perspective Archives : The Aging of Aquarius

I’ve decided that ageism is okay

March 1, 2024 – Prosper, TX

Now that I’m retired from radio I’ve kept busy writing a weekly online column about radio. I get to sleep four hours longer than I used to and I work at home in my sweats but I’m still focused on radio, just from a different perspective. Nothing wrong with that but I want to expand my world so I’ve been exploring some options.

I have been thinking about going back to school. I never graduated college, maybe I should go back and be the one old fart in every class. Still mulling that over.

Writing fiction is my passion and though I can string words together nicely I don’t know anything about the craft. I wish I had gotten a writing degree when I was young but I didn’t. Now I’m looking into some online classes but they’re expensive. And what I do know from my experience is that in the end you still have to be willing to do the work. I’ve been mulling that over for decades.

The other thing I would love to do is act. I did plays onstage for 20+ years when I was much younger. At the time, when castmates of my age were trying to get professional acting careers started I said, “I’m going to wait until I’m old. You see the same old people in movies and on TV all the time. There aren’t many of them. I’ll wait until the competition is dying. ”

TV character actor Bert Mustin, 1884-1977. We saw him everywhere.

I have arrived. No, not as a professional actor, I have arrived at old.

I signed up for a free subscription to a casting call website for actors. Some of the jobs are unpaid, and some claim to pay very well. They all describe the actors they’re looking for, mostly young people. Over 50 is rare and calls for actors over 70 are nonexistent. That’s fine, I never expected to burst into Hollywood in a leading role at 72. I figured background acting (still referred to as “extras” if we’re honest) and maybe a sentence or two here and there would be great fun.

But here’s what dawned on me this morning as I was looking at the casting notices and writing courses:

Creativity is imagined to be a young person’s ability. All the websites I’ve looked at for writing courses feature pictures of happy young college types. Casting notices are the same. For some reason, our society assumes brains wither as bodies age.

Years ago in my 40s and 50s, I entered some playwriting competitions and was incensed to find contest entries restricted to “young playwrights”. Some actually specified “under 30”, or words to that effect. It pissed me off, and rightly so. I just lied about my age. It’s none of their business, right? I don’t have an expiration date.

Not incidentally, I won four of the half-dozen playwriting contests I entered.

(Paul McCartney, now 81, was asked ten years ago if he shouldn’t consider getting off the stage and letting younger performers have their place in the spotlight. “Fuck ’em,” he replied. “Let them work their way up like I did.”)

Here’s my point, and I think this may surprise you because I’ve written several ageism rants in this blog over the years. That, in itself, makes the point: I’m still learning and so will you.

I have gotten to an age where I don’t think ageism is a big deal. It’s a state of mind based on the perspective of the observer. It’s normal and natural, and sometimes it is reasonable and warranted.

I can’t portray a man in his 40s no matter how much time I spend in makeup. I’ve talked about this recently on the radio, about radio. You can’t hire a 60-year-old on-air personality for a Hot AC music station, you just can’t. 30 years is a lifetime. Inevitably the old guy is going to impart some of his life’s lessons into his shtick. Just as inevitably, the young audience will roll their eyes and say, “Okay, Boomer.”

This is how life works. When we’re young we think old people are stupid because they’re old. Old people think young people are stupid because they’re too young to know what they’re talking about.

They’re both right.

I understand the need for laws banning hiring discrimination of all kinds but you can’t legislate reality. Life experience and perspective can’t be ignored. It’s the result of personal growth through aging. It’s what keeps us fascinated by learning and passionate about life.

I’m a fat old fart looking for a TV or movie walk-on. Hell, I can even deliver lines believably.

But don’t tell me I’m too old to write. I’ll kick your young playwriting ass.

Making life small

I took this picture near our home in Texas. It’s a big place with small beauties.

I’m starting a week of vacation tomorrow. I like my job but it forces me to focus on the world’s problems and there’s never a shortage of them.

Today I’m checking out from the big world of bad news. Putin, the pandemic, politics and the price of gas will swirl on without me for a few days. I’m on time-out.

I just came in from the patio where I drank coffee and watched the dogs rush back and forth chasing birds thirty feet above them.

It’s a beautiful day. Spring isn’t far off.

We sprang forward last night. I don’t like time changes but I’m not going to fuss about it right now.

Photo by my uncle, Michael Webster. He sees things the rest of us look past.

CarolAnn is having a fun day out with one of her girlfriends. (“Girlfriends” sounds kinda silly at their age, but I’ll never admit I said that.)

I’m sipping coffee, listening to classic country, thinking happily of my kids and theirs.

Cora, the cat, just plopped down beside me and begged for a chin scratch.

The world is a mess, but at this level it’s still filled with miracles and joy.

Sometimes I just need life to be small.

…in small steps

by Dave Williams
April 25, 2020

I find myself wanting to write but having nothing to say.

This COVID-19 business has dominated our every thought and action for the past five or six weeks. Most of us are even having COVID-19 dreams. Some of us are really stressed. Others think its nonsense.

I’m trying to remain vigilant, patient, optimistic.

My daughter-in-law shared this gem from a Russian writer on Facebook this morning. It says everything.

Wise words from Grandma

Grandma once gave me a tip:

Picture by Tasha Burgess Tudor, illustrator of children’s books. (1915-2008)

During difficult times, you move forward in small steps.

Do what you have to do, but little by bit.

Don’t think about the future, not even what might happen tomorrow.

Wash the dishes.

