Rant #2,885: Old Days

So what did I do on my first official day as an "old fogey?"
 
I pretty much did what I said I was going to do, or at least wanted to do.
 
I did all the errands I had to do, I did some work, and yes, I even got a chance to watch a few innings of the Yankees’ game with the Orioles, which happily, they won, in honor of my big day, of course.
 
I replied to a lot of people who wished me “Happy Birthday,” a lot of people I have known since I was a little kid as well as people I have gotten to know through Facebook.
 
I received well wishes from not only friends, but family, too … I was happy to hear from my nephew who lives in California, and so many others who live more locally to me.
 
So now I am officially an “old fogey” at age 65, but what exactly is an “old fogey” anyway?
 
I hadn’t thought about that term in years until a day or two ago.
 
When I was growing up in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York in the mid 1960s into the early 1970s, that is the term we young’uns used to characterize the older folk who also lived in the development, many of whom were not very nice to us.
 
Honestly, a lot of them were, in fact, pretty nice to us—I remember my friend, Arnie, whose grandparents lived in the development, and his grandfather in particular, was a really nice guy, wearing a Sailor hat on top of his warm smile—but there was a contingent of older folks who used to say nasty things to us about everything we did, and seemed to be so sour as they sat on the benches outside the buildings near the parks, where we played ball day and night.
 
Looking back, these older folks were all born at the turn of the 20th century, while we were born past the middle of the century, and there definitely was a generation gap between the older folks and us young upstarts.
 
They didn’t understand us, we didn’t understand them … and remember, this was the mid 1960s through the early 1970s, when everything was changing at a rapid pace, and I do mean everything.
 
If you were staid in your ways like many of those older folks were, I guess you didn’t look too kindly on us younger folks and all the changes we were bringing to the fore.
 
So I guess we started to call them “old fogeys” because many of them had no patience with us, probably as much as we had no patience with them.
 
What I did is look up the term “old fogey” and find out what it actually meant, and I came to this entry in The Free Dictionary (https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/old+fogey).
 
What is an old fogey?
 
According to The Free Dictionary, it is defined in a couple of different ways, most leading up the same thing.
 
It is a noun, and can also be spelled “fogy.”
 
Here are the actual definitions listed:
 
“An older person, especially one whose views or attitudes are considered boring or old-fashioned.
 
(Usually disapproving) (usually of an older person) a person with very old-fashioned or traditional views, opinions, etc:
 
An old-fashioned person; an old man.”
 
But younger people can be “fogeys” too:
 
“A young person with old-fashioned views, style of dress, etc. is sometimes called a ‘young fogey.”
 
I didn’t know that.
 
Now, how we latched onto that term is completely unknown to me, but I do know that when they were yelling at us from the benches for doing one thing or another—one woman, with a gray bouffant hairdo, always was yelling at us about something—we would call these older people “old fogeys” to their faces, and they would be aghast at the very utterance of that term.
 
They would say to us, “What would your mother say if she knew you were calling us that?” and as a kid, I just shrugged it off, because these older people were, in fact, “old fogeys” to us with all of their complaining about this or that.
 
And I, personally, was in a situation where I had a measuring stick to use against these people, as my own grandparents were alive during this period, and my grandparents were as far from “old fogeys” as could be.
 
My paternal grandparents were as “old school” as anyone I knew, Orthodox Jews who went by the letter of the religion for everything they did.
 
My maternal grandparents were as modern as anyone I knew, taking in everything that was new and vibrant and “now” better than some people a quarter of their ages.
 
Maybe I say this because they were my grandparents, but both sets seemed to get where my sister and I were coming from, and they were not “old fogeys” at all.
 
The people sitting on the benches in my neighborhood who knocked us for everything we did as kids were certainly “old fogeys,” but were they “old fogeys” to their own grandchildren?
 
Who knows, but now I am an “old fogey” myself, and I just know that some of those oldsters that sat on those benches are now moving over on the benches they are sitting on in heaven and making room for me when my time comes.
 
