Boola Boola

BOOLA BOOLA

“Old age is like learning a new profession.”

                       Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)

Welcome freshmen to the University of Getting Old. It’s good to see your creased but hopeful faces. Let’s start by singing the school song “Woe is Me.” I think you know the words.

I see a sea of frowns out there. Smile. The geriatric life is not as bad as that, though sometimes it is worse. You have my sympathies. You have spent a lifetime figuring out how your heads and bodies work and now they are falling apart . All the things you’ve wanted to do and now you know you won’t. Our school can’t offer you a glorious future or indeed any future at all but at least we can keep you busy for a few years. 

Don’t whine. Embrace the joys of decrepitude.

You can afford better scotch.

The daily deprecations from your spouse fall on ever deafer ears.

People offer you seats in the Subway. (Really. It’s true)

Your tie rack gathers mold .You achieve a slovenly chic which no one dares to criticize.

No one expects you to be coherent so don’t.

Be rude to anybody. They will call you a crazy old bastard. You walk away scot free. 

You may now taunt greedy relatives with hints of inheritance money you don’t have, also enjoy the tender affections of their children without having to clean up their shit.

Your friends are almost dead so the phone won’t ring. More time to read.

You will never run out of conversation for there will always be yourself to talk about. Keeping yourself from falling to pieces will indeed become your principle occupation 

and your medical condition in all its details and shades of interpretation will transfix your interlocuters. They will patiently hear you out and then inflict the same on you.

You may qualify for an Emergency Room Gold Card.

                                                            xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

But on to higher education. There is indeed much to learn.

If you have come to our university to learn a specialty you are in the wrong place. Here one does not major in the errant titanium knee or the syncopated heart rhythm.. Pursue our well rounded curriculum and we will teach you to hurt everywhere. From your aching eyelids to your sciatic toe we will orchestrate a symphony of unpleasantness.

There will be required courses:

Advanced stumbling.

Creating natural and unnatural gasses.

Near-incontinence. (Bring your own cleaning materials.)

Climbing stairs, (Fall semester)

Falling down stairs,(Spring semester). Waivers required. 

The uses of insomnia (Classes meet at 3am.)

Power narcolepsy.(Waking hours to be announced.)

And  so on.

                                                            xxxxx

Freshmen. Consider our campus your home. Indeed we cannot let you leave it. No spring break. No summers off. Not fair? Planning to demonstrate for justice? Spare us your placards and marching feet. Only one student ever got out of here in one piece and that was 2,022 years ago.Incarceration is an ugly word. We prefer “required course.” Fun we cannot offer you but a higher education? Perhaps.

And if you must think of us as a prison at least let it be one where guards are bribed to bring you gifts. Be also assured that everyone will graduate. 

BERNARD HOLLAND