When I Was A Child

I turned 66 last week. (If you missed my birthday, there’s still time for that belated gift or card.) I had a good day with all the traditional trappings: cards, kind words on social media, dinner out, cake and ice cream.

But 66? Seriously? I don’t know how that happened.

When I say I don’t feel 66, I really mean it, despite the daily reminders from my body. Nate Bargatze, a young buck in his 40’s, is starting to feel the effects of aging. If you’re over 40, you’ll relate to this short clip. If you’re under 40, here’s a preview of coming attractions.

I see old folks, even interact with them. In my mind, I’m a lot younger than they are. Often, I have to remind myself I’m talking to a peer, that it’s not some young version of me chatting with a senior citizen. The other day I jogged ahead to open a door for a guy who was maybe 50. As he walked past me, I realized I was holding the door for a guy a decade younger than me.

In a lot of ways, I just don’t act like an adult. The other night, Melanie and I went to dinner at a steakhouse with a few friends. Five out of six ordered a steak and salad. Just one ordered a sandwich with fries. Guess who?

Also, no seafood for me. Lobster, shrimp, salmon? No, no, and no. In Texas, they love a good crawfish boil. That would be a hard no on so many levels. I’m down with a tuna sandwich, but that’s as close as I get to the sea. I now scoff at those who say, “It doesn’t really taste like fish.” Then I take a bite…fishy. I won’t get fooled again.

I don’t drink alcohol or coffee, two tastes I’ve never acquired. Taking on the persona of a fifth-grader, I opt for a Coke or maybe a hot chocolate with whipped cream. Recently at a Mexican restaurant, I separated out the peas and green bean shards in my rice. I’d love to tell you it’s an isolated incident, but that would be a lie. As my dad used to tell me, I’m a picky eater. Only, he added his favorite expletives. I’m sure he’d say the same today if he dined with me.

I love free refills and look forward to any excuse to eat ice cream. I eschew most vegetables. In my mind I can still play any sport I want to play with no consequence to my body. Yes, I may be older and slower (may be?), but I get frustrated when my body won’t cash the checks my mind writes.

Want more examples? I wear white socks sometimes with dress shoes. In thirty-three years of teaching, I almost never wore a tie. In my career, I can count on two hands the number of times I wore a tie to school. In fact, I don’t even know how to tie a tie. The few I have in my closet are already tied. In the rare event I wear one, I slip it on like a noose and can’t wait to remove it as soon as I get home.

I play silly games online. Risk and cribbage and Bubbleshooter are my current adolescent distractions. There’s also APBA, a baseball simulation using actual players from the past and you can match them against other teams from different eras. I can play my beloved ’89 A’s vs. the Gashouse Gang or the Go-Go Sox or the Big Red Machine. Twelve-year-old me says, “It’s super-cool!”

I suppose some of these traits make me a good teacher for high school and college. I know I’m older. Okay, really a LOT older. than my students. I’m teaching dual-credit frosh right now, which makes them 14 or 15. That makes me more than four times older than them. To rephrase it, I was born in 1960, while they were born in 2011. You don’t have to be Einstein to do that math.

Despite the Grand Canyon disparity of years, I think I’m one of them. I’m not like those geezers teaching down the hall. When a student mentions taking a road trip with her volleyball team, I ask where the team ate or how nice the hotel room was. One guy had dental work done, and I started comparing stories. In my mind, we’re just a couple of young folks chatting it up. Is that weird?

Sandra Cisneros wrote a brilliant short story entitled Eleven. In it, she speaks in the voice of a young girl discussing her eleventh birthday. She’s having a very bad day and feels much younger than her eleven years. Here’s a brief excerpt:

Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of
you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your
mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five.

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings
inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the
other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.

“Like an onion or rings inside a tree.” Brilliant. Cisneros gets it, which makes me think I’m not the only one who doesn’t really feel my age all the time or think like a sexagenarian. Maybe it’s more common than I believed.

Sure, you’re an adult in a lot of ways. Me too. You like seafood and coffee (probably not together), and maybe even enjoy dressing up. You love a good kale salad and treat a bowl of blueberries as dessert. But are you truly an adult through and through, with not a shard of childhood?

I doubt it. I don’t long to live in the past. I know I’m two years beyond the adolescent Beatles musing about a distant life in When I’m Sixty-Four. By the way, only two are still with us now, Ringo at 85 and Paul at 83. They may be longing for the good old days of twenty years ago when they were “only” in their 60’s. But I digress.

Maybe none of us are truly and thoroughly adults. Maybe we play the part with other adults, when necessary. We drive to work, pay our bills, do the senior citizen classes at the gym. We gleefully embrace the senior discount at restaurants and compare Medicare tales.

Let’s be honest, though. When no one is looking, you lick the remnants of peanut butter and jelly that escaped your toast. Or you gnaw on your nails when the going gets tough. Possibly, you hang on to an old concert t-shirt because tossing it would be removing a vestige of your younger days or admitting your age. You listen to oldies and sing loudly and badly.

It’s okay, your secret is safe with me. We young folks, we have to stick together. Some day, we might get old.

Thanks for reading!

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