If I am an “old fogey,” I pledge to you that I will be a nice “old fogey,” and roll with the flow, just like my grandparents did way back when.
 
Have a nice weekend, and I will speak ot you again on Monday. 

Rant #2,884: What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

As I type out this Rant, it is another sleepless night for me, as it just past 1:30 a.m. in the morning.
 
But somehow, I am not that unhappy about the lack of sleep that I have had this evening, because today is my birthday.
 
I finally reached the big 6-5, and heck, having been up since just before midnight has its benefits today.
 
I was actually up at the precise moment, 65 years ago in 1957, when I was born.
 
According to my mom, on April 27, 1957, she and my father were eating dinner at between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., and then a little later in the evening, my mother told my dad that the time had come.
 
I estimate, based on what my mother told me, that this was probably around 11:15 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. on April 27, but whatever time it actually was, they went to the hospital, and I was born at 12 midnight give or take a couple of seconds or minutes after, on April 28.
 
Fast forward to 2022 … I fell asleep at about 8:45 p.m. or so, and not that I planned it this way, but I woke up literally at 11:59 p.m.
 
I could not go right back to sleep, so I was up at the precise moment after 12 midnight that I turned 65.
 
That was great, but then, I tossed and turned for the next hour and a half, and here I find myself at 1:30 a.m. on the computer and typing out my birthday Rant—and that is after a day where I was very busy with work, where I wrote up an original story about a conference I covered and then edited a couple of stories as the cherry on top for my last day as a 64 year old.
 
I guess I should be tired, but I’m not … maybe I am just a bit wired right now.
 
I love birthdays, always have and always will.
 
It is my special day, a year older and a year wiser, and this latest birthday is truly a special one.
 
I look back at my 65 years, and honestly, even with all the ups and downs, I don’t think I would trade a minute of it.
 
It is my belief that I was born at just the right time, fitting right into the younger portion of the Baby Boomer generation—too young to get the full thrust of my generation—Vietnam, anyone?—but too old not to notice things as they unfolded before me.
 
I remember that war, and how it fractured us as a nation.
 
I remember President John F Kennedy being shot to death, and yes, also the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
 
I remember race riots, I remember teacher strikes and I remember the Challenger disaster.
 
On a more personal level, I remember my divorce, and I remember losing my job and being at the lowest point in my life.
 
I also remember meeting the girl of my dreams and marrying her, and I remember the birth of my two kids.
 
I also remember all the friends I have had throughout my life, some of whom I have known since I am seven years old.
 
I will never forget my father—my everlasting hero—and I will certainly never forget my grandparents.
 
And I will never forget how lucky I have been throughout my life, with the greatest luck being the strong family I was born into, and having my parents go through my ups and downs with me.
 
And who could be more fortunate than I—and my sister, for that matter—to have my mother as healthy and vibrant as one could be?
 
And she, and many of my family members and friends, will help me celebrate my birthday, which we will do on Saturday afternoon.
 
That should be a fun day, and look on Facebook … I suspect that there will be some things put up there on that day that you might be interested in.
 
As for today, it probably won’t be as busy with my little job as I was yesterday, so I will do what I have to do with that work, but Thursdays are normally busy for me, and I don’t think today will be any exception.
 
After getting up from bed—hopefully I can catch some shut-eye a little bit later—and showering and having breakfast, my wife and I will take our son to work, and then go off to do our grocery shopping.
 
On the way home from that, I will fill up my tank with gas, and then we will go home, put everything away in its proper place, have some lunch, check on the work I have to do today, and later, pick up my son from work.
 
The Yankees play an afternoon game today, so after getting my son from work and taking him to do his own shopping—yes, he does shop for some of his own groceries—maybe I can watch some of the game.
 
Then later, after dinner and a birthday cake, I will watch a little more TV and then conk out like I normally do.
 
So there is my birthday day.
 
One thing I will absolutely not do is shave today.
 
Thursdays are my shaving day—Sunday and Thursday each week since I lost my job, as when I was working full-time, I added Tuesdays as another shaving day—but since today is my birthday, there is no way I am going to ruin it by shaving.
 
