Now that it’s safe to watch TV or answer the phone without being told how the world will end if you don’t call a given scoundrel and tell him to stop oppressing America’s beleaguered billionaires, it’s time to ponder another aspect of life: Next week, if all goes according to schedule, I will turn 60.
Of course, that’s just a number, but there are many other indications of time’s passage, and most of them aren’t pleasant. For instance, one spends a lot more time dealing with pill bottles, especially the ones with caps that seem to be a variant of a combination lock: twist left, push down, pull up, twist more, etc. Fortunately, when I griped about this to the local pharmacist, he began using bottles with more simple caps.
Every time I encounter stairs, I see a major hazard, to be navigated slowly with my hand on the rail. I used to take them two at a time with nary a thought of potential disaster.
I figure I’ve earned my lines and wrinkles. But I can’t figure out why my hair and beard are white, while my eyebrows remain dark. What’s different about eyebrow hair?
The first comic I read in The Post each morning is “Pluggers,” for I often relate to it. Plus, it’s on the same page as the sudoku puzzle, which I zealously attack because I read that doing such puzzles sharpens your mind.
On the high-tech front, I have so far avoided Twitter, texting and Facebook, because I’m sure they’re just fads, and by the time I learn how to work them, they will have been supplanted by the Next New Thing. So why bother?
I do most of my computer work at a Linux terminal, because it’s an interface that hasn’t changed in 20 years. Thus I can focus on my work, instead of coping with layered menus and ribbons and bizarre hieroglyphic symbols that will change with the next “upgrade.”
As for low-tech matters, I never worry much about how to load our wood-burning stove and set its vents and dampers to carry a fire all night. Instead, I know I’ll be up a couple of times during the night to visit the bathroom, and I can throw more wood in on those trips.
The main reason I prefer driving my pickup, as opposed to our little Geo Prizm that gets great mileage and is easy to park, is that climbing out of a little car is hell on the knees.
Salida sits on what was Mexican soil from 1822 to 1848. So I keep reading the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, hoping to find a provision that requires the U.S. to respect the customs and culture of the inhabitants of the conquered territory. If there is such a provision, it means I have a legal right to an afternoon siesta.
There’s way too much “do it yourself” these days. I don’t even want to unload my own grocery cart, let alone scan the bar codes. And now when I buy gas I pump myself, I’m expected to swipe my own credit card. No wonder we have high unemployment — we keep doing work ourselves that we used to hire people to do.
I feel safe in predicting that by 2020, modern life will require some gizmo that will scan your groceries and automatically deduct the money from your bank account, while also handling voice and text messages, video and audio broadcasts, electronic books and airplane boarding. It will be designed and programmed in India, manufactured in China, and impossible for any American over 35 to figure out how to use.
Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
