Tag Archives: Old age

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Yet another old man’s rant…

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Photo credit: Getty Images. Unsplash license.

Everyone knows that it’s one of the infirmities of old age to be forever comparing the present to the past – and the past always comes off better. Entertainment was better when I was young… the clerks in stores were more polite and helpful… everyone dressed better… books and movies were better… etc.

Which is all true, undoubtedly. The People in Charge of Stuff Today don’t even deny it – they tell us the old ways were founded on oppression and exploitation. We should be happy to live in a smaller, meaner time now. We’ve got it coming to us.

Still, purely as an intellectual exercise, I can try to name some things I like better about the present.

  • I like having the internet. It makes research a breeze. It’s endlessly entertaining.
  • I like… actually, I can’t think of anything else. All the rest seems diminished and shabby.

Which brings me, in a meandering way, to tonight’s topic (such as it is). Something I’ve probably discussed before here.

At the Viking Festival in Green Bay, I had a conversation with a fellow Christian Viking, one of about my own age.

He talked about getting interested in Norse mythology as a kid. Reading the books, imagining the stories.

“But nowadays there are all these people around who actually worship Thor and Odin,” he says. “It makes it awkward.”

“They took the fun out of it,” I said. He agreed.

Thor was fun when nobody believed in him. Now he’s an object of active worship. Anything I do connected with Thor has become suspect from a Christian point of view. I’ve never worn a Mjolnir, a Thor’s hammer, because I don’t want to look like a practicing heathen. It could do injury to my neighbor’s soul.

Halloween is similar. If there were Christians warning against celebrating Halloween when I was a kid, I never heard of them. We kids dressed up, we Tricked and Treated (not me, living in the country, but I did attend Halloween celebrations at the schoolhouse in town), and it was innocent, because everybody knew witches didn’t exist.

Nowadays, there are lots of people running around calling themselves real-life witches.

It stopped being fun.

Let me be clear – I’ve said this many times – I don’t believe in witches as such. Not witches with magic powers. In terms of magic, I’m a thoroughgoing materialist.

But other people do believe. So it’s become an area where Christians probably ought not to trespass. Just to avoid the appearance of evil.

Thus, Halloween is taken from the children, and given over to adults, who’ve now made it a season of kink. (Or so I’m informed.)

For me, it’s pretty much all about candy now. Halloween means candy – not to give away to Trick or Treaters, but for myself.

At the grocery store yesterday, I found the Christmas candy was already out on the shelves. Including the little ones from Lindt – I can ration those out, just a couple a day, until spring (there’ll be Easter candy later).

Okay, that’s something good we have now that I didn’t have as a kid. Lindt chocolate.

Hey, when civilization is sliding into ruin, you enjoy what you can along the way.

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Blessed aches and pains

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It’s one of the most delightful and inspirational stories of American history. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who started as political allies in the Continental Congress – where they worked together on drafting the Declaration of Independence – became the bitterest of political enemies after independence had been won. Their approaches to government were very different, and their perceptions of dangers to the republic widely separated. The lies and vitriol both men (and especially their spokesmen) employed against each other in election campaigns make the ugliness of today’s politics look courtly and tame.

And yet, in their old age, the two men began corresponding, and became friends again. Amazingly, they died on the very same day – and that day was the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration. (Seriously. It’s true. Look it up.)

I’m recalling that story today, not for political purposes, but just to talk about old age – a subject of increasing interest to me.

I haven’t read the Adams-Jefferson letters (I know, I should). But I wonder if part of their reconciliation, beyond the fact that they were nearly the sole survivors of their generation, was the reconciling power of shared aches and pains.

I had opportunities recently to spend time with a couple of people from my youth. One of the particular tribulations to which a just Providence has subjected me in my dotage has been that pretty much every one of the friends of my youth, the people I was closest to, have walked away from the beliefs we shared. I have not changed (much). They have changed their views in almost every way.

And yet we spent time together in amity. Thinking it over afterward, I realized that we spent a lot of the time discussing our health complaints.

This is a topic that never fails among the old.

I remember being young (my memory is still that good), and I recall that one of the things we laughed about when talking about old people was how they couldn’t shut up about their aches and pains, their digestions and their prescriptions.

And I understand. I have no wish to impose tales of my dry skin and digestive habits on the healthy young, who should have their minds set on higher things.

But when we oldsters are together, ailment talk is great. It bridges divisions, awakens sympathy, and arouses our helpful instincts.

All part of God’s plan, no doubt. He has a wry sense of humor.