Reprinted from the Carmel Pine Cone, September 5, 2013
Grandma liked to say that getting old was for the birds.
I had no idea what she was talking about, and not just because “for the birds” is an odd euphemism. It was the sort of thing old people said to confuse the kids, and Grandma was prone to saying a lot of odd things.
I assume what she really meant was that getting old stinks.
I hadn’t really thought about getting old until recently, after I lost an old friend to the ravages of decrepitude.
The loss wasn’t all that tragic. The old friend had it coming. He’d been following me around for decades, getting in my way and making a general nuisance of himself. I don’t really miss him, now that he’s gone.
Friends and acquaintances assumed that my old friend and me were inseparable. Most people had never seen me without him. He was like a pest that never went away.
But then one day my moustache got too old and fell off.
I suppose he thought that getting old was for the birds.
Anyway, the moustache is gone and I doubt he’ll ever come back.
And now I’m starting to wonder if I’m getting old too. After all, who else but an old person would refer to a distinguished body part as an “old friend?” Next thing you know, I’ll be listening to Fox News at 120 decibels and I’ll be taking up space at the local coffee house.
It’s hard to be sentimental about the moustache. I had the damn thing for a good 40 years, sure, and it stuck with me through thick and thin. It’s the one thing that I suspected would give me away in a police line-up, the one thing that emergency crews could use to identify me instantly had I ever fallen from a 50-story building and landed on my back.
Certainly, we had our difficulties. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I threatened to get rid of my old friend after the countless times it was confused for Gene Shalit.
And the Lord only knows what it was hiding in there.
We did have some happy times together, though.
My moustache and I were once introduced to Bob Hope, when the comedian was in town for some veterans’ convention. Bob Hope instantly teared up when he saw us. I asked him if he was okay, and he tearfully told me that the moustache reminded him of one of his old dead friends. Jerry Colonna.
And there was the time the moustache and I were given entourage access to a United Farm Workers’ rally after we were mistakenly identified as one of Cesar Chavez’s bodyguards.
The old friend came in handy on occasion. It blended in nicely, for instance, when I brought it along on travels to selected Southern European and Latin American nations.
But over time it became a useless companion.
It was evident it was getting old and, well, useless. It went off in different directions, hither and yon, all on the same head. My face started to look as though a lunatic had been set loose with one of those Wooly Willy magnet toys.
Like most of my old friends, it started to develop a mind of its own. It became unruly and it tended to wander.
It demanded more from me, more than I was willing to give. We developed a passive-aggressive relationship, and it got old and gray until it finally fell off completely.
I don’t miss it one bit. But memories of the old friend do haunt, especially as I recall its final days, when it was old and decrepit and useless.
Signs of old age can be eliminated or manipulated. Wrinkles can be removed, sagging bodies can be surgically restructured, and decrepit old moustaches can fall off. But all the reengineering in the world can’t stop the aging process.
Ironically, friends and acquaintances tell me that I look at least 10 years younger now that my old friend has departed. I suspect what they really mean is that I now only look like a 90-year-old.
At least, that’s how my knees feel.
And yes, Grandma, getting old is for the birds.
The Santa Lechuga Expectorator 