The Complex, Funny and Often Puzzling Legend of Badge No. 1130!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:     The Complex, Funny and Often Puzzling Legend of Badge No. 1130!

No one, I believe, really cares to be identified solely by one aspect of his or her life or specific traits...  occupation, education, physical characteristic, disability, perennial geezer...  to cite a few examples.  (I often wonder if "Gabby" Hayes was born a geezer?!)  My brother-in-law was a cop, a respected and accomplished City of Milwaukee career police officer, but there was so much more to his personality, his life, "legend" and all that made him his "composite self."

Booby and Patty in
happy times.  They
loved a good party!

Booby -- Career Police Officer!  He
was also a Security Guard at a
Women's Dress Shop, a Pizza
Delivery Driver, etc...
(the latter two+ post cop career!)

Our children called him "Uncle Boobers" (the "double-o" pronounced as the "o" in "could"!).  He was christened Robert.  We variously called him Booby (same "o" sound as in "would"!), Boo Boo, Bo Bo, Bobby...  Bob is such a versatile name, but he knew the variations we favored, from time to time, were all delivered with genuine affection.

Bob was gifted with an exceptional sense of humor.  He was truly funny, demonstrating both verbal and physical comedy with equal deftness, and he told wonderful stories, particularly about his experiences as a cop, wearing Badge No. 1130.  Bob was fondest of his time working a police ambulance, with various partners, over the 25-plus-year-span of his career.  Great story about the "slippery corpse."  He and partner, "Wegie," (hard "g" sound!) were conveying a dead man via gurney on a wet, wintry evening.  They hit a bump in the sidewalk and the "stiff" (Booby's word) slid off the gurney, onto a snowy patch of boulevard and into the gutter.  The partners quickly plucked the corpse in its body bag out of the gutter and re-placed it with as much dignity as they could manage back onto the gurney.  (There was also a persistent rumor about another corpse and a long flight of icy concrete steps!  Never really confirmed or denied!  Interesting to visualize, however...)

"How many neighbors witnessed that bit of grisly theatre?" I asked, amid bursts of laughter.

"We didn't stop to count," said Bob, "but both of us noticed light coming from windows where curtains were held open.  We took the poor stiff to the morgue.  Left in a hurry, glad we didn't have to explain to our (shift) captain the dampness and dead leaves stuck to the body bag."

Booby was a drinker.  He drank a lot.  And we're not talking about green tea and fruit juice here.  Many of his stories centered on or involved strong drink.  Toward the end of a particular night shift, he relates, "We stop at Abie's Junk Yard for a visit, and drinks.  It was cold.  We sat in Abie's tiny warm-up hut, all of our knees touching, it was that small.  Abie gave us vodka and

One of Bob's Prized
Possessions...  It
Announced to Would-
Be Miscreants:  "Keep
Away from the
Cookie Jar!"

some sort of orange drink.  I don't know...  could'a been Tang.  I ask, 'So Abie, what's new?' 'Nuttin,' he says.  'It's all junk!' Abie's a wizened old coot, doesn't talk much, but he's always good for a morning pop."

Bob's police career wasn't all "stiffs" and early-morning boozing in junk yard shacks.  It had its serious moments.  On one occasion -- attempting to wrest a "weapon" from a frightened woman --  he was stabbed in the finger with a kitchen paring knife...  a domestic violence incident.  "It was a little embarrassing," he told us.  "I was yelling 'ow-wee, ow-wee' hopping around holding my bleeding finger.  Had a good outcome, though.  I was able to break up the fight, and return the home to a calm, grumbling chaos.  Didn't arrest anyone.  The stabbing was really an accident.  Mrs. apologized nicely.  She even gave me a bandaid.  At home, I told Pat (his wife), 'Honey, I was wounded on the job' as I held up my bandaged finger."

"Hey Booby, while on police duty, did you ever have to 'give chase'?" I once asked him. 

