The other day I had one of those thunder-flash reminders of old age that come upon us without warning. For no apparent reason the right knee buckled as I traversed from the family pile in Rockland to my club ( the home of homes ) nestled next to the city harbour. Suddenly I had gone from a still rather natty figure to a sort of biblical wayside tragedy. Now here comes the hard cheese of the story, for when I mentioned this tale of woe to my wife Kitty at dinner later that very evening I was expecting some salve to be poured about my wounded spirit if not my newly gammy knee. Not a bit of it for all she said after barely looking up from Mrs Bleak’s (our new cook) roast potatoes was that I must have brought it upon myself by doing something foolish. It is a bit rich when your ruined joint is in a dead heat with roast potatoes as an issue of interest from your companion of some 40 years. Needless to say the dinner turned to ashes in my mouth and I retired to my upstairs study to bitterly wonder what a judge would say once he had all the facts in the future case of the Crown vs. Smythe-Brown over the justified flogging of his current wife. I refused to leave my study even for my nightly arrowroot biscuit as we Smythe-Browns are made of sterner stuff plus I still had a few in my desk drawer. As my friends and I gathered in the senior reading room the next day , I waved my newly acquired cane emotionally, I as the innocent party had been accused of acting foolishly when I had done nothing of the sort, merely old age. Well this brought a tidal wave of pent-up emotion amongst my wet-lipped amigos as all to a man had stories of deep melancholy dealing with the sharp slings and arrows of late-life matters. The blind admiral told the sorry tale of being pushed off a pier by one of his appalling grandchildren,”….to see if he would float” was apparently the reason given by the little wort. When the the elderly sailor finally surfaced he was found to have a turbot between his teeth and ergo arrested for fishing without a license. The brigadier gently pushed the still-talking admiral back into his chair and took the floor intimating that the sightless navy man’s story was but a sad morsel compared to his, that of suddenly passing a kidney stone on Douglas Street. I am not sure if anyone but the victims of these ghastly moments can understand the extraordinary pain involved, but the figure of the bent over double brigadier emulating his former pain provided a pretty vivid pic. He had been feeling a little rummy that morning but thought a large meal of fish and chips would be just the thing to put his lower engine back in purring order. It was while walking away from the restaurant presciently named “The Cholesterol Companion “ when he stopped abruptly in shock, raised one leg like a crane and stared into the mid-horizon not unlike a mastiff hearing a distant dog-whistle. There he remained as the worst pain of his life gripped his very innards. After a small crowd had gathered and a blotchy unkind child started to turn him to see if his one leg would hold him, he tried to put the tucked up leg down . This brought a shout of “HELLO NANA” from the gasping brigadier as he realized something dreadful was up in his warm grey entrails. Needless to say it only became worse as the tiny bit of calcium made its horribly painful way out. There were a few more tales of old age striking without the invitation and I am sure now that this is our lot for the future and very much sans sympathy.
copyright christopher dalton 2015.
www.majorscorner.com
Debbie Murray
Oh, the trials and tribulations of coming into our older years sucks the life out of me. Good read! Thank you!