![]() ![]() “What was the real name of Sam the Sham from that old band the Pharaohs?”Īnd with the words to “Woolly Bully” suddenly playing in my head, I’d grudgingly answer, “Domingo Samudio,” wondering why I always knew that kind of crap and not something that could have made a real difference in my life, like how to do root canals. Me? Maybe once every three years a kid would approach and say, “Dad, can I ask you something?” They’d always turn to her for answers to questions involving ethics, living with kindness and helping our fellow man. It became obvious when our son and daughter were kids. Nancy – who is two days shy of just one year older than I am – has been inordinately wise for thirty or forty years now. Twenty minutes later, the only thing descending on me was a dire need to pee. With that hope in mind, I even spent some extra time sprawled in the sack this morning, hopefully awaiting enlightenment. Way back eleven hours ago when I was a strapping lad of sixty-nine, I thought wisdom would automatically descend on me when I turned seventy. My life so far has involved a total lack of it. ![]() Each of which, come to think of it, I also stink at. There are those unseen qualities found insidea man, like courage, enterprise, tenacity and honesty. Still, there’s more than sports that mark the full measure of a man. Unfortunately, I was always the guy who shot the miserable 107. Then I could pull my stool up to the bar in The 19 th Hole saloon and obnoxiously lord it over those losers because I golfed a respectable 99 and they shot a miserable 107. Golf? Having been born with a realistic assessment of my woeful abilities, back in my prime my goal was to suck at golf, but to suck at golf slightly less than some of my buddies sucked at golf. “You don’t fish, John! … You don’t fish!”Īnd I’ll have to concede that’s a valid point.īut how about other stuff? Bowling a 300 game? Bowling a 200 game? Bowling a measly 100 game? Even just grabbing my ball from the ball-return without dropping it on my foot?Īll such bowling victories seem certain to elude me now. If Nancy overhears me, she’ll answer for Him. Therefore, some lonely night, staring moodily into the endless depths of space, I will undoubtedly find myself plaintively calling out, “Why, God? … Why?” I’ll probably never land a six-pound largemouth bass. But plenty of normal-person stuff is slipping through my fingers, too. True, writing The Great American Novel or winning the Indy 500 would be accomplishments marking me as an outstanding individual, which every passing second of my entire life has reassured me I’m not. Or else I’d be at a critical point on my novel’s second paragraph, with only seven-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-eight more paragraphs to go, then irreversibly lose my train of thought by nearly choking to death on a Twizzler.įar worse to my way of thinking – unless reincarnation helps sort things out – I’m starting to look like a long shot to ever win the Indy 500. I must have started it a couple dozen times, only to be distracted by life’s realities, like how beautifully ice-cold Budweiser washes down Hostess Ding-Dongs. Take my intention to write The Great American Novel. I’ve had some big dreams, which time has all but laid to waste. I felt the same way about myself when I turned twenty, thirty, forty, fifty and sixty, but always perked up the next day with the surprising realization I remained the same old goofball as before. For Charlie, I knew life was all over but the shouting. The fact I had a friend that incredibly ancient left me in a dither. I remember being seventeen when my college buddy Charlie turned twenty. Not that I haven’t already been acutely aware of time’s passage. If you die at seventy, people who liked you will say, “Well, he lived a good long life.” People who didn’t like you will say, “It’s about time that nitwit bit the big one.”Įither way, your mortality won’t surprise anybody.Īlso at seventy, you are acutely aware of time’s passage. This morning I woke up seventy-years-old.Īs ages go, seventy seems a sobering one.
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