"Oh, yeah.  We were after a runaway speeder and had to drive over a rutted embankment.  The squad thudded and bumped.  My head hit the roof.  It hurt like hell.  I had to wear a neck brace for a few weeks."  It wasn't that episode, however, that caused Bob permanent injury to the vertebrae in his neck, ultimately necessitating surgery.  "We get a call from a pasta-pizza joint.  Big family fight...  more like a small riot.  Just as we came in, I get hit in the head with a plate of spaghetti!  Wrenched my neck backward..."

On ambulance conveyance duty again with "Wegie," one memorable night, "We're called to a home near downtown.  We knock.  A man's voice -- obviously in distress -- yells, "Come in, it's unlocked...  Hurry!  I'm in the bedroom!..."  

"We go in and there's this guy with a coat hanger sticking out of his butt.  He tells us he was with a prostitute and did or said something that really pissed her off.  He says the woman suggests, 'Hey, want me to do something that'll really turn you on?  Next thing I know,' the guy says, 'I get the coat hanger treatment!'  We load the guy onto a stretcher.  He's moaning like hell, obviously in great pain.  We cover him up, I mean he's buck naked, of course, and the coat hanger makes a tent of the blanket.  After he's loaded into the ambulance, door shut, Wegie looks at me and says, 'I guess it's the old coat hanger up the ass trick.'  We stifle our laughter, turn on the siren and race off to Emergency."              

At one of his routine training visits to the Milwaukee Police Academy, Booby tells us, he put lighted cigarettes in the mouth of a moose head on the wall of a meeting room.  "I stand in front of the moose like a drill sergeant...  'At ease, Bullwinkle, Smoke 'em if you got 'em.' "

My wife, Sweetheart, and I formed a great friendship with Booby and his wife, Pat.  Sadly, she died in the mid-1980's, caner of the pancreas.  In mid-summer of the earlier 80'sBob and Pat went on a rare out-of-town vacation, attending a bowling event in Las Vegas.  He asked us to look after his police-issue revolver, and to place the bullets in a different location for safety sake.  Upon Bob and Pat's return, I put the bullets in my pocket so as to be sure to return them to Booby.  I went through a Milwaukee airport metal detector several times, practically denuding myself in an effort to find the source of the beeping!  Finally, I remembered the bullets, and placed them in a tray.  I was sure a sheriff's deputy was set to take me away in chains, but Booby appeared and explained things.  Afterward Booby said to us, "What did that sheriff worry you'd do, put the bullets in your mouth and smack the 
back of your head?!"  

Sweetheart and I, along with other family members and friends, cared for Pat during her hospice period, the most intense portion being the last two weeks of her life.  It was a remarkable experience.  We gave Pat her pain med injections, sat with her, held her hand and spoke quietly of kinder and happier times.   Following Pat's death at just 42 years of age, Bobby took a serious tumble in terms of attitude, along with a dangerous escalation in "self medication."  His drinking became more a pathology than a mere diversion.  His most serious relationship with a woman, initiated more than a year after Pat's death, was steeped in alcohol, the new partner as addicted to strong drink as he was.  She, too, died young.  

Bob with daughter Susie, son Joey
and our daughter, Alie, on Susie's
lap.  1977 summer vacation time
at the Hearn cottage, L. Michigan.
Booby captured a moth, threw it into
the toilet...  It kept escaping.  He
let it live, throwing it out the door,
as another flitted in.  Big fun at
four in the morning with beer and
cribbage and annoying insects!  

In the passage of time, Bob's drinking increased, and his health worsened.  He gained weight and his head took on that "pumpkin-like" shape and size (my daughter's descriptive image) and ruddy coloring of a heavy drinker in decline.  His daughter, son, my wife and I participated in an intervention.  It didn't take!  What did take was a glacial cooling, worse, a freezing of our relationship.  It lasted more than a year, with almost no communication between or among us.  In time a melting began to occur, and Sweetheart and I could once again visit Booby in his Pewaukee home, and take him out for lunch and drinks at one of his favorite haunts.

