click photo to enlargeSteven Wright, US comedian
I always expected that as I got older the amount of hair on my head would decrease, what was left would turn grey, and then it would fall out. Mercifully that isn't happening as quickly as it might have done. However, what nobody told me is that as I got older the amount of hair growing out of my nose and ears would increase dramatically, and that keeping it under control would be a full time job requiring specialist equipment! Nor did they even hint at the fact that my eyebrows would suddenly start to sprout like couch grass in a vegetable patch, and that they too would require regular weeding. This, my 100th blog post, aims to reveal to the younger male world these and other essential facts!
The future is grey, or so they say, and I say great to that. At the ripe oldish age of 54 (55 in a few days) I'm getting to the point where I want the world to take more account of my needs. And if, as everyone tells us, we wrinklies are going to outnumber the younger generation, and have stores fighting for our greater disposable income, then changes have to happen.
Let's start with public toilets. Here's another thing that nobody told me - as you get into your fifties your bladder requires very regular emptying, and even the sight of a glass of cold beer can start an uncontrollable urge! So, let's see more "facilities", rather than the closure of existing ones, as is happening in Britain. Then there's chairs in stores. When I was a child they were always there, often in groups. Today the store's solitary chair is hidden away in a corner and has already been grabbed by a sullen youth who's reluctantly shopping with his mother. Or how about the print on packaging? Instead of the publishers of newspapers and magazines giving away free CDs, DVDs, and the like, how about free magnifying glasses? That way we'd have the luxury of one in every room so we could read the microscopic drivel (sorry, essential information for consumers) on the sides of boxes and wrappers. Those of the younger generation may read all this with a sense of foreboding - but they shoudn't. We should never mind getting older, and should certainly look forward to all that time we will have in retirement. Who knows, by the time you get there, perhaps my generation will have fixed some of the things that can make being old a trial. And after all, getting older is better than the alternative! Work it out!!
The photograph above shows a grizzled yours truly looking his age. For those of a technical disposition the camera is an Olympus E300 (my weapon of choice) with the 14-45 zoom fitted, mounted on a Manfrotto 190D tripod with the Manfrotto 486RC2 ball head.
photograph & text (c) T. Boughen
