When I'm Sixty-Four

        I have been giving more and increasingly unhealthy thought lately to the whole thing about getting old. I reached a new level last week when I truncated a hike through the rain forest in Puerto Rico about halfway down the 30 minute down, 45 minutes up trail. I stopped and went back up because, well, because I thought the return trip might be too tough. I think it’s the first time I didn’t do something because I was…too old. 

        On the whole I think that ignoring these things is the best approach. My standard routine is that as long as I ski, play my guitar and coach little league, however badly in each case everything is OK. Within the past few years I even managed to fall off a motorcycle, a plus in this context.

        But in the cultural context another reality lies. The Beatles said it as:

                  When I get older, losing my hair

                  Many years from now

And what happens then?

                 You can knit a sweater by the fireside

                 Sunday mornings, go for a ride

        When is this? When is this?

                 Will you still need me, will you still feed me

                 When I’m 64?

         

        When I’m 63 it doesn’t seem that 64 is “many years from now”, and I just do not think it is down to “Sunday morning go for a ride”. What were they (we) thinking?

        The Beatles at least were cheerful. From where I sit 70 does not look so awfully far away, and how does it look to Simon and Garfunkel who are now 68?

                 Old friends, old friends

                 Sat on their park bench like bookends

Ouch.

                 Can you imagine us years from today,

                 Sharing a park bench quietly

                 How terribly strange to be seventy

        It doesn’t seem all that strange to me any more. I guess that guys who write songs when they are 25 might look at things differently in 40 years. That happens, I suppose.

        I should have walked down the goddamn trail.