Welcome to the Club

I wrote this in about 2012, and recently did some editing. I think it's ready now. Of course, with my own writing, I'm getting easier to please all the time. 

My New Membership

I apparently joined a club recently. I say ‘apparently’ because I hadn’t intended to join anything. I made no applications, signed nothing and swore not a single oath. I bought neither identifying baseball cap nor polo shirt with a logo. I attend  no monthly meetings, I pay no dues (except of a non-monetary kind I’ll explain later), and I don’t have to worry about getting elected to some post that all of the older members are sick of holding.

New guys in most clubs are generally gung-ho when they join and are easy marks to be saddled with ‘elected’ officer positions. When a guy boasts to me that he’s only been in the club for a year and he’s already the vice-president, I have to mentally shake my head. He’ll wise up before long. Why do you suppose I was elected President of our local Fire Department so soon after joining?

Actually it’s taken me a while to recognize that I did in fact join this club. I’ve already explained that since I took none of the above normal club-joining actions, I had no reason to think that I had been admitted to this one, and in good standing, by all appearances.

I had been going about my business of living my semi-retired life style when other club members started in various unobtrusive ways to let me know that I was now one of them and to make me feel welcome.

I’ve been wondering too, if I’m correct in calling it a ‘club.’ Maybe I should call it a ‘lodge.’ I’ve always liked the sound of that word. It seems to have pleasant connotations. But it could just as well be called a fraternity, a council, or a gang I suppose. I’ve considered asking a member about it when one of our little discussions occurs, but I don’t think the other members would agree on what it should be called. It appears that this club is pretty loosely organized and although I’m slowly learning some of the rules that govern member-to-member interactions, I doubt that this club has a written constitution or by-laws.

By the way, I’ve always loved the names that have been invented for a ‘collective group of nouns.’ In other words, it tickles me that a group of crows is called a ‘murder’ of crows. Or that a group of barracudas is a ‘battery'. I think that the members of this club I've just joined should be termed a ‘grumble’ of members, although the people I’ve met have done lots more than just complain; but I digress.

The occurrence that finally settled in my mind that I am indeed a new member was when, as I stood waiting for my pizza to be made up at Papa Murphey’s the other day, an old guy standing nearby, also waiting for his, edged closer to me and said, “I like to add cut-up green and yellow beans to my pizzas. Cut ‘em about so long”, indicating 3/4 inch with his fingers. I commented that I had never thought of putting any sort of beans on a pizza, but that I thought it was an interesting idea. “Try it sometime”, he said knowingly as he stepped forward to claim his pizza as his name, Jerry, was called.

I have to admit that I perceived Jerry as an 'old' guy. He was clearly older than I was but I thought that guys that old probably had names like ‘Horace’ or ‘Farley’, or something similar. That his name was Jerry threw me a little and I began to realize that he was probably not that much my senior.

This meeting and bit of conversation followed a similar give-and-take that had happened about a week earlier at the Budget Dollar Cash Liquidators, at which I was a new and very enthusiastic shopper.

I had just entered the store and stopped first, as I always did, at the shelves that contain the unusual beverages that this store sells. There was an old guy standing in front of the same shelves, slowly scanning the dozens of unique looking bottles, cans, and boxes of drinks. When he saw me, he said, “Forgot my glasses and I haven’t found the coconut water that I like.”
“Oh,” I replied, feeling an immediate bond with this guy for our shared passion, “I buy it all the time. They keep the stuff I like, Vita-Coco, over on another shelf. Its 49 cents a box. Unless you’d rather have this brand that has lime added,” and I hauled down a can from a high shelf. I had fortunately remembered to bring my own reading glasses along that day and kept them perched on the top of my head when not in use.

“Naw” he grumbled, “I don’t like that lime in it at all. It’s a big can I know, but they want 99 cents for that one and the lime is too strong. Hides the taste of the coconut”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “I’ll show you where the other ones are if you want…right over here…”

There have been numerous other incidents. The old guys sitting outside Elmer’s raising funds for the Viet Nam Vets, or the Disabled Vets, or the American Legion, spot me coming at a distance. They know somehow that I’m good for a couple of bucks, and they greet me with a smile while I’m still some distance out. (I guess they must have all remembered their glasses.) They thank me for my donation with a “thanks” that I think has a slightly different intonation that what they use on other folks. Kind of like they know me; like we share something.

Finally, I remember the old guy that first asked me for help at the Holiday Gas Station’s pumps. He said he wanted to buy gas using his credit card and, not having done it before, wondered if I’d mind showing him how it’s done. I was glad to help of course, but surprised to have been approached. Usually, one does not strike up conversations with strangers at a gas station.

All these incidents taken together got me thinking. I looked at myself in the mirror the morning after my conversation with Jerry a little more closely than I usually do and with a different mind-set. Because of the genes I inherited from my mother, my hair is still thick and black. No sign of thinning or grey. My face though is well-lined and my neck is starting to resemble that of a turkey, with more loose skin than I like. I used to be fairly broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted. I don’t think that my shoulders have changed much, but with the passage of time, I’d have to now admit that my waist is at least as broad as my shoulders are and possibly a bit broader, depending on the angle. I have somehow become pear-shaped.

I had to admit to myself in front of the mirror that morning, that despite the dark stuff on top, I am an old guy. In other words, a duffer, an old fart, a geezer. I just hadn’t realized it before and it took several meetings with the other members of my new club to realize that I had at some point, crossed the line.

Actually, I rather like it. I don’t mind having to pay the dues of wrinkles and extra pounds to belong to this club; at least, not yet anyway. I find myself looking forward to the next time another ‘old guy’ or ‘old woman’ for that matter, begins a conversation with me.

As a matter of fact, my first discussion with an old woman happened just yesterday and centered on the fact that she could not find the expiration date on a bag of rotini that we were both considering at my favorite store. Since I did again have my reading glasses available, I was able to tell her that the important date was in 2013. I felt a kinship to her as we each selected a bag, and went our separate ways down the aisles.

Now that I know that I’m one of them, I will be ready to acknowledge my membership by approaching other members as I shop, pump gas, sit in a doctor’s office, or do any of the other sorts of things my type is likely to do.

They say that there are only two things that we all have to do; that is of course, to pay taxes and to die. And before most of us die, we get old, so keep this little narrative in mind.

If you are going about your business sometime, and somebody old wants to talk to you about pizza or coconut water or who-knows-what, take the hint. You’ve made it, my friend. You’re one of us. Welcome to the club.

Postscript from New Zealand:  It's three years later and I'm even more firmly entrenched in the club. Here, we male club members have a sort of unofficial uniform. It consists of  floppy hat, sun glasses, shirt, shorts and shoes. Many of us pull a 'trolley' for the shopping that we do. Many of us often have grandchildren in tow, although who tows who is sometimes in question. We members often meet each other at playgrounds and schools and supermarkets. We seem to be the majority of passengers on most of the city buses.*  Life is pretty good.

Earlier today, as Jeanne and I left the house to pick the boys up after school, I  wobbled just a bit as we stepped onto the sidewalk and cut Jeanne off.  She then suggested changing the name of our group to a  'stumble'(of geezers), rather than the 'grumble' I had coined originally. I see her point. I seem to do some of each lately.                          

After-thought and addition to this post:  Actually, there are quite a few more names for groups of geezers that are descriptive, at least part of the time anyway.  Consider a bumbling, crumbling, fumbling, humbling, mumbling, and rumbling of geezers,

BTW, are all of you continuing to read those 'side-bar' bits? I update those now and then, so at least scan them quickly once in a while for something new.

*At age 65, bus and train rides are free and ferries are discounted. Oh boy!        -djf