Posts: 10

1. Old Outlaws

   30.Jul.08, 09:55 EDT
   
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   Ok, I'll admit it, I'm an old outlaw.  I'm guessing (but it's a safe guess) that the term outlaw should be applied to someone who's outside the law, who breaks the law.  Bank robbers are outlaws, for instance.  But so are people who drive without driver's licenses . . . and that makes me an old outlaw.  I've been living in Texas since 2000, but I never bothered to get a driver's license down here.  I renewed my license from the state I used to live in, since they have online renewals, and just kept on driving.  That offends Texas law, but I'm not one to worry about little crap like that.  I break all kinds of little laws. 
   
   But . . . this blog's not about the attributes of an outlaw lifestyle.  If anything, it's more of a indictment of it.  Getting a driver's license, for instance, is such an easy thing . . . and it's cheap . . . so why not do it?  Yeah, all the little bothersome things with licenses, etc. is irritating, but they're mostly just minor irritations.  Last week, I finally went in and got a legitimate driver's license . . . and lost my outlaw status in that regard.  And it cost me $24.00 for six years.
   
   I came home and told my wife, "You know, driver's licenses are too cheap.  The state needs to go up to some reasonable amount, like maybe $250.00."  She immediately said I was nuts, but I argued back, saying that driving a car is an important thing and shouldn't be taken lightly.  And they ought to go way up on marriage licenses, like maybe $2,000.00 per couple.  Telemarketers ought to be required to pay license fees . . . like maybe a hundred bucks a call.  A hunting license ought to cost at least $500 (some states are already wise to this one), and licenses for boating should increase significantly.
   
   Yeah, I'm nuts . . . but it's an interesting thought.  You can't slap big license fees on people like building contractors 'cause the asshole would just pass it along to the buyer. That's the way it works with most businessmen - the duck anything that cost them money, just pass it along.  But licenses for activities people enjoy doing, or have to do, can't be passed on easily.  And high costs would make folks take those activities more seriously.  Like with the marriage thing.  Maybe the license to marry should be free . . . but a divorce license would cost you ten grand.  Nah, wouldn't work.  That would increase the number of spouse murders.
   
   Maybe there ought to be a license for blogging.  It might stop the production of stupid blogs like this.
   
   D. Paz, 7/30/08

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3. WHONK!

   18.Jan.08, 12:11 EST
   
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   I read this little book somebody give me back some years ago, and it was a series of cowboy stories wrote by Curt Brummet from over in New Mexico.  One story he told in that book was about how a couple of kids hired out to castrate all the tomcats in this little New Mexico town.  The story was plumb funny.  Mr. Brummet throws out a good question in that story, which was something like, did you know that's it's a lot harder to turn loose of a freshly castrated tomcat than it is to catch him?
   
   Well, my tomcat story ain't as good as Brummett's, but here it is anyway.  This here's a true story 'bout a feller named Don Ray Horton, and also 'bout a tomcat named Opie.  Don Ray was a mechanic down at Horace Grimes' garage, and everybody around Crab Apple Cove knows that he ain't the sharest knife in the drawer, if you get my meaning.    Anyway, Thelma Mayfield come to the garage one day to get her old Buick worked on, and she had a whole basket of kittens with her.  I just happened to be there having Horace look at my pickup, and seen her basket of cat babies.  They was cute little skudders, 'bout seven weeks old, and most of 'em was yeller.
   
   Well, Thelma said the old mama cat was a grey tabby, but the daddy was a tomcat named Opie.  Opie didn't belong to her, and she said right out that she hated that cat with a passion.  In fact, the grey tabby mama didn't belong to her either, since it was sort of a town cat.  But it ended up having a bunch of kittens under her carport awning at the trailer park, and she felt sorry for 'em and had took care of the mama 'till the kitten got old enough to give away.  Then she started in about how the town elders ought to do something about the cat population, especially that ornery tomcat, Opie.
   
