Parting Glances
There's an old saying, "If you don't use it you lose it." It applies to both sex and voting. (Diddle in the parlor. Get screwed at the polls.)
While my own sex life is an open book (mostly blank pages of late) that "certain urge" comes and goes with alarming regularity. Daylight savings time has nothing to do with it.
If I may use my cell phone as a metaphor: Instead of getting rousing bars of Stars and Stripes Forever, I get a low-grade hummer in the pocket of my fleece-lined parka, or elsewhere, depending upon its handheld placement.
At my age I'm grateful for the slightest tremor. It means I'm alive and healthy. And God knows, I work at being both. Sometimes a little over-indulgently, I might add. Another observation: it takes real courage to get old.
For 20-plus years now I've been taking a daily tablespoon of cod liver oil. Although it's available in orange and mint flavors, I drink it full swim from the bottle. Ugh! you say. Maybe so; but I can't recall the last time I've had a cold (and fly casting has somehow become a favorite pastime of mine – hook, line, and zipper.)
I take a handful of vitamins at each meal, and while I may have the most expensive urine in my neighborhood – I plan to conduct a campus survey – my energy remains upbeat. I sleep well. (Instead of sheep I count Twin Labs Two-A-Day vitamin B capsules.)
I also follow a daily exercise routine. Each morning I touch my toes 50 times, do right and left high kicks 35 times, arm crossovers, 100 a set. (I'm considering a stint as a standup comic.)
While I've often confessed my foibles in Parting Glances, I still have a few up my sweatshirt sleeve. (Years ago, a perceptive coworker – bless her low-cal heart – called them my "idiocraties.") Here's two, flagged Stay Young Forever.
For sometime, now, I've been taking monthly Human Growth Hormone (Secretagogue-Gold) and also a "combination of herbal ingredients" in tablet form to improve my "staying power." Apparently both have done the trick for me. I stay.
Of course it's all a grand illusion. Nonetheless it makes me feel good, and I'm not alone in my pursuit of the elusive soda fountain of youth. There are hundreds crowding at life's counter for a cherry coke or a banana split.
Or, so I recently chanced to discover while channel surfing on to a group of glamorous well-buffed guys and big- bosomed gals. They were talking coyly and seductively about "enhancement," "partner pleasing," and "measuring up" to "full performance."
It was a soft-core come-on for a combination of assorted "time-tested" aphrodisiac ingredients in financially convenient tablet form. What amazes me is that these studdabubbas would need anything to rake their coals or haul their ashes. (And when was the last time you had a niacin flush?)
More importantly, one hopes they're registered to vote. Straight or gay: Democrat.
