Old Folks 
 

      This week, as I was watching my favorite news program,  was made aware that even I, as a soon to be social security recipient, am just a young whippersnapper compared to the real adults. To start with, I didn’t even know what a whippersnapper was until I looked it up in the dictionary. It seems, (according to Mr. Webster ) , a whippersnapper is a diminutive or insignificant yahoo who just doesn’t get it......BINGO!!!  That’s me. I always thought that it was someone who whipped and snapped.

      I was made aware of the fact that I was getting on up there  not too long ago when I was playing a music gig. I do that some time when I’m not being a crack news paper columnist. I looked around and realized that I was the oldest dude in the building. I’m still a dude mind you, but now I’m an old dude. I know this because somebody yelled from the audience, “Hey old dude. Play something we’ve heard before.” You stop being a dude and become an old dude, when you can still remember to flush and floss.  You become a geezer when you become a few years older than me.

      OK ..now that we’ve got it straight as to how the old man age thing works I’ll tell you about what it’s like.

      I was sitting on a bench in  front of  Bubba’s Quick Stop talking to a couple of my boyhood friends, Pernell and Son.

      We’re all three hoping to make it through the day without a major bathroom  mishap when I happened to mention that things just aren’t the same as they used to be.

      Pernell say’s “ I know that’s right.

      No matter what you say, Pernell always say’s “I know that’s right.”

      “When I was a few years younger,” He say’s. “I would wake up at daylight and make my visit to the house behind the house and make water like a 17 year old. Now it hurts me just to think about it.

      Son nod’s and says “ I know that’s right”...Son never say’s that, but today he did. “When I was a young man I didn’t need Bran Flakes or Metamucil to keep me regular, but now it’s a must.”  If I don’t get up and take care of my bidness, I’ll be embarrassed on laundry day.” This conversation was getting more bazaar by the statement.

      I couldn’t help but gouge these two soon to be geezers a little bit. I puffed out my chest and said. “Well boy’s” I said. “I make water every morning at around six o’clock. Then about seven or seven thirty I do my other bathroom duties.

      Son looked at Pernell and then back at me and say’s, so what do you have to complain about?

      I hung my head and replied. “I don’t get out of bed until eight. o’clock.”

      When I start feeling like I have lived a long life, I think about my uncle Winton Waters. He’ll be eighty years old on the 16^th of February.

      Uncle Winton was a fiddler. A fiddler is a person that plays the violin. I always wished that I could play the violin. He didn’t play the fiddle for a living, but he did play the fiddle. The difference between a fiddle and a violin is . A violin is carried in a violin case. A fiddle is carried in a croaker sack.

      Back in the day, a fiddler was a guy who could  most probably do something that you couldn’t......Play the fiddle.

      Picture if you will, a welfare office in which a long line of people who need assistance are lined up to receive a dole of some kind.

      A lawyer say’s, “Hey Fiddler....I can see that playing the fiddle has gotten you in the un-employment line.”

      “Yes” says the fiddler, ..”.But I’d rather be an un-employed fiddler than an un-employed lawyer.”

      Happy birthday Uncle Winton.