Move it, pops
Young Judy Clemens popped me right in the snooter the other day. Not literally. Although she and I are both Ohioans, several hundred miles of wild prairie separate us. So she is no physical threat to me. No, it was more a metaphorical pop in the snooter. Here’s what happened:
Last week in her blog, she talked about being in a bad storm. In my comment, I told her I had actually survived the horrible 1969 July 4th storm that hit northern Ohio.
She said she didn’t remember that storm, inasmuch as she was only four months old at the time. FOUR MONTHS OLD IN 1969? GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY!
I was 20 in 1969.
Which makes me 58 now.
Yes, yes, it also means that Judy is 39 now. But 39? That’s the perfect age. That is the age I still think I am. That is the age Jack Benny always said he was, even though he was way older and everybody used to laugh and laugh when he said it.
(Judy: If you don’t know who Jack Benny was, Google him on your computer. Ditto if you don’t know who originated the term “Good Golly Miss Molly.” I can’t waste what precious little time I have left educating the young.)
Somehow I have turned into an old guy. The checkout girls at the grocery call me sir. Waitresses ask me if I have a Golden Buckeye Card. My doctor gives me one of those annually uncomfortable exams. Every time I get a haircut the barber grouches that I have a lot of hair for a guy my age. When I go to the mall I’m one of the oldest people walking around. I have a daughter only five years younger that Judy Clemens.
To be fair, except for my little belt buckle-rubbing belly, and the fact that I groan like a sick goat every time I get out of the car, I am at the top of my game. I am doing my best work. I somehow know how to fix all sorts of things around the house. When I teach a class or speak in public, people figure I know what I’m talking about. And by every measure I have never been happier in my life.
And it’s not that I’m running out of time to write all those novels chirping away in my brain like a million little tree frogs. As writers go, 58 is just getting started. Yesterday I read a story about a 92-year-old guy in Florida who hit a hole-in-one. And he is legally blind! So, God willing, I’ve got a way to go.
Still, it is true that I still see myself as a young guy. I am regularly shocked when I catch my image in a mirror or window. That’s me? That’s what I look like? Really?
Good Golly Miss Molly, I am downright avuncular!
(Look it up, Miss Clemens)
