On aging

By Bill Fox/Columnist

For a long time, I wanted to write a column on aging, but I forgot. But this week I just turned 74 so it’s about time I wrote this column. However, I forgot what it was I wanted to say about aging. Luckily, my wife, who is quite a bit younger, made a list of things for me to mention in my column, but I can’t remember where I put the list!

I did come across some good points on aging from retired American weatherman Fritz Coleman: “You know you are getting old when parts of your body go through their own mid-life crisis as your chest moves south to become part of your stomach and your once athletic thighs lose their grip and slip down your legs like tapioca and re-solidify as swollen ankles.”

When almost every conversation I have with my friends starts with a medical update, you know you are old. Just recently, I mentioned to my friend Harold that I was having a really good day as my sugar levels went down and so did gas prices.

As Fritz mentions, “ A sign of getting old is when you have to visit doctors you have never had to visit before, like a Urologist which is like a rite of passage…you look around the room at all these 80 year olds and it made you think you were at a reunion of Civil war vets…and I don’t know anything about this doctor other than he got a 4 rubber glove rating on Yelp…which incidentally will be the sound I will be making during my examination.”

Fritz says that when he was a young man all of his major decisions were made from the vicinity of his tummy and thigh area. I can vouch that when you are an old man all of your major decisions are also made from the same area…but for different reasons. Now wherever I go, it is crucial to know how close I am to a washroom. Some seniors apparently have an app on their phones, which tells them where the nearest washroom is. I may have forgot where I put mine.

In my senior years, like Fritz, I have learned one secret to a successful marriage is to never try to win an argument. If you let the other person win all the arguments you will find the arguments are so much shorter and making up can be pleasurable.

In some cultures, all elders are honoured and respected. Maybe not so much in ours! Maybe it is the society we live in. My feeling about how Ontario is reacting to COVID seems to be influenced mostly by economic factors. Can there be a better reason to keep our children in school, and our elders in nursing homes?

As I have gotten older I think of all those poor commuters parked on the 401 in rush hour traffic. That’s not me any longer. In the warmer weather, I’m parked on a bench at Lakeview Park, in slippers, talking to a seagull.

Some of my older friends spend their winter in Florida…well maybe not this year. Some want to move to the Sunshine State permanently. But in the summer, I understand that it can be so hot and humid that some seniors actually walk into traffic just to feel the breeze.

When we were young my wife was really hot and of course with my ancient red Buick LeSabre convertible and full head of blonde hair I was cool. But that has changed now! I have to turn the heat up in our apartment because rather than being cool, I get cold easy…and my wife complains cause she is too hot…can you imagine?

Seriously, I’m happy I am old! I have never been happier in my life than I am right now. Well, I might be even happier if COVID would go away and my wife of 46 years and I could fly out to B.C. to see our oldest son, his wife, and our four grandchildren…but. Being old is good and better than the alternative. I have to remember to live in the present as I can’t count on the future and I can’t remember much of the past…so I try living in the moment at bdfox@rogers.com.