The Thousand Year Old Man

I have to confess that my friend and fellow writer and editor Carol Price has set me off on this course of speaking a little of growing old. The thing is I don't feel old and there's the rub, none of us do. My mother continued to work as a cook in a private, residential home for old folk. She worked until she lost her sight, at the grand old age of 78.

One day somebody asked mother what she did with her time. She replied that she looked after old folk. "But Margaret, you're old." said the other person. "No, I'm not old, the people I look after are old. They are 95 years of age. That's old." replied my mother.

I swear if it wasn't for losing her sight my mother would have continued working in that old folks home til the day she died at the age of 84. Ha, when she was 70 the home owners tried to forcibly retire my mother. The twenty five residents got wind of this and threatened to all leave if the owners got rid of my mother. The owners had no option but to keep my mother on.

My mother was one of several cooks, all decades younger than her. But not a single one of them could cook like my mother could. Having brought up eight of her own children my mother could cook and bake like nobody I knew. And that is the whole point. How can we put out to grass somebody who has such an awesome cv, so much goodness to offer from a lifetime of caring and cooking for others?

These days we all live longer due to better living conditions and a healthier lifestyle with better medicine and quality food. I read somewhere that 70 is the new old. Governments seem to agree as they are prolonging our working lives. However, the cynic in me says that this just because the politicians have already spent all our pension money. I am more than half convinced that if they could just get away with seeing us all off when we get to 65 they would.

So, here I am getting on in years and as one of Stephen King's characters says "I just have to decide what I am going to do for the last forty years of my life." For the time being I shall continue writing and teaching online. It's a bit late to be taking up driving a Formula 1 car or piloting an Airbus A380, though if I could get the money together I'd still like to learn to fly a light aeroplane. I'd also like to do a Phd at some time and learn to play the cello. The thing is, I am in the fortunate position of being able to do anything I please, finances permitting. I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, until I buy a coffee. I started out with nothing and I've still got most of it left.

A friend of mine once told me story about an old man who learned to play the violin at the age of 95. When the man reached 100 he was asked if regretted anything, to which he replied "Yes, not learning to play the violin sooner."

Equally amusing was the story about the thousand year old man. As the man was passing through an airport a journalist approached him and said "Excuse, they say you are the thousand year old man, is that true, that you are a thousand years old?" The old man replied "Yes of course it is." said the old man rather indignantly. "Why, what's the problem with that?"

"Well, we have bonafide documentation making it perfectly clear that you were born in 1934." said the journalist.

"Yes, I see, now that is a bit of a problem." replied the old man.

The point is that you are as old as you feel. Some days I feel a thousand years old, and some days I feel like a thirteen year old kid. That is until I go to the bathroom to wash my face and wonder who that wrinkly old git is looking back at me from the mirror. I guess I'll just have to go with how I feel and try not to look in the mirror. With more than a bit of luck I might make 100 and I would hate to waste a minute of the thirty something years I've got left.