Feeling the vagaries of old age

As someone who has done a fair amount of speaking in his time, I have an appreciation for the well-spoken.

I was in awe of William F. Buckley because his speech was so meticulous. There were never any “uhs” when he spoke, just one well-structured sentence after another, and his vocabulary was immense. I once thought I caught him on a mispronunciation.

He was speaking of the “vagaries” of something, and he pronounced it vu-GAR-ee, with the accent on the middle symbol. “Ha! Buckley,” I cried. “Got you at last.” That was a word in my vocabulary, and I knew it was pronounced VAGUE-a-ree, accent on the first syllable.

I rushed to the dictionary, primed to photocopy the appropriate page and forward it to him for his edification. Alas, my traitorous Webster’s supported him. Well, you say vu-GAR-ee, I say VAGUE-a-ree. Wherever the accent, we at least agree on the definition ? an oddity or caprice ? and old age is full of them.

For the first time in your life, you have time to read all the books and magazines you want. The problem is, your vision is so bad that just getting through the morning paper can take half the day.

With no vacation restrictions, you can travel anywhere, any time ? except you’re too feeble.

Lying in bed in the morning before you’ve attempted to move, your mind races over the possibilities of the day ahead. It looks like a sunny day. You’ll spring out of bed, grab your fins and trot down to the beach where you’ll catch a few waves. Then you turn over and change your goals to a labored shuffle to the kitchen for some orange juice and coffee ? and then to the couch for a nap.

Because of certain memory problems, everything has to be written down. Unfortunately, because you have memory problems, you forget to look at the list.

However, not all these things are negatives, particularly the failing memory. Sure, you miss appointments and are totally surprised when three people show up on your doorstep thinking you have a bridge game, but that’s the beauty of it.

Every day is a surprise. Sometimes every hour. Yesterday was a bad day? Tomorrow really is another because yesterday is erased as cleanly as if it never existed.

I remember my parents aging and how puzzling it was that they could remember things from their youth but couldn’t remember last week. At the time I thought it was a tragedy. Now I realize it is nature’s gift.

Why would I want to remember last week when I started to walk downtown but got no farther than the first bench, when instead I could remember myself as a young man surfing 20-foot waves at the Balboa Pier?

It’s like with my wife. We were married almost 60 years, so common sense tells me that she was an elderly person when she died, but I don’t remember that at all. It’s another image that is fixed in my mind.

She is 23, the age when I met her, with the greatest pair of legs I ever saw. She’s never aged, and she never will, so to those of you looking at approaching-senior status with trepidation, let me tell you: The vagaries of old age aren’t so bad, no matter how you pronounce it.