The Pursuit of Happiness

I’ve been raking leaves all week, making it impossible to avoid thinking about getting old and joining that grand compost pile in the sky. Falling leaves, like the incessant blinking of forgotten turn signals seen on every highway and byway, says that old age is all around us. And yet, old age is still the most unexpected of things. One day you’re who you’ve always been. The next day you’re Walter Brennan – and if you know who Walter Brennan is, well, God bless you, old timer.

There is a lot about being old I like. Time and money have finally come together. It’s almost impossible to feel embarrassed anymore. I know when a preacher or a politician is shooting pool with a rope. I no longer scheme to be thin, rich, or handsome. There isn’t anything I want to buy. And the moon still turns silver.

Old people have also lived history, and not merely read it. I know Ted Cruz looks like Joe McCarthy and sounds just like him, too. I knew Barack Obama was wearing JFK’s shoes when he marched advisers into Syria, and I knew what was going to happen. Republicans have never stopped saying that raising wages causes inflation. Democrats have never satisfied their lust for supervision. And Stairway to Heaven, Deborah Harry, and Raymond Chandler are proof that some things never get old.

The big truth is that everyone ends up with more money than time, and that includes Warren Buffett and the young guy on the corner bumming quarters. Old people are one physician-visit away from bad news, and between visits, we’re often puzzled by what’s happening to us. “I feel thin, sort of stretched,” says Bilbo Baggins, “like butter scraped over too much bread.”

I guess the lesson is to butter only the corner we’ve got the time to eat. We can’t stop our faces from wrinkling, but we can avoid a wrinkled heart, and if a conflict can’t be avoided, the old can at least plead deafness and nod amiably at everything everyone says, even if it’s raining jackasses. So, it’s all good. Happy Thanksgiving.