FOLIO OLIO: GETTIN' OLD AIN'T FOR SISSIES...

From 4 to 6 pm I hang out with a bunch of old men. Yesterday one of them said,

"Last night I was watching "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and I said to my wife that Clint Eastwood is one tough son of a bitch and ought to make some more movies."

That was his way of joking about his onset of Alzheimer's....but I'm not all that convinced it was a joke.

You young people probably think that there is nothing funny about Alzheimer's...I say it's fucking hilarious.

I heard of another guy with Alzheimer's who would greet young men this way:

"My you look so handsome and intelligent. You must be one of my sons."

Now, that guy has the right attitude.

The other thing that prompted me to post a blog about getting old was that my wife told me that when she wakes up in the middle of the night and I am sleeping very soundly, she puts her hand on my chest to make sure I'm not dead. I confessed that I do the same thing to her.

Things have changed a lot since I was a boy. We could play Army for hours with nothing more than a stick with a nail in it. I never had a phone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure that people you didn't know weren't already using the line. And that's the truth.

And pizzas were not delivered to our home, but milk was.

My father once told me that when his father got his first Model-T, they went on a trip and the instructions in the book said things like "Go 5.3 miles and turn right at the red barn." He also said that in a fifty mile trip you could expect to have at least one flat tire. The reason was that the cars shared the road with horses and horses had metal shoes and shoes have to be nailed on and the nails were always falling out. I bet you never knew that.

I knew my daddy loved me because sometimes, when he was throwing beer bottles at me, he would miss on purpose. And he never shot me in any of my vital organs.

I took early retirement because I have zero confidence in the Social Security System.

Dear Young Man, be very careful not to marry a woman who thinks you need fixing...and vise versa.

I will say that things will work out a whole bunch better if you have yourself a man cave. I call mine an "office". My wife has hers, too....it's called "The House".

There is a trap that many (most?) old people fall for...

I did let my grooming slide. The other day I was standing out in front of a store counting my change and three passersby dropped coins in my palm. When I told my wife she said I had "perfected my bumminess".

I say that every old person needs a hobby.

My computer is my hobby.

There are so many old people who shun...yes, SHUN...the internet.

They may look at it from time to time, but have no idea of it's power...

I never got into the internet until I retired.

I enjoy my blog and take great pleasure as I watch the numbers of viewers grow. If you think they will be interested, don't forget to spread the word to your friends. I would really appreciate it.

But I'm still "outdoorsy", if by "outdoorsy" you mean getting drunk on the patio.

I usually donate 2 or 3 hours to my blog everyday. That's a lot of time...but it keeps me out of trouble...like yard work.

I also take great pride in my sense of humor...like these guys...

I've also found that there are sites on the internet where you can find movies of naked women.....having sex....with just about anything you can imagine.

When I was growing up, anyone who fucked with a cop EXPECTED to get his ass kicked. It was like a rule.

I regret that there are some old people that give the rest of us a bad name. We are not all so stupid.

If you ever sit and watch an old man and wonder what he is thinking about, let me share this. A man will never stop loving the first girl he ever loved, the young woman with whom he lost his virginity, and the one he chose to share his life with. And it only gets better.

And all that wild shit you and your significant other do now....we've been there, done that......but the older we get, the better we were.

Now days "Getting Lucky" means finding my car in the parking lot.

Old people will read the T-shirt below and say, "Two out of three ain't bad."

We, for obvious reasons, probably think about death more than young people.

Some of us fall for some weird cure-all bullshit, but not most of us.

I don't begrudge people who meditate or do yoga or whatever, but please don't think you are closer to god because of it...

With old age comes more pounds...that's like a rule, too.

Even my wife is...well, "more of a woman" than she was when I married her. Now when she's about to go clothes shopping I plead with her to think of all those millions of poor boles. (think about it)

I do not fear death. I fear suffering, but the death part...I'm cool with that.