Youth of Old Age ( #AtoZChallenge )

        
     You've undoubtedly heard the expression about someone going through their second childhood.  Well if a second childhood would be as good as my first one then I say bring it on! 


















Youth of Old Age


         When I was in my teens and twenties, ages beyond thirty seemed kind of old to me and the age where I am now seemed downright ancient.  Yet, now, nearing seventy, I don't really feel much older than the twenty-something guy I once was. Apparently I look older than I think I do, but I've been looking at this mortal frame on a daily basis for seven decades and the daily changes have been imperceptible to me. 

          If fifty is "the youth of old age" then where am I now?  The middle age of old age?  Or perhaps if I live beyond 100 years then I might still be in my youth of old age.  My mind resists as my body often reminds me that I'm not a kid anymore.  Physically I seem to have all sorts of limitations, but mentally I might be any age I want to think I am. 

        Age is not only relative, but it is also in the eyes of the beholder.  I hear voices inside my head telling me that I'm still young and have many years left while from without I get the implications that I am a senior citizen--not like a senior in high school, but an old codger, an outdated relic of the past.  I don't feel old, but there are indications all about me that I am old.

       Well, dag-nab it, I ain't settlin' to be old any time soon unless it works to my advantage and in that case, okay, I'm old, now give me my damn senior citizen discount!

         What age would you consider to be old?   As you get older do you tend to leave certain dreams behind you?   Do you think you "act your age"? 

Hey Jude (#BOTB)

     Hey!  June is here already!  What the heck happened?   I thought it was still January and I had dreamed that April had gone by.   Before we know it December will be here again...

Jersey in January 

            It seems like an oft lamented fact that time seems to pass so much more quickly as we get older.  You've likely said it yourself.  As for me, maybe it's partly because most of my days are the same throughout most of the year.  Time recedes in a blur...


Battle of the Bands

Battle of the Bands is the blogging event started by Far Away Series and now hosted by StMcC Presents Battle of the Bands.   This event happens each month on the 15th and on some blogs there is also a Battle on the 1st of the month.  My blog is one of those with a second Battle on the 1st of the month.   The premise is simple:  Listen to the songs presented below and then in the comments vote for your favorite and tell us why you liked it.  Then visit the links listed near the bottom of this post for more Battle action.


 Hey June

       Upon the arrival of June I thought a song about the month might be in order for this first of the month Battle of the Bands match up.  Oh, except it's "Hey Jude" and not "June".   Well, I guess this will work just fine.

         I'm sure everyone is familiar with this Beatles song that has the ending that seems like it's going to go on forever.  What more can I say but "nah, nah, nah nah, nah, nah, Hey June!"--er, I mean, "Jude".


Smile Orchestra  "Hey Jude"  (2015)

         The Smile Orchestra is an acoustic cover band from Ukraine.  They are available for parties, receptions, and restaurant background music.  That's as much as I know and I don't know that we need to know much more than that.   We'll let them start off the Battle with their truncated version of the epic Beatles tune...





Don Ellis Orchestra  "Hey Jude"  (1970)

      Now to a lengthy version that I think I've started at the 3:10 mark where the actual music starts. This recording comes from the album Don Ellis at Fillmore.  You can move the needle back if you want to hear the weird psychedelic intro--over all it's a long cut in the best tradition of Don Ellis.

       My introduction to Don Ellis was back around 1970 when I heard the amazing "Variations for Trumpet" from his Autumn album--one that I still own on vinyl.  Also still in my small collection of vinyl that I've hung onto is the double live Fillmore album that my mother gave me for Christmas of 1970. 
       
         I'm guessing that it was early 1971 when Ellis was touring with his orchestra and played Knoxville at the University of Tennessee's Stokely Arena.  None of  my friends at the time were interested in going to see this concert, but I thought it was worth going it alone.  I was not disappointed.  One of the best concerts I've seen.

        So let's get into a jazz mode as we crossover into the psychedelic seventies...







Time to Vote!

     We have a couple of contrasting styled videos here.  I like both of them, but I'm going to pick one as a favorite.  What about you?   Have some fun with us.  What's your favorite between these two choices?   You don't have to know about music to have an opinion since it all comes down to your own personal taste.

         Please vote on your favorite by letting us know your choice in the comment section and tell us why you prefer the version you chose. Then after you've finished here, please visit the other blogs listed below who may or may not be participating this time around. And if you've put up your own BOTB contest let us know that as well so we can vote on yours.




Here are some other places where you might find BOTB posts:

 StMcC Presents Battle of the Bands

  'MIKE'S RAMBLINGS'

'Curious as a Cathy'

Sound of One Hand Typing

Angel's Bark  

Debbie Doglady's Den

Jingle, Jangle, Jungle 

Cherdo on the Flipside

A I Love Music


Winner of this Battle Announced Friday June 7


          There will be something for Insecure Writer's Support Group next Wednesday with a results post two days later.  Be sure to come back to see which band's version received the most votes.