   Well, Don Ray's listening to all this palaver, and he steps ups and says that he can take care of the problem for her.  He said he knew just how to get rid of that yeller tomcat, or he could fix him to where he wouldn't be causing any more kittens.  And he said he'd do that for just twenty bucks, if that's what she wanted.  Thelma thought about it, then said she'd give him twenty bucks to fix the old tomcat, but that she didn't feel right about killing him.  Don Ray said he'd take care of it, that she could pay him later.
   
   Thelma went on off down the street then with her basket of kittens, looking for some sucker to give 'em away to.  That's when I turned to Don Ray and asked just how he planned on fixing that tomcat to where he couldn't make no more baby cats.  "Well, you got to whomk 'em, that's how," he said, grinning big.
   
   "I ain't never heard of such," I said.  "What's whonking?"
   
   Don Ray reached in his overall bib pocket and pulled out a small bald-peen hammer.  "You take this little hammer, grab up the old tomcat by the tail, and then you whonk his nuts with this here bald-peen hammer."
   
   "Damn, man!  Don't that hurt like hell?" I asked.
   
   He just looked confused, then said, "Naw, not unless up screw up and whack your thumb or something."
   
   "That ain't what I'm talking about.  I mean, don't that hurt the tomcat?"
   
   "Well, yeah, I reckon so, but hardly any way of fixing a tomcat's gonna hurt, don't ya figger?"
   
   "I reckon you got a point," I admitted.  "But how's that gonna fix the problem?  Just hitting him in the nuts might not do the job.  He might just be sore for a while, then go right back to screwing female cats."
   
   "Don't you know nothing about cats?  It's a proved fact that if you whonk a tomcat, he'll chew off his own nuts," Don Ray said, grinning big.
   
   "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard of," I said.
   
   "It's the God's honest truth.  They'll gnaw off their own nuts, if you get 'em whonked just right.  I've seen it with my own eyes."
   
   "Well, maybe it's right, but it's cruel as hell," I said.
   
   "Maybe . . . but it's twenty bucks," Don Ray said, grinning big.
   
   OK, so that's the set-up for the story.  Don Ray Horton agreed to whonk Opie for twenty bucks, and that agreement is reached about the first week of June.  I went on my way figuring that Don Ray wouldn't never collect his twenty 'cause he'd never catch Opie.  My house is just a block from the trailer park, and I'd seen Opie around from time to time.  He was a good old cat, for the most part, and he was a big cat.  And he was hard to miss 'cause he was so orange, one of them orange tabby cats.  I'm just guessing here, but I figure Opie would've weighed a good twelve pounds, maybe fifteen.  Like I said, he was a big tomcat.
   
   Now, Opie didn't bother nobody, just sort of made his rounds through the trailer park.  He was independent, like most tomcats, and not all that tame.  I figured catching him might be more than Don Ray could handle, so I forgot all about his plans to fix Opie.  Then one day I was down at Chuckie Phat's Rodehouse having a cold one, and Lester Harkin come in with a big grin on  his face.  Lester's is our town marshall, and also is a trained EMT.  When I asked about the grin, he said he'd just hauled Don Ray to the hospital up in San Antonio.  He was still piecing together the story, he said, but then he broke out laughing.  It took almost an hour to get the story out of him, being as how he'd break out laughing every few minutes.
   
   So, here's what happened.  Don Ray went over to Thelma's trailer and set a trap for Opie, a big crate thing.  He'd fixed cats before, so he knew, or thought he knew, what to expect.  He showed up at the trailer one morning wearing welding gloves, coveralls, and goggles.  Thelma wasn't home, but a neighbor from across the street said she saw him pull up and get out to go check the trap.  Sure enough, Opie dummied up for the bait and was in the trap.  This is where the story gets real funny.   Don Ray pulled out his ball-peen hammer, then reached into the cage and grabbed Opie by the tail.  He snatched him out of the cage, held him high in the air, took careful aim, and whacked Opie in the nuts.  In other words, he whomked him a good one.
   
