GETTING OLD Retired at 83          Aug.23, 1999

Abed this morning, I was remembering some of the mountain hikes that included my Dad and my son Mark.  Dad was 79 and hikers were looking for us to arrive at the various campsites.  Dad had a foot injury and could climb up better than he could climb down.  We stretched out on the trail, each as his own pace.  We would wait up for rest stops and lunchtime.  Most of the time Dad was up ahead at a ridge, watching to see our approach.  We stopped for pictures, for extra breathing etc.  When he saw that we were following along. He would turn and disappear into the next valley.

We knew that we would see him again.  At near dark he would be waiting at a proper place just off the trail, where we could lower our backpacks.  There, would be a little stream, and a safe place to build our campfire.  We shared the light, the food, and the company.  Also the things we had thought about during the day.  We each picked out the spot where we would make our bed.  Dad ‘s would be off a little way to himself.  When the new day arrived we would pack up and start out on the trail again, together.

Now I am 83, the Old Man at the crest, you are coming along and it’s time for me to turn and be the first to see the other side.

I think that Dad has found a camping place and is waiting for us.

It’s been a long, long day.

“SO YOU ARE RETIRED”

Growing old is different than getting old.  From our birth we are growing, up and older.  I am told that there is Young Old, Old, and Old Old.  Getting OLD,OLD is on the final slope.

We don’t grow old; we stop growing and begin to age.

I am experiencing two paradox:

As I move, think and talk more slowly, I age faster.

As I age faster, the World moves faster, faster.

Though we are out-paced, by-passed, up-staged and over-run by the World;

When we are [gone] the World is [left behind.]

My computer and I have grown old together.  Neither can communicate acceptably in real time.

Now to save our shared memory of ten years, I am forced to print out and fill pre-computer folders, that now appear as Icons for Windows ME.

Retired now at 83, I find that I don’t want to take it with me!

While a young man I wanted my initials NBW cut deeply into Granite.  Now I can rest well in an unmarked place.

Old men must try to remember that that even tho’ asked for an answer, they must not take the opportunity to give one!

A query about your health is only a gesture that requires a three-word answer,

“Pretty well thanks”

Remember although your memory shrinks, you still have too much to share with others.

When interrupted, try to stop speaking immediately.  Then don’t try to pick up the thought.  Seldom will any of several people expect continuity.  They weren’t listening anyway!

Don’t be offended; they weren’t listening to each other either.  I know the fear that you won’t think of it again, but you will!

HERE AND FOLLOWING ARE MY OBSERVED SIGNS OF AGING

You enjoy younger people having ‘fun’ more than doing it yourself.

When you cover your naked body for Pride’s sake instead of for Modesty’s sake.

When you talk mostly to other old people.  They can’t hear or remember either, but it doesn’t make any difference!

When you were young:  The more times you did something, the more times you could do it.  Now, the more times you do something, the less times you Can do it!

A sick young man feels old.  A sick Old man can’t tell if he is sick Or old!

A sick young man expects to get well.  A sick old man may get well but he still feels like a sick young man.

An old man attends reunions because he might miss the next one.  A really old man attends because there are still a few friends left.  An old, old man stays home------ there is no one else left.

The retired man says that every day is like Friday, because he has the next day off.  But he didn’t work Friday either.

The retiree has more time to watch the moving shadow on the floor.  But the shadow seems to be moving faster. 

The old man is considered a good candidate for joint replacement.  He won’t outlast the warrantee on the appliance.

When the shelf life of your breakfast is longer than your expectancy.

When you realize that you have less time left, it takes longer to do the job.

When you can’t hear the sounds around you, but the sounds in your head can’t be ignored.  You can’t chew and listen at the same time.

You may get more hugs, but they don’t seem to mean as much.

While I am thinking, my screen goes to save.  We both take a nap.

When you store the camping stuff behind the Christmas stuff.

When you store your son’s train set at your house and neither he nor his sons want to see it setup for Christmas.