Take off the dust.

Write a letter.

Make some soup.

Do you see?

You are moving forward step by step.

Take a step and stop.

Get some rest.

Compliment yourself.

Take another step.

Then another one.

You won’t notice, but your steps will grow bigger and bigger.

And time will come when you can think about the future without crying.

— Elena Mikhalkova, The Room of Ancient Keys

Our pandemic of fear

by Dave Williams
March 21, 2020

Nobody could have imagined something like this. Life as we’ve always known it has virtually ground to a halt around the entire civilized world. Here in the U.S. many public gathering places are closed indefinitely. We’re told to socially isolate and self-quarantine.

Wash your hands, stay six feet apart.

Rumors are flying that martial law will soon be imposed and we’ll all be prisoners in our homes.

How could this happen over a disease that most people survive? As of today there have been 287,000 confirmed cases and 11,900 deaths around the world. We’re warned that the numbers will go much higher but if the percentages hold most of us will be just fine. Except, maybe, financially for the immediate future.

Nearly empty flight from Los Angeles to New York. Facebook photo by my friend, Doug McIntyre.

The shutdown of businesses is crushing the stock markets. Hundreds of thousands of people are out of work and here in the U.S. the number of lost jobs is expected to soar into the millions.

It’s like something from a sci-fi movie.

This blog is a diary, really. I write it for my own future memories and for my children and theirs.

Perspective: It’s a grim time here in the First World. And yet, I can’t imagine life in desperately poor countries where this disease is just another relatively minor pain in the ass for people who live with deadly diseases and devastating poverty every single day of their lives.

By comparison our First World has a slight sniffle. We’re fine.

Perspective: I awoke this morning well rested to a beautiful early spring day, my beloved wife beside me. I made coffee as the dogs waited for their breakfast.

Our kids and their families are hunkered down and healthy, as are most Americans.

When all of this is just a memory toilet paper will be the iconic symbol of COVID-19 in America. We have a panic-induced shortage of it but life goes on.

Some people think this is all a lie or at least overblown. Far more people die each year of the flu, it’s true. We just accept that, so why all of this now?

I think the world is getting its act together as a species, globally responsible for the first time in human history. From the local store owner wearing latex gloves to state governors implementing mandatory restrictions of assembly and movement and nations closing their borders we are working together sensibly, cautiously.

Congress is working in bipartisan near-harmony, for God’s sake.

This will all be over sooner rather than later because Americans and citizens of every other nation in the world are reacting to a crisis with serious actions and measured perspective.

While you’re cooped up in self-quarantine with your family this weekend and for what might be days and weeks to come, make it a special time that none of you will ever forget. Give your kids joyous lifetime memories of the time their family came together as families had in generations past.

This, too, shall pass.

My dear mother always said to me, “This can be a good day or a bad day. It’s up to you.”

Stay safe and well. Make it a good day.

Grandma Standard Time

This weekend is the end of Daylight Saving Time.

In case you didn’t get the message it’s “saving,” not “savings” with an “s” at the end. You can’t put daylight or time in a bank to be withdrawn and spent in the future. That would be very cool but it doesn’t work that way. Time doesn’t care who you are, what you think, or how you use the finite number of breaths and heartbeats given to you on this earth. When you’re finished, that’s it. Doesn’t matter what the clock says, your time is up.

Time just marches on, as we say.

Or flies if you’re having fun.

Still, it’s amazing how many intelligent and otherwise reasonable people seem to think that when we turn the clocks back one hour late Saturday night or early Sunday morning they will actually, magically GAIN an honest-to-God hour in their lives. “Yay!” they say, “I get to sleep an extra hour!”

Patiently, I try to explain, “Only if you have to go to church or an appointment. Otherwise, you’ll sleep the same number of hours but the time on the clock will be different, that’s all.”

They don’t want to hear this. For some reason, the fact that they turned the clock back one hour when they went to bed has totally slipped or befuddled their minds.

“No, when I wake up at ten tomorrow morning it will really be eleven!”

And that’s where logic has somehow jumped the rails and turned over in a ditch.

Then there’s ridiculous business about how the time change is hazardous to our health. More car accidents, they claim. For some reason, we’re more likely to have a heart attack. Because of a one-hour clock change? Puh-leeze! It’s no different than if I fly from Dallas to Denver. My phone will adjust the time and I’ll never notice.

My late, beloved Grandma Webster used to put us through our paces on this when we were kids. For days after a time change, she would say, “It’s really nine o’clock. Time for you kids to get in bed.”

“No, Grandma, it really is EIGHT o’clock!” we’d explain. “Look, it says so right on the clock!”

She was undaunted because we were just dumb kids and she was in charge. And, so, we’d have to go to bed an hour early because the world had recently switched to Standard Time. Nevertheless, six months later we’d go through the same routine with her in the opposite direction.

“Why are you kids up so early? It’s really only six in the morning.”

“Grandma, no. It’s SEVEN! See? The clock says so!”

After a while, she’d get her circadian clock in tune with the one on the stove. But it was a struggle to get her there.

And six months later, we’d do it all over again.

But one year my uncles (3 and 4 years older than me) got her back. Grandma fell asleep in front of the TV around 7:00 p.m. The boys changed the clock to read 1:00 a.m. We all got our pajamas on and climbed into bed while one of the brothers changed the TV to a non-working channel full of static and woke her up. She thought it was six hours later than it was, got up out of her chair, turned off the lights and the TV, and went to bed.

If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’.