Authentic Old Men

By Pat McManus

October 2013

 

Some years ago I may have written an article about authentic old men. I was young then and all my information was second hand. What I knew about old men back then consisted of what I had observed of them, all of them bachelors, happy go-lucky characters who lived in rundown shacks all around us. They all chewed and spit tobacco, grew stubbly gray beards, bathed on leap years if they didn’t forget, wore the same suit of long underwear all winter, occasionally standing it in a corner of the cabin for a day or two to air out.

 

I guess what triggered my thinking about old men was an accusation my wife, Bun, made about me recently.

 

“The other day when I washed clothes,” she said, “I noticed I had six pairs of my panties in the hamper and only one pair of your white shorts. Why do you suppose that was?”

 

“Accidents?” I said.

 

Well, Bun hit the ceiling over hat one. Wives of old men have very little sense of humor.

 

I turns out hat I never became the kind of old man I wanted to be. I haven’ used any form of tobacco in over 40 years. Instead of the beard around my mouth having a nice tea-colored stain, it’s perfectly white. What kind of beard like the would an authentic old man have? It’s downright sad.

 

The kind of vehicle an authentic old man should have is a battered old black or gray three-quarter-ton pickup. I, on the other hand, have a blue-green, four-door sedan equipped with a speed restricter. If I go one mile an hour over the speed limit, the restricter goes off.

 

“Slow down!” Bun yells. See, if I had the kind of pickup truck I’m talking about, the speed restricter wouldn’t get within ten fee of it.

 

What once was the happy existence of authentic old men has been eroded away bit by bi and someday soon there won’t be any place left for them to live out their particular kind of blissful life. Oh oh, I just heard Bun screaming in the living room. She probably found my long underwear sanding in a corner of the living room. It’s hardly been there ten minutes, scarcely time enough for it to air out.