Old-Timers Aren't "Dumb"...Our Timing Is Just Off, So Give Us a Break, Huh?

As a kid growing up, I thankfully was taught to always have respect for my elders. Because of that training, I didn't hesitate to do things for seniors, especially my grandparents.

I remember a period of time while still a kid when my one granddad, who lived alone in a very small mobile home, took sick and needed someone to check in on him for several days. And later, after he had to move into a nursing home, I regularly went to visit him.

Then, as my other grandparents aged, my grandma got to the point where she no longer could drive safely. Since I already had a driver's license, I started taking her and my granddad places they wanted to go, as well as helping them with yard work when they needed it.

And, of course, I watched my parents grow into old age and need my help with different things. The hardest day of my life came when my brother and I had to put them in a nursing home in our hometown.

And now, guess what? I'm the old fella on the block, and just like all those kinfolk who came before me experienced, life isn't always a bowl of cherries. Certainly, like everyone else, we have some bad days, but what I'm talking about here is the assorted dumb stuff that just seems to happen more regularly once you reach senior status.

For example, I was reading an account yesterday evening of something that had happened to "a poor old guy, that really just hurt to watch," to borrow the words of an eyewitness. Seems this old guy was launching a vintage boat that the eyewitness estimated to be somewhere between a 1970 and 1975 Ranger bass boat.

He described it as being in "immaculate, mint condition. Obviously, he had babied this thing."

Anyway, he was launching it by himself and had tied the slack end of the launch rope to a tree beside the ramp. He then backed in until the boat had drifted off the trailer, then proceeded "to jump on the gas pretty hard to pull out," as some golden-agers are inclined to do. (My dad always revved the gas pedal right after his car started. Imagine his surprise when he had to start and move my car the morning after my best friend's dad had installed dual straight pipes on my ol' Chevy. I'd swear he reached my bedside in about three leaps.) Unfortunately, though, this poor old guy's slack rope "got wrapped around a bar on the back of the trailer and started doing like a block-and-tackle effect, as he just kept driving toward the parking area.

"That fiberglass hull made the ugliest sound I've ever heard," continued the eyewitness, "as it dragged completely up the ramp, on super rough pea-gravel concrete. I really was wondering if the boat was going to catch all the way up to the trailer, and if so, what would break next...but luckily, the rope finally snapped.

"The poor old guy didn't even know anything had happened until after he parked and started walking back down to the ramp.

"It took eight of us to lift the boat straight up in the air, then set it back down on the trailer. His hull was so heavily damaged, he now was afraid to even put it in the water.

"Watching that happen really sucked!"

In another case, an older fella, who usually fished with a partner, showed up at the ramp one day by himself. According to the eyewitness to this event, the older fella "acted a little confused this day but launched his boat without incident"...and then just proceeded to ease on out in the river and go fishing, without parking his truck. He came back six hours later, and there was his truck, still backed down the ramp just like he had left it. Fortunately, there were two other ramps patrons could use at that launch area.

I can't say I've ever pulled that trick yet. However, there was one occasion when I launched my boat at West Neck, parked my vehicle but forgot to close the rear doors on my van, and left them that way for eight hours...without anyone seemingly to have bothered a single thing.

Finally, there is this account of a fella who admitted to having a heart/neurological problem, which would cause him to pass out fairly frequently. He described a fishing trip with his brother and two cousins, and don't you know, right in the middle of fighting a fish on his fly rod, he passed out and subsequently drifted down the river right past his brother and one of his cousins. (Thank God for lifejackets.) He fortunately ended up about 200 yards downriver in a shallow back eddy. Otherwise, he would have entered some nasty rapids a short distance ahead.

In a separate incident, this same fella was fishing a bass tournament and passed out while drop-shot fishing. It all happened so quietly the boater didn't even realize his partner had fallen out of the boat until the victim came to and started hollering for help.

I thankfully don't have any heart/neurological problems that I'm aware of, but that not-so-distant spell of vertigo, coupled with an earlier episode of transient global amnesia, gave me reason to temporarily pause my solo trips on the water or in traffic. Unless I was riding with someone, I stayed close to home.

So maybe you're in your 50s and watching your own elders reaching their sunset years and thinking to yourself, "Will I end up just like them...with dumb things happening around me...and my just laughing it off when confronted about it?"

I still remember the day my brother and I confronted our dad about handing his driver's license to us. After all, he just recently had taken out a strip of steel girder along the road to the city park...much to the dismay of the local cops. Pop grabbed his wallet and handed over the license, all the while laughing and saying, "Here, take it, but I'll keep driving anyway. Besides, it's just a piece of paper." Fortunately, we got all of his vehicles sold before he could make good on that promise. Of course, my brother and I never could have guessed he would become nearly as big a problem with the city law enforcement after we gave him an electric scooter to ride at the nursing home. He saw fit to start riding it to town, whereupon my calls from the cops started all over again.

While doing my research for this item, I happened across an advertisement for a book written by the award-winning journalist Steven Petrow. Soon after his 50th birthday, he began assembling a list of "things I won't do when I get old"--mostly a catalog of all the things he thought his then 70-something-year-old parents were doing wrong. That list, which included such things as "You won't have to shout at me that I'm deaf," and "I won't blame the family dog for my incontinence," became the basis of this rousing collection of do's and don'ts, wills and won'ts that is equal parts hilarious, honest and practical in his book, Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old.

As Petrow wrote, "The fact is, we don't want to age the way previous generations did. 'Old people' hoard. They bore relatives--and strangers--with tales of their aches and pains. They insist on driving long after they've become a danger to others (and themselves). They eat dinner at 4 p.m. They swear they don't need a cane or walker (and guess what happens next). They never, ever apologize. But there is another way... ."

Petrow's book candidly addresses the fears, frustrations and stereotypes that accompany aging. He offers a blueprint for the new old age, and an understanding that aging and illness are not the same. As he noted, "I mean the list to serve as a pointed reminder--to me--to make different choices when I eventually cross the threshold to 'old.' (How well I remember making that same promise to myself when I was about Petrow's age. Maybe he'll have better luck than me. But if I was him, I wouldn't go making any bets just yet.)

"Getting older is a privilege," he continued. "This essential guide reveals how to do it with grace, wisdom, humor, and hope...and without hoarding."