Staring the Beast in the Face

The Beast is coming for me. Ever so slowly it advances towards me every day, almost leisurely...but still it comes. Constant. Unstoppable. It will arrive in a little over seven months and there is nothing I, or anyone else, can do about it. It doesn't pause, it doesn't hesitate, it doesn't sleep. It is on the horizon, shimmering in the distance, but it is there. Always advancing. Never, ever retreating. I cannot flee from it. It will follow me wherever I go, pursuing me.

It will overtake me. It will consume me, and I know the exact date when it will happen.

 The Beast has a name.

Sexagenarian.

Sixty. 6-0. Six decades on this earth.

How is that possible? It seems like, just yesterday evening, I was laying on the floor of our home on Hout Road watching my hero, Sergeant Saunders, and his band of G.I.s take on the German Army in the WW II television show 'Combat!' Or, the next night, following the exploits of Napoleon Solo and his sidekick Ilya Kuryakin as they saved the world from the forces of evil in the spy show 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'; they were the small screen's answer to James Bond, corny as the production may have been.

And now, in less than eight months, I'll be 60 years old.

They say the older you get, the faster time goes by. It is a truth of life. According to noted author Phillip Yaffe, it is all about anticipation and reflection. In younger years we anticipate events: first day of school, first little league baseball game, first trip to that big, exciting amusement park. As we age, we tend to look back and reflect on events such as weddings, graduation of children from high school, or the death of relatives and friends. When a child is five years old, that fifth year is twenty per cent of their life; they have fewer memories on which to reflect. However, a person who is 80 has a lifetime to look back on. More memory space is consumed in that octogenarian brain. I heard one analogy that makes sense: time is like a roll of toilet paper; in the beginning it is full and big. However, through use, that roll gets smaller and smaller, makes faster revolutions as you get closer to the core.

Then it is gone.

I try not to think about age. As a matter of fact, in my mind I'm still that sixteen year old junior at Madison Comprehensive High School. I believe all of us have that perception in our minds. We're young!

Not so fast, says the body, I'm going to slap you with reality as soon as you get out of bed. And it does, through aches and pains brought on by a life of injuries, illness and wear. Life, particularly my former profession, has been hard on my body; dislocations, broken bones, disc herniations with a dash of rods and screws thrown in for good measure, a knee replacement and then repair of a worn-out part seven years later, the invasion of arthritis in both shoulders and hands, becoming diabetic....and, oh yeah, that whole renal carcinoma thing this past summer. That episode cost me part of a kidney.

But I am still here. I'd like to stay a little longer, too, if that's what the Good Lord has in mind.

Isn't it frustrating, when you get to be our age, to realize you can no longer do things you could five years ago? Or even last year? That has been my biggest obstacle, dealing with that particular issue. However, being older does have a few advantages. Friends and relatives don't call you to help move furniture every time they decide to change homes. You get discounts on certain days at restaurants. Occasionally, younger people are courteous enough to open doors for you...although, for me, I draw the line on that one. Unless I'm using a walker, crutches or wheel chair, I'll open my own doors.

Age also brings about retirement at some point; for me, it happened in August of 2013, due mainly to those aforementioned injuries. I had difficulty dealing with retirement shortly after it happened, as I think many people do; what am I going to do with my time? How will I handle this feeling of uselessness?

The answer? The passage of time.

With my working life in the rear-view mirror, I've found other activities to engage in...one of which is writing. I developed this growing passion for creating stories with words when I was in high school, which wasn't just yesterday. I first started writing seriously back in 1992, when I was placed on administrative leave by the Police Department after being involved in a shooting. It had been an off-the-cuff fictional work, a law enforcement story, done on a typewriter ( remember those? ) for stress relief. Believe me, being compelled to use deadly force on another human being is extremely stressful. Looking back on that piece...well, it wasn't very good, and ended up in the circular file after I was cleared to return to work. However, the hook had been set.

Now that I'm retired I have plenty of time to write, especially during the winter months. Apart from a book that I've been working on for a few years ( it sees light at the end of the literary tunnel ), I've produced several non-fiction pieces dealing with actual events that took place during my police career, involving both humor and drama. I do this mainly so that, ten or 15 years from now, I'll still be able to recall them through print. I've done fictional stories about another passion, too, that has been developed after retirement: the hobby of metal detecting. I got involved at the behest of my wife's brother, never imagining that it would become as important as it is to me. Now, when the weather and my schedule cooperate, I'm out scanning the ground somewhere, trying to recover history. I love history, particularly America's Civil War and World War Two. I've spent time on vacations and trips engaging in metal detecting, in places such as Charleston, South Carolina, where history abounds, Florida and North Carolina. My brother-in-law Steve and I just got back from a trip to the mountains of Virginia to hunt an old, abandoned plantation. My knee, back and shoulders are still complaining.

Ibuprofen, ice packs and the heating pad are becoming close friends of mine these days. It comes with the territory. That's OK, though, because I know several people my age who are in worse shape than me; unable to climb stairways, mow their own yard, shovel snow...mundane tasks that most people take for granted. I have a good friend who is an inspiration to me; a guy who lost both legs in a firefighting accident. Instead of brooding on his lot in life or feeling sorry for himself, this man has taken his attitude to higher ground. I never hear him complain, he always has a smile when I see him and he just has a fantastic attitude. When I catch myself complaining about my shoulders and hands aching, I think about Joe...and then I shut up. Things could always be worse, as my police pal John Fuller says.

Getting older is just a part of life. The best thing you can do, as far as I'm concerned, is just enjoy it to the fullest. Yes, it's a cliché, but that doesn't make it any less true. Get outside, find something that makes you happy and just roll with it. Try a new activity. Volunteer at the local animal shelter or participate in some sort of outreach program. Take a walk and reacquaint yourself with neighbors. Look up old friends you may have lost touch with and make a lunch date or go see a movie. There's a whole spectrum of things you can do or get involved in that can reinvigorate your body, mind and spirit, even something as simple as sitting under a tree and reading a good book.

Just don't stay in that recliner all day, staring at The Beast on the horizon.