve to eighty-five, all but two of them under the age of sixty, the vast majority of them OLD (by the metric established above). I expect that snapshot which clearly didn’t reflect the demographics of the community of Nanaimo was so OLD because it was 10:30am on a school day, so very few children were at the pool. And a good thing too! God knows they do tend to shout and squeal with unnecessarily raucous delight, the noise amplified by the echo chamber that is an aquatic centre. Of course, it’s part of the arrogance of youth. While they have seemingly endless access to full lungs, all the better to replenish the just exhaled exaltation, my companions, we of The OLD spend most of our energy simply refilling our lungs to the half capacity which we now enjoy. That we don’t shout and squeal is more a reflection of our need to marshal our oxygen levels carefully more so the better to survive.

So where was I? Ah yes, in a changing room surrounded by a number of OLD nude men.

“That was a good workout Harold.” said the first with real enthusiasm.

“Sure was, tiring too.” replied Harold, apparently a first timer at the pool.

“How much do you pay?” he continued.

“Nothing. It’s free if you’re 80.” came the reply.

“Nothing?! I pay $2.50” said the newcomer, clearly displeased.

“Well” said the 80 year old “You’re not a senior then are you?“

And they both laughed. It wasn’t a ‘you had to be there’ joke between them it was just funny to the two OLD men spitting at the Devil about getting OLD. I laughed with them, quietly though. I’m only 72 and not that OLD just yet. It was more the laugh of a watchful student knowing that glacial as it may be, OLD is just ahead. Well, if you’re lucky that is.

Now where was I? Ah yes. Getting changed when your are OLD is a gymnastic exercise worthy of a Cirque de Soleil performer. You try stepping into your underwear, your body not quite dry, trying to support your full weight on two bad knees and a hip in line for replacement. One sees the bodies of the nude OLD men in the most contorted, revealing positions imaginable, some of which one can never unsee. I was so pleased the two school children had already left the changing room. One can only imagine the no doubt permanent damage that would have resulted.

I was having a beer recently at a watering hole called The Well in Nanaimo. As an aside it’s a little divy one might say but the beer is cold and the company was warm. I was with my two friends Dan and Mo from the Departure Bay Dog Park in Nanaimo and another older fellow who I’ll call ‘Fred’, for the purposes of discretion.

Now a word about Mo and Dan before I go much further. I had first met them at the Departure Dog Park in Nanaimo. I was there with our French Bulldog Edith. Turns out the Departure Bay Dog Park is the Valhalla of dog parks. Several hectares in size, it slopes down toward the bay, BC ferries gracefully slipping in and out of the harbour, the backdrop a gorgeous view of the ocean. And it’s where I met Mo and Dan, a couple of OLD buggers, right out of central casting. Craggy faces etched with life’s lessons, limping and sore, the result of life’s wear and tear. ‘Best Before‘ stamped on their creased foreheads. Both sporting caps that had seen better days, not unlike them. And they were exactly what I was looking for. I didn’t know them from Adam of course, so I chose to go with my ‘go to’ line. What the hell, what did I have to lose?

“Hello.”

Maurice, Mo was the first to turn.

“Hello, how are you?”

His friendly tone revealed he was genuinely welcoming, perhaps even hungry for new company, as one might expect of two men who sit beside each other at the Departure Bay Dog Park day after day, each morning at 10am, without fail. Of course, that is the reason men become increasingly sparing in our chit-chat with one another as we age. Failing minds aside, we need to make it last.

“Have a seat” Dan gestured at a spare chair, a universal sign of welcome. This was going well.

“And I have a rag you can use to wipe off the rain.”

Another clear signal. This was going to be good! As an aside, that rag? That rag harboured all manner of pestilence, so filthy it was, and remains so to this day. But be clear on this, it was a test. Was I really made of good OLD man stock or was I going to turn my nose up at the offered rag? I passed the test. No words needed.

“No, not that one.” It was Mo.

“Broken back.” The sparing language of OLD men. In the hands of men like Mo and Dan, it’s a beautiful thing to witness, a minimalist oral exchange. No need for more. If you fail to heed the warning, then fool you are. More words wouldn’t save you from yourself.

