The Jester

This is for the Jesup Press Sentinel. I'll be doing a column for them which will appear the first Saturday of each month, or until I piss someone off. I'm just saying.

Model Citizen

I haven’t always been the model citizen I appear to be today. I was talking to Ware County Sheriff Randy Royal the other day and it occurred to me that back in the day, any interaction that I might have had with law enforcement would likely have started with blue lights and a siren.

“Could you step out of the car, sir?”
“No, sir, I could not. I could prolly fall out…”

Why is it the only time anybody calls me “sir”, it means I’m in trouble?
It’s the same way with ”Mister Deal”.

“Mr. Deal, could you recite the alphabet backwards for me, please?”
“Okay, you go first…” Seriously, how fair is that? “Recite the alphabet backwards…” What if you’re dyslexic? I’ll tell you what the officer won’t like: turning your back and singing, “A, B, C, D…” I cannot emphasize enough just how much the officer won’t like it.

The fact is I just can’t believe that I’m a grownup. I don’t mean that the same way my wife can’t believe it, like when I watch Spongebob Squarepants. I mean in the sense of “Hey, Baby Boomer, you’re in charge now! That’s right Mr. Big Talk; you! What’s that? How does the economy work? You knew when you were 16, didn’t you?!? You knew everything back then, didn’t you, Smart Guy?”

And I did. Mark Twain once allegedly said (and if he didn’t say it, he should have), “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” I am not as quick to learn as Mr. Clemens, but more and more I see the point. A lot of what I used to know, I only thought I knew. A lot of the rest, I can’t remember.

As to why I can’t remember? Let me put it this way: I don’t worry much about microwaves from my cell phone burning out brain cells. Any brain cells that I didn’t kill off back in the seventies are natural born survivors. After I’m dead those brain cells will climb out of the grave, like roaches. Zombie brain cells…

I’m amazed that my g-g-g-generation is allowed to drive cars without supervision, much less vote in Presidential elections, perform surgery and fly airplanes. I have a lot more faith in Gen-Xers than I do in my own age group. They can’t possibly be more dangerous to themselves or to the world at large than we were.

I’m sure some of you may be thinking, “Not me! I never did that kind of stuff! Humph!”
Humph, indeed. Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t, but if I were a betting man (and I am) I’d bet that 80% of the male population born between 1946 and 1965 has something in their past that they don’t want their kids or grandkids to know about. Any takers?