Too damn old

Saturday marks another birthday for me. For the first six months of every year I enjoy ribbing Liz about my preference for running around with older women. Saturday she gets even. We’ll both be the same age again, this time officially entering our golden years on the receiving end of Medicare.
Like the song says, I feel too young to be this damn old.
Life’s measures come in various ways. Every Fourth of July I feel a bit guilty for not being in the hay field. We never lost many dollars shooting off fireworks because the baler never stopped until the hay got tough with the evening’s moisture. By that time we were too pooped to pop. The experience was repeated year after year, first with small square bales then with small round bales from an Allis-Chalmers and, more recently, big bales coming out of a Hesston.
I get itchy just thinking on this. But, truth be told, it’s been nearly 15 years since I last uncoupled a baler’s drive shaft from a tractor. I can’t believe where the time has gone. I feel too young to be this damn old.
I fight such feelings. Last night while riding my bike I got to thinking how much I still enjoyed motorcycles. For the second consecutive evening the weather was ideal for both riding and reminiscing. The memories kept rolling out as I rolled along.
My first date with the gal I later married was on a motorcycle. I learned how to ride on dad’s ’65 panhead Harley. It was a classic I never fully appreciated until dad unexpectedly traded it in for a brand new FTL Tour Glide he bought right off the Harley dealership showroom floor. When dad passed away, I acquired his new bike. It’s a 1984.
I feel too young to be this damn old.
Music dates a guy. I dunno if they even still do a “Top 40” anymore, but when I dial a golden oldies rock-n-roll radio station I hum along to most every song. It’s mindboggling how I never really learned the lyrics until now (the beat was all I needed when I was young). So even these old songs are still fresh to me:

“You say you want a revolu-tiooon, we-ell, you knooow …we all want to change the world.” That protest song of yesteryear is in sharp contrast to the Beatles’ lyrics that literally apply to me today: “…will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” And that’s not the worst of it. Nothing makes me feel so old and disconnected more than hearing a Beatles or Beach Boys favorite as a backdrop for some commercial. Talk about weird.

When our granddaughters visit, there’s really only one rule to the wading pool set up on the back deck: Do not squirt in someone’s face. When it happens (not if, but when), there’re usually tears and I never quite see who started what. Blame first, interrogate later, I always say.

“Did you squirt your sister in the face?” I ask. She nods, looking as forlorn and sad as a 4-year-old can look. It’s déjà vu from all those years spent raising her mother, her aunt and uncles. Except she gets me with her cuteness. I wasn’t always such a marshmallow. I should be the young disciplinarian I once was, but grandkids get me with their cuteness. I have to work on that.

Water fights trigger memories of raising our own kids, special memories including some that I’m not going to share. Those are just for me. So, my attention wanes as yet another water fight between these grand-sisters is underway and more tears are about to flow. As a young father I knew precisely what to do. Now I’m just too damn old.

It’s a miracle, really, for memories to be so fresh and vivid in mind’s eye and yet, to be this damn old.
My Bible gives the reason. Man was created immortal until sin crept in. So, our natural state is forever, and we think and live in these bodies as if life never ends. Come heaven or hell, immortality is truth for the soul inside. It’s the body that fails. Small wonder how we get old physically while still feeling so young on the inside. I know I’m not the only one who feels young, then looks in the mirror and knows the realities of too damn old.
We’re on the cusp of a new football season. I can’t wait. Basketball is the means for gridiron withdrawal; baseball drones on too long before football resumes. There’s nothing like that heart-pounding excitement just before kickoff, that brief and shining moment when you magically transition on the inside from spectator to that time wearing the pads as a 20-year-old  in uniform awaiting that jaw-jolting, arm-tingling first hit.
It’s been almost 45 years since pre-game jitters were actually real for me. Yet, when I attend a big game, I still get that adrenaline rush. So, you see, I know I’m too young to be this damn old.
If you can’t overlook the grey hair, sagging soft muscles and geriatric-ly rotund physique, you won’t see what’s going on inside. It’s the memories that keep us young and make us old.
And, I say again, I’m too young to be this damn old.