In explaining his midlife crisis in the movie “Middle Age Crazy,” Bruce Dern’s character says life was good when his father was still alive. His father was Daddy to him and he was Kiddo to his dad. Now he’s 40, his father is gone and he doesn’t like it.
“I want to be the kiddo again.”
The movie came out in 1980, when 40 was still old to the Baby Boom generation. I had just turned 30, and I was part of the generation that warned us not to trust anyone over 30.
Of course, that was a long time ago. Now the youngest friend I have is 68, and I have children, both in the neighborhood of 40.
For me and my pals, words like coot, codger and geezer are becoming more and more appropriate all the time. I have a friend who has been receiving nicknames for much of his life. He’s 69 now, and I jokingly said he qualified as a coot. For some reason, that bothered him.
So I jokingly told him I wouldn’t call him a coot anymore.
I personally would accept coot, codger or geezer. Heck, I’m in my eighth decade on the planet, I’m the oldest surviving member of my extended family and I have six grandchildren, two of them already in their teens.
I happily answer to grandpa, granddad or the more formal grandfather, although I don’t like hearing the word “gramps.” It sounds too much like “cramps” to me.
Same with “grampy.”
One of the strangest things about becoming a geezer is that not only are there things I once could do but cannot do now, in some cases I can’t even conceive that I could do them.
My depth perception has become so bad I have less than a 50-50 chance of catching a ball someone throws to (at?) me. The only kind of bicycle I can ride without having balance problems is my iFit stationary bike in my home office.
Then there’s the stuff I won’t even talk about.
Suffice it to say being a geezer is no fun.
I guess it could be worse.
At least I’m not a coot.