   Opie let out a sound that brought several neighbors to their front porches to see what was going on.  They described the sound as being like some fierce critter from a jungle would make.  Don Ray whacked Opie, and at first nothing much happened, other than the God awful yowl the cat let out.  The cat sort of went rigid, like it froze in pain or something.  That gave Don Ray an opportunity to deliver a second whonk, which he did . . . and that's when Don Ray learned a big lesson about fixing tomcats.  Opie went on the attack, and it wasn't just a defensive one either.
   
   One neighbor lady said it was the most awful thing she ever saw.  Opie shreded the goggles off Don Ray's face instantly, and nothing he could do could get the cat loose from him.  He ran, tumbled, bounced off trailers and cars, screamed and cursed.  Several women came out of their trailers with brooms and mops and started beating at the cat, but Opie was not to be denied his revenge.  He'd beem whonked, twice, and he planned on getting even.  God only knows how bad Don Ray would've been hurt if Joyce Adcock hadn't come out of her trailer with an electric cattle prod.  She juiced Opie, and that's when he gave up the fight and headed for the boonies.
   
   Lester said that when him and another EMT got there with the ambulance, Don Ray was laying on the ground, on his back, staring straight up.  He was shaking like a goose trying to shit a bowling ball, and his eyes was round as plates.  Lester said he looked like he'd been run through a debarking machine at a log processing plant, that there was hardly a place on him that wasn't clawed and scratched.  He said that fluffy stuff out of them padded coveralls was still all in the air, and was stuck to Don Ray.  When Lester asked him what had happened, Don Ray tried to answer, but his voice was so weak he could barely hear him.
   
   Don Ray bent low, asking, "What you say Don Ray?"
   
   "I need a bigger hammer . . . bigger hammer . . . bigger hammer, " he said.
   
   Don Ray was wrong about a lot of things, it turns out.  Opie still has his nuts, so tomcats don't chew 'em off just 'cause they get whonked.  He was wrong to have tried such an idiotic thing, wrong to have done that to any animal, especially an ornery tomcat.  But he was right about one thing.  He did need a bigger hammer.
   
   Percy B. Hand, 1/18/08
   
   

4. Introducing Gusbo Lizzard

   14.Jan.08, 09:21 EST
   
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   His entire name is Gustave Beauregard Lizzard, and he will quickly point out that his last name is prounouced Lee-zard.  He goes by Gusbo, a nickname is daddy stuck on him many years ago when he was a kid down in New Orleans.  Yeah, Gusbo is a Cajun, and a perfect example of the old time southern gentleman.  His manners are flawless, his style is top rung traditional, and his demeanor is cool and calculating.  He dresses in a white suit in cooler months, then shucks the jacket in favor of an ornate silk Hawaiian shirt in summer.  He often wears a straw hat with a straight brim, but sometimes he strolls main street in one of those Jungle Jim hats.  He's a dude, any way your turn him . . . and he's seventy-five years old.
   
   I should admit right up front that I'm a great admirer of Gusbo Lizzard.  He's got class, lots of it.  He built his own house, a small place but one that looks like the smaller French houses of New Orleans.  He drives an old Mercedes-Benz ponton, a touring car that's a slick as a button.  And, he's a collector of unusual objects, like railroad spikes.  He's a train historian, for one thing, and has written lots of books on the subject.  There's no more avid an environmentalist alive than Gusbo.  He loves animals, but he's a big time lover of plants of any kind . . . even the ones most people hate.  He knows geology, geography, and has done a lot of research concerning rocks.  Perhaps his first and greatest love is for trees.  He's a collector of woods, knows a great deal about that . . . and he's a master whittler.
   
   Gusbo Lizzard is a historian, but hardly anybody around Crab Apple Cove knows him as anything but a storyteller par excellante.  He lives in a small house out at Hiram's Cove on the lake, but he comes to town every morning to have a roll at the Upandatem Donut Shop.  After entertaining the crew there for a little while, he usually strolls on down to the Hootin Hotel for his morning chess game with Lerch, the manager.  Lerch's real name is Hugo Wiggins, and although he's nothing at all like Gusbo (he's a retired Marine Corp enlisted officer), he's the next best chess player in town.  After that Gusbo might stop off over at the Town Hall where all the seniors hang out.  By seniors, I mean the sure enough old timers around town, like at least seventy or above.
   