Lunch for him consisted of scant food consumption -- most of the comestibles taken home in styrofoam cartons -- and usually at least three large tubs of vodka with a splash of something.  Fearing a recurrence of the "ice age" -- and knowing it would be a safer alternative to his drinking and driving -- we agreed to his wishes to take him to the tobacco depot for cartons of "low-tar" smokes, followed by a stop at the super market for two half gallons of vodka.  Then we'd drive him home, make sure he was settled and then do the small chores he seemingly couldn't manage on his own -- change a light bulb or two, put away his Pea Pod delivery, take out the trash...

2012...  Bob at Age 70!

There's little doubt he had a kind of death wish, one that intensified as more and more time passed following Pat's death, deepening gloom and self-pity his constant companions.  We often tried, and with some, albeit, modest success, to resurrect a spark of joy and laughter during our outings together.  The catalyst, most often, was one or more of his "cop stories."  We'd pry them out of him whenever we could do so, and sometimes that old sense of silly humor emerged in the telling.  

In the end, hospital bed-ridden and pronounced "terminal" by the MD's...  "He's not going home this time," said one of his doctors...  he ate some sweet rolls, delighted to do so thanks to our daughter who brought them for her Uncle Boobers.  No sense, then, worrying about his diabetes or hemochromatosis or any other of his chronic ailments.  He died shortly thereafter, having achieved just 70 years and seven months of life.  Too young, far too soon.

Sweetheart's brother, Jimmy, was at Booby's death bed.  "Well, you wanted to kill yourself; now you got your wish," said Jimmy.  Blissfully loaded with pain meds, Booby merely chuckled, most likely certain he was on his way, at last, to reunite with Pat, his high school sweetheart, the love of his life. 

Booby's funeral was an exceptional send-off, as funeral services go, a terrific reunion of old friends and family members, some like Dennis and Carol (long-time friends, he a fellow cop), arriving from far distant locations.  Afterward, we were gathered at the cemetery, waiting for everyone to arrive.  Jimmy stared for a time at the casket inside the hearse.  "Alright, Bobby," he said, "quit fooling around.  This isn't funny anymore.  Get up and get out of there."  We all had a good laugh.  Booby would have enjoyed it.

We may have closed Wolski's...  (None of us
remembers for sure...)  We certainly closed
Zaffiro's...  Had several snorts at the
Roman Coin, et al, et al, etc...!  

In my geezerhood, where I'm often lost in reflection, there's sadness, regret, laughter and memory.  Selective memory being what it is, I choose the happy and funny times, the crazy alcohol-buzzed sessions with Booby at the Koo Koo Club, the Rick Inn, Petroff's and so many more gin houses and kitchen tables.  On a particular Bloody Mary morning, seated in Bob and Pat's kitchen, a police sergeant rang the bell, arriving in person to check that Booby was really as sick as he claimed when he called in unable to report.  Booby went to the door wearing five pairs of sunglasses.  He probably took them off before answering the door...   Didn't he??!! 

Humbly Submitted 11-15-15 -- Joel K.      

(Special Note:    The perpetrator pays homage to law enforcement professionals, those generally honorable and intrepid guardians of our communities and public safety.  His own father was an FBI agent of considerable accomplishment and valor.  The perpetrator is privileged to have known and to count among his friends -- largely through Brother-in-Law Bob -- a number of Milwaukee police officers.  Be safe out there!  And, Thank You all!)    

         

      

             

    

  

                    

"...In The Service!"... Are People Actually Melting in That Pot?

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    "...In The Service!"...  Are People Actually Melting in That Pot?  

Many a time and oft, I've pontificated -- when engaged in a dialogue with acquaintances of dissimilar attitudes, beliefs and values -- suggesting that each of us becomes his or her "composite self " (for lack of a better descriptor), say at age 30 or 35, some younger, others older -- as a result of a the many and varied elements that inform our lives.  They include, perhaps needless to state, environment, upbringing, role models -- both positive and negative -- education, experience...  These among the factors that mold us, make us who we are.  Experience, I think, is a powerful force in the development of attitudes and values as we traverse our separate pathways.