When your friends are too old to use the upstairs guest rooms.

When the driver’s license is more important than the car you drive.

When a trip to the curbside mailbox is enough to elevate your cardia / vascular readings.

When the use of Viagra is no longer indicated!

When Old peoples’ jokes aren’t funny.

When young people’s jokes aren’t funny either.

The Funny paper is no longer comic.

The television tells you more than you want to know.

When your sex objects are in the shampoo ads.

You are no longer young; if you think Good legs are any legs you can walk on.

I am old if I would trade my head of hair for my friend’s good leg, and he has had a knee replacement.

If in Church, you can’t hear a whisper, and have to put on your glasses to read the passed note.

When your favorite cartoonist retires and you can’t stand the replacement strip.

Especially when you have had to say ‘Goodby’ to Toonerville trolley, Barney Google, Pogo and Peanuts.

When you are complimented on how well your hearing aids work.

When this last century includes most all your life.

When your young dentist doesn’t recommend a bridge to fill the space left from an extraction.

When other old people seem to be young.

When your Kodak cross-fading dissolve unit is compared to ‘Power Point’ and your photo supply shop no longer carries movie screens.

When you offer to show your license plate collection and are laughed off the phone!

When many of your nouns are obsolete.  “What was Coal Oil?”  What was a “Motormeter?”  “What was a running board?” “What was a tire iron?”  What do you mean, Free Air?

If you look to see if all four tires are up before getting into your car.

You and your car are both old, if you park on an incline.

When you take your cell phone on a trip to the mailbox.

When the SMTWTFS pillbox is part of your table place setting.

You are both old and privileged if your mother sliced your bread, colored your margarine and strained your milk.   

When the Service Dept. says it is time for an oil change and you haven’t been anywhere.

You can’t tell what is in your pocket without looking; and when you look you drop something.  When you pick it up, you drop something else!

The dentist ‘fixes’ your tooth and it still hurts.

Your friends say that your cane is just a ‘crutch’.

Instead of ‘Hello’, you hear, “When are you going to get the other leg fixed?”

They don’t realize that your other handicaps outweigh the one they mention.

Drive like the DMV examiner is riding with you.

Park as if the adjacent car is occupied.  And almost never ‘back up’.

Live like God is watching every move.- - -“He is!”

You remember your dreams and forget your zip code.

You forgetfully leave your cane in the market cart.

You forget to hang your handicap card on the rear view mirror.

You remember the story but forget that you have told it before. – If it is to you’re spouse, you probably have! -

When you think that someone else forgot, and you can’t be sure enough to argue.  Even if it is about yourself!

When your story is purposely interrupted because your daughter is afraid of what you might have said, and she was wrong!

Your doctor says,” How are you?” and hasn’t time to listen to your answer.

When another old person recites their exciting experience, don’t mention a similar happening as a means of being understanding!   Never say,” I know how you feel.”

How can new batteries in my hearing aid make my electric razor run faster?

I forgot where I parked my car and didn’t remember that my remote key could help find it!  When I did, I was too far away.

I have another but can’t remember it just now!

To be continued                                                                                             nw

GENERAL SHERMAN  (The Tree)

Yesterday we revisited Sequoia National Park.

We had made an auto trip to visit family near Visalia.  On the way home we saw a road sign that pointed to the park 25 miles East.  Turning toward the foothills we enjoyed the curving road that climbed up from the valley floor.  Our’s was the lonely car on the road and we could drive as slowly as we chose.

This road chained together swimming holes along the Kaweah, and places like Three Rivers, Buckeye Flat, Moro Rock, Crescent Meadows and Bear Hill.  All these represented cooler one-day family holidays for a boy growing up in Porterville in the 20’s.

Then, the car was a ‘T’ Ford.  When well prepared, the left running board carried three galvanized cans.  All three were the same height and depth but varied in width.  Red, for gasoline, and white for water, were wide.  Blue for oil was narrow.  One or perhaps two extra 30X3 ½” tires were strapped there too.  We were prepared to dismount the tire, patch the inner tube and re-inflate it when mounted onto the rim.

