I have been accused of telling a “dad joke” or two dozen over the past few years, which is OK – I am, after all, a dad. I’m a four-time dad, in fact. And a three-time granddad. So, if you take the patriarchal equation just noted – and add the sound I now make routinely while trying to extract myself from a chair – you can safely surmise that I’m also getting up there in years.
What I’m trying not to do, however, is get down about either of those “getting ups.”
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After spending at least eight minutes of significant contemplation, I have concluded that aging is just a part of life. Granted, it’s usually the last part … and the part where you celebrate sales on generic medicine at the pharmacy … and the part where you spend an inordinate amount of time with male friends talking about the prostate … and the part where you consider walking at the mall legitimate exercise … and the part …
I’m sorry, I can’t remember what the next part is.
No matter – I have decided not to let those parts define me.
While I am definitely a senior citizen, I am, foremost, a citizen. And while I might have a vertical leap of four inches, what I’ve gained in wisdom over time is leaps and bounds more profound than the wisdom I possessed as a young man, particularly that time when I thought it was funny that my young son answered “Dad says it means go faster” after my wife asked him what the yellow traffic light means.
Kids, repeat after me: The yellow light means “slow down.”
But while I have reached, metaphorically speaking, the yellow light era of my life, I would just as soon not slow down right now.
Why?
Well, for starters, I have come to the conclusion that those four children don’t care to hear about what’s ailing me; they want to hear sage advice about how to navigate the mine fields of life. And those three grandkids – they don’t want to hear Pops start a sentence, “when I was your age …;” they want him to take them to Six Flags and act their age.
I did just that, a couple of months ago. I had more fun than they did. And they had plenty of fun.
Maybe that’s the best sage advice I can give here in this space this month: No matter the number of candles on the birthday cake, we should have fun blowing them out.
That’s pretty much the point we make this month, in a special feature that begins on page 46 and that salutes various entities in our region that salute seniors. Their quest – and, subsequently, ours – is to create opportunities for those of us experiencing the golden years to continue to strike gold. That’s a worthy quest.
And that’s no (dad) joke.
