On Turning Seventy...

70.  70?  70! 



I just turned 70.  Yes, I know it's hard to fathom, but I did, in fact, turn the big SEVEN OOOOOOOH! 


How in the Hell did this happen?  I'm just a 25 year-old residing in an old man's body, who's spent the majority of his life having a good time, staying out late, drinking too much, shooting pool, playing poker, racing cars, running women, doing whatever seemed like a good thing to do at the time, and hoping to shove off the blame for whatever negative thing that may have happened to me or anyone else as a result of my actions onto whoever happened to be around at the time.


But now I'm here.  And I'm in a reflective mood.  I realize that I've passed over the top of the hill and am spending toward the bottom of the other side at an ever increasing rate.  And so, despite the fact that I've punched a hole in the bottom of the floorboard and am sticking my heels out the hole and digging them into the asphalt to slow down the inevitable, I thought it might prove enlightening to those who have not as yet achieved (achieved?) this lofty age to offer up some thoughts as to the impact of such an achievement. 



Sit down, pour a stiff drink and contemplate;


-  Turning 70 means I can't run as fast or jump as high as I once did.  Of course, who in Hell would want to?  Running?  Jumping?  For what?  If running and jumping seem appropriate at the moment, I'll hire it done.


-  Turning 70 means the hair in my ears grows much faster than that on top of my head.  That actually bothers my hair guy (barber? stylist?) much more than it does me.  Of course, my hair guy proudly claims to be my fifth daughter, but that's another story.


-  Turning 70 means I know everything I did when I was younger and thought I was smart, plus everything I've learned since growing older.  The sum of the two is enormous!  What to do with it now, children, is the question.


-  Turning 70 means I now know how couples can stay together for thirty or forty or fifty years.  First their eyesight goes, and then their hearing.  Don't thank me.  It's why God put me here.


-  Turning 70 means sleeping through the night is something no longer to be enjoyed.  That's because you've got to get up and pee somewhere around 3:00 a.m.  And then again about 5:00.  Enlarged prostates do that to you.


- Turning 70 means I suffer fools more poorly than I once did.  Don't come around me spouting useless crap and expect me to sit down and listen rapturously with an interested look on my face.  Won't happen.


-  Turning 70 means I can do exactly what I want to, when I want to, and nobody, nobody, can do anything about it.  What are they going to do?  Threaten me with jail?  Jail, where you three hots and a cot, and free health care better than Obamacare can possibly deliver, all the cable channels and probably the best gym that the ACLU could sue them into providing?    


- Turning 70 means I can't watch TV without the volume being at near max.  Of course, that angers my wife, but what else is new?  We have seven big screens in seven rooms.  She can pick any one she wants and take a hike.


-  Turning 70 means I now have come to realize that dumbass commie pinko liberal weenies, or Progressives, as they call themselves, have no sense of humor, whatsoever.  Anytime I make fun of them, or the Lib gods they pray to, they get all pissed off!  And I laugh out loud!  Great fun!  Keep it up, weenies!  The madder you get the more I'll write.  Accept it or bear the consequences.

-  Turning 70 means it can take about the same amount of time to get from the bedroom to the kitchen for a cuppa' coffee as it used to take me to shower, dress and go to the 7/11 for a six-pack.


-  Turning 70 means my favorite cocktail is a glass of really good Cabernet and a Vicodin.  Or two.  Or three.  Make that two Vicos. 


-  Turning 70 means rearranging the tools in my tool chest is getting closer to the top of my list of things to do.  It's not there yet, but it's getting closer.


-  Turning 70 means that I consider vacuuming to be exercise.  I used to consider exercise exercise.  Now I consider making coffee, calling my illegal alien gardener to mow the lawn, cleaning and polishing my guns, doing the laundry (yes, I do it), or scooping out the effluvia at the bottom of the fireplace as exercise.  What, you got a problem with that?


-  Turning 70 means washing my car is something for somebody else to do.  I really wish I could wash my car these days.  I can't.  I'm over it.  Now, I consider getting my car washed as my way of redistributing some of my minuscule wealth to my little brown cousins from South of The Border.


-  Turning 70 means finally getting my arms around the idea that our elected legislators can pass gobs of laws without ever reading them, run guns to drug lords south of El Frontera, waste most of a Trillion Dollars trying to make power using the sun and the wind while demonizing God's blessing of almost an inexhaustible supply of oil and gas, weaponize the IRS to punish their political enemies and get no scrutiny, none, from the so-called "Mainstream Media," which is a joke.  And a Blue State Governor can hire folks who cause a traffic jam on a bridge and it's the End Of The World!


-  Turning 70 means I used to think that Black People were considered by some to be second class citizens.  Now, with a Black President, a Black Attorney General, a Black NASA Director, a mostly Black cabinet, and a Black Oprah Friggin' Winfrey Billionairess, I'm wondering if maybe it's white people who have been relocated to the back of the bus.  Disagree?


-  Turning 70 means it's not okay to shoot somebody but it's quite okay to stab someone with a knife.  On the day of the Sandy Hook massacre, a crazed Chinese guy killed 21 people with a knife.  He was probably one of the 200,000 people locked up in factory making I-Phones and went completely bonkers.  But nobody said a word.  And in the past several weeks there have been two instances of knifing murders after football games.  Nobody said a word.  Why, I ask rhetorically, are there politicians clamoring for gun control, but nobody's clamoring for knife control?  Hmmmm.


-  Turning 70 means I can eat exactly what I want, any time I want.  Watch my diet?  Why?  Would it lengthen my life?  I'm already much older than I ever thought possible, so why not go straight to the French fries, burgers, pizza and anything fried and fattening?  Plus, a really big choco rocky road sundae.  I'm there.  The way I figure it, watching my diet might add a couple of years to my eerily shortening life.  That means I might be issued a silver-plated drool cup at the old age home while I waste away to nothingness.


-  And finally, turning 70 means I get the opportunity to write this posting, hoping it will cause some to chuckle, and some to fume and fuss.  And thank God for the chance to do so.  Thanks kiddies, now go back to what ever you were doing...