   Nobody knows much about Gusbo's history because he's not prone to talk about himself.  He'll talk about pretty much anything else, though . . . including quantum mechanics, if that's your druthers.  He talks like a philosopher, even a mystic at times, but what he writes is usually anything but mystical.  He's a down to earth, tell it like he sees it, blunt, critic of modern society.  He writes a column for the local newspaper, but he's also a blogger quite a few folks who follow that stuff know from his Lizzard Onarant columns. 
   
   Gusbo is a self-appointed keeper of traditions, old ways, and parts of our past he sees as important to our preservation as decent human beings.  He hates most newfangled electronic devices, even rants about them from time to time, but he's sure handy with a computer.  Oh, he's not a technician in any way shape form or fashion, but he's a blogger these days . . . and he's very much a crusader for getting old people more interested in internet communication.  He even taught a course down at Town Hall showing old farts how to use a computer well enough to get involved in chat lines, online communities, buy and sell on ebay, search for medications at cheaper prices, and so forth.
   
   Anyway . . . Gusbo is getting his own profile here at Campo Madrone.  It's closed to the public right now while we figure out how to present it without pissing off half the civilized world (or that part of them who read blogs).  Like I said, when he writes, Gusbo is sure not always as congenial as he is in real life.  He's written lots of history books, says he learned his lessons there, and now wants to write about real life situations that need addressing . . . and changing.  And, he rants.  By his own admission some of his blogs are a little over the top sometimes.  But he's not easy to censor.  We're working on it.
   
   D. Paz, 1/14/08
   

5. New Ties

   30.Oct.07, 08:46 EDT
   
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   My last post on this profile was about old ties and how important they can be, but this one is about the necessity to create new ties - especially for people dealing with old ties that have failed them.  It happens, you know.  Sometimes we just outgrow old ties, or they outgrow us, or maybe they just cease to exist.  Some of these ties have to do with institutional things, like with government.  You sure can discount them because as an old fart you look to them for more things than does the younger American.  My entire retirement income comes from government - part of it from the State of Oklahoma and part from federal social security.  These aren't gifts from government. This isn't something you automatically come by when you turn 65 but are things you are deserving of because you paid into them.  They are ties you created long ago and need to keep tied because you can't live without them.  
   
   Old ties like this are important, but you will find that they're not enough.  You need new ones because the old ones don't quite measure up to the needs of most people.  Medicare is a good example.  It pays eighty percent on most things, but that twenty percent you have to pick up (along with paying for things medicare won't pick up) can ruin you financially.   A heart attack several  years back ended up costing me a quarter of a million bucks.  I wasn't on medicare then but had a high dollar insurance policy that was supposed to cover catastrophic medical emergencies like that . . . but didn't.  Like lots of Americans, I got ripped off by an insurance company.  I'm still paying doctors and will for some time to come.  
   
   One of the new ties I need to make is one millions of Americans have already made - finding myself a drug store in Mexico to buy my medications.  And I need to connect with a good dentist down there.  Since I'm making regular trips these days to the border, I might as well do that.  And if you're thinking that's risky, that Mexico offers poor quality drugs and services, think again.  For one thing, you have no guarantee of good service here in America because we sure don't offer the best medical care in the world, not by a long shot.  Most Mexican drugs are generic, but the same is true here these days.  You can find bad treatment and ripoffs in medications anywhere, so you need to be careful wherever you buy . . . but I don't worry about going to Mexico for those things.
   
   Not long ago my friend Alphonse needed surgery.  He had an old football injury bugging him, a thing with his shoulder, and started checking with doctors to see about getting it fixed.  It was a minor thing, but nobody here in Texas would do it for less than $30,000.00.   Alphonse is married to a Mexican woman, lived down there for 14 years, and so he used some ties there to arrange to have the work done, and for way less than half what it would cost here.  That's a good example of where an old tie failed him and one not quite as old bailed him out.  Knowing someone down there helped, that's for sure, but he would've been better off going there and making completely new ties in the process.
   
