Interesting thread. Thought provoking.

A few of my ruminations on the matter of aging:

I think I have fairly good genes, so I ought to last for a couple more months, anyway. My father died when he was eighty-five. Most of my relatives on my father's side lived well into their eighties or early nineties. Same with my mother's family. She passed away at eighty-nine.

But when it occurs to me that I'll be seventy-six next month and then I do a little arithmetic, I can suddenly feel a bit claustrophobic. I've got a number of unfinished projects going, and I'm gonna have to get crackin'!

I have all my teeth, minus one molar that I had to have extracted (yanked) about two years ago. Decay under the gum-line despite regular check-ups and daily flossing, and by the time my dentist and I discovered it, it was too late for a root-canal. I occasionally take a bit more Metamucil than I used to (which was none), probably because I'm a bit short of exercise—I'm unable to get out and walk the dog every morning (besides, we don't have a dog). But unlike many of my contemporaries, I usually sleep pretty well, and I can sleep all night without having to get up to pee. All sphincters seem to be functioning well—so far. Thank God for major favors!! I sometimes nod off during certain television shows, but that has more to do with the show than with my antiquity.

I've got another factor operating besides age, and it's a little hard to separate what is responsible for which. I had polio when I was two, and I've walked with a leg-brace and crutches all my life. I used to be able to hop along for blocks, lugging a guitar case with me. It was about a mile from the place where I taught guitar to the Blue Moon Tavern, where I often walked after an evening's teaching to have a tall-and-foamy with a few friends before heading home. About eighteen or twenty years ago, I noticed that after going just a couple of blocks, my shoulders were pretty tired. During a regular physical check-up, my quack X-rayed my shoulders. He pointed out that the human shoulder is not designed for the method of locomotion that I'd been using all my life, and my shoulder joints were just simply worn out. He advised me to get myself a wheelchair and use it whenever possible to take the load off my shoulders. "Do it while you still have the choice," he said.

During the time I was dropping into various orthopedic supply stores and kicking the tires on wheelchairs, I took a tumble in the bathroom and busted my left knee (my "good" leg!). When I got out of the cast six weeks later, I had lost sufficient strength in my shoulders and the knee was no longer reliable, so the wheelchair became a necessity rather than an option. And then, almost ten years to the day later, I did the same little fandango again and broke the same leg a second time. Femur. Three weeks in a hospital. I now have a titanium rod in my left leg. I'd probably give metal detectors in airports wall-eyed fits. (Needless to say, I've given up ballet lessons!).

Lifting myself from the wheelchair to the bed or potty and back again takes a bit of effort, but so far, no problem. The big one is getting in and out of the car. This is mainly because of the difference in seat heights. The car seat is about six inches lower that the wheelchair seat. Getting in is not so bad, but getting back out (having to lift myself up that distance) is a real grunter! There have been a couple of times when I wasn't sure I was going to make it. And Barbara just doesn't have the strength to haul me out. As a result, I plan car trips very carefully. What we really need is a minivan with a wheelchair ramp or lift. But that's wa‑a‑a‑a‑a‑ay beyond the budget!

The matter of general accessibility is a whole subject by itself, and doesn't necessarily relate to age. I've written a sort of serio-comic article about a number of accessibility gaffs that I've run into. Pretty good, I think. I'm gonna send it off to a magazine or two and see if I can get it published.

Here's an experiment to try sometime:    assume that you're unable to stand up. Try putting on a pair of pants.

One thing that's a bit grumpy-making is that because of range-of-motion problems with my left shoulder, I can't play a full-size guitar anymore. And sitting in a wheelchair, the lower bout of a standard guitar and the right wheel of the chair want to occupy the same space. Doesn't work. But I have a couple of travel guitars (GO-GWs made by Sam Radding of San Diego) that look a bit like canoe paddles with strings, but they play like a regular guitar, and despite the small soundbox, they sound pretty much line a regular guitar, even if the bass is somewhat "attenuated."

Probably age-related is that I've noticed that I have to lower the keys of some of the songs I sing. The voice still feels strong (actually, I know a lot more about singing than I used to), and people who are not especially inclined to jolly me along tell me that it still sounds good; some say better than ever (that's nice to hear). A top note or two that I used to have to reach for a bit but could hit okay have just gone bye-bye. But I can now go a bit lower than I used to. I'm having to drop several songs from D to C, or C to A, etc.. And many of my guitar accompaniments were pretty carefully worked out, so this means a lot of rearranging. Fortunately, I enjoy this kind of problem-solving.

But I can feel the lead horse drawing time's winged chariot snapping at my rear end. I've got a book that I've been working on for years to finish and get off to a publisher (reminiscences of the Seattle folk scene back when), and, following Bob the Deckman's example, I'm determined to make a CD—maybe a whole bunch of CDs. And Bob and I are planning to do a house concert (actually a church concert—great acoustics, and it can seat about 200 people) this coming fall. Other than singing a couple of duets with Bob and three other songs at the 2003 Northwest Folklife Festival's "Geezer's Concert," I haven't done anything like that since I sang a concert at "The Nightingale" in the early Eighties.

Lots to do.   So I'd better get busy!

Don Firth