Above is a graphic depicting a
Melting Pot, or, a "metaphoric
crucible" in which "...all manner of
people can blend together and
co-exhist in peace and harmony..."!
(paraphrased from a statement
by Pollyanna...  maybe?!)  

The absolute jewels of experience are the people we meet along the way, who touch and affect our lives in a positive manner;those who make a negative impact have a certain value too, particularly if we learn something useful as a result of the collision!  Obvious, perhaps, but I'm coming to the point!  

In my own experience, for example, viewed from the exalted elevation of Geezerhood...  a prime example is Military Service (and those who populated its ranks...  a life episode that included extensive travel)!  It was a harvest of diverse thoughts, ideas,  opinions, philosophies, personalities...    

Among "fellow travelers" and intersecting lives was that of Jonas B. whom I met at Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas, perhaps we were in basic training together as well.  It's difficult and can be misdirecting to sift through memory from a distance of more than 50 years.  


Jonas may have had a small issue with alcohol.  On occasion his breath manufactured a fog of fetid mist.  Odd, I sometimes thought, because he frequently drank Aqua Velva and mouthwash when no other alcoholic "potable" was at hand.   His personality was strikingly potent and memorable.  Jonas was a Native American with a superb mind.  A dark-skinned Oklahoman, fiercely proud of his heritage, his gift to peers was tolerance and acceptance.  I enjoyed him, his stories about warrior ancestors, his humor.  I wonder if he's still among the living, or if alcohol claimed his brain and the oil wealth he was promised.  I hasten to add, Jonas was by no means the only individual whose consumption of alcoholic substances was prodigious and eclectic!  Black, white, red, brown and yellow, we all consumed our share in whatever form was cheap and available.  After-shave lotion was a novel variant, however...  perhaps an acquired taste?      

Air Force Security Service Tech School yielded the next posting...  A day before boarding a plane bound for Karamursel Air Base in Turkey, I had to visit a Philadelphia barber for a much-needed shave, singe, a haircut, a uniform brush up...  Foolishly, I lacked the funds to cover the entire expense of all those tonsorial services.  Jerry S., a former machinist from Chicago, and a fellow airman bound for Turkey, helped bail me out of the shop, rescuing me from the angry barber who held me by my uniform collar.  Tilted at a 45-degree angle from the door of the shop, I beckoning madly at passing GI's until required donations set me free.  

Like all "composite" human beings, Jerry was a paradox, an amalgam of biases and tolerance.  He had few kind words for the "hillbillies" who invaded his beloved Chicago from "The South," but acquired an acceptance of the many Black-, Asian- and Latino-Americans who peopled our shared military orbit.  Conversely, there were many in our ranks and stationed with us, over the course of a four-year enlistment, who clung to their racist attitudes and ideas like thieves clinging to sacks of pure gold coins.      

In Turkey -- a year-and-a-half tour that began in late 1961 -- four of us, typically, occupied each space in a large, concrete barracks.  In my case, an African-American, a young man from Guam, A Texan and myself.  In a room near ours was a Latino named Armando G.  A handsome lad, he collected women as some do baseball cards or stamps.  He challenged us to acts of absurd "bravado" such as placing lighted cigarettes in the hollow of our abutted arms to see who could stand the pain longer.  He  swallowed jars full of jalapeño peppers and dared the rest of us to match his ability to consume those fiery, stomach-destroying missiles.  Armando told us stories of deprivation among his family members, struggles to assimilate into North American "Gringo" culture while preserving their Mexican heritage.  He was impatient to return to family and the women of Corpus Christi, TX.  Armando kept his focus, was eager for the tour to end and considered Turkey an irritating if unavoidable aberration in the cycle of his life.

This, I think, is a photo of Aghia
Sophia, fabled former Byzantine
Church, now a great mosque in
Istanbul, Turkey!  

