I am reading a book tonight about crime. That’s not accurate; I’m reading a novel that has criminals in it – no history of crime, or anything like that. Just this Russian guy who is a longtime Mafia-type. Yes, real longtime. He mentions that he is in his early sixties, and we are not talking Clint Eastwood 60’s. Oh, he can still fight because he knows the moves, but he constantly complains of the arthritis in his knees and repeatedly describes himself as old. His friends are old, too. They commiserate about it. It is annoying to read this repetition when you yourself are in that age group.
There’s also a youngish man in the book – an FBI man gone bad. And on top of it, the guy is incompetent at being bad. He has messed everything up so far. It’s not that the book is badly-written; it’s just the “old” guy and the klutz. I imagine it would be like listening to Ben Stiller dialogue when he’s up in years.
All this reminds me that there is a word “fogeydom”. I did not get this from some urban dictionary; this info was in Webster’s 1913 edition, and there are earlier references. So, fogeydom was around long before I ever entered whippersnapperdom. Still, somehow I can see fogeydom working its way into my life as I preempt taunts by embracing it and highlighting my fogeyisms.
