I do not expect to live forever, but I’ve made progress. On the nineteenth of February I will be 84. This gratifies me and confounds my younger friends, lads in their sixties and seventies. Most of my older friends have lost interest in my staying power because they didn’t think I’d see 50. In the cattle drive of human experience, I’m one of the lucky grazers among my ever-thinning herd of contemporaries.
I’ve already penned my obituary. It’s mostly nonfiction and, happily, remains a work in progress; friends who know me will find few surprises. Well, one: the obit does not mention my oft-stated wish to be cremated and have my ashes mixed with radish seed, the resulting mélange to be spread over the yards of persons who don’t like me. The people I don’t like are to be spared.
Jackson newspapers once insisted that obits contain a cause of death, but self-generated obituaries can’t always do that. If I die from a lightning strike, a more frequent prediction than you might suppose, my obituary could say, “William Jeanes of Ridgeland died yesterday, burned to a crisp by a lightning bolt that set off every car alarm in Dinsmor. Witnesses said he had been making coarse jokes about one of the lesser saints.”
My obituary cannot justify such vivid prose. Nor does it employ euphemisms; I do not depart this earth, pass, succumb to illness, or go to be with Elvis. I die. Dying is nothing to be ashamed of; people do it all the time. You may read that a man you knew has, “gone to his heavenly reward,” but trust me, he died.
One of my late friends, Buddy Buchanan, played golf and played it superbly. He wanted no part of an obituary that called him an “avid golfer,” so he chose to write his own, never dreaming that a heart attack would hasten its publication. Buddy inspired me to create an autobiographical obituary. But enough of jolly death-notice observations, let’s examine what it’s like to be eighty-four and facing last call in life’s Nineteenth Hole.
On one core issue, I’ve caved: when I put on trousers I now either lean on or hold on to something substantial. Not because I can’t don slacks or Levis unaided but because two of my friends took nasty falls due to a belief in their senior balance abilities.
Medical science continues to leave us neuropathy sufferers without much help. I’m by no means helpless, but when both your feet often feel “asleep,” awkward moments occur. Arising abruptly from your bed can set off a stagger that takes you halfway across the bedroom before you haul yourself back on course for the toilet.
This neurogenic stumbling can occur in public places. Leaving your seat following a long dinner, you may reel through a restaurant dining room as if victimized by Dr. Dewar’s Balance Remover. Nearby diners will whisper, “You’d think he’d know better,” or worse. But I am learning to remain immobile for a beat when I stand, as if unsure of my destination. Once under way, however, I watch my feet. Despite downcast eyes, I bump into fewer walls than cell-phone zombies.
Neuropathy aside, I’ve stayed out of hospitals, hence my Lime Jell-O allergy remains under control. My hair continues its churlish refusal to grow back, but I’m accustomed to this, and guardedly proud that I didn’t waste my male hormones growing a mullet.
Since my last report, I have lost thirty pounds and gained an industrial-strength treadmill. I have learned that clothing, even in the proper size, does not fit the way it did in 1990. I blame global warming and inflation for this distortion. And gravity.
I’ve adjusted listening and viewing habits. I now watch the simulcast version of the Gallo Radio Show. My affection for classic cinema has grown. Turner Classic Movies sent chocolate covered strawberries for my last birthday. On Saturday mornings, I find myself listening to another SuperTalk Mississippi show: Nellie Neal, the Garden Mama. That’s peculiar, since the only thing I’ve ever managed to grow is old.
Revisions continue on the obituary. I’m wrestling with whether to use “arrangements” or “disposal procedures,” and I’ve reduced the epitaph choices to two: “Never Mind Where I Went” or “Don’t Call Me Bill.”