To minimize grading, the narrow oiled road followed the detail of the hillside.  Sometimes winding in and out in just the length of the car.  The radiators were not pressurized.  There were no recovery tanks.  It was common for the water to boil and vapor to rise from these overheated cars.  (This because of the climb and the thinner air) 

Note:  The steep grades required the ‘T’ Ford to be in low gear.  The left foot pedal had to be held down all the way up!

At roadside near Hospital Rock, the Park provided parking where each of some ten cars could re-fill radiators.  Each had a brass hydrant and a short length of hose.  The steaming cars had to be cooled down before the radiator caps could be removed.  The brass caps and the hydrants were kept shiny from constant use.  Filled here too, were our canvas bags of drinking water. (The water was cool because of evaporation.  The stored water slowly seeped through the fabric.)

As the years went by there were people with more money to use a better road for better cars.  New grading machines cut new wider grades that swept out to gentle curves.  The cars had more power and safer brakes.  Some of the passing-turnouts used now, were part of the roadbed not long ago. 

At the Park entrance a gray-headed lady in a Smokey Bear hat, gave us a Golden Eagle Pass.  Free use of the Park forever!  Giant Forest is being renovated.  Each Sequoia tree has its own protected root zone.  A circle of protection keeps thousands of People feet from bruising the shallow roots.  No gasoline is sold in the Park. (I think that soon no cars will be allowed there either.) 

Long ago the Bear Hill attraction (for bears and people) was closed.  We remember the many stories of close-up encounters for bear and people!  I have enjoyed seeing the bear arriving for the free food.  But now we think that junk food isn’t good for bear or us. 

The General Sherman tree has a new and taller rustic fence around it.  Our old black and white Kodak prints show the family, side by side, lined up leaning against the huge trunk.

Yesterday fall leaves were falling on the wide, paved, pedestrian path that leads to the tree.  Foreign visitors from far and wide are still taking pictures of themselves near the tree.  The slanting light requires a tripod for those who care about proper exposure. 

There is still an exhibit of a thick cross-section of a large Sequoia trunk.  Thousands of growth rings mark its life.  The rings are thicker where the year was good for growth and thinner where the year was dry.  The Park had pinned labels of the years of interest in our history.  Near the center where the tree was new, a marker placed the birth of Christ.  Others marked the signing of the Magna Charta, the landing of Columbus, and the last two wars.  Near the rough line of the outer bark we counted to my year 1916.  I was young then, about twelve years old.

Yesterday I had limped over to a rustic bench near the base of The Oldest Living Thing in the World.  Resting there, looking up, the tree seemed much larger than I had remembered it to be.  I recalled my Father saying that no one could throw a stone as high as the first branch.  That branch is a large tree in and of itself.  I remembered that day, so long ago, that we had counted rings.  The year is nearly 2000 now and mine are nearly used up.

We last stopped here when friends from England were visiting.  Should we wait that long again, I’m thinking, but can’t say aloud, “This is the last time.”  I am used to outlasting those around me and regret the loss of friends; but I sit in awe of this living, invincible, enormity, pointing to God while nations rise and fall.  How can it feel my footprints?

General Sherman is still adding rings!

                                                                                               Newcomb

85 IS A VERY GOOD YEAR

GREAT GRAND FATHER ‘ COMES OF AGE’

                                                                                      

To my wife, our children, their children and their children; THANK YOU

I am now realizing what a privilege it is to become a Great Grandfather and to count the blessings that old, old, age brings.  Sometimes I feel overcompensated!

As a grandfather I looked at my grandchildren and saw bits of myself. Seeing both the good and bad in their mix of genes.  Always hoping that mine had added something beneficial.

-----------------------

The Great grandfather view is different.  I am seeing a lifetime reach of young women that, at this present moment, reveal my wife as I never saw her, and that remind me how I have seen her through our 63 years as man and wife.

