It’s rare you can officially pinpoint the moment in time when you know that you’re over the hill.
I can. I’ve already put down 9:34 p.m. Nov. 27, 2008. It’s pretty much going to be all downhill from here.
I was watching a football game on television. We get 16,471 channels at our house and there’s never anything worth watching except sports and reruns of “The Honeymooners.” I know you don’t remember “The Honeymooners” but I do.
The camera crews kept panning to this couple in the stands who were alternately cheering and flinching. I didn’t know who they were but made a mental note that the feminine component of this couple was a really good-looking lady.
Then they told us who she was.
She was the quarterback’s mother.
Okay, that’s it, I thought. Not the cheerleaders, not the models in the car commercials, the quarterback’s mother.
After calling the nursing home to make reservations, I padded into the living room where my wife was watching a different television to tell her that she was officially married to an old guy.
I didn’t quite get the show she was watching. I think it was called “Dancing With The Felons.” I think they bring celebrities to prison, and pair them up with criminals in a dance team.
The winners get paroled. The losers get 20 years to life. I think Cloris Leachman was in it.
“I’m old,” I told her. (My wife, not Cloris Leachman.) I poured out my heart and soul to her.
She was crocheting something that was either baby socks or a distributor cap cover.
She never took her eyes off the television. “Well honey, it could have been worse,” she said. “It could have been the quarterback’s grandmother.”
This kind of thing happens all the time at my house where I’m the only male. Even the cats—the four-footed ones—are female.
Earlier in the day our seventh grader snuck up on me and took my picture with her new digital camera. I, professionally, tried to compliment her on her photography.
“That’s nice sweetie,” I said. “You didn’t show my gray hair hardly at all.”
“It’s white,” she replied.
“No it’s not!” I grabbed the camera, studied the photo. “Well, white-ish,” I said.
I was afraid she was going to put it on-line. Was I ever relieved when she said it was only going on something called Facebook. I think that has something to do with putting on makeup.
I’ve had a thing about white hair ever since Texas Football put some elderly gentleman with white hair and a white beard on its cover and said it was Earl Campbell.
No way. I’ve seen Earl Campbell run over tacklers, run away from tacklers, run through tacklers. He’s the greatest football player I’ve ever seen. He can’t have white hair and a white beard. He just can’t.
I went back into the other room and resumed my viewing of the football game.
It just happened to be at the college from which I graduated. For three years I lived one block from the stadium.
They showed a panoramic view of the campus. I did not recognize one building. I guess they’ve torn down all the buildings I went to class in.
Or didn’t go to class in.
Probably were torn down by the grandsons of people I went to class with.
So I’m old. Okay. But just for the record, Texas quarterback Colt McCoy does have a really good-looking mom.
I’m afraid to ask about his grandmothers.
