I prefer my bananas young, but an older avocado is a readier avocado.
My youth seemed all foot-on-the-gas, squinting through a dirty windshield and the steering much neglected. I got to here somehow, but the tires ain’t happy, and the bumpers are bent to hell.
If my first grade teacher would’ve piled every book I’d ever read on her desk I would’ve hidden from the school bus. What’s gotta get learned in life is best done in the little nibbles of one day at a time.
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There Are Winters In Our Spring; There Are Springs In Our Winters.
When I was a kid I thought you reached some mysterious place and there-you-were, an official grownup. Having reached a few of those places, and still-not-there, I assume that the gift of a life is too great to be all filled up and nowhere to grow.
I specifically remember the first time I held a hundred dollar bill. These days I reserve my awe for things I’d run into a burning building to save; a Franklin wouldn’t rate a singe.
I went off my feed when my first little crush went south. I can’t recall her last name, but I remember the knot in my stomach. There’s no point in warning That Me that it wasn’t worth the fuss; that first one added some callous for the bigger pains to follow.
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The Credibility Of Age
I was always a thinker, but nobody paid me mind when I was young. I understand now; you gotta prove out to earn up. If you haven’t had bottoms you haven’t had enough life for your opinion to count for much.
After a few decades you get where you don’t trust people who are high on their first ladder, especially inherited ladders. Go make your own ladder, and don’t cheat with store bought. Let your ladder give way a few times, and let us see what your no-quit looks like.
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They Paint Battleships Gray
Youth is absolutely wasted on the youth, but who is to decide what of it was a waste? Rare is my memory of a day in the classroom, but I hold dear This One Specific Afternoon lying on my back on a mound of dirt in a field out back of my grandparents, watching clouds go by. I hope they have clouds in heaven, because I’d like another piece of that peace.
It’s probably also true that age is wasted on the aged.
I was more black ‘n white when I had all my hair. My opinions, like my hair, get grayer by the year. The minute you make it sound all-so-simple is the minute you reveal we are not peers.
Used to be able to put on my socks without my stomach getting in the way, but skinny me was thin hearted, and thin headed, and I ain’t for trading a better me for a vanity me.
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Two Column Inches And Six Feet Under
There’s a right age for every toy. It takes the fun out of driving a convertible if all you do is make people wonder what that ole fart is doing behind the wheel. PS: there’s a lot of convertibles in life – most ain’t cars.
Ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up and you usually get one word answers; before you ask an old person how it all turned out you best get yourself planted in a comfortable chair.
Some of the best people I’ve known never made the local paper until they died. Three short paragraphs and two column inches, and I used to think, ‘Is that it?…’ until I realized that the writing that mattered was in the Book Up There, and that what they stood for, still stood, in the minds and memory of their everyday audiences.
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All That Life-Is-Over-At-30 Nonsense…
…each decade is usually better than the last one. Some good things come to an end, but so much of the bad ends too.
In youth it’s all herd; with age comes the formation, and revelation, of the individual. There is a duty that comes with life, to somewhere reach a place where you are you alone, distinct, flaws ‘n all, a soul with a body, your angel saying, There You Are!
My role models have changed over the years. When I was young they were mostly Away and Afar; as I age I have found they were Near and Dear…and too many Departed before I got the chance to stand up when they entered the room…
Age has made me suspicious of fame. I never trusted the herd’s taste, but now I especially don’t trust the machinery of fame. I like to do my own research, and most of the diamonds are found in my backyard.
Never say never is never said more truly than when said by the elderly.
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Sometimes An Old Bulb Burns Brightest
When my father was only in his seventies he’d complain a little, about how the world didn’t seem to value his generation anymore. They’d been left behind, by all the New and the speed of the New.
As church was ending I watched an old man get up to fetch a wheelchair for his wife. It took them nearly a whole hymn to get her situated. He smiled the whole time. I watched every baby step, knowing this was my sermon.
Like my father, he’s just doing the right thing; like my father, he didn’t realize that younger eyes were upon him.
Little children sing Let Your Little Light Shine; old people are the most credible at being the Shining Light.
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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we like our wares to be life worn.
Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories can be found on Eighty-one’s Facebook page. Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.
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