I’m 74 now. I enjoy good health and an active mind. My wife is my devoted companion and keeps a watchful eye on me, you know for the ‘just in case’ moments that seem to become ‘well, we could see that coming’ events as we get older. As an aside I should note it has always given me some comfort that Mac is a cardiac nurse. It just seems to me that as I age it is just more practical sleeping with a nurse, than say an accountant. Fat lot of good a bean counter will do you when you announce your chest pain. And I am well loved surrounded as I am with my four children and five grand children with one more on the way. I know I am lucky. That said I have spent yet another year of my life really quite fed up with this whole getting older thing.

It really is getting old.

So I’m shopping for groceries at Save On recently, chatting to the checkout clerk, a nice friendly young woman. As she handed me the receipt she said, “Have a good day My Dear.” And there it was.

“My Dear!”

It was as though ‘Daryl’ the marketing face of Save On, who I’m sure is a very nice man, came on the PA and announced, “Old Man Checkout Aisle 5. Old Man Aisle 5.” Now this may seem a ridiculous and foreign concept to you, particularly if you’re a young punk like sixty or so but that was the first time I realized that I really am old. Never mind the stolen familiarity of ‘my dear’ there was no getting away from it anymore.

Turns out: I AM OLD.

So here’s the deal. If I am old then I have a few things to get off my chest and no time to spare, if I understand the inevitable destination of ‘old’ correctly.

Joe listen to me. Joe. Stop. Now! You are too old to be the president of the United States of America. You’re old, get over it and part of the ‘getting over’ thing is looking at the mirror. Eeewwwwhhhh! No don’t do that, that’ll just upset you. Anyway I don’t need to explain why. You know the answer already. Your mind is just like your bladder. Weaker, dribbling from time to time and not working on demand any more. And guess what ‘Mr. I Want to Be President’ it’s going to be weaker tomorrow and the day after and … well, you know this already. And you may think I’m being political and of course I am, of that I am abundantly clear as you may already know, but on this question I’m not. Ageing knows no politics and it takes no prisoners. For the observant, it becomes painfully clear. We trip on the stairs, whether it’s climbing up the steps of Air Force One or the stairs to our bedroom at home, it’s all the same thing. They’re just stairs. When we can’t remember the name of a grandchild. Same thing. When we can’t name a world leader or confuse countries. When we mispronouce words. When we slur words and we haven’t been drinking. Same thing. When we shuffle like an old man, when thoughts evaporate and our words trail off. It’s what old is. We are getting older and stuff happens. None of us should be left in positions of power and authority when we get older and because that statement needs a number, I’m thinking 70.

I know I know you’re already calling me ageist. I don’t agree but even if I am that does not trump (forgive me) the compelling argument that our political leaders should not be allowed to run for office after 70. What about Warren Buffet you ask, the head of a vast wealth management company. He’s well into his nineties and by all accounts as sharp as a tack. Indeed there will be outliers, those who defy the ageing process and retain their intellectual capacities. Buffet may be one of those but here’s the thing Warren Buffet is playing with money, other people’s money. So what if he screws up? It’s not geo politics, it’s not decisions that must be made in seconds the consequences for which could be globally catastrophic. History confirms time and again that most great accomplishments in the arts, science, exploration, all human achievement has been accomplished by people under forty years of age. It’s kind of all downhill from there. Slowly, inexorably, relentlessly we get older. It is indeed a comparative state and deniable initially. Then older becomes oldest and then it becomes old.

There is a role for old. We see it in families, in boardrooms, in politics. There is a real wisdom that comes with age and it is valuable as an advisory for those upon whom difficult choices land. I am wiser today than I have ever been. My family seek my counsel from time to time, a role I am well equipped for. So is my wife and our friends but we have aged and our Best Before date was stamped long ago. Now look I am no Joe Biden, save in one respect. We are both old men and neither of us should be President of the United States.

Now lest you think I am some Trumpian toadie, joyfully poking the ageing opponent, kicking him while he is down, let me be clear. Everything I have said about Joe Biden should be applied to Trump. He is old as well and shows it although he does hide it better. Even word salads that spill from his spittled mouth are glossed over, strange foolishness that comes from his time addled brain are given a pass. Never mind the raw baseness of the man, he is old and should not be president. Trump is 78 and will be 82 at the end of his term if elected. What could possibly go wrong! I suppose I should put a question mark behind that. What could possibly go wrong?

So I could go on. That’s what old men do. But I won’t.

The hell I won’t. The sands of time and all, I need to get this off my chest as well.

Changing rooms.

Good Lord, put some clothes on for Goodness Sake. You were too shy to walk around naked in a changing room when you were young and in full bloom. You remember, back when your mirror actually gave you a thumbs up. But now? Now you’re okay with it, now when the mirror cracks when you stand in front of. it? Now you’re okay with parading around absolutely starkers? Come on!

Naturally, I have no idea what the secret protocols are in women’s changing rooms. I’m sure they are mysterious. But at 74, I do understand the complex and finely balanced interplay in mens’s changing rooms. As our parents taught us, you can find any level of comfort; be as naked as the day you were born, cover yourself with a towel or go behind a closed door to change. There’s great democracy in changing room nudity, each one of us can find our balance.

Now look before you get all twisted in a knot, I’m not talking about the ‘strip off, go shower dry yourself put your clothes on and leave kind of guy’. No, I’m talking about THAT guy. The outlier. The one who fashions himself after some Greek statue, so sure of his physical beauty he walks among us without inhibition. Acceptable even understandable at oh I don’t know 23, I’ll give you that. But as we all know or find out in due course, the sands of time chip away at everything, including the marble of our young bodies. Now don’t get me wrong. Visit Tuscany in Italy and it won’t be moments before you will see magnificent monumental marble statues in every town piazza, basking in all of their naked glory as countless Renaissance sculptors pursued the perfect human form, the statues as glorious today as they were in the living embodiment of the model. No, that is not what I’m fussed about. This modern day locker room ‘Adonis’ of whom I speak may very well, once upon a time have been all of that but he’s pushing seventy-five now and well, this just in, now he’s just plain old and wrinkly, the testicular descent unavoidable to the human eye. By the way, lest by now you are calling me all manner of names, it’s not the naked old body I’m going on about, it’s the twenty-two minutes he took to clean it. Twenty-two. 22! And over half of those long, slow, glacial minutes he was face out to the room, you know just in case. And I’m pretty sure we were in a Stage 5 Drought! Don’t suppose he considered that oh I don’t know after ten minutes. Twelve? Fifteen! No of course he didn’t the Environmental Terrorist he revealed himself to be.

Over the top? A bit much? Whatever. Did I tell you I am 74.

So look fill your boots. Call me fat shaming or homophobic or prudish, as you like. I’m neither of those but if it lets you feel better, fly at it. Heck apparently you can even call me old now if that works for you. Or ‘my dear’, that’s the one that seems to really get me going.

Be that as it may, I made one thing abundantly clear right off the top. It seems I’m old now and I have a few things to get off my chest.

I’m sure there’ll be more.

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