No way … I will actually skip Friday, too, and shave on Saturday, as that is when we are having my party, so I want to be clean shaven that day for sure.
 
And it is a dedicated birthday party ... I want no mention of “retirement” on that day, because quite frankly, as long as I can possibly do it, I will never fully retire … not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t.
 
More to the point, I was forced into early retirement, so why soil the special birthday with any mention of that word?
 
So there you have it.
 
Thanks for all the birthday wishes I might get here, thanks for hearing me out each weekday here at the Ranting and Raving Blog, and thanks for going with me on this journey I have been on for the past 65 years, in one way or another.
 
I really do appreciate it.
 
“What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

Rant #2,883: It's My Life

The countdown is on, at least in my own head.
 
Today is my final day of being 64, and tomorrow, my 65th year on this earth will conclude, and I will be in the first day of my 66th year.
 
Isn’t that what birthdays really are?
 
They are actually the conclusion of one year, and the beginning of another year in one’s life.
 
I guess that is not the most popular way to look at it—when I am asked how old I am during the next year, I will say “65,” and not “living my 65th year as I progress to age 66,” but that is really what it is.
 
Tomorrow signifies the 65th anniversary of when I was born—the very first day of my life—but it leads to the beginning of my 66th year here.
 
(Yes, I do have to stop being so clinical about it, because it takes away from the fun of the day.)
 
Today, my last day at age 64, I actually have a very busy day ahead of me.
 
For work—yes, I am semi-retired—I have to cover a conference later this morning, so that will tie me down for the length of the conference—two hours—and then the writing up of what was said there, which will take me a couple of more hours to complete.
 
In the middle of all of this, I have to pick up my son from work. My wife will take him there, but she has recently started a new job herself—she is now a professional dog walker, so she is semi-retired just like me—and she has to work in the afternoon, so I will have to break from my writing and pick up our son in the afternoon.
 
My wife retired in November, and she has been looking for something to bide away her time—and put a few bucks in her wallet.
 
She applied to a few dog-walking jobs on a local message board, to no avail, but I found a professional service that handled this job, she applied, and got the job.
 
It is really an ingenious service. Everything is done online, my wife is given about five places that she is expected to go to per day, and she has to route her actions as she does them.
 
Now that more people have gone back to work, there is more of a need for such a service, and the walks can last as short as 15 minutes or as long as an hour.
 
So far, the dogs have been very friendly to my wife—obviously, these dogs are well trained by their owners, mixed in with my wife's love of dogs—and she not only walks the dogs, she plays with them, and gives them plenty of outdoor time.
 
My wife has always been a dog person, and we have had two dogs since we were married nearly 29 years ago, both since deceased.
 
She wants another one, and this job allows her to at least step her foot in the water of owning her own dog again … and she gets paid for it too!
 
And let me tell you, whatever money she gets is quite welcome.
 
Prices on everything continue to rise at spiraling levels—gas just went up about a nickel this week after going up about 10 cents last week—so whatever extra money you can get into your pocket is not only welcome, it really is necessary.
 
We semi-retired people simply can’t get along on Social Security alone; it really is a pittance, so work as long as you can (I will repeat that advice until the day I die!).
 
So there you have it.
 
My family is as busy as can be the day before I turn the big 6-5, and believe me, I am not complaining at all about it.
 
Better to be busy than to sit around doing nothing … even though that is what retirement once was thought to be, or at least doing what you want to do when you want to do it.

And if that is nothing, then bully for you!
 
Well, it simply isn’t that anymore, if it ever really was that.
 
Retirement is tough, way tougher than I thought it would be when I figured I would work until I was 70 and then pack it all in.
 
Let me tell you, if that would have happened, I will tell you that I still would be working on some type of basis, because with the environment that we are in, you really cannot afford to have what I thought a real retirement was.
 
And as usual, it all has to do with money, or MAH-NEE! as Jimmy Walker says in those annoying Social Security commercials that run all day, everyday.
 
I wish I had money to burn, but as I ring up another notch on my life, nothing could be further from the truth.
 
