Where Have All The Good Times Gone?

Life isn't a lot of fun anymore. It's not that there aren't moments of fun, scattered here and there, throughout the days and weeks, but rather that sustained fun, you know, the old kind of fun, the fun of being young, seems lost (or purchased at a premium). Middle age creeps up on you, and whether it's simple physical aging, something that can't be controlled, or the many cheap draught beers, quarter a cup, full tray for 2 bucks, that has caused the most damage, I do not know. But I can't spell anymore, and I don't have any energy (a serious problem for a guy who has always been lazy anyway), and my sense of humor seems headed in the direction of a tired Catskills comic; a repetitive Bobby Bittman-type, one of those old guys from the Sullivan show who would show up on the Dean Martin roasts during the mid-70's slurring the old funny lines that had once worked so well but which they now willed through slipping dentures out into the great TV land audience.

Oh hell, maybe it's not that bad. But you get the point. Latch onto a funny line, a genuinely funny line, and forget which of the friends has already heard it. So some of them hear it a few times. Big deal. Need some new material --- give Norman Panama a late night call.

We can't help but be prepared to age, seeing as how much it's dealt with in popular culture, how many cliches we've all seen on the network TV. But like so many things, like ALL things, it feels a lot different when it actually happens to YOU. When YOUR hair falls out, when YOUR teeth get loose, when YOUR boner plays the Mr. Softy theme ---- well, it's a different story altogether. Yeah, it's still funny, if you have any sense of humor, but it's grim as well.

Yet it's that brain thing that bothers me the most, losing that sharpness, that energy, that sense of self, of what made me feel worthwhile. Other people may notice the receding hairline, but I notice the receding brain behind it --- and I don't like what I see (so to speak). Is this how it goes: to fade away, losing tiny pieces of my personality down the drain, growing dull and banal?

Well, no matter, enough navel gazing for one night (that reminds me, I need to lose 20 pounds too, especially around that navel). But one last thought --- we prefer our leaders older and experienced, over 40 in most cases during this modern age --- is that wise? Do you feel sharper in your 40's or 50's or 60's? I was sharp as a tack in my 20's, and now, at 44, I'm about as sharp as the same exact tack, stuck in the floor countless times in 20 years, stepped on, with beers dumped on it, rusting and dull and bent --- should I be President of the United States?

T.M.