Here Emily is Alma as an infant. Mia is Alma at three.  Madison is Alma as a six year old.  Elizabeth is Alma as I first saw her and Linda is Alma as a mother.  This sweep through the years blends into the present Alma, now a Great Grandmother herself.

I am seeing a dramatic revelation of Life, and of lives, which are all a part of myself.  I have in my mind all of our unmentioned children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, all of these and those yet to be born.  The men and women they marry have had, and will have had an equal part in strengthening and expanding this family.

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It is pleasant here, standing for a while at the top of the hill.  Aged by the climb of course, but the view is worth it!  I can see in both directions now.  The past and a little way into the future.

May your own path be as rewarding as mine, not too steep, but as far reaching as you wish-------------.

Great Grandfather,

Newcomb

2001

SUN CITY SUNSET

(A California Vesper)

To share this experience you must meet several conditions:

First;

You must visit Sun City, California.

Timing is everything.  Sun City closes its businesses just before dark. 

You need to visit at close of summer.  Close to but before we make the seasonal, one hour, time change.

The staging is done only at Mr.T’s Restaurant   Mr. T is not the owner’s name.  (Clue, he also owns and/or manages the Panda Express.) 

Second;

It is best to arrive a half-hour before sundown.  Take one of the West facing booths near the entrance.  I would sit near the isle and order the evening special.  You will be served a salad and a soup, a vegetable and a meat entry, potatoes and gravy.  One small dinner roll is included.  Coffee may be extra, but it all won’t add up to very much.  A small dessert will follow.  Jell-O, chocolate pudding or sherbet is by choice.   Sometimes an offer of ice cream will be special.  Depending on the table service, you may need to visit Mr. T’s several times, to get the timing just right.

There will be time to observe the other customers as they find seats for themselves.  It is required that Sun City residents be old.  We see some younger visiting relatives and even a few, three, generation, families in the two large semi-circular booths.  An adult son and his aging father are seated across the isle.  Later, as we leave, I notice that the old man is the caregiver.  He is assisting his handicapped son who is blind.  I am surprised to see that at another table, the gray bearded man seated with his young looking wife, has to cut up her food and to help feed her. 

Golf carts and three wheeled bikes are parked outside.  Canes, walkers, and wheel chairs are part of the furniture.  Giant photo-murals picture cool, forested outdoor scenes that contrast the surrounding desert.

The blazing summer sun has been held back all afternoon by vertical blinds covering all the western windows.

Now, the moment has come!  A young waitress (Alice) climbs onto the padded seats along the western wall.  She is a Star, she is smiling, everyone is watching as if she was the letter-turner on ‘Wheel of Fortune’.  She draws back the blinds, crossing the picture window left and right, to pull the proper strings.

There the tired sun has touched down onto our horizon, named the Cherry Hills.  Ideally you would have finished eating, except for your dessert.  The various conversations have stilled, as if we expected Sound with our Light Show.

The tinted windows allow you to look directly at the Transition taking place. 

It is obvious that the day is over. The sun moves more slowly than the minute hand on a clock tower.  We notice that during the ‘set’, the sun has moved along the horizon as far as its own diameter.

Third;

The dark is coming. Our room is darkening too.  As the disk is all but gone, it seems to linger and then to disappear in one last rapid plunge.  The dark has taken its last bite.  Don’t leave now!  Don’t think that it’s over!

Those rainless, thin streaks of cloud were hidden during the day.  Hidden by the same sun that back lights them now.  As the earth spins away, the sky spreads a dark background for the brightening display.  Now it is edged with golden fire, later fading to match the night ----which has caught us while we watched.

As we leave, the tables are set-up for breakfast; the steam table and the cash register are emptied, as is our dining room.  The warm breeze has reversed direction to replace the burning blast of the desert day.  Sun City has found its bed and is asleep already.

Thank you God, for all my livelong days,

If only for the Golden Sunset that marks their ---   ---   ---   ---   ---   ---     end.

3/19/2000                                                                                                            nw