There are always interesting things occurring in the Villages. For example, we have a neighbor who will shortly be having his 60th birthday. He is all excited about it, and has even invited the entire neighborhood to a party. I have tried to tell him of what will happen once he hits that date, but he just shrugs off my experienced comments. In some countries folks listen to their elders even if there is only a few years in the “old” section.
I try to be nice about it too by casually mentioning things as we go along. For example, when we are playing golf, and he will give the ball a good smack sending it way down the fairway – not necessarily straight, but down quite a ways. I then try to lessen what I know will be a jolting impact once he hits 60. He will find that his drives will drop by at least 10 yards on the day after his 60th and decrease steadily thereafter. The poor guy does not believe it.
He will as other signs begin to show up. He will find that he be automatically be given a senior discount. The clerks will no longer ask him his age. People, including little old ladies, will start to hold the door open for him. Guys still in their 50’s will offer him their seats. Scads of brochures on assisted living will start filling his postal box. Cruise lines will point out that that their ships have elevators so that he will not have to use steps. D.J.’s will wonder what tune from the 50’s he would like to hear. Oh, the signs will multiple as the days go on – and then he will believe!
We have another neighbor – “ex” in this case, who is experiencing a somewhat similar problem, although not the “60” problem which he has passed. It seems that the softball division in which he has been playing for a goodly number of years gives a name to its season ending tournament. They normally name it after a player who has passed on and call it something like the “Joe Player Memorial Tournament”. They could not do this type of naming with our ex-neighbor as he is still very much with us. Obviously, the smart softball brains of that division needed to come up with something that would To make things simpler from this point, let us call this ex-neighbor “Billy”. That name is as good as any – well maybe not any – but it will suffice for purposes of this discussion. Zombies are very popular as you know and are still somewhat alive so “Billy the Zombie Tournament” was suggested as a name. However, after much debate it was rejected. After more thought they determined to call it the “Billy the Kid Not Dead Yet Tournament”. There was one downside to this though as it was understood that while he was and had been known as Billy the Kid, immediately after the game he would assume his mature title of “Billy the Old”
The neighbor I mentioned in the first paragraph does not have to worry about this as his name is not Billy, but I imagine that other age signs will come his way. Betty Davis once exclaimed that “getting old is not for sissies”. Neither of the above fall in such a category. I truly believe that both will struggle through – despite the drop in their golf drives and a few other minor irritants.
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com
