Symptoms of aging are everywhere

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Time is no longer a friend.

It’s early September here in northeast Iowa, and the weather has already turned cool. My father, who lived only to 71, called it a nip in the air.

Where did the summer go?

“Gone to graveyards all,” as Peter, Paul, and Mary sang about soldiers.

In America, it’s been an eventful warm season.

Joe’s debate debacle, the waiting and inevitable decision, Crooks’ fortunate miss of the crook, Kamala’s glorious gripping of the reigns, and the inspired selection of Tim, and, then, the joyful climax.

I would have hated to miss it.

My tears this morning are mostly ragweed-caused.

I guess time is sometimes on my side.

But, dammit, life is sooooo precious, as Oprah would warble.

And I feel it slip-sliding away, as Paul Simon pitched perfectly.

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This mortality rumination started earlier this summer in this sand trap.

I’m a good enough golfer to connect yardage to the flag to the club in my hand.

One hundred fifty yards into a slight wind meant a five iron.

I struck the ball perfectly, and it plopped into this bunker twenty yards short of the green.

As I settled into the electric golf cart and mentally reviewed how to hit out of the sand, I heard my late mother whisper, “How stupid are you?”

And I smiled.

Even though she scored a hole-in-one sometime in the 1930s, this gentle epithet-memory was not about golf. Mom aimed this phrase at herself whenever she missed something obvious, like when she forgot to put sugar in the Christmas Chocolate Pie.

I played golf as a young man, but not so much in the last thirty years. Yet, I had never adjusted my club yardages downward, even though I’ve been playing from the “senior” tees for a decade and roaming around the links sitting down.

How stupid am I?

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My mother lived to 96, two years longer than her mother, seven years short of her centenarian sister.

Gene-wise, I’m a lucky winner.

Maybe that’s why aging has snuck up on me. On a good day, I look fifteen years younger.

Here’s a photo taken two months ago. I’m on the right with my golfing buddy Mike. He’s 76.

My dad looked younger until sinus cancer aged him beyond his years, another genetic plus.

A few weeks ago, my partner Rebecca (73) and I spent a week in St. Louis visiting her son Jonathon and his family: Suzanne, Irene (8), and Alice (1). We like to do the dishes after the evening meal, a routine we established years ago. This time, we remarked how much more tired we were at the end of the day than five years ago.

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Now that I’m no longer stupid — maybe enlightened — I see and feel everyday examples of aging in myself and others.

How much longer will I be able to lug fifty-pound sacks of salt down the cellar stairs to our water softener?

We had our gutters covered with wire mesh two weeks ago, so I would no longer be tempted to climb a ladder.

Rebecca hands me a jar to open, and after a few attempted twists, I look over my shoulder to see if anyone else might be available.

We scrutinize our 80-year-old friends for telltale signs of, well, I’m not sure what. But we never used to pay close attention to those a half-decade older.

On June 27, when he walked out on that stage, we saw our future and Joe Biden’s.

High on my today’s to-do list?

I’ve got to buy a four iron to get over that blasted sand trap.

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