10 June (1951)

Senior Moment

Gordy Howe, the greatest hockey player of the age, and my greatest sports hero as a kid, chose my birthday to join the big Production Line on heavenly ice. I am honored to share the day with him, and it makes me tingle a bit to think that my arrival in Detroit coincided with the beginning of the four Stanley Cups that marked his greatest glory.

I will grant you the fact that it is a little odd to be considering Gordo’s magnificent career on ice while waking in soft dawn of Kailua’s North Shore, but so be it.

I caught a fair amount of amiable guff about mentioning tat I was turning the magic number today. My alert correspondent in Baja California informed me it doesn’t ever start to get real until you turn 75, so there, and went on to describe the surreal surroundings of her ExPat world. Trust me, her description made it sound like a village on a gentle dose of psilocybin.

The cost of living is right there, though, and I am discovering this is not exactly entering into the happy dotage I had considered it to be all these years. Instead, the Feds want to shake me down for $128 a month for Medicare coverage, a wonderful program that I haven’t used, and which will be offset by a Social Security check I don’t get for another twelve months.

Bastards. But like I say, my shipmates who have already passed this particular turnstile had an ironic comment or two, as befits their advanced age. My Cajun pal Boats had these words from his home in Metairie, LA, which pretty much sum up the whole situation, both in terms of age and the chronological social dysphagia that goes along with it:

“Really, you can quit gasping about turning 65. I’ll be celebrating my fourth anniversary of that milestone this March and I am still able to do everything I did at 45, a few mental tasks actually better…minus the occasional “senior moment.” Continuing to work at something that interests you is probably the best preservative, followed by that old reliable chemical preservative, alcohol.

Really you shouldn’t worry much if you do start to wobble a bit, you are a Captain, just call me and I’ll pipe up some side-boys to assist you up or down the gangway, since that was their original purpose anyway back when naval professionals stayed in harness until actual dotage or death. But then today’s establishment doesn’t always seem to agree with my assessment of such things.

Boats went on to recall an incident from his recent prolonged sojourn Up North:

“Annapolis, which as you know is far north of Baton Rouge, the northernmost range of my peculiar cultural affinity group neatly illustrates my point about the social dysphagia that goes along with advancing age.

At the Naval Academy Commissary there are three reserved parking spaces closest to the door. In order of proximity to the door they are marked “FLAG OFFICERS,” “E-9s”, and “Pregnant Patrons.” I used the E-9 space when available and I was driving the car with the appropriate sticker. One day, when I was not in a particular hurry, I got out of my car and paused to look at the order of precedence for the reserved parking spaces, and the significance of them really hit me for the first time.

Just as I was completing my thought process from a vantage point behind my car, the retired admiral occupying the space next to me appeared and looked at me quizzically, I guess he was wondering why I was standing there. Thinking out loud I said: “Ya know, Admiral, the arrangement of these parking spaces just struck me, as authentic gentlemen, shouldn’t we ask Management to move us down a space further from the door and move the Pragos so they are closest to the door?”

The admiral just gave me a stern look, brushed past me, got in his car in a hurry and drove off fast. I guess he never met a Coon-ass before, or he knew I couldn’t be an official “gentleman,” no matter how my Mama raised me, lacking the approval of Congress. I went into the Commissary and picked up the items I needed. On the way out, I and stopped a minute to chat with the manager, who turned out to be a retired Senior Chief Storekeeper.

I told him I thought the “Pragos” ought to have the space closest to the door. He didn’t disagree, but a few weeks later he told me the idea was firmly nixed.

Last Christmas, I told this story to my niece-in-law, a locally-born and educated former TV reporter. I don’t know what has happened since my mother’s generation of Southern women ruled the South.

Here I am, proudly standing up for conventional Southern gallantry, and she about cut me off on the word “Prago.”

I was accused of being “disrespectful” to pregnant women. Hell, I thought I was being respectful in asking to have their parking space moved closer to the Commissary door. If there is anything bad about post-65 life, it’s the constant culture shock.

I can’t seem to avoid it even staying south of Baton Rouge or within my own extended family. If I think about it another time, I’ll tell you why I stopped addressing even Southern women as “Ma’am” anymore. I’m finding it easier to master the constantly evolving computer technology than the rapid deterioration of social mores.

Welcome to 65!

Had it, Been There, Got the T-Shirt!

Boats

Copyright 2016 Vic and Boats
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