You know you’re getting old

It was just a short bike ride over the hill. That’s where, growing up, Jerry, my best friend, lived. We were in the same grade back at Clement. If we didn’t have farm work or chores, I would probably be over at his house or he would be at mine.

We would ride bikes, roam the woods and do kid stuff. But mainly we would play ball, and that would include whatever ball was in season. Jerry was a very good ballplayer, no matter if it was baseball, basketball, or whatever ball. I was, well, just a ballplayer. We would play a lot of one on one basketball, and of course, Jerry would almost always win. But once in a while I would sneak a win. (Looking back now, I wonder if he didn’t just let me win one occasionally, just to make me feel better.)

All these years later, we still keep in contact with other, calling each other every now and then. Now the phone calls often begin with, “Did you hear that so and so passed away?” Yes, we are that age.

Last year, when Jerry turned seventy, I called him on his birthday. I told him, “Remember those days back then when we thought seventy was old?”

“Yep,” he replied.

“We were right.”

Well, I hit seventy a couple of weeks ago. Now it’s my time to get those “you’re old” jokes and shots. (Actually, I’ve already been getting them for a few years.) And that has to include one of those “You know you’re getting old” birthday cards. Thank you, Sonny. Sonny is my buddy from church. (You would think proper church folk wouldn’t do such things.)

The card is actually pretty funny, in a sort of painful way. So, according to the card, here’s when you know you’re getting older….

“Everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work.”

“You feel like the morning after, and you didn’t go anywhere the night before.”

“Your knees buckle and your belt won’t.”

“You can only burn the midnight oil until nine o’clock.”

“The twinkle in your eyes is the sun hitting your bifocals.”

“Your back goes out more often than you do.”

Finally, according to the card, “Another sure-fire way to know you’re getting older is when cards like this start showing up on your birthday!” And the cards have started showing up!

But for many, the truth is getting older isn’t funny. I was reminded of that when I recently saw someone from my days back at Clement, who is now bed bound. And there are others I know that are having a really tough time physically as they get older.

As I see what others are going through, I realize I’ve been blessed and fortunate to be in pretty good health as I head into my seventies. I try to follow the example of my late friend and landscaping buddy, Chick Gancer, who was out there with us cutting bushes into his eighties. Someone asked me one time how Chick kept going. I said, “That’s it, he keeps going.”

So I’m going to try to keep going. There’s a final destination ahead of me that I settled many years ago when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. But it’s the road getting there that sometimes concerns me. But I take comfort in knowing the One who controls my final destination also controls my road getting there. In the meantime, I’m going to keep on going, and look forward to more of those “You know you’re getting old” birthday cards.