You’ve heard the joke, of course: a family moves from Mississippi to Arkansas and raises the I. Q. of both states. Susan and I defected from the Magnolia State to the Natural State in the fall of 2022, but I can’t see that it’s made much difference to either one. Mississippi’s difficulties with drinking water and libraries continue, and Arkansas permits pit bulls to walk among our Walmart shoppers.
Faithful Northside Sun readers may recall that, at eighty, I wrote a column about getting old. Eighty is old, or was, but considering the lifestyle I’d led for a lot of years, my health was better than I deserved. I had two working ears, a pair of functional eyes, a total of 20 operative fingers and toes, and 32 teeth certified as permanent. No chronic diseases were present, though neuropathy had invaded my feet. I was overweight by a solid—well, not so solid—30 pounds.
One sentence in that column caused snickers—my assertion that I could put on my trousers without holding on to anything. The amusement continued when, at 83, I again wrote on aging and disclosed that when I donned trousers, I held on just the tiniest bit to some stable object. With Levis, I held on tightly to something like a doorframe, but I didn’t mention that. The column expressed increasing concern about the neuropathy.
It is now 2024, and I turn 86 in February. I breathe well enough because I quit smoking 40 years ago. I’ve lost my hair, but I have not lost my affection for writing. Being self-centered, as writers are, I thought an update might interest you. After all, how many 86-year-olds have spoken to you lately? Not many, I’ll bet. That’s because there aren’t many.
I’ll start with the good news; I’ve lost 35 pounds without sneaking into the liposuction doctor’s office or catching some dreadful disease. I did this through intermittent fasting—essentially skipping breakfast and then sandwiching all food intake into the hours between four and nine. Do your own reading on this, but take encouragement from my having shaved four inches off my waistline and erased one X from my T-shirt size.
The neuropathy continues. Not debilitating, but I give inordinate attention to movement. I know when my feet start to move, where they are headed, and how they’re behaving during the journey. Neuropathy has reduced the sensory abilities of these extremities, and knowing that accidental falls cause significant deaths among adults, I avoid sudden movements. Neuropathy is like doing the New York Times crossword in ink; if you don’t pay attention, it can cause embarrassment.
I say reluctantly that during my 85th year I began to “feel old.” Not decrepit, you understand, just old. I do a brisk two and one-half or three miles on my treadmill three times a week, but recovery takes longer. My shower now sports a teak stool so I can wash my feet. Just imagining standing on one foot, losing my balance, and bouncing off tile walls while falling to the floor horrified me; the stool helps. Early indications of macular degeneration are present in one eye, offset by excellent blood pressure. And yes, I hold on with one hand to something sturdy when I put on my trousers. I tried two hands, but all that did was reveal why rich old Englishmen had valets.
A recent Pew Research study found that the public thinks it’s okay to think of men as old at 86 (70 for women). That means I’m 18years into ripe old age but better ripe than rotten, I say. Which raises a question that only doctors and prostitutes hear: how long have I got? The Social Security Administration’s life expectancy calculator, armed with my vital numbers, asserts that my “final expenses,” as Mickey Rooney’s TV commercials called them, will come due five years, nine months, and six days from now.
Rounding off, and applying the US Government Fiddle Factor, let’s say my time remaining is six years. That’s a long time if you’re a housefly, not so much for us consumers. But it’s long enough to be thankful for all (well, most) of those years. And to continue trying to laugh out loud every day, which might add one or two more.
William Jeanes lives in Dinsmor.
