by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. One minute I was walking home through Harvard Square, savoring the exceptionally good meal I had just finished. The next minute, there were three or four boys peering down at me saying, “Sir, sir, are you alright?”
I recognized this voice, the special tone Harvard students reserve for the occasions (kept to as few as absolutely necessary) when the trajectory of their young lives intersects that of people like me who are Older and (because we are older) possibly deserving of Respect, and so getting the Voice that distinguishes the brightest students on earth.
I heard that Voice now directed at me… “Sir, sir, are you alright?”
And what occurred to me then was not that these young passersby were being kind, trying to assist me… but they were calling me, me, young, youthful, winsome, and capable of any mischief, they were calling me SIR… which meant they were viewing me as old, ancient, maybe past it and ready to be forwarded to the Smithsonian Institute for study as a geriatric specimen c. 1947. Outrageous! Unjust! And absolutely necessary to nip in the bud.
Thus, despite the inconvenience of my current position, sprawled on the treacherous black ice, the proximate cause of my abashing situation, as I was… the strongest possible response was necessary. So, I thrust up my arms with adolescent vigor and shouted, shouted I tell you as if I were aiming for the Guinness Book of Records, “DON’T CALL ME SIR!”
The boys grabbed both hands, yanked me up, set me properly on my feet, and all but pulled their forelocks in approved fashion, while asking me over and again, “Are you sure you’re alright, sir?” Until I was again forced to state my credo and considered position with the utmost seriousness, “DON’T CALL ME SIR!” And so, surly, ruffled, adamant, I shook off the youthful hands of my benefactors and continued my walk home, as briskly as if I were on parade, fuming, absolutely fuming. Sir, indeed!
The morning after, I was black and blue of body, but the real bruise had been to pride, ego, self image and the vain illusions we all have and cherish most carefully as we get older, day by day. And so I went to the mirror and made a full and complete reconnaissance, of face, hair, eyes, lines, bones, teeth, et al. I was thorough, detailed, honest to a fault, carefully calibrating each and every feature before me… and the most important one I could not see, but which was the most significant of all… brain.
I saw everything, missed nothing, scrutinized patiently. And then came to this scrupulous conclusion:
“Oh, the old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be, Ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be, Many long years ago.”
But I, on the other hand, look just as boyish and effervescent as ever… and so went forward with a song in my heart, having concluded those Harvard students, had no doubt erred on the side of caution, carefulness, covering their bases in case I’d been the visiting Crown Prince of some friendly power or panjandrum… paladin… or poobah. And so all was well again… and the fearful ravages of time and recognition kept at bay. Tra la!
And in an instant, the very flicker of an eye lash, I was singing that old folk song at the top of my voice and high stepping, as, well, as the horse Lady Suffolk, the first horse recorded as trotting a mile in less than two and a half minutes. It occurred on July 4, 1843 at the Beacon Course racetrack in Hoboken, New Jersey… when (and this is the important bit) she was more than 10 years old.
And I was happy… for Lady Suffolk… for me… and for all my still youthful cohorts still peppy, full of beans… until…
The next outrage.
Cambridge, Massachusetts features the most expensive grocery stores on this planet, a subject on which I can fulminate at a moment’s notice… but not today, for there is greater outrage than that to tell and examine. It happened just the other day at the check-out counter, always a place of shock, dismay, and people you never want to see again. Before she rung up my groceries, the check-out clerk, young, female, chipper in that nauseating way that comes with the breed, looked me in the eyes, her dimples fairly dancing, and said “Do you have your senior citizen discount card with you, sir?” One outrage piled on another… I tell you I saw red… every single shade of red, lurid, bloody, sanguine. I don’t mind telling you I virtually jumped on the counter, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead… whilst bellowing, “I’m NOT a senior citizen,” the words “you brainless twit” hanging in the air, never mind that I would have saved fully $4.56. What’s mere money when carefully contrived self illusion is at stake? The woman was wrong… and needed public chastisement and rebuke. My fuming mechanism was out and working at full capacity… again.
But the worst was yet to come…
As a progressive man, a broad-minded man, it is my pleasure to tell you I have 2 fine women physicians. Be apprised I have selected them for no other reason than their medical intelligence; their soft caressing hands have no part in the matter.
Just the other day, in preparation for my impending 65th birthday, one administered the full treatment which meant the full monte with probes and thrusts, always a situation of potential hazard. And this was the most hazardous of all… and my body reacted (I am proud to tell you) like a teen-ager’s. No words were necessary… but Doctor She took my hand and said, “There, there!” as if I were three or four and fallen down the well. And so the hot words poured out from my almost 65 summers to her 35, or so.
“Doctor,” I said. “with all due respect, never take a man’s hand and say such words, for they are insulting in the extreme. They imply that I am attenuated, adulterated, past it… and no man of mere 64 can ever allow that. It’s in our contract with Nature. I want you to know I am capable of every caper, every seduction, of climbing walls to assignations and pouncing in the approved manner… and my bedside manner is honed, refined, the practiced expertise of a lifetime.”
Her eyes grew large as saucers, whilst I, the bit well and truly between my teeth, rushed on… giving her a front-row seat to a once-in-a-lifetime declamation… something they didn’t teach her in med school, and more’s the pity. I was doing a Good Deed, and glad to do it, and the mere fact she had to help me button my cuff in no way diminished the effect.
I walked home proud… radiant… a living icon within a corona of pure energy.
To see such a man, at such a time, and many did, is a thrill to all, pure magic.
And when I started singing, with gusto mind, “The old gray mare”… I tell you people cheered, as well they might. For whatever be the state of other Baby Boomers, I, sir, am verifiably in my prime and shall remain so.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Details at worldprofit.com