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Print Of Bumper Cars and Harpoons
by Phil Callaway
I’ve been hanging out in nursing homes a little earlier than I planned, now that Mom finds herself a permanent resident in this one-story unit a mile from our house. Here most of the inmates are aging gracefully. Others are determined to seek vengeance by using their wheelchairs as bumper cars and their canes as harpoons. When the grandkids visit they spend the time whining about how the grandkids never visit. To say they are lacking fashion sense is like saying the Pacific is wet. The men wear black knee socks and wing-tipped white shoes. The ladies wear dresses they bought from the tent and awning company and have their hair dyed neon blue.
My grandfather Callaway was a combination of the graceful and the geezer. He loved a good laugh, but he also loved to talk about his ailments once the entire family had gathered around the dinner table and the food had been doled out. “So I remember when the doctors had to root through me and take out my spleen. Stayed awake for the whole thing. Watched ‘em dig it outa there all wrinkled and green. I asked ‘em to pickle it for me. Put it in a jar. I kept it for years on the counter. Looked like a big hairy cucumber. Hey, where’s everybody going? Mind if I eat your carrots?”
I once enjoyed an evening with a 75-year-old by the name of Donald Cole. Mr. Cole hosts a radio show and travels the country speaking. During our conversation, he mentioned to me that he runs several miles a day, which caught me off guard—like having a guy in a Smart Car pull up to a stoplight and challenge you to a race.
I got thinking about how nice it would be to jog when I’m seventy-five. Maybe it’s something my wife and I could do together. She could drive me out of town and drop me off, it would give purpose to my running. So I said, “Boy, I’d sure like to be running like that when I’m your age.”
“Are you running now?”
I coughed slightly. “I…ahem…came third in a relay once.”
“If you aren’t running now,” he replied, “you won’t be then.”
And it hit me that all of us are in training for the days to come. That if we are impatient, unkind, and unforgiving, we won’t wake up at 65 to discover that people want to be around us. This made me wonder: what kind of an old guy will I be? And how do I live so my kids will want to visit me in the nursing home? By then I will have silver in my hair, gold in my teeth, lead in my feet, and lots of natural gas, but I won’t be wealthy without friends.
The older people I admire are those who live life on purpose. People like Dave Epp. Dave taps on my mom’s door twice a week and she’s always glad to see him. After mourning the loss of his wife to cancer, Dave decided to use his pain, becoming a hospital chaplain, visiting those who can’t get out, encouraging them, joking with them, and praying for them.
The older people I admire still have their sense of humor intact. They are reading good books, learning new truths and discussing things besides the weather. They smile more than they have reason to, laugh when they probably shouldn’t, and talk to children and babies and pets. They know that unforgiveness is like drinking rat poison and standing around waiting for the rat to die.
I wrote down a few more things I admire in older people. It came out as a little poem and I showed it to my mother. She smiled her approval, so I pinned it to her bulletin board. Here it is:
You are not too old until you stop making new friends.
Until you start fighting change.
You are not too old until your past is bigger than your future.
Until you think the bad old days were all good.
Until you talk more of bills, ills, spills, and wills
than thrills.
Until you begrudge the spotlight
turned on a younger generation
And stop shining it on them yourself.
You are not too old as long as you can pray.
As long as you have the inner strength to ask
How can I spread hope around?
How can I get the most out of the years I have left?
How can I make others homesick for heaven?
You are young at heart until you decide you aren’t.
I am happy to report that the poem is still there. So far no one has harpooned it with a cane.
~ Phil Callaway is an award-winning author and speaker, known worldwide for his humorous yet perceptive look at life. He is the best-selling author of fifteen books including Laughing Matters, Who Put My Life On Fast Forward?, I Used to Have Answers…Now I Have Kids, Making Life Rich Without Any Money, and Honey, I Dunked the Kids. Phil's writings have been translated into languages like Polish, Chinese, Spanish, German, Dutch, Indonesian, and English (one of which he speaks fluently!) (Read an article about him.)
*Article used by permission
Related Reading
To read more about life balance, check out Who Put My Life on Fast Forward?
Visit Phil Callaway's website
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Check out Phil's book, Golfing With the Master where Phil demonstrates how you can enjoy the great game of golf while enriching your life. A great Father's Day gift idea!