Following the delights of Turkey, including Turkish friends left behind -- Vahan, Achmet, Hamdi, Nadia, Ishkin and many others -- I reported to McChord Air Force Base in Washington State, a neighbor to the enormous army base, Fort Lewis.  Our circle of friends included enlisted men from four branches of military service -- Army, Air Force, Navy, the Canadian Army, too, thrown in for international flavor.  Upon arrival at McChord, the First Sergeant from the Division to which I was assigned told me the only available barracks space near my new headquarters building was already occupied by a...  he used the "N" word.  He suggested I choose a barracks room in a different part of the base.  Partly, I suppose, due to a a streak of rebellion, partly because I had experienced co-habitation with diverse ethnicities, I told him I'd be happy to room with Shane R., the Black airman about whom he made the offensive reference.

What a dashing figure
he cuts in his (almost)
Full Military (Fatigued)
Regalia (a small, non-
regulation enhance-
ment added!)?!

Shane and I became friends.  I felt myself privileged to meet his family members who lived in the Tacoma, WA area, a number of his friends as well.  It was a revelation.  I came to know bright and talented individuals among Shane's circle who were ignored, overlooked and treated harshly or indifferently because of their color.  Shane's sense of humor, his confidence, optimism and his friendship never wavered.  I often wonder where he is, if he is, and what he's doing now, more than 50 years and many remarkable and life-changing events later.

So many friendships made and forgotten!  Can't possibly do justice...  I'm not sure why this particular subject matter popped up out of the deep recesses of my skull, this flood of "military memory," except perhaps to admit to benefitting from the luck of the draw, to express thanks.  

For me, Military Service was a great teacher, and to my good fortune, I enjoyed experiences from which I could actually learn and benefit.  For me, an irreplaceable moment in time!  Because the driving force of attitudes, beliefs and convictions could easily have turned at the wrong corner, I'm lucky to have gained from it, vs. merely having endured while incubating resentment, building discontent, bigotry and hatred, a fate that befalls too many.  I hasten to emphasize, I know I'm neither special nor superior, merely a fortunate by-product of experience, lucky to have melted in rather than boiled out of the pot, like some gaseous, toxic bubble belched forth to pollute or poison.      

That could be Airman Hackley (second row, second from
right)...  Looks like he's warming up to launch
a crowd murmuring  rebellion (please see para. last)!!   

Interestingly, and not necessarily the sole catalyst, our first "TI" or Training Instructor in the military was a Jew from Brooklyn, NY -- Sergeant Goldman.  He may well have set the tone for many.  Among the first of his pronouncements to new charges, a squadron-full of terrified young enlistees, was this:  "Some will tell you that in military service there's little room for prejudice.  I'm telling you this...  in my 'flight,' in this barracks, among my squads of airmen there is NO room for prejudice or racism.  None!"  That was in 1961.  Extraordinary!  

He may not have realized a legion of converts on the spot, but I know he made a lasting impression on many of us.  I often think of my time in the military, a crucible that helped forge ideas and values that still nourish and sustain.  So many different personalities, from so many different backgrounds and life experiences.  

                   --------------------------------------------------------
Epilogue:   It wasn't all enlightenment and wisdom, of course.  Anyone who ever served in the military no doubt has a similar story!  Lieutenant Peach was our linen supply officer at Goodfellow AFB.  On a rainy Friday he assembled the entire squadon to announce in a voice that could damage the ear drums of humans and dogs alike, "Men, someone's been 'dicking with the system' (his favorite phrase when piqued)!  Alright then," he squeaked on, face glowing crimson, "someone purloined a pillowcase??!!...  My count does not tally!!  We'll stand here all day if necessary until the miscreant confesses!"  

Had it not been for the Captain, we might still be standing at attention listening to the obtuse rantings of Lt. Peach.  Oh, and the brilliance of Airman Hackley who could mimic the murmuring of an angry crowd; it was his talent that probably summoned the Captain to our aid.  And the Peach complaint?  The Case of the Purloined Pillow Cover remains a mystery!  In the end, Lt. Peach was re-assigned to the motor pool in charge of drain-oil disposal and brake pedals.  He was never promoted and died in disgrace, an ancient, oil-stained and squeaky "Second Louie"!  (That last bit might be mere conjecture, part of the legend!)  

