The Odometer Rolls Over

Sixteen, you can drive; at eighteen, you can, well, you’re legal; at twenty-one, you can get yourself a beer, at fifty, you can join AARP. At that point, things get nebulous; various senior memberships and entitlements start kicking in at different times: Social Security at 62 is but one, while others start at 55, 60, and whenever. Depends on the club, the business, the membership.

Two weeks from today, I hit one of the landmark ages – possibly the last before you turn 100 and get your picture in the paper. It’s the official Senior Citizen mark when you know you qualify for everything. You don’t have to feel it; you just have to be it. My money says in the old days, you felt it; at least, those who reached it felt it.

Old folks, they were. Gramps and Gram, taken out for a ride once a week. He had lumbago; she wore a corset and smelled like a can of Vick’s Medicated Rub. He said, “Eh? Eh?” a lot and she said, “You deef old fool, use your ear horn.”

You don’t see much of that anymore.

Everybody has a story.
Jack Golden passed away up in Scranton. He was flying his 27th mission in a B-24 Liberator bomber when he was shot down over Hungary. The survivors were captured by the Germans and held in various prison camps in Hungary and Germany, mostly in Stalag 4, near the Baltic Sea. American forces freed the camp April 1945.