You Might Be A Geezer

I carved another notch on my cane this week and observed another birthday.

Breaking News Alert: I have now officially lived a long time. Abraham Lincoln’s opening line for his famous Gettysburg Address, “Four Score and Seven Years Ago” has deeper meaning to me today although I am not nearly that old. Some time ago I crossed the line between “lower middle age” to “middle-middle age” and now I have crossed the Mason-Dixon Line of age into “upper middle age.”

It is difficult to get senior citizens, curmudgeons, geezers to admit to or agree to the concept that they are old. They will admit that they are “M” [middle aged] but not the “Big O.” I am convinced that old age is 10 years older than you are no matter where you are.

However, AARP Magazine conducted several focus groups and all involved agreed that when a person reaches my age he must admit that he is too old to cruise Main Street on Saturday night; to be concerned with acne; to worry about getting a date for the prom.

I have given this thought deep and serious consideration and realized that I might be a Geezer. Therefore, with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, I have borrowed his conceptual premise and developed several indicators that proclaim to the housetops that you and I may be Geezers.

• If that wart on your back has grown so large you could hang an 11 X 14 framed family picture on it, you might be a Geezer

• If your face looks like a cross between a basset hound and one of those Shar-pei dogs that looks like it should be ironed, you might be a Geezer.

• If your fingernails look like a new concrete sidewalk hat has been brushed with a broom, you might be a Geezer.

• If your fingernails have as many grooves as a 78 RPM record and almost as many dings and dents, you might be a Geezer.

• If you know what a 78 rpm record is and have ever played one, you might be a Geezer.

• If you conclude that it is just easier to buy a larger belt, you might be a Geezer.

• If you are convinced that manufacturers put less material in clothing today and charge more for it, you might be a Geezer.

• If you go into Staples and are shocked that they do not have a ribbon for your Underwood typewriter that you received as a high school graduation gift, you might be a Geezer.

• If the clerk in Best Buy stifles a laugh when you ask for needles for your RCA Gramophone, you might be a Geezer.

• If you have taken the Sears Catalogue to “Ft. Necessity” and used it for something other than placing an order, you might be a Geezer.

Come on in, pull up a chair and sit down beside this Geezer.

[Excerpted from my book You Might Be A Geezer]

[Larry Vandeventer. Go to my two websites – Larryvandeventer.com and

wjrambler1956.com – and purchase my books. I grew up North of

Calvertville and graduated from Worthington High School and Indiana

State. Contact me at Goosecrick@aol.com or 812-796-0784]