   I'm making new ties this year, and will make more next year.  I need to connect with things that will keep me out of doctor's offices, like hooking up with a food source that offers safer alternatives to the commercial garbage sold in most grocery stores.  I need to make ties with a health club that sets up a workable program for me.  I need to do more things that engage my brain as well, and I for sure need to work on my spiritual life.  But heck, we all need to do those things . . . we just somehow don't do it.  Sometimes that requires getting back to old ties we once had but got away from, but most of the time it requires new ties.  
   
   And it's like the old saying: If I'm lyin', I'm dyin' . . . and maybe that's a lot more prophetic than anyone knows.
   
   D. Paz, 10/30/07

6. Old Ties

   24.Oct.07, 08:19 EDT
   
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   The past few days have been reminders to me that old ties are important, and I'm not talking about the kind you wear around your neck.  The ties I have in mind are the kind you wear in your heart and head, the important ones and not just something you dress up in once in a while.  I've got lots of old ties, and the older I get, the more important they become to me.
   
   Two nights ago I got a phone call from Rick Furnish, ranch foreman for Hitch Ranch up in the Oklahoma panhandle.  I've known Rick since the early 1970's, when he was a star performer on my rodeo team at Panhandle State University.  Yeah, it's a real school, even a well-established college that's been around since shortly after Oklahoma became a state.  If you keep up with rodeo, you know about PSU.  Since the early '70's it's been a national powerhouse in college rodeo, and I take great pride in that because I'm one of the creators of that program.  
   
   Lots of colleges west of the Mississippi (and some even east) have had rodeo programs for a long time.  The National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association has been around since shortly after WWII.  I got involved when a group of kids ask me to help out as a faculty advisor to their rodeo club back in '72.  PSU is an old agriculture school mainly, so having a rodeo club was a natural for them.   But they had never excelled at it because they had no financing, no backing.  A Chemistry professor named R. Lynn Gardner had been advising the club for some years before I stepped in to help out, and together we decided to turn the little club into a big program . . . which we did.  And doing that took a helluva lot of hard work.
   
   I worked with the rodeo team at PSU until 1982, then stepped back to do other things with my life.  I kept teaching, started writing and doing other cowboy things, like forming a road show with fellow cowboy poet Buck Ramsey from down in Amarillo.  By that time, I had formed all sorts of ties with cowboys - rodeo, ranch, and even performing cowboys.  The rodeo program continued to do well under Doc Gardner, and we remained close friends until he died suddenly in 1996.  I took over the job as head rodeo coach then, stayed with it until I retired in 2000.  We won several national championships those last few years, something I'll always look back on as being a wonderful thing for me.  
   
   People view life events from all different angles, and your point of view sure determines how you see things.  Rodeo is a violent and physically demanding sport, not just on the animals but also on the people who ride and rope them.  I became a crusader for animal welfare in rodeo, something that cost me some friends and forced me into an early retirement .  .  . but I wouldn't have done it any other way.  But my first consideration was always the youngster who went out and worked the rodeo events, and in doing so brought national recognition to a small college most people never heard of.  Many of those kids who contested in rodeo went on to professional careers that made them famous among those who follow rodeo . . . and maybe with some who don't.  
   
   The first real rodeo star PSU ever produced was Rick Furnish, a saddle bronc and bull rider.  He was a starter for four years and went to the national finals each year, usually as the region's all-around cowboy champ.  He was a rowdy young man back then for sure and was always mixed up in something, but he was also the mainstay of that rodeo program in its fledgling years.  I saw him often after that, at least as long as I lived in the panhandle.  I liked stopping off at the ranch outside of town and seeing what he had going with horses.  They've always kept lots of nice horses out there.  Back in the old days, we did some big time drinking together.  Now I don't drink at all, and he drinks very little . . . but the memories of the old days are still there.  I guess that's what ties are all about.
   