Humbly Submitted, May 7, 2015 -- Joel K.

                              

  

        

   

A New Wave of Conversation -- Or, Talking Points in the Geezer Age!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    A New Wave of Conversation -- Or, Talking Points in the Geezer Age!

Compare it to a fogged glass of memory -- like squinting through a scrim in a stage play -- I try to summon scenes of life from the bloom of youth -- back about two score and 5 or 10 years ago.  It's not easy trying to recall distant conversations, gathered round dining or drinking tables, discussions that so enthralled us.  What topics commanded our attention, those that initiated overlapping, rapid-fire dialogue?  And how do today's conversations with peers compare?  Back then, I know we talked about friends, sports, parties, games, jobs, school, major courses of study, even career ideas, military service experiences, politics, travel, money or the lack of it, and, yes, if less enthusiastically, the future, our future...

If we discussed anything having to do with the state of our health, it usually had to do with injuries incurred during sporting events -- a broken tibia suffered on the ski slopes, a rib cracked playing football or rugby, a "blown ACL" during soccer or rounding second base, a toe smashed by some behemoth lunatic galoot who landed on it in a volleyball match.

The Photo above  has little or nothing to do with this post.
I try to emulate Popeye, as I appear to be striking an
heroic pose aboard a stranded tug boat on Duluth's
Lake Superior shoreline.  The photo does,  however,
illustrate a descent into profound foolishness
that can often accompany geezer-hood!

  

 

And now?...

"Hello!  Is this Mrs. Geezie at the insurance place?...  Does my supplemental insurance cover a chiropractor?...  Uh huh...  Yes...  How about cosmetic surgery, like a jowl tuck...?  OK, yes...  I see.  Does Medicare cover the entire cost of a hip replacement?...  An ankle rebuild?  What?  Can you speak louder?..."

On a recent evening, my wife and I are having dinner with friends.  We'd been to an art museum.  (Doesn't seem that long ago the extent of our cultural enterprise would have been weaving from one saloon to another saloon!)  We stopped for dinner at a fine new restaurant.  Almost trendy.  I ordered a diet brown pop with a slice of lime.  (It's my current beverage of choice.  I get artificially inebriated lately drinking too much non-alcoholic wine-like stuff!)

I begin a conversation.  Our companions are "Yo" and "Glo":  "So, how are we doing?  How's your pain level.  I understand you've been having some trouble in the lower extremities?"

"Yeah, thanks for asking," says Yo.  "It's my shin bones.  I think I have splints, you know, from fast walking on cement or something."

"What are you doing for it," I ask.

"Ach...  what can one do?  I mean, the doctor says 'stay off your legs...  Rest, sit down, elevate your feet...  ice your shins 20, 30 minutes, two, three times a day...  And orthotics.  Do you have orthotics in your shoes?...'  Ah, for pity f-ing sake, I'm walking!  Not running 30 miles through Death Valley!!" 

"Yeah!  I know what you mean.  I get freezing toes on my right foot when I walk in winter.  I bought a mitten for my toes, but I can't find the damned thing.  My toes are always freezing.  Never used to freeze!  Think it's a kind of rheumatism?"

"Listen, my dear.  I going to dash out of here in a moment
so that we can 'beat the check.'  You wait a minute or
two, then you race out...!"
"Race!!??  Are you nuts!!?  I can barely rise!"

"Knees!" Yo announces truculently, like a biblical revelation.  "I got rattling dice in both my knees.  And my shoulder!  Geezus!  I lift a beer bottle and my shoulder erupts in a chorus of crunchy munchies and cracking twigs!"
"Please," I say.  "Don't ask me about knees.  I'm walking up steps in Milwaukee; they can hear me in Cincinnati!"

Glo addresses my wife.  "I think I have a kind of arthritis in my hands.  Really painful, especially when I mop."

"Tell me about it," says my wife.  "When I vacuum, my back is pure agony.  And mopping too.  It's that awkward body motion one has to use.  It's a misery!  I could be laid up an entire week!"

