Tag Archives: Olympics

Something I Said?

It happens sometimes at a restaurant where three or four couples are dining together.  I look up from my soup to find myself alone at our table, the others at the salad bar or in the washroom, perhaps.

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Or it could be at a dance, nine or ten of us sharing a table, and I’m suddenly sitting by myself while the others are up dancing, or maybe table-hopping.

The tiresome jokes flow at these moments, naturally.  Some wise guy will ask in a loud voice if I’m dining tonight with all my friends.  Or some other wit will wonder if I did something to offend everyone in my party.

I laugh, of course, perfunctorily—but somewhat puzzled, too—for it is curious that this crops up with me so frequently.  Was it something I said?

It may happen to others, too, I suppose, but hardly ever when I’m around.  And although the jokes are stale from repetition, they do take my mind away from a somewhat more sombre realization—that someday, we know not when, one of us in our gang will, indeed, be left alone.

We’re at an age where many of the things we used to take for granted are likely not in the cards for us anymore.  How many of us will purchase a new house, for example, with a twenty-year mortgage?  Do we really care if the 2040 Olympic Games are held in this city or that?  Are hair transplants or facelifts really such an attractive option now?  How many more new cars will we buy?

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We’re not yet at the stage where we won’t buy green bananas (another old joke) or make plans for some holiday cruise two years from now.  But those days are coming.

Aging is a simple, yet so mysterious a process.  Simple, because it creeps up on us without any conscious intent on our parts.  We start school, we graduate, we marry and become parents.  We raise our children, sadly (or not) bid them adieu when they embark upon the world, and exult in the joys of grandparenthood when they begin their own families.  Eventually, we retire and reach out for new and exciting pastimes.

Granted, it took years for me to do all this, and the work was palpable while I was doing it.  But when it finally hit, my seventy-fifth birthday seemed to have materialized out of nowhere.  Getting there was a simple matter of waiting.

But aging is mysterious, too, because so many odd things transpire.  For instance, although I feel like the same person I always was, my friends are obviously getting older.  Occasionally, when I happen to spy one of them unexpectedly, I see first an old man or woman—only to realize belatedly it’s my friend.  I suspect the same thing might be true in reverse when they have a chance encounter with me.  We’re all too polite to tell each other that, though.

A lyric from the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, seems to capture it:  I don’t remember growing older, when did they?

fiddler

A few years ago, I underwent some serious surgeries, not necessarily age-related, and spent several months in follow-up visits with the medical people who treated me.  When reading my files one day, I was quite surprised to discover a letter from a referring physician to a specialist who had treated me.  After the usual introductory paragraph, the letter stated, “This elderly gentleman presents with symptoms congruent with…”

My attention was riveted on those first three words.  I thought I had opened someone else’s file!  Elderly?  Surely not I!  And yet, at the tender age of sixty-four, it was true—at least from the perspective of those young professionals.

And so, here we are, I and all my friends, firmly ensconced in our senior years.  None of us talks morbidly about the inevitable end of our lives; more likely, we’re comparing our golf scores, sharing the latest stock market activity, or showing off pictures of our grandchildren.  We’re a pretty happy lot, all told.

One of us, a retired funeral director, jokes that he used to sign his letters Yours eventually.  “They’re gonna get us in the end,” he says with a wink.

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I do think about the end-stages of life, however.  Like finding oneself left alone at the table in the restaurant, or at the dance.  A close friend from boyhood never got to experience that aloneness, dying before his time just over a year ago, surrounded by family and embraced in the thoughts of his many friends.

My parents, on the other hand, lived well into their nineties—not a guarantee of longevity for me, I grant you, but a pretty good genetic gift.  At the end of her life, my mother had outlived her husband, all her siblings, and all her friends.  Despite the visits from children and grandchildren, I know her final years were painfully lonely.

We cannot know the hour or manner of our own passing, so it’s futile to fret about it.  Yet I occasionally ponder whether it would be best to go first, before everyone else has passed, or be the last one standing (or sitting, or lying down…whatever).  So much of the joy of life comes from those around us, family and friends, and so much would be missing without them.

