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Getting old is not fun

By PAT WICK

© Another Day in the Country

Ideas for writing this column sometimes come at the most inopportune moments — like we're at the checkout stand in the grocery store and I hear someone say something. I think to myself, "I've got to remember that!" Or we're driving along on our way to Salina and there's a funny song on the radio that sparks a comment from my sister and I say, "We've got to remember that one — there's a column there." (But there isn't any paper to write on.) These fly-by-night ideas are long gone by the time I get to the computer.

The only safe ideas are the ones that come to me in bed, early in the morning, when I can toss them back and forth in my mind or roll them around carefully, like a snowball in winter, and before you know it I've got something — maybe not the whole snowman but at least the top half.

And then there are those days that I come down to the office and sit myself before the computer with its blank screen and I'm also as blank as the page. Then I go to my little folder in the bottom right-hand corner marked "Ideas for Another Day in the Country." One little blurb that I discovered this morning was entitled "Getting old isn't fun!" It's one of those topics that runs around in my head in the early morning, probably because we've done a lot of care-taking of the older set here in Ramona. And maybe the topic of aging was fresh in my mind because I FEEL OLD after cooking, hauling, cleaning, hauling, decorating, hauling, for the tea we just had in Ramona! (My arms ache, my feet ache, my back aches and for two days I've walked like an old-timer — very carefully. Of course, roto-tilling (which I did yesterday) doesn't help!

My daughter called to say "Happy Mother's Day" and as we talked, I suddenly said to her. "There's something I want to apologize for in advance and I guess Mother's Day is as good a time as any. When I get to the spot where I can't remember things, I ask questions that I just asked, I don't catch on, I'm confused, and a pain in the neck — I'm sorry. I may not know to tell you in 20 years, so, I'm telling you now. OK? Getting older is not the fun I anticipated when I was nine."

She said, "Oh, Mom, what brought this on? You won't do that."

I said, "Don't bet on it!"

The other day we were eating lunch at our favorite restaurant in Salina. On the way out we smiled at a lady and her daughter who'd also come for lunch and then we held the door as they maneuvered a wheelchair through it heading for a van with wheelchair ramp extended. On the side of the van was the name emblazoned "Holiday Resort." Now, obviously, this van was not the property of some vacation spot. It was evidently part of the services offered by a nursing home or some retirement center.

My sister shook her head, "There isn't any cute name that makes that stage of life better," she said grimly.

The name Holiday Resort reminds me of the assisted living center where Aunt Gertie now lives being called "Star Care" like you were some pampered guest — which they are, I guess, with the halls and rooms decorated like an English country garden.

It's another day in the country and Tony threw a magazine at Jess when she brought his mail and said, "Explain this to me! The world is changing so fast!" It was a catalog showing all the latest computers and electronic gidge-gadgets. "I can't," Jess said. "Its moving too fast for me — I thought I could keep up, stay in the race, but I've already conceded at 56."

Tony might be temporarily stumped by technology, but you know, I've never heard the man complain about getting older and the frustration of his limitations. He just keeps on trucking, stirring things up, inviting folks to dinner, planning how he'll attend the next family celebration. His pickup truck doesn't say "Holiday Resort" but the next best thing — Golden Gate Ranch, and by-gum he's still raising cattle, one way or another.

An old teacher cautioned me one time, "Live out life now, Pat, and live it fully. Do all the things you want to do now, because the Golden Years, aren't." We're dedicated to following that advice.

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