   And so he called just to talk a while, fill me in on what's been going on with him and his family.  He's got a boy on the circuit now, riding broncs and doing fairly well.  So we talked rodeo because that's where the tie started with us, and that's what holds friendships together sometimes.  I haven't been back to the panhandle in six years, don't miss it, but I miss the people . . . and the ties we sometimes forget about until they reel you back in.  This has been my week to be reminded that I'm still on the line.
   
   My vehicles are all old and getting to where I don't feel comfortable taking them on long trips.  My favorite ride, my pickup (she's called Blackie), has 200,000 miles behind her and is starting to complain some.  My wife's car has 120,000 miles, and my old SUV hasn't been cranked in a year.  So I went to a local car lot yesterday just to browse around and found an older Buick still in great condition.  I know the dealer.  He's a decent dude who does his best to treat customers right, and I'm needing a new ride, and so I said I'd take the car.  And so I went to the bank here in town to get a loan . . . and that didn't work out.  It's one of those national chain banks, so you know the deal there.  The car was too old, had too many miles to suit their chart, so that was a no go.
   
   Then I thought of Rowdy Slavin, my banker friend back up in the panhandle.  He was a senior in college when I took back over the rodeo program in 1996, so I knew him from that.  But then he went to work at a bank I'd been doing business with for some time, and he was the loan officer I dealt with.  And I still keep an account at that bank, which is where my retirment check goes.  So I called the bank and was told that Rowdy is now the big bossman, the President.  I called him and we chatted about old times, and then he told me to just go write the check for the car.  He'd send papers later, just needed the dealer to fax him a title and a few other papers.  And he did it at a low interest rate.  
   
   I'm glad and sad now, both at the same time.  I've got a different car to drive (and it's a fancy car that will do me for a while, even if it is a few years old), and I know I've still got friends out there.  I'm still on the line, still hooked up with ties that count when the chips are down, and I'm grateful for that.  At the same time, though, I'm a little sad because I live 500 miles from these people, and I don't have those ties with folks I live around now.  Oh, I've got new friends, but a new friend is not like an old friend when it comes to ties.  And so I talk to somebody like Rick who tells me about people we both know and about his kids, and then to Rowdy who loans money to a man he's not seen in six years, and then tells me about his brother (who also is a friend) and . . .    Well, you get the point. Even writing about it chokes me up.
   
   My grandpa used to say that a man needs to tend his fields, and he wasn't talking about just being a good farmer.  I don't like looking back too much because it reminds me of all the mistakes I made, but sometimes we get reminders that I must've done a few things right.  I've still got friends, still have ties.  I get a little lonesome and moody for a few days after old ties reel me in, take me back to times when those ties were being made, but that's life, I guess.  Maybe the thing I ought to remember is that life lived right does that for you because it's sure better to have good ties than bad ones.  Grandpa was right . . . and I've got good ties.
   
   D. Paz, 10/24/07

7. Dress Your Age

   22.Oct.07, 01:32 EDT
   
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   Ageism is a social problem in this nation, and if you're wondering just what that is, it's the assumption on someone's part that they're superior because of their age.  Ageism is usually a thing where young people think they've got all the answers, that old people are just a bunch of old fogies who don't know diddly-squat about anything.  That, of coure, is an erroneous assumption . . . most of the time.  Young people don't just automatically come to conclusions that they're superior to old people; it's just a matter of observation sometimes.  People of all ages usually wear their intelligence like clothing, right out in front of God and everybody.  If you watch some old people in action, listen to them talk, you're bound to come to the conclusion that they dumb as a box of rocks.  The thing is, if you had talked to them back when they were young,  you would come away with the same assumption. What I'm saying is that old age isn't a cure for dumbassness.  Lots of young dumbasses end up being old ones because they don't pay attention and learn anything along the way.  
   