I’m unable to decide with any certainty which option I’d prefer.  I waver from one to the other, depending on my mood.  Vacillation can be a comfort.  Truth be told, there is no definitive answer to be found; what will be, will be.

old man dying

But honestly?  I don’t think I want to be the last one at the table, wondering in vain if it was something I said.

The Games

The Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will soon be upon us, that quadrennial gathering of the world’s best athletes.  But we are hearing from so many of them that they plan not to attend, citing a host of reasons—their health, fear of terrorist activity, unfair competition because of doping, or the unpreparedness of the host country.

I remember a different set of games, played by girls and boys in the schoolyards we frequented.  No one was obliged to take part but nearly everyone did, in one fashion or another, because it was fun.

There weren’t a lot of specific rules involved because the games varied tremendously from one day to the next.  There were always a few standard guidelines that everyone was familiar with, but usually nobody bothered much with them—unless, of course, someone violated the sense of fair play that was commonly shared.  Whenever that happened, which wasn’t too often, arguments would flare up, each side would proclaim its case, and finally—perhaps so as not to waste too much of the playing time—a consensus would emerge and the games would continue.

Winners predominated, but only because the games allowed more opportunity to win than to lose.  And since nobody made any effort to keep track of scores and points once the contests ended, every kid in the schoolyard could be a winner in retrospect, a champion in classroom reverie.  Every participant could find some measure of satisfaction in the play, some joy in the sport of it.

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After a while, though, those games changed.  Some of the adults in the schoolyard, for the purest of reasons, decided to contribute their time and energy to help the kids organize.  They offered the advice and assistance that comes with experience; and out of the chaos the adults thought they observed in the schoolyard, they brought order.

The vague and tenuous rules that previously governed the games were sharpened and recorded.  And all the girls and boys were made to learn them.  No disagreements were tolerated, and some of the adults volunteered to serve as game officials to ensure fair play.  Many of the games—those that didn’t lend themselves easily to such organization—were dropped in favour of those that did.

A lot of the kids were dropped, too, because there were no longer as many opportunities to compete for those whose game-playing abilities were not as fully developed.  These children were kept in the schoolyard, but off to the side where they could watch and cheer the others at play.  They became onlookers, hero-worshippers, only able to enjoy the experience vicariously.  And gradually, the games became The Games.

The Games, remember?  They were played by the very best girls and boys in every schoolyard.  But because there weren’t enough top-calibre kids in any one yard to sufficiently challenge their skills, the adults arranged for them to play against girls and boys from other schoolyards.

They played hard.  They did themselves proud.  In their various sweaters and uniforms, decked out in colours unique to their own schools, they vied with one another to see who was truly the best.  The purpose was not just to compete, but to win.  Records became increasingly important, first to establish and then to shatter.  And over a period of time some schools gained reputations as powerhouses in the competitions.

Winner, Winning Stairs, Olympic Games, Silver Medal

In order to attain such heights, or to remain on top once there, some schoolyard teams resorted to additional measures.  They enticed the best of the younger children to attend the big-name schools; they lobbied for changes to the rules of the contests to favour their own talents and skills; and they began to heap criticism on other schools who engaged in the same sort of tactics.

Eventually, one schoolyard team had had enough.  Perhaps because of an inability to compete at the highest level, or a sense of futility when playing the better school teams, a decision was taken to stop competing in The Games.  The other schools protested loudly, but to no avail; the boycott held.  And then more of the smaller, less successful schools made their decision to drop out, too.  In just a short time, The Games were reduced to a shadow of their former glory.

The kids, of course, were rather confused by it all.  After being told by the officious adults to work and train and practise, and just as they were beginning to take their exalted status for granted, they discovered that it had all been in vain.  There would be no more competition.  The Games were finished.

So they returned to their respective schoolyards, disheartened, disillusioned, downcast.  And there, to their surprise, they found that no one else in the schoolyard cared.  All the other girls and boys had long since lost interest in what the more skilful of their peers were doing in their more highly-organized competitions.

