Age, the one thing that levels the playing field of life

We are old people, many are grand and great grandparents. Some of us walk bent over while some use a walker of cane. We are bald, balding or gray.  Some have forgotten more than many  younger will ever know.  We now have problems remembering facts, dates and names. Many of us don’t see or hear well. Many of us have forgotten what it is like to have ‘real teeth’. There are some of us to whom 80 sounds, ‘not that old’.

For you that do not know, Doctors, lawyers, musicians, famous scientists, politicians, carpenters, waitresses, presidents, secretaries, millionaires and billionaires (all humans)  get OLD, if they live long enough.  It is possible that the old man using a walker and looking up at a skyscraper is the engineer or designer of that building, but to the passerby he is just another old man.  He is better dressed than the old man down the street who is homeless, but still, to the person who does not know him, he is just another tottery old man who should be warehoused in a nursing home.

I thought about this entry before I read Paula’s latest entry. Where she had some guys in their 40’s who said that they hoped they could stand as tall as she and John when they were near 80.

A few days ago I walked past an old man, bent so far he had to look to the side to see anyone. I took a few steps and my mind said, ‘you know him’. I went back and asked, “Harold?” It was Harold, the kid known as ‘Smokey’, a south paw professional pitcher. Harold is about my age, his sister was my first childhood sweetheart. Most folk seeing Harold would only see a bent old man. They would not know he smoked the pitches by batters and also ran like the wind.

I am saying nothing most of you reading do not know. If you were like me, 50 years ago we thought the same way. We had no thought that the old man or old woman who slowed us down on the sidewalk or street might have been in the past a doctor or ballerina.

I no longer try to explain to the youth what I have printed above, because too soon, they will experience it.  So just smile and enjoy your memories, now the playing field is more level.

Nite Shipslog

PS:

There is one title I DO NOT WANT, that is “The oldest man in the world”.

Imma tell you, we lost the oldest man in the world last week, and he hasn’t had the title a year yet. I really prefer a title that I can hold longer.  LOL Losing that title ain't like losing a poker game.