50 the New 30 - John C.Bieber

My feet are OK. The rest of me is getting old. As I approach my fiftieth birthday, I’m beginning to understand the really old guys who talk about nothing but their medications and when they last had a productive visit to the bathroom. I have determined that the warranty on the average human male body is good for 44 years. After that the wheels start flying off. Three of my tires are deflated and one wheel has no lug nuts.
It all started 4 years ago when I started wearing cheap reading glasses over my regular glasses. Sort of a compound nerd look. I looked like a diamond splitter or a flea counter. My unaided range of vision is now down to about 6 inches from my nose. When I wore my contact lenses I would need reading glasses. When I wore my regular glasses I needed reading glasses over them. I finally got my first pair of bi-focals three years ago. What a joy. They don’t even make me look smarter. I see my dad in the mirror now on a daily basis. Hi Pop! I have much less hair in my head than when I met my wife in 1982 and what’s left of it is 60% gray. It was surprising to find out that all body hair turns gray. My wife says she likes my gray hair. Maybe now she can stop flirting with the old guys at the supermarket and pay attention to me. I had my first official prostate exam two years ago. Now I have that little rendezvous to look forward to every year. I have started to get stiffness or soreness in joints and strange places, like my face. Does anyone else out there have a crunchy hip? When I move my right leg sideways at the hip, it sounds like a muffled bag of rocks grinding. There is a constant dull ache there also. I do know what this means. Down the road I’ll be getting a new hip. I’d like a shiny titanium one with a racing stripe. Maybe it will make me feel fast. My ability to hear in noisy rooms is harder than it used to be. I have to really concentrate to hear in a room full of people talking. I should learn to read lips. I wonder if cologen injected lips look like they speak with an accent? Did I mention the constant ringing in my ears? I still have most of my teeth, I have a ruptured neck vertebra, and my left knee is bad. I should go for one of those total body make-overs but I don't think technology has advanced far enough yet to bring me back to feeling 30 something.
I remember being 30. I was stronger at 30 than I was at 18. All of my 30 something years were good, physically. I wonder if my 30 year old self could beat up my 40 year old self? Turning 40 wasn’t too bad mentally. It was easier than turning 30 because at 30 I expected to be further along with my “career”. At 40 my priorities had matured and the whole career thing wasn’t as important. The important thing became my family and their happiness. Turning 50 is no big deal. I knew if I lived long enough it had to happen. It seems pretty fair to say that 50 years old is officially “over the hill” unless you plan to live to be over 100 years old. I share my birthday with Ben Franklin and Al Capone. Ben has had more influence on my life than Al.
Even though my body is crumbling faster than a sandcastle, I still have the mind of a fifteen year old boy. My thought process is still the same as when I was 15, it’s just that now I know more things, I behave better, have more experience and I know about people and how they operate. Getting older is interesting but not so bad. The alternative is much worse. I guess I’m doing as well as anyone and so far when I’m out with my daughters, no one has said to them “Isn’t it nice that you spend time with Grandpa”.
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