           What is your favorite theory as to why time seems to pass so much more quickly as we grow older?   Have you seen any big bands or jazz orchestras in concert?   What is your favorite album recorded at one of the Fillmore Auditoriums?  

Youth Is Wasted on the Young ( #AtoZChallenge )

     If it is true that youth is wasted on the young, then does it follow that experience is wasted on the old?...

Arlee Bird in Ecuador (2013)

            My life has been filled with experiences both good and bad.  How much wiser these experiences have made me is debatable, but my inclination is that, though I do believe they have instilled some bit of wisdom within me, they have most certainly provided me with a great deal of education as well as interesting memories.

            When I was young I used to hear kids saying they wished they could be older.  Often at times I felt the same way.  Most of the time I was fine being my age.  Even now my mind doesn't seem that different:  There are still some of those same dreams I've had most of my life.  My mind seems neither young nor old now except for outlook. I am a realist who is subject to great flights of fantasy.

           That's where the body comes in. I can't say I was ever an overly physical person.  Never played sports or engaged in excessive activities.  Maybe something in me was telling me not to which later in life I could understand when the doctors told me I had a congenital heart defect which could be damaging if that organ were overtaxed.  I've consciously taken things easier since learning that bit of important knowledge--you know, just in case.

            Now as I approach my seventh decade I think of all of the things I still want to do in my life.  If only I could be 20 again--and, you know what they say:  Know everything I know now.  Would I do things differently than I would have back then?  No matter.  I might have more physical stamina.  I might look prettier.  People wouldn't perceive me as someone who was getting older.

           So am I too old for crazy dreams that some think should be the domain of only the young?  

           Just this morning my friend Sanford called.  He's 15 years younger than I, with a wife and seven kids ranging from toddlers to high school.  Without me even saying anything about my dreams, he told me what he'd been dreaming lately and it was uncanny how closely his dream resembled mine.  This gave me a certain amount of reassurance that maybe my dreams are not really so crazy.  

          Now that April is coming to an end, I will once again cut back my blogging.  I will break out my notebooks and start strategizing.   There will be places to go and people to see.  Phone calls.  Emails.  So much to do!

         Yowl!  There goes that durn foot again.  Let me set down and take a rest.  Maybe a nap would be nice.

          Did you take many naps when you were in your teen or young adult years?   Would you be able to keep up with your younger self at your current age?   What do you think is the best age of life?

Friend, Father, Family Man ( #AtoZ )

         We play many roles throughout our lives--sometimes significant and other times seemingly trivial.  But it's all important, everything we do, because it all means something even if we don't realize what that meaning is...

Arlee Bird center with the black cap with family in Gatlinburg TN

           When I was a child my father was like a hero to me.  I even made up a song about him when I was about 4 or so.  I'd sing, "I'm Bob Jackson the movie star..." (his name was Bob Jackson).  I don't recall if there were any other lyrics--I guess I just repeated that line.  

            In my teens and early adult years I disagreed with my father often, but his core values were deeply instilled within me.   After having my own children I began to more greatly appreciate the responsibilities of fatherhood.  In my later thirties--perhaps a year or so before my father died--I thanked him for being the father that he had been and the example he had set for my own time at being a father.  He didn't say much in response, but I'm sure he had some kind of appreciation for my having said that.

            After my father died at age 67, I often thought of him as I continued my own fatherhood journey.  Even now, nearly thirty years after his departure from this Earth, my father's presence surrounds me.  These days when I look in the mirror I see my father.  In many ways I have become him, but I have also become my own unique person.

            Now with four children of my own who are on their own raising the next generation, I see myself in that same place I was 30 years ago.  My kids have thanked me for being a good father and teaching them how to deal with life as best as they could.  At this stage of life I am not just a father to my children, but a friend to some fine adults with interesting lives.  They are bringing up a new generation and attempting to give their children a life akin to what they remember having as kids.  The kind that I remember my parents giving to me.

           Years have passed as have both my mother and father.  A few of my friends I still keep in contact with to some extent.  They live far from me as do my brothers and sisters.  Isolated in L.A. is how I sometimes feel.  But that might be okay because a lone castaway dreams bigger sometimes.  My rescue boat may be on its way.

            My father never stopped dreaming--he always  had some big idea that he was sure that would be his next big life thing.  Years after I moved away from home my mother told me how they started going to comedy clubs and my father began to develop his own comedy act that he could perform in those clubs.   And he actually did it on a small scale.  A stunning success was probably part of his comedy dream, but just doing it was a success to a degree though he never became quite the star he might have fancied becoming.  He was having fun and he was pursuing a dream.

          I have no aspirations for comedic stardom, but I have other dreams that keep burning within me.  My father's drive is now compelling me.  I feel him encouraging me onward.  Something needs to happen and it will.  The question is:  What will that something be?   In some sense I know what the something might be and I'm working on it now  I am my father and I am my children's father.  I am who I am and only hope that others will accept me for who I am.

