REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER
So, people are worried, because we have our first octogenarian president. The worriers include me. I’m concerned that Joe Biden is not old enough yet for the office.
“Old enough for…” is a moving target.
The first time I figured I was old was when I accidentally went into a big grocery store on Senior Citizen Day. I had just run in to get some dog food for Wags. [J. Rodsdale Wagsworth, III] I got trapped behind old ladies pushing carts, old men with bifocals trying to read labels, old people comparing current prices with those of 1922. “Why, I can remember when this was only…”
I finally got the dog food and managed to get to the checkout. The cashier was… maybe 19. She looked at me and rang up the Senior Citizen Day discount. I didn’t know exactly what age activated that discount, but I was sure it wasn’t 43. I started to yell, “How old to you think I am, anyway?” Then I realized that was not a smart question to ask a nineteen-year-old. She was probably seeing only my bald head and white beard, not my trim and taut runner’s physique. [Some people called it “scrawny.”]
Of course, being bald and
white bearded and scrawny at 43 allows people to say for the next 40 or 50
years, “Why, you haven’t changed a bit.” Anyway, I figured if she was going to
insult me by seeing me as a senior citizen, I’d just take the discount, even
though I wasn’t old enough.
There have been more points
along the way when I thought I was old enough, but then I found out I wasn’t.
That has plagued me ever since, not being old enough. Not just for senior
discounts; I passed that line a long time. No, the problem is being old enough
to know everything I need to know. There is always something else that I need
to get right, need to figure out, need to understand, need to avoid…
Poor Joe Biden. Only 80. He thinks turkeys should be pardoned. Still not old enough…
John Robert McFarland
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