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Crankmess in Decline, Says Old Guy Youth-obsessed America has madc it tough to agc with cmbby, rightcous angcr By GARRISON KEILOR Aug. 19,2002
Thcrc’s a ncw survcy out saying tiiat pcoplc wlio takc a positivc vicw of aging actually live longer than thosc who grousc and gnunblc, wliich is hogwash, and I am paying no attention to it. 1 tumed 60 last week and it’s no pienie, and anybody who says so is whistling in the dark. Maybe this docsn't sound life-affirming to you. So~ slioot mc.
I didn!t want a 60tli birthday party but agreed to it under pressure lest I bc thought a sorehead, and so all my jowly friends with thin dcad hair sang Happy Birtliday in their horriblc ruincd voices and we sal cating aged bcef and hcirlooiu tomatoes with a dry but cxpcricnccd Chnrdonnay and old pals woofed about how liappy and busy they are in retircmcnt and gavc me dumb birthday cards (" Wclcome to the Incontinence Hotline... Cati you hołd. plcase?") and a cakc bla/.cd up likc the Hindcnburg and sornc pcoplc I knew back wlien they wcrc fun told me how good I look.
Back in the 1960s, birthday paitics wcrc major fun. Tlić Gratcful Dead was on the hi-fi and you danced and took powcrful dmgs and swam nakcd in llie lakc and lay on the saud talking about what you werc fccling. But I can’t do tliat anymorc for fcar of ernbarrassing my chiJdren.
This wcck, as a gift to mysclf, I'm going to Scotland.
Turuing 60 is damed awkward in America. We glorify carefree youth and feel sheepish if our abdoincn is not liard enough to cmck wahiuts on and our hcart is not wami and smilcy. Gcc/.crs and gcezcrcttes go around in juvenilc clothcs, shorls and lliji-flops and jokey T sliirts (my goal is to live rorever. so far. so good).
Ernbarrassing. A tnan my agc should not aim for boyishness. He should wcar an old tweed jackct and wool trousers and a siJJk vest with a great bclly under it and have wild eyebrows tlie size of rats and cariy a knobby walking stick and smoke torpedo cigars and sit around kicking the licjabbers out of the government. A guy can do that in Scotland.
In Scotland, old codgcrs likc nic don't buy into the fairy tale that llicse arc the Best Yeais of Our Life. They know bcllcr. If lifc is a jounicy, Hien your 60s are the homeward leg when you’re hung up in an airport and tliinking bad thouglits about your tmvel agent. Your shoes have been x-myed, your fliglit is delayed, you’rc trapped in a lounge fuli of idiots with thosc dangly celi phones and voices like chainsaws. You'd likc to tell them to get lost. But in America wc'vc scen a scrious crosion of the right to be cranky. Ordinary gnimpiness łias bccn marginalized by blatant moodism, symptomized, pathologizcd, madę to scem like a bad thing. Oprali is to blamc for tliis, and tlie whole Onward & Upward, Linie Engine That Gould industry tliat has madę smiliness ohligatory. Look at the Clintons.
Here are two folks who spent eight years bcing attacked by midgets and now havc fat contracts to writc mcmoirs in wliicli they conld poiind on their ęnemies and throw grąvęl at them, and will they? Will it bc Payback Time? No, it will not be. They will say that those ciglit years of pcrsccution only deepened tlieir faith and drew them closcr as a couple and madc them rcalizc how terribly lucky they really are.
In Scot land, memoirists would be expected to laccratc their encinies and rain garbage on them, and if you raked in $18 million doing it—bingo! morę power to you. A wondcrful dour tribc, the Scots, and the right to groan and moan is sacrcd in Scotland. Herc we have been duped out of it by the pcoplc who gavc us aroinnthcnipy and scawccd wraps.
Face it: a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a vcry loosc grip on realily. And a man who tums 60 and tells you he ncver fclt better is dclusional. ITc has forgotten how it was when your whole being leaped and boundcd, before you turned into a lumbering galoot. Naturę is rclcntlcss; it programs degeneration into our DNA. Evcn if you'rc positive-tliinking, hopjied up on Viagra, and your face has bccn liflcd and staplcd to make you look like a feral woodchuck, nonctlicless one day you'll look like soincthing from Ihc lost lagoon and havc the sex drive of a smoka! salmon. Naturę docsn’1 carc about your goldcn years; it's aiming for tumovcr.
You don't get to bc old by putling on a happy face. What keeps you going is slubbomitess and rightcous angcr: at ugly buildings, SUVs, background musie, the eminence of nonentities, at cravcnncss and cruclty in generał and the shamelessness of tliis govemmcnt-Icading the lyncliing ofafcw corporate scapegoats to distract tlie niob from your own sins-tlic nakcd hypocrisy of ił! If you’re not bravc enough to have morals when yoifrc 72% popular, what hope is there for you? Givc the bastards a hard linie: that’s how you get to bc old. But why am I tclling you, bubby? Grow up and coinc back when you know something.
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