|The South Marysburgh Mirror 13) GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES! Picture the scene. You are walking or perhaps limping along main street Picton (it’s a bad day for the corns, the joints or the gout is acting up again) and you al- most bump into a person who smiles broadly and says “°morning, how are you. It’s been ages since we last met.” Cripes, you know the face, you know the person but the name just won’t appear on your radar screen which is also known as your memory. Time for emergency action and Strategy #1. You smile broadly and knowingly saying slowly “well hello there, it’s great to see you again ....how are you my friend.” This is called the “buying time” strategy as you rattle the cage of your brain into some kind of action, trying desperately to distill a name out of the ether. Well, the fog is pretty thick today and the name just won’t come. Time for Strategy #2. Shut up and listen! Listen that.....how nice for you...you must be so proud....tell me more... when are you going to see about it...” And so on. I think we all get the picture. People love to talk about themselves and with a little bit of encouragement from you, eventually they will give themselves away with a re- lationship or event that you recognize. Hopefully this leads to the big Aha in your grey matter, allowing you to smile even more broadly this time and respond with something like.... “That is so interesting Mary. I am so glad that we bumped into each other this moming. We’ll have to get together again soon!” Now two things have just happened. First you have just stuck your neck out ten feet by saying the name out loud. You think the person standing before you IS Mary but you are not 100% sure. What if you are wrong? Oh, the embarrassment of getting it wrong...and we have all been there. Second “we’ll have to get together soon” really means....I haven’t got my diary with me e-mail address is or even if you have a computer. Seriously though, growing old is not for sissies. It is a time of our lives when we need all of our strength, both physical and mental, to cope with the effects of anno domini on the body and the mind. You come to know inti- mately the colour of the wallpaper in the doctor’s waiting room. You have counted the squares in the pattem on the ceiling and can say that there are 168 of them...or was it 178? You have read and re-read the crumpled. magazines, but that does not really matter because you can’t remem- ber what their content was anyway. And the dentist....well that is a whole other story. Fewer teeth....less to go wrong. The optician also becomes a regular event on your calen- dar, but the gem of them all is the pharmacist. Ever no- ticed in the dark months of winter the wonderful sun tan on their faces coming from that cruise, or the trip to the carefully for clues from what your ‘new found’ friend says i i i i in the coming minutes. Help them along with the odd words of encouragement like “Oh really...I didn’t know scriptions over the counter several times amonth. Now I know why you can’t get a prescription for a whole year’s supply. It would create an income crunch for our friendly person in the white coat and the tanned face. As one who is told that I am in my “Golden Years;” and that expression is a bad joke in itself, because who ever heard of a half blind, limping, overweight, memory-impaired person agreeing that they are in their “golden years?’ As one who is in my senior years there are of course many plusses to age, but we sometimes have to dig deep below the surface to find them. We have to place on one side the ‘issues’ that age places upon the large ma- jority of us and focus on the joys...and if we are lucky, the “G” word..or if we are VERY lucky, the “GG” word. Hav- ing Grandchildren takes years off of us. They provide us Continued on page 14 and I don’t really know what I am doing tomorrow far less next week, but I’ll try to remember that we met and get back to you. Do not fear. Here comes sneaky Strategy #3. This wonderful time of computers and PDA’s (‘Personal Digital Assistant’ for the Tec illiterate among us) which you don’t really understand gives you the opportunity to place the onus for future contact and meeting on your newly recognized friend. Are you ready for this? “Mary (you are now really confident that it is Mary) Mary, why don’t you e-mail me and we’ll set a date.” What you haven’t realized is that all of this time Mary has been pumping you for information because she can’t remem- ber your name. © She hasn’t got a clue as to what your DANGEROUS TREE SERVICE T. HAMM LOGGING o/o Todd Hamm RR #1 Milford, Ont. 613-813-6272 ¢ Lot Clearing e Fire Wood Cut Split e Dangerous Tree Removal « Tree Planting