I don’t like interleague play in baseball and I’m not a big fan of the designated hitter. I still consider Henry Aaron the home run king and I liked the era when relief pitchers went two or three innings for the save, rather than facing only one or batters now as “specialists.”
I wouldn’t have known who the singer “Bad Bunny” was if he bit me and stole my carrot until I watched Saturday Night Live the other week. In fact, I’ve not really liked Saturday Night Live since John Belushi left the show.
I feel all this because I am old. I know this for a fact because I was reminded of it the other day while standing in line at the pharmacy. The cashier asks customers for their birthdates before giving them their medicine as a way of identifying them. A woman in front of me said she was born in 1995. 1995! By that year, I had lived in six states, earned a master’ degree in communication, held 11 jobs and was well versed in the concept that life isn’t all fun and games and it doesn’t turn out like you had hoped.
The pharmacy cashier noticed my look and asked me about it, and when I told her I was old, being born in 1960, she laughed and said I wasn’t that old.
“I’ll tell you how old I am,” said, “I’m getting this medication.” I pointed to the bottle she was bagging of generic Flomax, the pill that helps guy’s have, well, a max in their flow when going to the bathroom.
“It’s not just for older people,” she said. “It’s for kidney stones and other things.”
I’ll give her that. I’ve had a kidney infection issue since 2016 that’s not really age-related. But my age surfaced when I realized I was excited about getting the medication and couldn’t wait until I could refill my Tramadol for the insistent pain I always have.
I know I’m not that old. Yet. There are always others out there who, when hearing my age, say, “Oh, you’re still young.” Those who say that are way older than I am. Eventually, I’ll be the one saying that to 60-year-olds.
Age is a state of mind for the most part. Sure, there are the aches and pains that come with aging. When I get up off the floor from playing with the cat, my knees sing two arias from Puccini’s opera “La Boheme.” But I’m still young at heart, as they say, and I have a hard time believing I am as old as I am, at least mentally.
But age and the experiences that come with being this old have a large part in defining who I am now. I listen to music popular when I was a kid – Fleetwood Mac, U2, Joe Cocker – and I have no idea who today’s musicians and entertainers are. I’ve found myself watching the old television program “Columbo” on MeTV on Sundays because it brings back memories of living in youthful times.
And that’s why, I think, we all play the APBA games. I’m really enjoying replaying the 1965 baseball season, more so than other replays of seasons when I wasn’t alive. I was barely conscious of baseball in 1965, but I do remember Henry Aaron and Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle when I was a lad of 5 years old that year.
It’s a way to grasp on our youth by doing these seasons. And the interesting thing about APBA is that most of us began playing it when we were kids. We’ve all done replays of seasons we lived through. I’ve got 1972 on tap to play which was one of the most pivotal and important seasons that made me a huge baseball fan. I remember as a kid growing up in northern Minnesota watching the Twins on television with the names of Tony Oliva, Harmon Killebrew, Rich Rollins and Jim Kaat becoming part of our normal vocabulary.
I can name the starting lineup of the 1965 San Francisco Giants, but I can’t name three players on the 2021 Giants’ team. Part of that is because the pandemic we’re enduring took the heart out of baseball and all sports. The other part is that 1965 was more a part of my learning years than now.
The APBA game is a way to keep us more young at heart and a way, I venture, to deal with our own mortality. In 50 years, when I’m gone, hopefully there’ll be someone my age rolling games for the 2021 season and fondly remembering his or her youth.
Yes, to all of it! We are close in age (I'm 65) so it all resonates for me. I am amazed how certain aspects of popular culture and technology have spun away from me. I have an old-person flip phone and I use it to--gasp, shudder--talk on the phone. My iPod has lots of music from, as you say, my youth, but I do have to say it has some newer stuff as well, and jazz that is a more recent passion. AFA the newer stuff, I kind of have to hear it in a soundtrack or on FaceBpok or something in order to discover it. I never listen to the radio anymore except for my Red Wings hockey games. And a lot of current music sounds doltish and formulaic to me, and I think that may be because a lot of it IS. People who know a lot more about how music is made than I do can tell you why. (Rick Beatto, for one.)
ReplyDeleteI, too, enjoy the comfort of old tv shows on MeTV and this one other channel. I will watch every day for a while and then get sick of it. And back and forth. Lately, I'm on an old movie kick. If the movie is from the 60's or early 70's, the world looks normal to me and I like that. OTOH, no one can take my iPod or my laptop away unless they pry them from my cold dead hands. And back to the movies, I can watch my favorites whenever I want, and don;t have to wait around for them to come on tv or to the local revival theater.
New cars seem like space ships to me.Where are the side vents, the chrome? These are not cars as I think of cars.
Finally, much as I enjoy watching Miguel Cabrera take his swings, it will never mean to me what watching l Kaline meant to me. And that is because it seemed like a sort of magic to me as a child, Heroes you could go see in person, who you might actually get to speak to, and who lived on the next street over. The game today has lost me a bit for other reasons, too. I am sick of interleague play, and parades of anonymous fireballing relievers with a thousand tattoos. Don;t come around me with sabermetrics; I was raised on wins, losses, and rbi's and though the game has changed, I haven't. Take those gimmick uniforms and stuff them, And get off my lawn!
Loved ths post!