Geezerhood

Growing old has one advantage: You'll never have to do it over again --

Methuselah

It's good to reach a hale and hearty old age except for seeing your children become depressingly middle-aged. That's where I am now. In a few months, my son will officially enter Geezerhood. There's a pink area appearing on his scalp at the crown as happened to me and my father before me. As a rite of passage, it falls disappointingly short of a first kiss or being granted the keys to the car for the first time.

I asked him, "How does it feel to be almost 50?"

He replied, "How does it feel to have a 50-year-old child?"

We fell silent, each of us thinking regretfully of all the sins we hadn't committed.

I can remember that when I was in my 60s, if anyone called me a sexagenarian, it sounded like flattery. In the catalogue of aging, that period is called Geezer Plus and I reflect on it with mixed emotions. It was when I thought an old person was anybody 10 years older than I was. It was when I realized I was old enough to know my way around but had to concede that I wasn't going anywhere. I gave up going to any movie that didn't have a matinee. Forced to choose between two evils, I always took the one that got me home earlier. On the plus side, I was given a discount at IHOP without having to ask for it. I can go conveniently deaf when I want to, a feat that has stood me in good stead through the last two generations' "music."

Geezerhood is what used to be called the "Golden Years." That term has largely fallen out of favor, particularly with those of us actually enrolled in this period. Ask any Medicare person in a doctor's waiting room how he or she is enjoying the Golden Years if you want to get a cane whacked across your shins.

I am now comfortably in that period that lies beyond Geezer Plus; I am a Super Geezer, formally called an "old-timer." If there is any geriatric nomenclature above that, it falls into the field of paleontology, and I don't want to know about it.

Just over the horizon and coming at me like a tornado bearing down on Kansas is my eighth decade. I'm looking forward to it, surprised and happy to be here. My father used to claim 80 was the best of times, you could do or say anything. If there is an upside to old age, he said, this is it: Eccentricity is not only tolerated, it is expected. And he did his best to uphold the tradition. He claimed in a voice that could be heard clearly throughout the retirement home where he lived in his last years, "Old women are nuttier than old men and there are more of 'em." He often advised me, "What will be, will be, even if it never happens," but I could never work out just what that meant.

So that's definitely my plan. I'm going for crotchety curmudgeon, maybe throw in a little weird -- I can do that. But first I've got to solve the problem of older men's pants. Something happens to most men sometime between Geezer Plus and Super Geezer. It's a guy thing, and I'm tired of my wife pointing this phenomenon out to me on a daily basis like maybe it's my fault.

What happens is, one night or maybe over a single weekend, a man's belly expands like he was in his ninth month of gestation. At the same time, his rear end diminishes in the same proportion. Cruelly referred to as a "beer belly" and a "cracker bottom," even though the victim may never have consumed either commodity in his lifetime, this anatomical metamorphosis results in a major trouser problem.

He buys a pair of pants that seem to fit reasonably well in the little fitting room with the flimsy curtain that never quite covers the door opening. He adjusts them to what he thinks is his waist, trying to recall from memory just where that is. The definitive landmarks appear to have vanished. The cuffs break nicely over his shoes and he's out of the cubicle before some other guy parts the curtain to reveal him in his underwear.

Like water seeking its highest level, pants on a geezer seek their lowest within 15 minutes of donning them. That is, the belt drops down under the belly. It has no choice. It's a size 36 trying to cope with a size 44 abdomen. Viewed in profile, the belt has assumed a 45 degree angle to the floor, the pant legs are now 4 inches too long, the crotch is just above his knees, and there is enough room in the seat to accommodate a couple of watermelons.

This is the Geezer Look, and pants manufacturers seem at a loss to address the problem. In warmer climes, we geezers have sought to resolve at least part of the error by wearing shorts. This has brought us up against comedic tradition that requires us to wear black socks and dress shoes. And a hat. Geezers are great for hats -- baseball caps, fedoras, Panamas, Greek fisherman caps -- it doesn't matter, as long as it's inappropriate for the occasion.

It is this mean-spirited media portrayal, when coupled with that of the lady-geezer stereotype featuring the all-purpose muu-muu that looks as if came with a center pole and stakes as matching accessories, that tarnishes the luster of the Golden Years.

So what can I tell my son? He doesn't get all misty-eyed when he hears "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof. Barbra Streisand doesn't appeal to him with "The Way We Were." Even Doris Day fails to get through with "Sentimental Journey." Perhaps when his descendants begin to outnumber his friends like mine do, he will understand that axiom of Geezerhood: "It's not how old you are, but how you are old." He may even figure out what to do about the belt.

When I was in my 60s, if anyone called me a sexagenarian, it sounded like flattery.

I am now comfortably in that period that lies beyond Geezer Plus; I am a Super Geezer.