The Geyserish Golden Years

The Geyserish Golden Years

 

Ha! And double ha! That’s what I say to the nostalgia perpetrated by the mind in bringing back memories of when we were young and carefree. Talk about living in the moment. Me an’ the wife done that this morning. We stepped out the door to take a four or five mile stroll to stretch our legs before the weather got too hot. We’re amblin’ along listenin’ to the songbirds, sayin’ good mornin’ to other walkers on our route an’ smellin’ the fresh air.

The first sign of old age shows up when a lady comes up behind us and sayin’ “good mornin’”. She adds: “You don’t put yer hands behind yer back. You have to swing yer arms to get yer blood movin’ to yer upper body.”

Oh crap! Now they’re tellin’ me how to walk – as if I didn’t already know how. Well, we go up over the bridge and turn into the walkin’ path (I’m now swingin’ my blasted arms) when we both look up at the sky. It don’t look all that friendly in the west all of a sudden an’ we’re only about a mile into our stroll. Oh well, a little rain don’t hurt nobody none. So we carry on.

About half way home the sky turns really dark and starts to spit some of the wet stuff on us and the wife smiles an’ says, “This is just like Holland when I was young. We loved to walk in the rain!”

She’s got a point. We used to walk in the rain too. Never thought anythin’ about it. Well it’s only water for crying out loud. It’s not poison or anythin’ like that! Actually, it’s kinda fun; nostalgic. The sky must’a read our minds because all of a sudden it got really dark an’ the rain drops got very large. By the time we got under the trees again, we were soaked pretty good. The wife is still smilin’. “That’s one thing off my bucket list,” she says. “I always wanted to go for a walk in the rain with you.”

Of course, by the time we get home, it quit rainin’. But now we have physics to deal with. Half the rain that fell on me is in my wool sweater that I wore and in my boots that only leak from the top and in my hat that only leaks from the top.

I manage to pull the forty-pound sweater off my back all right and peel my soakin’ wet pants off my skinny legs, even get my boots off. But my socks, now that’s a different story altogether. The thing is that when you’re getting dangerously close to eighty, yer legs grow a lot in length, takin’ their growth directly from the length of yer arms. So while yer figurin’ out how to get down that far to peel yer socks off yer feet without getting a horrible cramp in yer chest from pullin’ too hard, you get a horrible cramp in yer chest from pullin’ too hard. So by the time you recover from that excrutiatin’ bout o’ pain you realize you got another foot to peel yer sock off. Damn!

I suppose the long and the short of it is that relivin’ the memories in decrepit old bodies is a whole lot more painful than makin’ them in the first place. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.