Oldest Guy in the Room
One good thing about getting closer every day to the occasion of my fiftieth is that I can now look forward to being at least one thing for the rest of my life: old!
I’m sure it will bother me plenty—more than I’m willing to admit—but at the present time, I’m fairly sanguine about the prospect of hitting the half-century mark. As many people regularly point out, getting old sure beats the alternative.
One thing I have noticed more of late, though, is how often I’m the oldest person I run into. Jen and I went out to a club the other night and of the several hundred people there, I saw nobody who’d lived as long as I had. Perhaps I doth protest too much, but really, it didn’t bother me all that much—at least on my account.
What I do worry about sometimes is being that weird old guy hanging around with youngsters. As a teacher, being the oldest guy in the room seems normal enough; when I’m out on a bike ride or in a nightclub, it can be slightly strange, or at least make me feel like it might feel strange to somebody who was weirded out being out in public with people older than their parents.
At the club, I was wearing my vintage Member's Only jacket and had the sleeves rolled up in the full Michael J. Fox Back to the Future style. Some girl tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Oooh, I love your jacket. My daughter had one just like it.”
That’s what I heard, anyway.
When I thought about it, though, that made no sense. It occurred to me she must have said, “My DAD had one just like it.”
Later, coincidentally, we met her sister outside the club, who confirmed that, indeed, her sibling was talking about their father.
That cracked me up and really, didn’t make me feel that weird at all.
I’m sure it will bother me plenty—more than I’m willing to admit—but at the present time, I’m fairly sanguine about the prospect of hitting the half-century mark. As many people regularly point out, getting old sure beats the alternative.
One thing I have noticed more of late, though, is how often I’m the oldest person I run into. Jen and I went out to a club the other night and of the several hundred people there, I saw nobody who’d lived as long as I had. Perhaps I doth protest too much, but really, it didn’t bother me all that much—at least on my account.
What I do worry about sometimes is being that weird old guy hanging around with youngsters. As a teacher, being the oldest guy in the room seems normal enough; when I’m out on a bike ride or in a nightclub, it can be slightly strange, or at least make me feel like it might feel strange to somebody who was weirded out being out in public with people older than their parents.
At the club, I was wearing my vintage Member's Only jacket and had the sleeves rolled up in the full Michael J. Fox Back to the Future style. Some girl tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Oooh, I love your jacket. My daughter had one just like it.”
That’s what I heard, anyway.
When I thought about it, though, that made no sense. It occurred to me she must have said, “My DAD had one just like it.”
Later, coincidentally, we met her sister outside the club, who confirmed that, indeed, her sibling was talking about their father.
That cracked me up and really, didn’t make me feel that weird at all.
posted by Professor Dave at 7:18 PM
1 Comments:
I've started being this too - the one that struck me recently is when I go to the meetings for the food coop Board of Directors that I'm on now - I'm not the oldest guy in the room, and I'm not the oldest person in the room, but I'm the oldest female in the room, by at least 9 years ...
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