It is sad, but looking ahead, unless my health fails me, I think I will be doing some kind of work for the rest of my life, which means never really retiring.
 
I used to wonder why I would see 80-something grannies working in McDonalds.
 
I would ask myself why they were there at such an age, but now I know …
 
And somehow, I wish that I didn’t.

Rant #2,882: Words

Good morning!
 
“What’s so good about it?” you might ask.
 
My answer would be, “I don’t know, third base.”
 
Yes, that convoluted answer, taken from Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First” routine, has become my standard answer over the years when I don’t have a real answer to give to you.
 
It could be worse.
 
I could reply, “Awop-bop-a-loo-mop alop-bom-bom” or whatever Little Richard sings in the song “Tutti Frutti.”
 
Do you know that today is kind of a strange date revolving around the home run for the New York Yankees?

 
First, in 1931, Yankees’ first baseman Lou Gehrig hit a home run, but was called out, and the home run rescinded, when he passed the baserunner who was on base when he hit the homer.
 
So the home run was rescinded, and as the season progressed, Gehrig and teammate Babe Ruth went back and forth leading the league in homers.
 
But because of that miscue, by the end of the season, both Gehrig and Ruth were tied for the home run crown at 46.

And that rescinded homer put Gehrig's career home total at 493, or just seven away from the hallowed 500 club. 
 

The other event revolving around the home run and the Yankees on this date was that in 1961—30 years to the day after Gehrig’s home run miscue—Roger Maris hit his first home run of the season.
 
He would hit 60 more homers that season, eclipsing Babe Ruth’s record of 60 in 1927, but Maris did it in 161 games, Ruth in 154.
 
This tarnished the new record for some, and it was a cloud over Maris and his accomplishment for years after, and in my mind, he still hasn’t gotten his due, even after his record was eclipsed by the later PED escapades of Barry Bonds and others during baseball’s steroid era.
 
But enough about baseball … what else can we talk about today?
 
How about Record Store Day?
 
This past Saturday was the 15th anniversary of this hallowed celebration of local record stores and (mainly) vinyl records, and while the day has been so diluted by having multiple such days during the year—the next one is in June, and then on Black Friday—it remains a fun day to get some interesting stuff to add to your collection—and it also helps these mainly independent stores, which are still reeling from closure during the pandemic.
 
Although I woke up really early that day, I was only the third on line when I got to my local record store, but the wait went well, as the camaraderie between those on line and our shared love of records pushed us through the time we had to wait to get into the store and get the goodies we were pining for.
 
Once inside, I pretty much got what I wanted, staying within my budget with some space to spare.
 
Others bought hundreds of dollars worth of records in just one sitting; me, I bought what fit into the budget I had and didn’t waiver at all from that amount.

 
And within that amount, I bought two David Bowie releases; a greatest hits record from The Shocking Blue (remember “Venus?”); a re-released album from John Fred and His Playboy Band (remember “Judy In Disguise?”) which I inextricably did not have in my collection; and my one real outlier, a greatest hits collection from The Psychedelic Furs that does not contain their biggest hit in the U.S., “Heartbreak Beat” (I have the original single, so no loss here).
 
I would not have bought any one of these if any of them were offered outside of Record Store Day, so I think I did well, within my budget.
 
Sure, there were probably a few things I wanted to buy but couldn’t because of that budget, but heck, I did well … and after listening and digitizing some of this stuff as we speak, I really hit the bonanza with what I bought.
 
And some of my money went to animal rescue organizations, which makes it all the better.
 
So what else about April 26 is intriguing to me and is something I want to talk about here today?
 
Not really much of anything.
 
I guess you can say that I am content with what I have, hitting a home run and budgeting myself with what I had to say today.
 
(Get the references to the two things I did talk about today in that one sentence?)
 
Look, I am absorbing all I can in my final days of being 64 years old, so maybe you have to excuse me for my interaction with you today.
 
I expect April 26, 2022 to be a fine day, another day leading up to my big day, and that is just the way it is going to be.
 
Remember, “I don’t know, third base.”