Everything was looking favourable. I went home and told my wife Mac oabout Dan and Mo. I tried to paint a picture for her, recalling one of my favourite TD Canada Trust TV ads, where two OLD men sat on a bench outside a TD branch, smack talking the ‘young people these days’.

“How did Edith get on?”

Didn’t she get it. This never was about Edith, this was about ME.

“I think she did okay, I wasn’t watching her much.”

“That I can see, she is filthy!”

I looked down at Edith, forlorn and covered, no caked as she was with dark Departure Dog Park mud. I hadn’t noticed.

“Right, well I’ll watch out for her when we go back.”

And back I went, the next day. And there they were, Dan and Mo.

“Hey good to see you back, we didn’t scare you away.”

They both laughed. No words needed, it was ‘we’re glad to see you again’ in any language.

“Thanks. Hey, is there a mud hole here?” I asked, the earlier scolding still fresh in my ear.

“Got into trouble at home did you?”

And again they laughed, in some sort of coordinated and diabolical OLD men harmony. Mo pointed to a clump of upturned plastic seats.

“Edith has found it again.” He was laughing like a school boy. Once again Edith was covered head to toe in dark Departure Bay Dog Park mud. I had no choice. I laughed as well.

“That where chairs with broken backs go to die?” I asked quizzically, looking over at a clump of five upside down plastic chairs, doing what they could to cover a huge mud hole. Unsuccessfully. A filthy Edith standing testament, caked yet again in mud, her tail wagging joyfully.

“Sure is. Pull up a seat. Use this rag.”

“Not that one. Backs broken.”

These two were a well oiled pair, anticipating what each other was about to say, finishing their sentences for one another. The beautiful choreography of two old friends. Relentless in their leg pulling humour, giving as good as they got, enjoying every bit of it, they had what I was looking for; friendship and a sense of membership, of being welcome. OLD men it turns out do that quite well.

Now where was I? Ah yes, they were the Mo and Dan I was now sitting with a year later at The Well, fully qualified paid up members of The OLD. They were with ‘Fred’.

Within minutes of meeting ‘Fred’ he had shared with me that he has prostate cancer. It’s not uncommon for men to share in this way, particular OLD men, we seem to lose our filters as we get older and it’s how men reach out. It’s the ‘how the fuck you doin’ bro?’ of The OLD. Perhaps it’s some sort of disarming awareness that the TIK TOK(sic) you hear is not a Chinese social app, it is the actual sound Time makes. The calculus seems to be “What am I waiting for? Hey, good to meet you. I have prostate cancer.” I was suitably empathetic although one needs to measure one’s appearance of empathy in a dive bar like The Well. Show too much and you could be shown the door. It’s a balance that takes decades to perfect. If you’re under fifty and reading this, don’t even bother trying, you’re years away. You’ll just get into bar fights.

And then abruptly ‘Fred’ was out of his seat.

“Got to go, prostate cancer, makes me piss” he said to us all and no one in particular.

As he walked away I turned to my mates both of whom, well let’s be kind shall we, let’s just say ‘spring chickens’ they may well have been a few seasons back but now they’re OLD. They’ve moved on from the future pluperfect, that which will be one day, to the present tense, that which they are today.

“‘ ‘Fred’ seems sick” I said quietly. It seemed a safe enough thing to say after all ‘Fred’ had just told me had prostate cancer.

“He’s not sick.” Mo piped up in his unmistakably loud ‘cut through a crowded bar voice’, “He’s 88!”

And we all laughed out loud. Perhaps not funny in the reading but it was funny in that moment. It was OLD men at their best. Finding humour in The Forest of Uncomfortable Reality, getting OLD being the most inevitable reality of them all. ‘Fred’ came back and asked what was so funny. And we told him. And we all laughed again. Fred included.

Here’s the thing: OLD men are great. We know full well what is coming our way and for the most part we don’t flinch, using humour among other things to fend off the Horrible Reality. We are often times given a bad rap described in the most horrible ways generally by people who don’t have a clue what it is to be OLD.

They will one day of course. If they are lucky.