How to tell that you are officially a geezer: You have a chat with a sportswriter colleague who tells you in all honesty that he has never heard of Ring Lardner. It’s enough to make a guy take a cold plunge and hang by his eyeteeth on a hook in a closet while counting 50 in Squinch. You know me, Al.
21 thoughts on “Symptoms of being 55”
Comments are closed.
Mad Blog Media 
Oh, to be fifty-five again!
“Hey Nineteen
That’s ‘Retha Franklin
She don’t remember
The Queen of Soul
It’s hard times befallen
The sole survivors
She thinks I’m crazy
But I’m just growing old.” D. Fagen and W. Becker
Not far behind you–this old-fart will be 55 in August 2010. Symptoms? So far I’ve avoided any of those geezer handlebar stems as shown on the O’Grady bike fleet and was able to grind my way up Tre Cime di Lavaredo and Passo Gavia this summer without resorting to the prepared-for switch to a 30-29 low gear and a triple-equipped bike. My friend Chairman Bill, recently of Torelli Imports sez things go rapidly downhill once you’re past 50 so I’m prepared –but tryin’ to fight it off with cycling and plenty of vino rosso for as long as possible. Getting my weight down to 75 kg before next season will help me avoid the lower gearing (I hope!) but mentally I’m probably already too far gone! Wait, what was the topic?
I turned 55 today so your posting was timely. I feel more over educated in music and literature with each passing year.
Will be 55 in 5 months and…what were we talking about?
I was such a baseball afficionado as a child and teen I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Ring Lardner and read everything I could find (and believe me I was THRILLED) and then bought a compilation once I went to college to put in my “library” – something I associated with “growing up and being an adult”. Also associated with pre-internet days, also associated with being old , very old, very 55.
I wasn’t a big sports fan, but always loved Ring Lardner; E.B. White classified him as more of a satirist than a humorist, and there you have it. Soul brothers.
Damon Runyon is another fave’, and not just because he was a Colorado boy. Both Lardner and Runyon were newspapermen, of course, just like some other lesser-known writers whose bylines you may recognize (harumph, ahem, etc).
Phew….as someone who’s staring down the barrel of 40 (next Cinco de Mayo), I’m happy to see I’m still “young” somewhere- since I’ve never heard of Ring Lardner before now.
Thanks for making my 9-9-9 at least!
55 isn’t all that bad although it sure doesn’t feel like 45. But it sure beats the alternative, as Bill Clinton would say. Now, where are my meds?
Viejo,
Your not old… Your age challenged…. Kind of like I’m vertically impaired.
Your loving (and much younger) son.
Pendejo , you could be dead, your are just two days younger than me. I had a “friend ” call from a charlie daniels concert and ask when I last saw them. August 1975 Hughes Stadium Fort Collins Colorado. Just before my first semester as a “senior” with the Rolling Stones. Geezer my butt the tannic acid is just a s strong.
I’m 56 so give me a break. Go ride a route double your age and you will feel, if not better, at least different.
Don’t let other’s lack of cultural history knowledge make you feel your age, they just have missed out on so many cool things that will never pass this way again
Woodstock,
downtube shifters
6 spd cassettes
real animal based chamois
Nixon, well the young’ins have Bush Deuce.
Be well
6 spd cassettes? How about 5 spd freewheels? And no, I will never forget my last ride on “real animal based chamois”. The Contact Dermatitis From Hell that started near the beginning of a double metric…. those durn young whippersnappers don’t realize how easy they have it.
After a couple of decades of being 39 (it was good enough for Jack Benny, & good enough for me), I’ve decided that 59 is the “new” 39.
Now if I could just keep up with some of the 70 yr olds in the bike club, I’d be happy.
Cool things like Tricky Dick Nixon and animal-based chamois? Ya gotta be joking! I’m old enough to remember (but happy to forget) all of those, especially Nixon and the chamois. Waiting to see what my Viet Nam draft lottery number would be was about as fun as smearing that foul-smelling goop on the animal-based chamois before a race, only to accidently drag the thing on the ground as I tried to get into the damn shorts! Maybe Tricky Dicky’s in hell right now riding a bike up a steep hill in a headwind with sand and pebbles in his cycling shorts.
Jeezus Larry, now you had to go and bring in the lottery draft number fear ‘n loathing athon – hadn’t thought about that in decades. Love the pebbles in the shorts reference too…
I still wonder what my housemates thought of that fragrant Chammy Fat greased onto real animal chamois, loaded into Protogs merino wool shorts that weren’t washed every time. Especially since my room in that shared house was right off the kitchen. Maybe that’s why all my housemates lost weight…
My first adult bike was a Motobecane Mirage with a five speed freewheel the size of a frisbee; the big technological jump was that “ultra six” speed Sun Tour cogset I excitedly bought when I had enough legs to toss the frisbee and put on a 13-22. A close friend Karlin Meyers whose uncle Jim raced USCF (and probably still does, he is Jim Meyers of the Jim and Bill Meyers brothers, for you Colorado folks) gave him a custom bike with seventies Campy Record stuff on it and we all drooled to the point of dehydration.
Those were the days, whatever they were. At least we were young. A good friend of mine jokes that when we had legs, we couldn’t afford bikes. Now that we can afford bikes, we have old man’s legs.
Well, here’s to all the other old farts reading this and still ticking off the miles rather than sitting in Lazy Boy chairs and watching FAUX News. Patrick should be having a run on those Old Guys jerseys. And why not?
For me Patrick needs to modify the “Old guys who get fat in winter” slogan to SUMMER. 3+ months in Italy, even riding every day, while enjoying too much of the world’s tastiest food and wine has me (attempting at least)losing weight in the winter despite the challenges of getting any cycling miles on the frozen plains of Iowa. I can hear all the groans now, it’s a tough job but somebody has to do it!
You all got a lot of good times left before you really begin to seriously begin to understand old! It is a slow tough grind, but you have to do it.
As Patrick O’ once said “it is wear out than rust away”.
See what old age does for you!!
Larry, I’ve lived that jersey so much that I bought a second. And sadly the 2Xl and 3XL fit about the same all year round. Damn you O’G…that dude is FAT 24/7/365 no matter how much riding he does with me! But man, oh man, does Mexican food taste so good after a ride.
Or as Neil Young said, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away,”
Bring ’em on…
Just got back from a week in the Door Peninsula here in Westsconsin. Hiked a lot, rode a lot, ate a lot, drank lots of von Stiehl Lakeshore Fume’. Turning 55 Thursday meeself, and it was nice to come home to this thread. Happy birthdays one and all!
(great Mexican restaurants dotted around that area too)