I never really understood Obama's obsession with health care other than the union payback stuff. I mean he's only going to be 49 this year. But then I thought about it. He's trying to be distinguished in a herd of obnoxious politicians. To be futurist while surrounded by opportunists. To balance ego with the Messiah stuff. That's cool.
Then I realized, he has the midlife doldrums. He buys all that nonsense about growing old and now that he is on the precipice of 50, well, he finds his own immortality being challenged, because next year he gets a computer generated invitation to proudly join the AARP at age 50. No doubt he sees it as a life changing experience. The fear of getting old radiates from him. I guess that explains why he can't talk about the economy and jobs.
Why is it the older we get, the younger we get older?
I might be wrong, but it seems to me I went through life thinking the older I get, the younger I get old.
Now before you write that off to nonsense, let me explain. It's kind of like watching two trains at opposite ends of the track speeding toward each other to collide.
One train is me, getting older like most everyone who can't afford face lifts, personal trainers and fat eradication spas. The other train is old age, that strange age where one goes to wait to die.
When I was pretty young I thought old age was maybe when you reached 30. By the time you reached 50 more than likely you were on life support.
Then I went to a family gathering with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and even great grandparents way back when. I'd look at my great grandmother and think, how can she still be here, alive? I mean if I thought people were fading away at 50, what is my great grandmother doing here being at least 200 hundred years old? She must really be screwing up the average age.
Don't forget, I said I was pretty young, which means about 5 at the time. Still my eyes were wide open back then.
So at that very early age this little kid was already revising way up his concept of getting old from 50 to 80 years old. As I grew older in years I watched television shows and ads stereotype seniors, that's what they called us then, brainwashing us with an incessant bombardment of TV commercials like the pharmaceutical companies helping us understand all the tragic ailments we were to suffer being old if we didn't take their fix.
Then I was told all the wonderful things I could do when I grew old like plant flowers, keep dead leaves in books, go to the salon and get my hair colored and all so I never looked older than 30, and even get a free powered wheel chair since Medicaid would pay for it. Hot damn! I get a customized, golf cart so when I can't walk I can still get around to terrorize people.
Who in the hell do those people think they are running those ads? What gives them the right to tell me anything? I don't need eight prescription drugs every day like you say I do just so you can keep me in a constant state of euphoria.
And no one said retiring meant you had to turn in your brain as well as you went out the door. Besides, if we were really in control of our lives like we dream about being along with being good looking and smart, we would have long ago adopted retirement as something you do two years out of every ten years. Every ten years you get two years off to explore what you want. You sort of spread retirement throughout your life, not just at the end when you least need it.
Anyway Social Security started lowering the eligibility age for receiving Social Security, and nothing represents retirement more than receiving Social Security. I mean the government would know if we are old wouldn't they? But as I continued to age good old SS kept changing the retirement age making people seniors when they reached 70, then 68, then 65 then 62. The world is now so nuts that you qualify for AARP when you reach 50 for Pete's sake.
When I reached the AARP threshold I rebelled like any good Baby Boomer '60's free spirit would do. I refused to join! No way I was going to accept being old at 50.
Well the next chance I was faced with confronting my age would be when I was eligible for Social Security benefits. There was the early opt out plan at 62, or the generous bonus for waiting until you were 67. Still my "60's influence pulled strong enough to save me yet again. After a brief few moments fantasizing how I might be able to pull one over on The Establishment by taking their money even if I knew I wasn't old, I decided to skip the money and be defiant in my refusal to let them tell me when I was old.
I learned a few lessons along the way. Like all those years I watched as the average life span of Americans kept getting older and older, I was thinking it was a good thing, living longer. While the government keeps telling me I am getting older younger.
If you got older younger, like at 62 like Uncle Sugar says, while the average life span kept getting older, that means you now have more years to be older, a senior. Of course if you intend to enjoy these bonus years you will need eight pharmacy prescriptions a day to get by. While it is regrettable that the combined effect of taking the meds over several years are such that you will soon be functioning like a Zombie, at least our drugs should keep you around.
Eventually I stopped listening to the government all together on the subject of getting old, or older younger, or being old longer. In fact I stopped listening to anyone, pharmaceutical companies, banks, politicians or union bosses. What was I to them? Tax revenue? Prescription addict? More dues paid?
I'm going to bet my life on Divine Providence, not Obama, Pelosi and Reid. Thank you very much but I simply refuse to accept your insistence that I am old. I don't buy the old thing and I don't buy your motives. I am not about to get stoned on your drugs and trip out while someone steals my country and all it stands for to the world.
No longer will I watch a commercial for the latest Mega-grip denture glue and have visions of squirting way too much of that stuff on my dentures, and then the first time I shut my mouth it gets stuck together, permanently.
I have no need for an alarm to go off if I fall in the bathtub. If I'm that drunk I won't feel it anyway. The powered wheel chair is kind of cool to someone like me from the birth of the grease monkey age but there ain't no room for the chick so forget it, I'll stick with my '49 Chevy convertible, well it was a convertible after I got done cutting off the roof with a chain saw.
The other day I was talking to my giant Irish Wolfhound, CuChulainn Deo Irie (Warrior Spirit of Ireland). Neighbors call him Coolin, except those missing their dentures who just call him Cu (pronounced Coo), to avoid that awful whistling sound when they pronounce vowels through their missing teeth.
I was asking him how he would feel if he was older like me. After pointing out that he had to put up with the same crap with Vets and breeders, proclaiming when he would be old and most likely to die. Then Coolin gave me another Druid philosophical gem, his is a very old breed, he said to just live like you have always been on borrowed time. In truth, it was never our time to begin with.
Most people don't get that kind of advice from a giant Irish Wolfhound so when I did I knew I better take him seriously. Now I'm waiting patiently for Obama to tell me how to live, not how to keep from dying. When Pelosi and the rest of the scoundrels in Congress figure it out I might listen to them again too. For now I have CuChulainn and they don't.
I want healing, not health care. I want reform, not regurgitation. I want limited government interfering with my life. And I want honesty in government, insurance companies, health care providers, hospitals, unions, Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Is that so much to ask?
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