In the on-deck circle

Thoughts on aging gracefully

Photo by Nina Hill on Unsplash

Aspects of aging are starting to get on my nerves. I wish this weren’t true, but it is. I don’t know why this should happen, since I have always loved older people. My great regard for them began with my grandfather, whom I adored not least for the way he adored us grandkids. He popped his false teeth out of his mouth for us, and then gulped them back in. (We didn’t know they were false, so you can imagine how impressed we were by his presumed talent.) He shook our hands so hard our arms felt like they were going to fall off our bodies, saying, How do, how do, how do! He lifted us onto his lap, and let us listen to the Minnesota Twins on the transistor radio with him. Once he pulled a tick off me, barehanded, with nary a shudder. Best of all, he didn’t mind me kissing his dog on the lips— he did it, too.