I took my boy to visit his paternal grandparents and one of his uncles today. He likes to go because they have a model railroad there. My Dad had some spare reading glasses lying around, so I tried them out and found one pair that, while quite ugly, helps keep things in focus. So, this is the first blog post I have ever written while wearing glasses. When combined with the realization that Paul Ryan was born four months after me, I am feeling fairly decrepit. Somebody cheer me up.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I just turned 60. I’m getting concerned about liver spots on my hands.
About to turn 67 and I’m concerned about spots on my liver!
Just kidding.
“Somebody cheer me up.”
The glasses will help you read your prescription bottles so you don’t accidently take the viagra when you want to be taking your cholesterol meds.
So, there’s that.
Cheer up, Boo. Your brain cells started dying at age 25. At your current rate of atrophy, then, you still won’t be as thinking-challenged as the average House Republican until the year 2538.
Actually I’ve read that, for men, the rational thinking part of the brain doesn’t start shrinking until age 45. That means a few more good years of clear-headed blogging for Boo until things begin to go south.
Pls don’t ask for my source. Too controversial for this blog. But I find it credible 96% of the time on other matters, and I’m running with this one as far downfield as I can.
I’m seven years older than Ryan. Do your own math if quantitative reasoning is still within your neurological capabilities, Booman.
Here’s old for you: For the first time, I entered a slow-pitch softball season feeling I needed to avoid going all-out to catch everything I could from my centerfield position. I just wanted to stay healthy for the Labor Day tournament- that was the big priority.
Was. Eight days ago, a batter hit a short fly ball in front of me. I got an OK break on the ball; when I got to the spot, it was at my shoetops, so I went for it. I had the ball in the tip of my glove, and in an effort to keep it there I rolled over my glove hand with my body…
…and broke the index finger on my glove hand. I thought my doctors would give me the OK to play Labor Day weekend, but my orthopedist told me today he wasn’t co-signing that. “You could try it. You could fracture your finger again, too.”
My eyesight is starting to go as well.
Paul Ryan is two years younger than me, AND I discovered the need for bifocals this year.
I went
graywhite really fast…from zero to silverback in about three years.Can still run 10k.
I hear that rubbing used regular (fresh) coffee grounds into the scalp and hair is a safe and effective way to darken the hair, albeit only a temporary fix. Something about the tannin, iirc. And unlike the chemical fixes it won’t lead to bladder or brain cancer.
Always remember, Booman, by the time Mozart had reached your age, he’d been dead 13 years.
If you never do anything else better than Mozart, you did that.
Ah – a Tom Lehrer fan I take it. Very good.
“Your hair is turning gray.” I said: “Thanks.”
It was a great compliment from my son as I was aware of a receding hairline … inching toward baldness!
Refuse the readers, just keep getting bigger monitors.
I’m up to 42″.
400 electoral votes – it could happen.
A populist attack against R-Money and Scrooge McDuck should have them crying for their mommas come November…
That image needs to go viral.
Good god, man, the GOP just nominated Paul “Cat Food” Ryan and you still need cheering up?
It gets worse.
As someone nearly two decades your elder, I just want to say: don’t be such a wuss, junior!
Seriously, see an ophthalmologist and get a complete check-up including testing for eye pressure. If you have a problem you want to find out right away. Don’t be an iron man.
And yes, it could be caused by too much sitting in front of a monitor. But more likely – old age. Don’t be afraid of aging, it beats the alternative.
A major shift in vision usually happens in the early- to mid-40s. It’s pretty stable after that, from what I hear, at least for a couple of decades. That’s averages, of course; YMMV.
Oh yeah, probably normal aging but time for annual visits to the ophthalmologist to make sure nothing worse happens.
Also, prescription glasses are better than generic readers and an optometrist could fit those. Still, I urge at least one thorough ophthalmologist exam.
Don’t panic. I started wearing glasses in college, bifocals at age 40, trifocals at age 46. Now at 66 I don’t wear glasses at all except occasionally some very low-power reading glasses. And because some undiagnosed stuff that I had at 38 was fixed when I was 62, I feel healthier now than I did for more than twenty years.
There is a lot that’s reversible.
Cheer up, Booman.
Glasses ain’t shit.
(i so love the hear the kiddies complain!!!)
AG
Archie Moore?
The ol’ Mongoose, himself.
Good lookin’ out.
AG
At least you’re not wearing Depends.
I started wearing glasses at 21.
Boo,
I don’t know if this will cheer you up or not, but here goes. My three kids are not much older than Finn, and I just went on Social Security. Keep on truckin’.
BooMan, Like you I became a 1st time dad at a later age. I was 41. I now wear glasses most of the time (started wearing them for reading in my 40s like you) and hate it. And my now 13 year old son has become the posterboy for teenaged obnoxiousness. Oh, wait, you wanted to be cheered up…
When Paul Ryan was born I’d already gone to Woodstock and Selective Service was hunting me down to drive a truck in Nam.
Everything’s relative.
Please understand it is taking every ounce of my willpower to resist making fun of you for being old.
That being said, consider yourself lucky that you didn’t need glasses until adulthood. I started wearing glasses in third grade, and remember crying the whole way home from the optometrist because I knew the ribbing I was about to take at school. And then when I got braces 2 years later, that was the complete end of my social life until…well, about mid-high school, when the braces came off and I got contacts.
So, at least you missed out on all that. Kids can be cruel.
You’re a better man than I.
Boo: Try shaving. It’ll take 20 years off 😛
dude, I need BIFOCALS.
feel better, old fart.
Still one of the best bloggers in the business…even if you do have a 24 year old reader 😛
I am WAY older than you are, and not a bit decrepit, so cut out the self-pity and get on with your life. I can’t STAND it when people decide they are old before they are.
Oh – and I don’t need reading glasses, either, but that is due to the magic of lasik and monovision. 🙂
Oh, and I just remembered.
When you were born, I was a corporal in the Marine Corps.
Suck it up, Maggot!