Aging Out
OPEN SEASON | by TF&G Humor Editor REAVIS Z. WORTHAM
LISTEN: (5 minutes, 26 seconds)
I WAS FEELING PRETTY GOOD that morning, sitting around the large corner table in Doreen’s 24 HR Eat Gas Now Café with Jerry Wayne and Wrong Willie.
Woodrow came in and we shifted over to allow him some room. “How’re you boys doing this morning?”
“Fair to middlin’,” Wrong Willie answered. “That’s what my grandpa always said when people asked him that question, but he always had a list of complaints to go with it.”
“Doc used to say after you turn fifty, something different hurts every morning.” Jerry Wayne held up his index finger and flexed it.
“What does that mean?” Willie asked, performing the same maneuver. “Is that a trigger finger exercise?”
“No. Arthritis.” Jerry Wayne flexed some more. “My doctor told me to do this at least seventy-five times a day, twenty-five each time, and to hold each bend for three seconds.”
I flexed my own right index finger through the mug’s handle Doreen had just filled. I held up all the fingers on my left, knowing better than to extend the middle one I was using as an example.
“After I fell last June and landed on this finger while the War Department and I were hiking in Arizona, my doctor said I’d torn the ligament and had to flex it the same amount of times.”
“Did it help?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, but now the other two on each side are stiff in the mornings, too. I have to keep it up or I’m afraid my joints’ll freeze.”
I noticed the guys around the table were all making fists. It looked like a table full of grown men were playing rock, paper, scissors.
The finger discussion led me to another thought. “You know, here’s something strange.”
Woodrow held up a finger and flexed it to get my attention. It didn’t work, because everyone was doing the same thing. “Hold it. Doreen, can you bring me some coffee?”
Behind the counter, her face reddened. “Don’t y’all dare crook your fingers at me to come over there. I swear, you’re all losing your manners the older you get.”
He tried to explain, but she wasn’t hearing it. She stomped over with a mug and filled it. She glared some more. “Are y’all just trying to make me mad?”
No one made eye contact while I sipped my coffee down an inch or so and she refilled it and left.
I continued. “So anyway, I had to see my dentist a few months ago and he said I’d worn down my teeth in front and wanted to put some bonding on them. I said okay, and it fixed them. I can’t really tell the difference, except the one Woodrow broke when he hit me with a paddle one day is now straight across.”
He held up a hand. “That was an accident, and the statute of limitations ran out nearly thirty years ago.”
“Just relating the incident that happened while we were fishing for smallmouth from my canoe.”
“The one that got stolen from y’all’s place up in Oklahoma.”
“Yep, and I’m still mad about them thieves coming onto our property and taking that Grumman, but anyway, a couple of weeks ago we had the kids up at the Lamar County cabin and I tried to bite off the tag end of a line after I’d tied on a hook, and these new bonded teeth wouldn’t cut through.”
“Lemme see.”
I bared my teeth for Willie, and Doreen shouted. “Y’all don’t be getting into it with one another over there, and Rev, if you break out one inch of dental floss, I’ll throw you all out.”
“Just showing him my pearlies.”
“Well…” she didn’t know how to answer that one.
Jerry Wayne flexed his shoulder. “You know, I have this pinched nerve that’s giving me fits.”
“Plantar fasciitis,” Willie said. “My foot’s hurt for about two weeks.”
“You don’t get that in your shoulder,” I said.
“Oh.”
“I’m thinking the fingers on my right hand are getting stiff, too.” I bent my fingers some more, to keep them limber. “You guys think that’s in sympathy for the other hand?”
Willie leaned forward. “What happened to your elbows Rev?”
“You won’t believe it. I was at a memorial for Larry Bozka, you remember, that’s the writer friend who passed away and really helped me get started in the outdoor writing business.”
They all nodded.
“Well, they asked everyone to come in casual gulf fishing clothes, and of course my shirt was short sleeved, and I rested my elbows on a table for about two hours while we talked. That table wore blisters on both of them. Dangedest thing.”
I stood and turned around so they could see them both. Doreen shouted from the counter. “Why are y’all looking at his…!!!???”
“Elbows!” Woodrow cut her off.
“Oh.”
Jerry Wayne showed us the side of his arm. “I was wrestling with one of the grandkids and bruised this arm. Blood thinners.”
More nods around.
“Blood pressure meds for me.” Woodrow pointed at my jaw. “You have some skin cancers taken off?”
“Yep, too much sunshine. They biopsied this one.”
They all leaned in for a look.
“I’ll find out about it next week.”
“All these years outside, hunting and fishing, and biting off lines with worn teeth.” Woodrow sighed. “Wonder what’ll hurt in the morning.”
I took a sip of coffee and felt the burn in my stomach. I’d forgotten to take my antacid.
All of a sudden I realized we were all aging out and I wasn’t feeling nearly as good as I did when I first came in.
Email Reavis Wortham at ContactUs@fishgame.com
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