Back in the schoolyard, the other kids, the ones  left behind, had begun to play on their own again.  Free of the interference and regulation of the over-zealous adults, they had rediscovered their games.  There weren’t a lot of specific rules involved because the games varied tremendously from one day to the next.  There were always a few standard guidelines that everyone was familiar with, but usually nobody bothered much with them.  They just played to the best of their abilities, and enjoyed the freedom and the exhilaration of being included.

The games.  Nobody was obliged to take part but nearly everyone did.

Because it was fun.

Is It Still?

Even at this late stage in my life, there are still so many questions and so few answers.

For example, is golf still golf if one doesn’t walk the course?  Since retiring, I have devoted countless hours to flailing away at a little white ball, following it down fairways that are too narrow, poking and prodding it close enough to the hole that I can pick it up—a gimme in golf parlance.

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But I almost never walk the course.  Instead, I ride a golf cart along paved pathways, across swaths of mowed grass, stopping too often by bunkers full of granulated sand.  The only exception is when I fail to hit a rider—more golf parlance for a shot that doesn’t travel far enough to warrant climbing back aboard the cart to ride to the next shot.

Golf is a game invented to test one’s physical, mental, and psycho-emotional endurance, and it has forever involved walking.  If one drives the course, is it still golf?

Another question concerns an issue that plagues me in moments of idleness, of which there are many.  Is it still okay for a gentleman to hold a door open for a lady?  And if one does, should one expect a ‘thank-you’ as the lady sweeps through?

More often than not, I rush ahead when in the company of ladies to man the door.  Being not the most graceful of people at my advancing age, I frequently bang into someone in my haste.  Or regrettably, I approach the door from the wrong side, making it necessary to push in front of my companions to open it.  Once in a while, I’ve even been known to let go of the door too soon (usually because the strength in my arm gives out), which provides a none-too-gentle bump on the derriere of the unfortunate lady caught on the threshold.  I rarely hear a smiling Thank you!

A third example has recently become a concern.  Is it still acceptable for one such as I to look at pretty young women?  During a lifetime of doing so, I’ve gone from being considered precocious in my pre-teens, to flirtatious in high school; from admiring in my early working years, to bold in middle-age; from cute in my early senior years, to…what?  Lecherous?

Now, when so many pretty girls are the age of my granddaughters, is it still okay to appreciate their youth and beauty?

Despite the fact I’m a grandfather, I continue to be plagued by these questions.  For instance, there’s the matter of leaving one’s bed unmade after getting up in the morning.  You know, as long as no one is expected to drop by.  Or is one supposed to honour the teachings of one’s mother even now, so many years later?

Though she’s been gone many a year, I still imagine her tread on the stairs, coming to inspect my bedroom before breakfast.  The stripes on the bedspread had to be straight, from the pillow to the footboard; the hem had to be off the floor, and uniformly so, along the length of the bed; and, although I never had to bounce a dime off it in military fashion, the top had better be smooth, with no wrinkles showing through.

Is it still necessary to make one’s bed every morning?

There are so many questions!  If it doesn’t have a hole in the middle, is it still a doughnut?  Is it still correct to say one dials a number, now that there’s no longer a dial on the phone?  Is it still de rigueur to doff one’s hat in an elevator, when so many around us eat in restaurants with their hats on?  Is it still the Olympics with no truly amateur athletes extant?

I know there are folks who could not care less about such questions.  Political correctness has mandated the answers in many cases, anyway, and general indifference often covers the rest.  But how else might I occupy my time, except by considering such weighty matters?

Is it still Sunday if not everyone goes to church?  Is it still winter if there’s no snow?  Is it still cream if it’s made from petroleum products?  Is it still my car if I’m only leasing it?  Is it still democracy if hardly anybody votes?

I don’t remember having the inclination in years gone by to ponder these questions.  Or perhaps I thought I had all the answers back then.  Regardless, I now regale friends—those who hang around long enough—with rhetorical queries and enquiries, in hopes they’ll engage with me in the pursuit of answers.  I’ve chosen to interpret their glazed eyes and pained expressions as a devoted effort to help.

The greatest barrier to learning, I read a long time ago, is the failure to ask.  And so I do.  Endlessly. Repetitively.  Annoyingly, even.

Is it still okay?