More and more, I am having to come to grips that I am perceived by "younger people" as an elderly person. It happened again this morning.
Being in a mood to procrastinate, I skipped over the part where I vacuum the office floor, do the dishes that are startng to ominously pile in and near the sink, and I went directly to the part where I go into Borders bookstore armed with nothing more than overstressed credit cards.
As I reach the doors, there is a "young man" exiting and he makes a show of holding the door open for me. When I say "makes a show", I mean that we didn't inadvertently pass in the actual doorway. No, he had already exited, spotted me, and then held the door open. Let's put it into a baseball idiom: If I had been trying to score from third, I would have been, as they say, out by a mile.
This has happened to me before but this was my first male. In the past, it has been women.
I also have noticed that I am taking on attitudes of the elderly.
I talk to myself in public. Mercifully, no one notices thanks to the advent of bluetooth technology. Hell, everyone appears to be talking to themselves.
On the way out of "my store" (I call it that because I can't remember the name of the place just now -- another dead give away that even, I, as well as these "young people" am beginning to perceive myself as an elderly person -- I am passed by two fast moving 19 year old females, college women, I suspect, and one is wearing short shorts and flip flops!
Five years ago, I might have thought to myself: "Nice legs."
But now I say, under my breath: "Holy shit! Short shorts and flip flops on October 22!"
All the way home I ponder why she is so dressed. I try not to be negative. She is a hot kinda woman; all her jeans are in the laundry; she refuses to accept that summer's gone;
But I can't help myself. I think she wants dirty old men like me to leer at her.
Well, then slow down, baby! I can't get a decent leer going at those speeds!
I have been walking on egg shells all morning, wondering how Tiit's marrow tests are going over there at Mayo Clinic. Then I got back here and found an e mail from him that really defines him and his outstanding attitude about life and living it. I don't think he will mind if I share it because there is a lesson in it to which we should all aspire.
Here it is: (hallway golf)
Larry:
The other thing I do everyday is putting sometime in the late evening hours when most of the guests have gone home and the hall ways and lounges are free.
I play a game I call 1-3...I have one colored ball and three white balls...I hit the colored ball first and then try to hit it with the other three balls.
The end of the long hall has a rug...as do the lounges...so I can hit 20-25 foot putts. Fun game.
About 12:30 Ithey will do the bone marrow stuff.
My Note: Even though the tests were done today, the results won't be available for a day or two.
Tiit
Tiit is just so COOL! I love the way he has kept "the child" in him alive and that he has such great imagination that he was able come up with his Hospital Hallway golf game.
I just checked my watch and he is either finished or in the middle of the bone marrow check right now. I have been in an agitated state today for no apparent reason other than I am pulling for him. Kim is not coming home for supper tonight -- It's "Get Away Girls" night out -- so I am batching it -- wishing Tiit was in Fall Creek so that I could call him and invite him over for left over brats, beer, dill pickles, and Monday Night Football.
He gave me pause -- The "golf game" -- that's the kind of thing I would do when I was a kid and my imagination was very much alive.
And it illustrates the point I guess I am trying to make this time around and that is that there is something to be said for the power of positive thinking and living each of life's moments to the fullest.
While John was home (my brother the father), we touched on the theory that if you stay in the present at all times, your life's journey, no matter how high the highs or low the lows will be a happy one.
Or as Tiit likes to say: "Well -- there you have it. What is, is."
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