"Listen," I say to Yo, "What kind of pain medications do you take?  Ibuprofen, maybe?  Aspirin with codeine?  Smoke a joint?"

Glo jumps in, "I sometimes take a muscle relaxer, but they make me exhausted.  I'm destroyed for a whole day afterwards."  

"Ohmygod," my wife responds.  "Same with me!  I'm a sleep-walking zombie for 24 hours."  

A portrait of the artist
as a young geezer!

So when the hell did all of this happen, for crying out loud??!!  I mean, if someone introduces the subject of football or soccer, the conversation moves almost instantly into injuries suffered during a touch football game, or demonstrating a goalie move to a child,  resulting in involuntary splits -- impossible to reverse without the intervention of a team of medics and a mechanical hoist.  If we're not talking about grandkids, for example, we're a Greek Chorus, chanting agonies, surgeries, joint horrors and doctors who nearly killed us!  

As a young man, I worked in a liquor store run by a family of characters one couldn't possibly invent.  Rose, the elderly sister of the principal owner, shambled constantly back and forth through the aisles, arms folded, haunting the store like an anguished ghoul, announcing every 10 minutes or so, "Oh dear god, how I suffer, how I suffer!"  To which her brother, after every groan and lamentation, responded, "Rose, for god's sake, don't start with me!"  Or...  "Rose, shut the hell up, I'm beggink you...?!"  Sometimes...  "Rose, please, I'm trying to think...  I have a customer here...  We're discussing!"  

At the time, I thought, "If I ever degenerate into caricatures like these babbling lunatics, please, someone shoot me!"  But now -- and I'm still wondering when did this happen, for pity f-ing sake -- I'm there.  I'm "Rose" the roaming zombie ghoul, uttering ejaculations of pain as a knee collapses or a hip sends a bullet of agony into my tortured brain.

Back at the restaurant...  Yo asks, "Who's that old actor who said, 'getting old aint for sissies,' Bitzy or Netty something?"
"Yeah," I say.  "I think I remember.  It's almost funny, if sadly true.  Is she still with us; was this a recent observation?"
"Nah," says Yo.  "She's dead.  Couldn't be recent, unless she's been exhumed to make public service announcements for the elderly."  We chuckle.  

Sometimes I listen to my children and their friends as they chatter happily, noisily about subjects that probably consumed our own range of interests when my peers and I were young.  But, I wouldn't want to go backward; I'm perfectly happy to be firmly ensconced in "robust middle age"...  better known in some circles as "GeezerHood" or "senior status."  I mean, I get nice discounts, lots of them.  And after we play volleyball on Monday nights, I go sit down and change my shoes, while the youngsters take down and put away the nets.

Sometimes, older persons engage in
Fine Whining while dining!  As an
old friend once remarked, "I'm
only happy when I'm miserable...
or drinking!"  

Conversations may have taken a turn toward pills and the grave these days, but I wouldn't trade places with anyone who still gets pimples and embarrassment anxiety.  Good friends of our common generational status share values and history, and we can talk about things that would only bewilder, or bore, those begat a generation or two later than our own.  And besides, "geezer chatter" creates a world of amusement for our children and their children, if they happen to be listening.  It'd be remiss of us to deprive them of such a vast reservoir of potential ridicule, not to mention riotous mirth!

I hasten to apologize to those more advanced in years than I if I seem to be usurping their prerogatives of bruising misery and body pain complaints.  I merely wanted to effect a start, in case I can't somehow articulate a proper amount of verbal or written aging agony a decade or two hence!!  Thank you!  I have to go lie down now...  

(Special Note of Attribution and Gratitude:   The perpetrator of this Blog extends enormous thanks to his great friends, Rob and Sue, and to SweetHeart too!  Thank you for the fine suggestions, for the germs of ideas that led to this post and for your good company, or please accept my apologies, as the case may be!  My love and profound thanks for your patience, understanding and generosity of spirit!) 

Humbly Submitted 12-02-14 -- Joel K.