Geezer Problems, Oh My!

One of the things about being a geezer is that the mere process of becoming a geezer entails being around for a long time. (okay, I admit that some folks begin to act like geezers after only a relatively short time on earth, but they are rare, and that's a different issue) When one has been around for a long time, one necessarily has a lot of experiences (they may or may not be interesting experiences, but one has them) and one of the characteristics of geezerhood is the need to tell somebody about a lot of those experiences.

I have heard of geezers who ended up in prison because they reached an age where it was necessary to share experiences and some of them were experiences for which the legal time of official forgetfulness had not run out. (I try to avoid such stories, although I was such a nice person that I never did anything {that I can remember} which would bring about legal interest or action after all this time.)

Since geezer garrulousness is a given, sometimes it is hard to remember to whom what story has been told. Every geezer has a reputation in some circle of telling some stories over and over. That's why there is a cliche about beginning stories with "Have I told you about------?,, or Stop me if you've heard this one". I don't use these tag lines often, but when I see my children's eyes glaze as I start to tell an important truth, or I notice them look from one to the other and smile, I usually (not always) drop the story and find something else to do with what's left of my mind.

This is a problem right now because of all the stuff in the papers about super-staph infections, and I had a really interesting and painful experience back in the eighties with a staph infection that didn't end my life, but certainly changed it. I sat down yesterday and began to tell the story to you folks when suddenly, in my mind's eye, I saw my children glancing at one another with that knowing smile. Whoops, thought I, I have told this story already. No matter how interesting I might think it is, it will not be interesting for folks who have already heard it. But have they REALLY????

I began to go back and cull through the tales I have told from the beginning of this blog, skimmed through about thirty of the 200 plus that are here, and decided to forget it and take a nap.

Now a real Coot, who has been through the geezer stage and has accomplished coothood should ordinarily write the story anyway because coots go for the gold and to heck (or something) with those who have already read it. There are bound to be a few newbies who don't remember how brilliant I once was. ( I think). Oh woe is me, what to do? what to do?

A second problem, not related to garrulousness but related to the accomplishment of the geezer state of life is that some important new terms have arisen for which a younger mind is necessary for the processing. Some of these are blog related. What in heavens name is meant by "trackback" or "RSS feed" or "permalink". I know in my heart that my blog would be admired by all if I could use or do whatever these things are, but- - - I am humiliated to acknowledge it but I HAVE NO GEEK. Ed Abbey, in a post this week talked about his experience remodeling his computer and about pava or pravda or some such system and it's reluctance to interact with ata systems (I think it was really ata and pata, but the possibility of a pravda pun was too tempting). I read in blogger the neat ways to advertise using someone else's material from UTube, and all the other new additions to blogger and I weep at my lack of geekness. Oh WELL, woe is me, what to do? what to do"