Butch Lawson

I was a skinny kid with a pitchfork filling bait barrels with fish and salt at the co-op when one February evening I received a telephone call from a high school friend who had recently moved to Connecticut.

Finally, it's a sunny, spring-like day, bringing all the sweet promises of warm, gentle breezes, children laughing and playing, and, in due course, summer.

I was recently asked to consider writing a column about the positive things about growing old. Hahahahahahaha! No, seriously. Initially, I found the proposition to be absurd, but it quickly ramped up all the way to hilarious in an oxymoronic kind of way.

As if my glasses had been epoxied to my face, my tears froze at the junction of metal frames and cheeks. The dog, at first ridiculously joyous at the prospect of a walk and having no memory of her frigid outing in the yard moments before, sat still on the frozen pavement, licking her feet in an effort to warm them.

I received two packages today from commercial sources that proudly proclaim that prompt, free delivery of their products is assured. In one case, the item was received within 48 hours of ordering.

If I had been marked with a "best if used by" date, I would have been well past it and trashed 30 years ago. Lately I've felt like that cucumber in the fridge drawer that you forgot about two months ago and stuck your finger through yesterday while reaching for a carrot.

"Why don't you write something positive about aging? You know, the good things about growing older?" I looked at this woman, whom I genuinely love with all my heart, suddenly thankful that we had kept up the payments on our long-term care policies.

This, the plague of the 21st century, seems to me in many ways an endless case of deja vu. Some of the challenges that we faced in the past year and a half I can remember being warned about in my childhood.

“Bob?” “Yep,” I said with a genuine smile, “it’s me. And I’d know those blue eyes of yours anywhere.”

We sat in the old Scout, the engine idling smoothly for a change, waiting for a break in the traffic. The old man, tan and lean, one hand on the steering wheel, spat through his open window and slowly said, “I don't think these fools know this road is a dead end.”