With Respect To Age

I have been moved to write one on how I am regarded, treated, looked at, and all that. I thought of "My Age is Showing", "People Are Getting Nicer", "A Grin in Time Wipes Whines", but maybe I can write this again, later of course, with a different tag like one of these, or maybe "It's the Way I Walk".

People have begun to hold doors, to wait for me in various circumstances. Is it pity, is it admiration, or just respect to old age? True, I am older than I have ever been, in fact older than any related male I know of. My maternal grandfather mowed by hand all day, and that evening ran over a mile to help the bucket brigade up the lake to put out the fire at the local creamery, owned by them all, and got "cold in his kidneys" and died at 87. My paternal grandfather died with a knife in his back when he was throwing a troublesome drunk from his saloon restaurant in a mining camp in Colorado. But I am the oldest male living past 90. So perhaps my age is beginning to show.

Maybe I should lie about my age and say I am only 85 or so, or perhaps I should lie the other way and say I am 99. Depends on how much respect I want, or do I want pity? Not that, please, as it might be catching and I might begin to pity myself, and that would interfere with my plans to go see my grandchildren in Wales, and come back by going the rest of the way around the world.

People do form opinions about age, and their attitudes are affected, sometimes for the better. Altogether, getting older, and even old, does have its advantages in some respects, sometimes including more respect, I think.