            I choose to be no one else but who I am.  This is me.

           Do you see something of your parents in who you've become?   Were your parents big dreamers or were they discontents?   Have you kept up with friends from younger days or have you mostly departed from them for some reason or another?

Growing (#AtoZChallenge)

          Before you curse growing older, remember those senior discounts.  Now, as I'm growing older, those growing pains are starting to make sense.  I can't recall adolescence or childhood being physically painful in any way though adults used to talk about "growing pains".   All I know now is that as I grow older, I am growing more pained.  Not like constant pain or anything like that.  Not yet. But I mean a presence of lurking pains that can pop up unexpectedly.  It's not cool when that happens, but those senior discounts when you weren't even thinking about it--now that's pretty cool.

 A 20-year-old cat that looks tired because of its advanced age.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Growing


      Guess I'm still growing.   Maybe not growing up as much as being at a stable place in life until I start diminishing with old age.   There's no doubt that I've been growing older--that seems like it's been going on for years and yet I don't feel much older in my mind.  So much time seems to have passed since I was a kid, but there are still some kid thoughts in my head.  There are times when, if my aging body didn't give me away and I didn't have a mirror in which to see myself, I could swear I was about ten years old.  Those thoughts never last long as reality comes crashing in.

      Yes, I am growing older, but am I growing wise?  Sometimes I don't feel like I've learned much of anything in my life.  Sure, I know stuff, but is it stuff worth knowing.  Is it something akin to wisdom?  I guess I can say I'm somewhat wise.  With all the time that has passed in my life so far I think I can lay a claim to being some kind of wise.

       The days keep on coming at me like I'm in some kind of speed race hoping to win a silver cup and a kiss from a reigning beauty queen.  No such luck.  Instead I'm like the fabled tortoise forging onward at a steady pace.  The rapidity of time is only illusion, but as real to me as the hot concrete beneath my tired feet.  That's the big concern--growing tired.  Old is a state of mind and body.  Tired is a state of body and mind.

         Are you keeping up with the time?   Do you feel like time has taken a toll on you?    What does being wise mean to you?

Why do I look younger than other people my age?

That's me, front center row in the tie-dyed T-shirt.  It was a 60's  theme

        We've been dealing with some minor controversy in the past couple of posts on this blog, so today I thought I'd hit a really big topic that might make some of you enraged, others amused, and still others scratching your heads wondering why I'm such a dopey guy sometimes.   This may be my most controversial post of all.

        A post by Karen Walker stirred me to add this bit of nonsense to my blog composition queue and I figured now might be the time to pull out the big guns--er, maybe I shouldn't go there and instead say, now seemed like a good time to get a bit silly.

       At my 25th high school reunion--this would have been in 1994 if you're interested in math--I made an interesting discovery.  Nearly all of my fellow classmates except for a few of the more exceptional looking women had aged much more than I had.  Most of them looked like they had ten years or more on me.  Had I not recognized them I would have thought I'd walked into the wrong reunion.

        The good-looking women I figured were probably being helped by make-up, but the guys all looked liked they'd graduated years ahead of me.  I puzzled over this phenomena wondering why I had not aged like they had.  I felt this smug satisfaction of now being the best looking guy in my class.  Even the guys who had been the hunks and lookers when they were seniors in high school were now looking more like plain old senior citizens.

        Over the next several years I became more aware of how I gauged against my old friends--and I emphasize old.  They were aging but I didn't look much older than I did in college.  Oh sure, sometimes the lady at Jack-in-the-Box gave me a senior citizen discount when I stopped by for breakfast on my way to work, but she probably did that for everybody.  No way did I look like any senior citizen.

        Then not long ago my wife and I were wondering about the age of a certain lady we know.  I knew she had to be older than I.  And then she mentioned what her age was--three years older than I am.  I commented to my wife how much older the lady looked than I look.

         "Not really," my wife responded.

          Taken aback I said, "She looks a lot older than I do."   And then added, "Doesn't she?"

          "You don't look that much younger," my wife said.

          Thanks for that vote of confidence, dear.  I didn't understand.  What was my wife seeing that I wasn't?   I went to the mirror to check it out.  There he was--same young looking guy as always.   The hair was maybe not as dark as it used to be.  That is, what hair was left.  The face was still the same face I'd always known.  I didn't look all that different.

         Oh sure, I can feel my body falling apart, but I'm just out of shape and tired.  When I tell my doctor she tells me it's because I'm getting older.  Duh--I guarantee you I'm still just as young as I was back when I was younger.  I can see it in the mirror.  Yeah, it's the same me I've always known.

        Isn't it?

Related articles

• Mind Over Chronology/ Age Is A State Of Mind
• I'm Not Afraid of My 20 Year High School Reunion. ~ Sandy Rosenblatt
• Life Lesson #& - You're Not Getting any Younger!