   Time is a great teacher.  It gives us all space to learn, to grow, and an unfortunate fact of life is that the world is full of people who haven't learned much because they didn't take advantage of the opportunities time gave them.  We're all guilty of that to some degrees, but some old people seem to have missed the boat altogether.  And like I said, it'snot something easily hidden because it shows just like the clothing we wear.  I'm of the belief that people should dress according to their age.  A sixty year old running around wearing a teenager's clothes looks sort of silly, but it happens because the clothing industry in this country is geared toward youth.  Us old farts are left out when it comes to shopping for clothing. There's not much out there for us to pick from, so we end up buying stuff that's not quite right for us.
   
   My wife won't allow me to wear coveralls, especially those jumpsuits old fart men wear.  You know the ones I'm talking about - the summer ones that have the little belt that snaps in front.  She throws a fit when I wear overalls, says they make me look retarded.  My kids often point out that I'm starting to dress like an old man, and I always say, "Well, that's good 'cause I am an old man."  I can handle criticism about how I dress, but I don't think I'd take it well if somebody pointed out how dumb I look.  "Say there, old timer, you're sure looking stupid today.  Are you feeling OK?"  I see it in their eyes sometimes, but nobody has actually said it to me . . . so far.  There's got to be a way, I figure, for us old folks to stop looking dumb, and clothing might have a little something to do with it.
   
   As of late, I've been working on my wardrobe.  I look awful just hanging around the house, but I try to dress up a bit when I go out in public.  I run across other old guys out there, and they don't look dumb.  I think it has something to do with how they talk more than how they look.  It's like that old saying: I'd rather remain silent and be thought a fool than to open my mouth and remove all doubt.  Yep, that's it!  It's what we say that determines how people receive us.  There's enough ageism already out there as it is.  We should do all we can to cut down on it by acting like we've got good sense.  Sounds easy, right?  Well, pardner, I'm here to tell you it can be a chore, especially given what we're up against in dealing with a world run by young folks.
   
   Maybe it's divine intervention trying to take care of me, but I can no longer patronize fast food restaurants.  I can't understand a damn word those kids are saying.  I'm hard of hearing to start with, but I don't speak the language of the young anymore.  I can't talk to computer techs on the telephone, or to credit card people for the same reason.  I'm even guilty of  shouting at the phone, "I NO SPEEKIE YOUR LANGUAGE!"  As a matter of fact, I no longer answer the phone.  Nobody worth talking to ever calls anyway, just some jerk trying to sell something.  
   
   Here's one that really pisses me off.  Pretty young women have started calling me honey, dear, and sweetheart, and this happens a lot in doctor's offices, cafes, and even in bars.  They didn't do that when I was forty or even fifty, but now all of a sudden I'm a sweetheart.  One gal at a restaurant I frequent calls me "sugar."  Makes me want to slap her on the ass, but there's too many old men already doing that. Speaking of looking dumb, that's one that'll get the dumbass tag stuck all over you.  I just smile and order my meal.  She means well . . . I think.
   
   I don't worry much about labels, but I do worry about appearances.  I don't like being thought of as dumb, and sure don't like being treated like I'm past the age of being dangerous.  Having some gal flirt with you, perhaps assuming she's lifting an old fart's spirits, makes me want to show her that flirting lifts other things on some old men.  I take it better from women than I do men who call me "old timer" or "pop."  But if you flare up about things like that, you run the risk of looking even dumber than you feel right then.  So do I just suffer in silence and let those ageists think what they want?  Nah, not me.  I just call them names like Junior or Sonny Boy if it's a guy, and it it's a woman, I call her Sis or Sweetie.  You've got to get your licks in, and they get the message.
   
   My point?  Wear age like a nice suit or a twenty X Stetson hat.  Wear it like an evening gown or party dress, if you're a woman, and then talk up to how you look.  If you're still smart and snappy, show the world that you can talk with some intelligence.  And if you're still just as dumb as you were when you were a youthful whipper-snapper, then maybe you ought to dress well and keep your mouth shut.  Smile a lot, that helps.  And, Oh, yeah!  Don't get handsy just because you're old and can get away with it.  That's tacky . . . and dumb.
   
   And most important of all . . . don't take any unnecessary shit just because you getting on in years.
   
   D. Paz, 10/21/07