"You can't rollerskate in a buffalo herd but you can be happy if you've a mind to..." Roger Miller
“Wha…a..?”
Nippy, nippy, nippy this first morning of the New Year…Wow! Not like back in the ‘States but down in the ’30s so it ain’t whatcha might call ‘tee-shirt’ weather…
Got the coffee on, bis’kits in the toaster oven, fed Lady Beatrice (lot of catitude, that girl)…’n becuz she’s stirring ‘round ’n about, Willy is complaining (pore little short-legged thing has learned better than to leap from a great height, even for a cat)...
A year ago, at the beginning of 2015, I wrote a blog about being old and irrelevant…a whole durn year has gone by ’n far as I c’n tell, I’m older, even more irrelevant ’n maybe a little more curmudgeonly…
I had in mind to write t’day about the difference between us genteel older folk, our generosity and good manners, how we tend to be polite to others ’n mindful of hurt feelings and the younger generation(s) who don’t seem to have time for one another, let alone those of us who are simply irrelevant…
Those who walk among us talking to themselves are probably actually speaking to someone else on their hidden phone so it isn’t really incumbent upon us polite old folks to answer them when they ain’t really speaking to us at all…
Why, t’other day the news reported that one of ‘em walked hisself off a cliff ’n died becuz he wuz texting on his phone….
It’s tragic, I know, ’n it ain’t really polite to laugh at somebody for doing something that stupid…
Thing is, maybe laughter is the tie that binds the generations becuz we, all of us, young ’n old, seem to have had the same reaction…(snicker, snicker, tragic but too dumb)…then we read where maybe he wudn’t texting, maybe he wuz taking a picture, a selfie, I guess...
C’mon, I’m old ’n got m’self a fear of heights ’n I cling to the damn bannister when I’m coming downstairs (almost never go up there but, y’know, sometimes…)
I don’t have any trouble going upstairs handsfree but I think that’s becuz I’m looking up at the time ’n don’t visualize m’self falling upwards…
I spent most of my life free of fear (for the most part) ’n now in the twilight years (I never tho’t I’d get to say that about myself) I find that I’ve developed not only a fear of heights but (thanks to an MRI) I’ve discovered that I’m also claustrophobic…
Good thing I didn’t know that when I crawled inside Dead Man’s Cave (wuz that what they called it, Sammy?)…the opening wuz small so that even a kid had to crawl to get inside…once there, you had to stay very close to the side becuz there wuz a deep, deep hole (drop a rock ’n you cudn’t hear it hit bottom)…beyond the hole, there wuz a room where you could stand up…ain’t got a clue what wuz beyond the room, never had quite enough courage to go farther…
Maybe Sam or Vinson or Hobo did but not me ’n none of my friends, no matter what they said at the time...
Fear of the unknown is probably the most popular fear among humans, crossing all the boundaries of race, religion or whatever else might separate us…children are relatively fearless probably becuz every day is brand-new ’n old farts, for the most part, don’t seem to worry what the morrow will bring so long as it doesn’t interfere with their naptime…..
The new year will bring what the new year will bring ’n as the sage Roger Miller use’ta sing, ‘You c’n be happy if you’ve a mind to…”
