What a drag it is getting old

I have been going to Friday Flings in Palmer a lot this year. I love the experience, the food, the music and, of course, the people.

I love to just sit on the grass by the old railroad tracks, munch on hot, fresh French fries and take in the sights. Mainly it involves an activity I call people watching.

As I sat there on the grass behind the string of booths, a small child was dancing only the way a toddler can for her mother. Mom was nursing a newborn as the little girl, a bopper in pink with tiny boots and fluffy balls attached to them, danced with each tiny step.

She reminded me of my own daughter many years ago in what seems another life long past. The whole time I watched with delight, a refrain from a Rolling Stones song played in my head: “What a drag it is getting old …”

Later that day a news item popped up. The Rolling Stones recently celebrated their 50th anniversary of their first gig. Fifty years? Holy cow! They showed them on TV then and now. Have you seen what they look like now? They don’t look old, they look preserved.

They were like something out of those mummy movies you see on the tube nowadays. It really got to me. You know you’re getting old when members of one your favorite bands are nearly as old as your mother. It wasn’t the first time this has happened, either, nor the first clue.

That took place while I was still living in Washington state a several years ago. I went to the small town of Snohomish. A collection of red brick buildings perched on the banks of the Snohomish River. It was an antique Mecca for the area. I love antiques and went into one of the many shops there.

My attention was drawn to an old lunchbox. I picked it up off the shelf. It was just like the one I had back in the third grade during the late ’60s — a dented box of cheap steel with images of race cars painted on its sides and front, a racecar game on the back with the original Thermos inside. The price tag said $350. I put it back on the shelf like my fingers were burned and left the shop quickly. That was my first clue I was getting old.

There were more clues over the years, mostly old toys and such fetching high prices in the collecting markets. Then the more obvious hints came, like my hair turning shades of salt and pepper, my once red mustache and beard going a ghastly white, and my face now resembles a beat-up road map in the mirror. That alone would scare the willies out of me in the morning.

Looking at old pictures provides a slew of clues to my aging. One in particular sends it all home for me. It was taken in the summer of ’80. The event was my sister’s outdoor wedding, my late father and I standing next to each other, he in his suit and I in my flannel shirt and wide-legged jeans.

I was a skinny kid with a mushroom of dark flowing hair down to the shoulders. I weighed about 110 pounds back then, a typical late ’70s long-hair a whopping 19 years old. But it was also the last days of my long hair. I would be off to basic training soon after the picture was taken.

Now I come in at about 168 pounds, my hair is short-cropped, jeans now don’t have that wide-legged flare. I still wear flannel shirts. Heck, I still love tie-dyed shirts. Looking at that face from more than 30 years ago and comparing it to my own says it all to me.

The damned war didn’t help one bit either. It aged me 10 years in the space of one. Let’s face it. I’m an old man. I hit 51 this year. I feel 62 most times. Everything out there tells me so. From the TV to lunch boxes, toys and books I had used or played with are being sold at exorbitant prices in antique stores. Even my own children are in their late 20s now.

Jeepers. What a drag it is getting old! Now can somebody please get that tune out of my head?

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.