busker

Bold to be Old

Lani arrives before I'm finished with today's chore of going thru my newspapers and mags, dumping what I can and sorting the rest by date.

She spots my pile of Oldies and starts leafing thru them with that amused worldly smile she keeps for my possesions - then recoils as if stung by a viper or come across a dead baby in my linen closet.

In typical British fashion, the magazine's title says it all, spelling out for and about whom it is published. Folks with some age on them; getting on.

L being a thoroughly modern and American young lady, I might as well have been subscribing to something called "Wrinklies" or "Cadaver". She flings the copy back on the pile before further contamination and even takes a step away from *me* as if ageing vibes might radiate from those who also read the rag.

As with many of her Generation, Education and 'Liberation', there are few topics La L will stay clear of or cannot discuss with blushless panache. Age is the final taboo; I am made to feel as if she has rumbled my cache of porn.

Post-script: Music might be the food but it's also an ace weather-vane of one's ageing: in 1964 Hong Kong, chanson de sûr-fire smooch with one's honey was velveteen vox'd Johnny Mathis' Twelfth of Never.

Eh bien, my 12th of Nunquam arrived today with my order of the Mathis Love Songs album. Gorgeous. 'The Folks who live on the Hill'? Heart-melting.

POST Post-script: Is there *no* privacy in Blogshire? L has just emailed me to say that, far from being repulsed by my senile reading matter, she has been keeping herself splendidly entertained on The Oldies' puzzles page.

She also points out that a far "groovier" title for my whinge would have been Axis: Old as Love